Five things you might not know about Freddie Mercury

Today, on his 65th birthday, we remember Farrokh Bulsara, better known to us as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.

By William Nestor

A cautious air passenger

When it came to flying, Freddie took no chances. After boarding a flight bound for New York from Tokyo, he discovered he was sitting in a DC10. It was a model with many well-documented problems in the past and Mercury made no excuses for his uneasiness about flying on such an aircraft.

“DC death more like!” Freddie declared, before grabbing his stuff and hopping it off the plane. He was more than willing to wait 14 hours for the next flight!

The table tennis champion

Before there was music, fame and fortune, there was table tennis. Freddie’s childhood in India, where his father served as a High Court cashier for the British Government, included a spell at St Peter's English boarding school in Panchgani, about fifty miles outside Bombay.

It was here he honed his musical talents, but the rock legend also possessed a sporting talent. At the age of 10 he became a school champion in table tennis and was also an able boxer. He loathed cricket and long-distance running, but enjoyed a good sprint.

One No. 1 written solely

If Freddie was to choose one single of the 18 No.1 hits Queen rocked the world with, he probably wouldn’t swap any of them for the only one he penned himself. Bohemian Rhapsody is more of a masterpiece than a song. It could never be matched, bettered or put into a genre – it’s a genre all of its own, in truth.

It stayed at the top of the UK charts for nine consecutive weeks and has become a timeless classic. Five minutes and 55 seconds of pure bliss, which most radio DJs have no fear of belting out on a regular basis.

The Japanese infatuation

After touring Japan with Queen in 1975, Freddie fell in love with Japan, its culture and art. He was overwhelmed by the reception Japanese audiences gave the band and he quickly became a fanatical collector of Japanese art and antiquities.

Cat conversations

You might not believe it but Freddie was crazy about his pussy cats. So much so, that when he would call home while on tour his long-term girlfriend Mary Austin would hold the cats up to the phone so they could listen to Freddie blabbing away to them.