The Mail’s musical mishap

The wonderful and frightening career of The Fall rarely troubled the Daily Mail during the cult Mancunian band’s 40-year existence. But seven years after the death of singer and sole permanent member Mark E Smith, that has changed – in a deeply embarrassing fashion.

The paper’s website revealed last week that “iconic front man” Smith had “left his ‘soulmate’ partner at the time of his death out of his £500k will”. The story – also picked up by the Times and Telegraph – claimed that while Smith had snubbed his girlfriend and manager Pamela Vander, some £220,000 of his estate had been shared between Smith’s mother Irene, “and a neighbour in his home town of Prestwich, Nicola McGowan”. Or, as Nicola is known in Manchester musical circles, the apparently “snubbed” Pamela Vander.