Gertrude was a Princess. A real, genuine, cool clothes, fancy hairdo Princess. She was also a pirate’s daughter. After a manner of speaking.

Gertrude’s dad was called Albert. He called himself an Impresario, the record companies called him a pirate, and he was really an audio engineer. The music industry was his passion, and he made his living by producing pirate tapes and CDs of various hit songs.

The record companies all hated Albert and others like him, because every time he made and sold a pirate recording, Albert got the money instead of them. The famous singers and musicians who recorded the hit songs hated Albert too, because every time he made and sold a pirate recording, they got no royalties or fees.

Albert felt very sad about being hated by the record companies and famous musicians. Sometimes he would cry all the way to the bank. For Albert really wanted to be accepted and famous too. To have his talent recognized.

That was how Gertrude got to be a Princess. She sang with two other young women (though in those days, everybody called them chicks!) in a part time band called “Princess”. From the time Gertrude was able to go Goo Goo!, Albert would stick a microphone in front of her and get her to perform. Any noise she made would be sampled, engineered, re-recorded, and incorporated into whatever recording Albert was pirating at the time. Albert would sometimes tell Gertrude all about the famous singers that she had sung with.

Generally, Gertrude wasn’t very interested. She didn’t much care for being recognized or famous, she didn’t even like singing much. But she did like wearing cool costumes, and dancing about on the stage, and doing tricks with the microphone. So having a band, and being a “Princess” on a part time basis was quite fun. She did the backing vocals. “Doo Doo Doo WOP Doo, Sha Na NA, and Bum TITTY TITTY TITTY Bum”. And so on.

And Albert managed them. He wrote the words and the music and arranged the songs. He encouraged the girls with tales of success and fame. “One day you will be famous” he would say. He even got them some gigs.

Not many. “Princess” weren’t actually very talented. But the band did record a song. It was called “Princess”, just like the band, and Albert made a couple of dozen CDs and tapes. But he couldn’t sell them. Albert wasn’t actually much of a salesman. He could supply an existing market selling pirated CDs to unscrupulous record stores, but promoting a new product was beyond him.

Albert managed to throw in a few “Princess” Tapes and CDs with the pirate copies of the hits he sold, but they went straight in the remainder bins. “Don’t worry”, Albert told Gertrude. “That song is published now - you own it”.

The world didn’t seem to care. The single “Princess” sank without trace, and the band found it harder and harder to get gigs. Gertrude got less and less interested in singing, and more and more interested in Tom, the marketing director where she worked at Affordable Kitchen Co. When the lead singer left the band to go trekking in the Himalayas, “Princess” folded. Gertrude wasn’t sorry. She became engaged to Tom, and got a promotion to “Assistant Sales Manager”.