Michael Jackson changed my life. Though if I’ve kept quiet about it until the age of 32, it’s because: a) Jacko fans don’t have the coolest reputation, given their tendency to stand weeping and screaming dementedly on pavements around the world; b) Jacko hasn’t enjoyed the best of reputations, what with the reports of sleeping in oxygen tanks, the hanging of babies over hotel balconies, and the rumours of MRSA, painkiller addiction, extensive plastic surgery, stage fright, skin whitening, paranoia, and sleeping with children; c) the story is embarrassing not only for me but for my brother too, and when I wrote a family memoir the other year, we agreed that in exchange for being allowed to publish certain photographs, I wouldn’t bang on about the Jacko thing; and e) there didn’t seem to be much of a reason to mention it.

But now there is, and my brother has relented, to a degree, so I may as well blurt it out, praying not to be judged too harshly, and begin by explaining that it all began in inner-city 1980s Wolverhampton, where my siblings and I followed pop artists in the way other, better-adjusted children followed football teams. One of my older sisters was a dedicated Bruce Springsteen fan. I was a dedicated George Michael fan. And my elder brother, Jasmail, was a Michael Jackson fan.

I was with my brother when he first caught a glimpse of his hero — when BBC One broadcast the video for Billie Jean at 8:30 one Saturday morning. I thought we were equally mesmerised by a brilliant, hypnotic piece of choreography that eventually helped to break down the race barrier on MTV. But the sight of Jacko in those above-the-ankle trousers, that fedora, those ringlets framing his face, triggered something more profound in my brother.

At the time he had been flirting with a variety of acts and movie heroes — there were Wham, Ralph Macchio and Sylvester Stallone posters on his bedroom wall — but within weeks the walls were plastered, from skirting board to ceiling, with Jacko. He saved up for a cassette copy of Thriller. When he went on a school day trip to Calais, the only memento he returned with was a French magazine that he couldn’t read featuring a picture of Jacko. When we got our first video player, he taped every passing mention of his idol: from news bulletins as well as pop music shows.

Eventually, watching the video for The Way You Make Me Feel, a live performance of Man in The Mirror and the Smooth Criminal segment of Moonwalker became as much a part of our breakfast routine as tea and Weetabix. And finally he began dressing like his idol too: abandoning his neat Ralph Macchio cut for an extravagant loose perm taken straight off the cover of Bad. As with Morrissey fans, there was something about Michael Jackson aficionados that made them go further than most: they didn’t just enjoy his music, they worshipped him, and to some degree wanted to be him.

Of course, I did what came naturally as a younger brother and mocked him. As I said, we followed pop acts like football teams, which extended to waiting for Top of the Pops as if it were Match of the Day, trading statistics about the record sales of our respective favourite artists, and mindless competitiveness. If Bruce Springsteen, George Michael and Jacko had a record out in the same week, it would be like the week of a local derby: the house would be tense in the run-up to Bruno Brookes’s Top 40 countdown, and one artist’s chart triumph over another would permit the respective fan to gloat for days afterwards. Annoyingly, this happened quite often with my brother, what with Jacko being the best-selling pop musician in history.

But one day, in 1993, when I was 16, and my brother 19, I found myself setting antipathy aside when Radio 1 announced that it was running a competition in collaboration with Michael Jackson’s Heal the World Foundation, an international charity for children named after his single of the same name. If memory serves, the challenge for young listeners was to pen a mini-essay in response to the question: “How would you make the world a better place for children”? And if this weren’t ludicrous enough, the “essay”, if memory serves, had to be just 50 words long.

The prize? Travel to Los Angeles with Radio 1 and, among other things, help record a radio documentary about the LA riots, and watch Jacko perform during the half-time show at the National Football League’s Super Bowl XXVII. My brother wanted to enter, but as he was over the age limit for the competition, he suggested that I do so instead, which I did, with what I claimed at the time was a sarcastic entry, but in truth was probably not. And, preposterously, I won.

A few weeks later we found ourselves travelling business class on British Airways with the Radio 1 DJ Jackie Brambles to California. And for two-working class teenage boys from the West Midlands who had not even visited the English countryside before, or eaten in a restaurant, the days that followed were surreal, and continue to feel surreal, not least because I’m not sure I understand why our parents let us go so far without asking more questions. Among other things, we bumped into and chatted to Jeff Goldblum, Phil Collins and Sade; dined in the Sunset Marquis hotel with the outrageously glamorous woman who ran the Heal the World Foundation; enjoyed a tour of inner-city LA in a police patrol car; were nearly strip-searched at LAX for admitting that we’d brought agricultural products (Mum’s cheese sandwiches) into the country; hung out with Michael Jackson’s people and other competition winners from around the world; toured Beverly Hills. And on walking into the Superbowl were offered a sum of money by touts for our VIP tickets that amounted to more than our mother’s annual salary as a sewing machinist.

We didn’t take the cash, of course: not least because we were going to be part of the small number of people allowed on to the field during the half-time performance. And I’m very glad I didn’t: I ended up being right at the front for the performance, could have touched Jacko if I’d wanted to, and the experience was priceless. I remember thinking how good he looked up close: the press was full of stories about his physical disintegration even then, and I expected to see bits falling off him. But his white skin looked perfect, like alabaster. I also remember thinking, even then, that it was a little odd for a middle-aged man to surround himself with so many children. But mainly I remember a performance that has gone down as one of his most legendary.

Wikipedia reminds me that the set list included Jam, Billie Jean, Black or White and his anthem Heal the World, perfor-med with a choir of 750 people and a flash-card display involving 98,000 volunteers. Jackson donated his fee to the Heal the World Foundation, and thinking about it now, it strikes me that the story of the Heal the World Foundation has ended up being very similar to the story of its founder.

As with the man, it was insanely and childlishly idealistic, with a mission to “provide medicine to children and fight world hunger, homelessness, child exploitation and . . . improve the conditions for children throughout the world”. As with the man, it did significant charitable work: among its achievements it airlifted 46 tonness of supplies to Sarajevo, instituted drug and alcohol abuse education and donated millions to less fortunate children, including paying for a Hungarian child’s liver transplant.

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