AN 80s superfan is thanking her lucky stars she was not ‘too shy’ to get in touch with a support group’s drummer 30 years after she first saw him on stage – because now they are getting wed in Las Vegas.

Donna Bainbridge discovered electronic rockers National Pastime in 1983, when they supported new wave pop act Kajagoogoo in Newcastle.

As she walked back to the train station after the gig she spotted the band "stuffing their faces" with fast food.

The evening clearly made a lasting impression as decades later she found them on social media.

She and National Pastime drummer Mark Knott instantly picked up their friendship where they left off and last January she travelled from her home in Spennymoor, County Durham, to see him in Manchester for the day.

“We clicked straight away, friendship wise, but I soon knew there was something more there between us,” she said.

On one visit Mr Knott gave the 53-year-old a CD of National Pastime tracks and when she played it on the journey home the memories flooded back and transported her to the mid-1980s.

Back then the band supported Kajagoogoo on the Islands tour and when Ms Bainbridge moved to London she and friend Jill Wright, who both worked fulltime as secretaries, got night jobs washing up in restaurants to fund their music obsession.

They rarely missed a gig and would find out when and where Kajagoogoo, whose hits included Too Shy, Ooh to be Ah and Big Apple, were recording and hang around the studios to see them.

Ms Bainbridge must have seen Kajagoogoo more than 20 times and National Pastime getting on for 40.

She said: “I got to know Mark but truly, honestly we didn’t fancy each other then, we just got on well. I think being from the North-East and them the posh lads from Cheshire, all five of them well-spoken and interesting to talk to, helped.

“Mark was a little bit quiet but I’d nick a cigarette off him and we spent a lot of time chatting about music and he got me into a lot of other bands like Level 42.

“During our 20s there were three of us friends and we must have spent about £6,000 seeing National Pastime alone, it was a lot of money but it was such a fun and exciting time.

“I remember being in a house in Finchley when Mike Reed played National Pastime It’s All A Game on the radio and we screamed the place down, but my favourite is still Machinery which I heard live but was never recorded.”

The band’s fame in the UK waned but they enjoyed greater success in Japan, with tracks like Built to Break, Camouflage and No Goodbyes, until around 1989-90, about the same time Ms Bainbridge returned to County Durham.

Over Easter 2016 the couple got engaged and a year later attended a reunion of the band and fan club with news that they will marry in Las Vegas this July.

Last October Mr Knott, 56, moved to Spennymoor, where he has a decorating and handyman business. He recently redeveloped the garden at Clarence Court sheltered housing scheme, in the town, for free as its residents were struggling with its upkeep.

He said: “It is amazing how things have worked out.

“From being a drummer in Kajagoogoo’s support band I got to know Donna as she followed us around, 30 years later we find each other through Facebook and fall in love.

“Now we’re about to get married and I’m part of this new community.”

Ms Bainbridge, who worked in training and education until recently returning to a secretarial role, added: “I didn’t tell anyone when I went down to Manchester to see him because it sounded mad but he is a lovely man, he is great with my 19-year-old son Declan and we’re so happy together after all these years.”