“They didn’t know I was coming. They looked up and were saying ‘that chick looks like Lady Gaga’.”Lady Gaga in Whalley Range in 2009. Yes, this did happen.(Image: Press Association)

You know how sometimes you think, did I dream that or did it actually happen?

That’s how I feel when I think back to first meeting Lady Gaga in Manchester. In Whalley Range to be precise in 2009.

Wearing a giant flying saucer style hat on her head fashioned from what looked like her own hair.

Now Lady Gaga is one of the most famous women on the planet heading back to Manchester this week for a sold out duo of gigs. But back in 2009 she had just begun to make waves, hotly-tipped as the next big thing in music.

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She was in the UK, not headlining her own stadium show, but here to support Take That – on their Circus Live tour would you believe.

Lady GaGa in Whalley Range in 2009

However, she’d pulled out of two of the Old Trafford shows that weekend in June due to illness, so I was half expecting the event planned for Whalley Range that I was invited along to would also be scrapped.

But go ahead it did, and my goodness, did Lady Gaga turn some heads that day.

Walking along the sunny, tree-lined Russell Road with large black-rimmed glasses, her long blonde hair poker straight and a giant saucer hat on her head, she looked every inch the megastar.

It was hot that day, really hot, but Gaga decided to stay cool in a full black trouser suit and that hairy bonnet.

Lady Gaga does a spot of painting(Image: Press Association)

She was there to support the Body Positive North West team, and volunteers there, who were creating a new garden for people living with HIV.

She had handpicked the project, saying: “I have lots of people in my life who have been affected by the virus. I just wanted to spend some time with them and do a bit of painting.”

As she arrived, volunteers were open-mouthed in shock. She was led to a mural that was being created in her image, and I watched as she took a pot of pink paint and daubed a message to her fans.

The message was “Love + Art + Kindness”.

Lady Gaga’s message in Whalley Range in 2009(Image: Press Association)

Then it was inside for us all, to a makeshift press room where myself and a dozen other journos were told we’d be allowed to have a chat with La Gaga.

I remember her responding quite strangely to the questions of one journo colleague drawling “Thank you” as her two word answer to every question, whether that answer made sense or not.

I asked her how she liked Whalley Range and she said: “It’s been so amazing coming here today, the volunteers were so cute because they didn’t know I was coming.

“They looked up and were saying ‘that chick looks like Lady Gaga’.”

Volunteers can’t believe Lady Gaga is there

I spoke to some of the volunteers that day – including two who were over the moon after Gaga autographed their arms.

One fan, Kayleigh Spruce, added: “I didn’t know if she was real or not. We were all totally star struck and didn’t know what to say.”

I put my Lady Gaga experience alongside similarly bizarre showbiz memories as a correspondent for this paper – including, but not limited to, Snoop Dogg playing football (badly) with Rio Ferdinand in Ordsall, and chatting to a young Rihanna at the Trafford Centre in a ladies changing room in Selfridges.

Of course, after that Gaga moment, I would watch as her star continued to rise and rise. But I always feel like Manchester has a special place in Gaga’s heart, and musical journey.

Indeed, I remember her on stage in 2012 at the Manchester Arena confessing that Born This Way was written after her previous visit to the city.

She said during that gig: “It was written because of you, your freedom, your passion, it meant so much to me.

“The foetus of this very moment began in Manchester so please enjoy the beautiful colourings of my afterbirth now.”

Lady Gaga leaving the Lowry Hotel in Salford 19th November 2014

And walking around Whalley Range was not the only memorable moment for the star in the city.

For who can forget the jester ensemble she wore to walk her dog outside The Lowry Hotel.

Or her full on gothic glamour to head out for a shopping trip to Manchester’s ultimate indie emporium Afflecks?

Lady Gaga at Afflecks Palace after spending more than 3 hours shopping there on October 20, 2014 in Manchester

As the superstar singer, activist and artist returns to Manchester for two huge Co-op Live gigs this week, we can but hope we get to see her out and about again.

And relish in whatever mayhem (as much as her Mayhem Ball) she might decide to bring with her.

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