Musician

You can't have artistic freedom if you have to think about seven different aspects of your own job all the time. It must be very, very exhausting.

I was happy to carry on without children because I was completely immersed in my work and my career. I only heard the clock ticking in my late 30s, and when my mother Marion died the year I turned 40 it hit me with such a force that we ended up having IVF, which turned out to be unsuccessful.

I know I idolise someone like Billie Holiday, but I don't look at her and think I have to imitate her lifestyle, to try and sing like she did.

People get trapped sometimes and they don't feel they have a voice. And if you can in some way help someone by writing a song, it's really lovely.

Manchester has always been a massively innovative city, loads of great scientific findings have come from Manchester. The first computer in the world was there and took up a whole building. So Manchester has always been very innovative.

I'm a singer. I'm a musician. I'm a writer. Maybe - I don't know - I couldn't give a child what it needed.

It's always been the same from a long time ago, it's people with promises and people dangling carrots and when you're young and impressionable, and ambitious, you want to believe them. I was always lucky because there was always part of me that didn't believe these people.

You know that something is good but you never really know how good. You always underestimate how much of an impact something is going to have.

I think women were just accepted more as songwriters when they sat on a stool with a guitar and had scruffy hair. It was quite insulting really, because it was like saying that if you're pretty and slim and glamorous there's no way anything could be going on between your ears, you just like doing your makeup.

There was a period in music that didn't suit what I did. I didn't fit in.

For a sore throat I take arnica, just a tiny pill dissolved under my tongue. And because your throat is like a muscle, I keep mine warm drinking herbal teas, usually camomile.

I think that if you hear music young, whatever music you hear influences you. I'm white, but I've been influenced by black music.

My mum used to listen to Motown. Diana Ross was my first singing teacher, really. I'd just sing along all the time.

That was one thing about my life and everything I've done really, it's like I've been on a diving board scared out of my life and someone just keeps pushing me!

I did work incredibly hard but I think there's a certain element of luck.

I've always been very emotional when I sing.

I don't want to do something just to be on TV. If I did I might as well just go on and put a meat pie on my head! If I go on TV I want to be doing something I want to do.

I'm a bit of a loose cannon, but it keeps everyone on their toes!

Fame made me insecure and insular. I wanted to run away from being me.

Because everyone has love or wants love there are always problems. And if you don't have problems, you're probably leading a boring life.