I realised when I sang at family parties and Christmases I'd suddenly get everyone's attention, and, being the youngest of three, I thought what a brilliant attention-seeking ploy it was.

I was born Pauline Matthews and grew up in Bradford as one of three children - I had an older brother, David, and an older sister, Betty. My father Fred worked in the mills as a textile weaving supervisor, and my mother, Mary, was a housewife.

I was just the youngest in the family, and most in desperate need of attention.

Everyone in my family sang, and we would always sing these songs.

It's not so much that I ever declared: 'I will never have children.' I just never found the right man to settle down with, so it didn't happen.

We had idyllic summer holidays, building sandcastles with my father on the beach at Bridlington. It might sound strange, but I think that secure cocoon of familial love was so nourishing, it gave me the strength to live life on my own.