Kiki Dee

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.

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.

The first thing Fontana did was get me to change my hair colour from light brown to red, and the songwriter Mitch Murray suggested I change my name from Pauline Matthews to Kiki Dee.

I was never particularly academic, so it was no great surprise when I failed my 11-plus and consequently went to Wibsey Secondary Modern. I did all right in English, history and music, which were the subjects that most interested me.

I'm a childless woman, yet I felt no maternal urges whatsoever. The prospect of years of broken nights and nappy changes holds no appeal for me.