“This is where I break one last taboo: I'm incredibly glad I'm not a granny.”
“Being the youngest, I was a bit of a daddy's girl and sought attention from an early age by singing. I don't know where I got my voice, but ours was always a musical house.”
“Dad always encouraged my singing, so when 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' was a hit in the States, I flew my parents to New York first-class to see me, put them up at the Waldorf Astoria, then they sailed home on the QE2.”
“I look back and wonder why I wasted my time talking about fried potatoes with the great John Lennon. But that's what was so fabulous about him - he was very down to earth.”
“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 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.”
“In my late 30s, I flirted with the idea of having a child without necessarily being in a steady relationship. But I've never had a strong maternal urge, and then I got cancer of the womb - luckily caught at an early stage - so that put paid to that.”
“Performers like to perform, and there's certainly no disgrace in entertaining people, in giving pleasure, you hope, through your singing. My work defines who I am.”
“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.”