I am a Brummie from Walsall in the West Midlands, and was born on 2nd September 1975.

Music has been a joyous, healing thread that's run throughout my life, even though at times I haven't wanted it to be: I loved listening to my dad's Buddy Holly record collection as a child, achieved my Grade 5 Piano, Grade 5 Theory of Music, Grade 5 Violin and Grade 8 Double Bass, and had an intense love/hate relationship with my double bass at university.

As a star-struck teenager, I fantasised about being the next Kate O'Mara or Dame Helen Mirren; pictures of whom, densely lined my bedroom walls. After doing a Saturday job at Spar supermarket and being an Avon representative, I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in television - either as an actress, producer or director, and joined the Grange Players Theatre Company and Rage Young Peoples' Theatre.

I left Barr Beacon School, Aldridge, having shone at Music, French, Art and English Literature. I had developed into a very awkward young woman and a staunch vegetarian, who could have easily spent all of my time dangling my legs from Enid Blyton's 'The Magic Faraway Tree'.

Chichester is one of my favourite places because good things have always happened there: I graduated with a '2:1' BA (Hons) degree in Related Arts and English from the University of Chichester in 1998, and embarked on a seven-year stint working as an usher, box office assistant and dresser in mainstream theatres (Chichester Festival Theatre, the Shaftesbury Theatre in the West End and the National Theatre, London). I returned to Chichester in 2006 to do the jazz course at Chichester College, and left with a 'Double Distinction' Edexcel Level 3 BTEC National Certificate in Music Practice.

At the same time as dressing at the National, I set up and ran creative writing workshops in London with homeless people at St Mungo's North Lambeth Day Centre in Waterloo, the Union Chapel Project in Highbury and the Spires Centre in Streatham. I published and edited a magazine for group members which appeared on the shelves of The National Poetry Library in the Royal Festival Hall, and noticed that the worlds of celebrity and the homeless are not so very different! This period also heralded the publication of my own poetry in various magazines and journals.

Missing the sea, I moved to Brighton & Hove in 2001 and worked as a support worker for young adults with learning difficulties. I also qualified with NCFE Level 3 Certificates in Integrative Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy, and Counselling Skills and Theory. During my training to become a therapist, however, I did a lot of painful but enlightening soul-searching; the result of which being the realisation that music is what I love to do. I reached my goal of earning a living as a self-employed professional musician, and worked as a volunteer at the National Jazz Archive in Loughton. Here I researched, précised and catalogued the Johnny Simmen Archive; a collection of letters written by over one hundred and sixty jazz musicians, donated by John Chilton.

In 2009 I fell in love with Paris, where consequently I performed as a jazz and folk multi-instrumentalist with bands and as a soloist around the terraces and bars of Montmartre for 10 years.

From 2014-15, I wrote live jazz gig reviews for Jazzwise Magazine and Serious, and my poem, 'Double Bass Sonnet' was nominated for The Forward Prize, Best Single Poem Competition, 2015. I also took on two organic allotments in Hainault, which I ran for a long time.

I currently work as an all-round artist and village builder in Essex, practice yoga, and have obtained Certificates of Achievement in online Creative Practice with LIFEbeat, and Forensic Science and Psychology. I am also proficient in French, Spanish and Norwegian, sell my homemade organic food and drink at markets, enjoy wild camping, and am blessed to a be a mother to two cats, a tortoise and a cat fish.