So, where did this start? In 1976 in Cheltenham, England, the duo I was in reached the semi-finals of a pub ‘talent quest’. An agent from London was watching the show and approached us with an offer of a three month gig in Dubai, performing on the decommissioned Bon Vivant cruise ship, which was now acting as a Floatel. That is, a night club/hotel that was floating in Dubai Creek. And that was pretty much the beginning.

In Dubai, I met one of my favourite recording groups, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, of Dancin’ In The Street fame. Only a few years earlier my sister and I would sing into our hairbrushes and create dance routines with my sis singing Martha’s lead vocals and me singing a Vandella harmony. I was overjoyed to share drinks with them after my show and I hung off every kind word, encouragement and piece of friendly advice Martha offered me. Hearing her say, “Oh you can do it, the more you do it, the easier it gets, eh girls?” made it sound like a done deal in my head and I never expected after that I couldn’t become a ‘singer’; I just had to concentrate on being a better one.

After spending a few months in Dubai, I imagined I could use singing as the means to see the world. My sister had migrated to Australia using assisted passage, a ‘Ten Pound Pom’. I was eager to see her, so the next gig was on a cruise ship, the Women’s Weekly World Cruise departing from Southampton, England and arriving in Fremantle, Western Australia six or so weeks later. It went via countries I could only have dreamed of visiting; I was in Gibraltar, Malta, crossing the Suez Canal, where I’d remembered war scenes from news footage a few years previously. The Cheops pyramid. Walking through the Valley of the Kings. Sri-Lanka, where everything seemed to be clothed in, or painted white. I was singing my way around the world.