MP: Could you tell us about your background and early musical experiences?
BR: I grew up in a household where domestic violence was the unsettling norm. As a child, the traumatic violence I witnessed birthed within me a need for isolation, silence and many songs. I remember humming on one note each time the shouting began in a bid to comfort myself and shut the noise out.
In primary school I loved acting, and was often the lead role or soloist in school plays. At some point the headmaster called my parents into school, asking them to consider sending me to Italia Conti, the drama school. There was, I believe, the possibility of a scholarship. However, with six children, my dad being a self-employed plumber and my mum working at the Post Office, there was no way for either of them to take me to the school, which was a great distance from our home on the Aylesbury estate.
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