Daring to Dream by Sam Bailey Read Free Book Online Page A

were pretty much inseparable. She used to hang out in a local pub called The White Swan, so I started spending a lot of time there too. I also got a job collecting glasses in The Albany, so, ironically, I ended up spending most of my time in pubs.
    One day we were in The White Swan and a guy called Shaun Williamson was performing, whose name you may recognise. He lived opposite the pub in a tiny cottage with his girlfriend Mel and he was well-known locally. We became good friends and he very kindly invited me to sing in the pub whenever he did. He was also doing some other small paid gigs locally and asked if I wanted to perform with him at those. They became my first paid performing work. It made me feel much more confident about my singing. If people were willing to pay to hear me, I couldn’t be that bad, could I?
    Shaun is also an actor, and within a few months he was offered the role of Barry on
EastEnders
. It meant he had to give up the pub singing, so he offered to lend me his PA system so I could go out on my own. It was such a lovely offer but at 17 I felt I was too young to fly solo, so instead he gave me some blank Mariah Carey backing tracks to practice at home with. I have a lot to thank him for.
    Shortly afterwards, my Uncle Paul offered to pay for me to go into a professional music studio and record some tracks. It was something I’d been desperate to do for ages. Those sessions led to me singing on a dance track for an old school friend of mine called Matt Zillwood. I loved that because I could be completely anonymous. I got to sing but no one knew it was me, which was ideal. I know it may sound hard to believe but it was never my plan to be famous. I originally wanted to be a backing vocalist and I still love the idea of itnow. I would love to sing back-up for someone like Adele, and feel important because I’m a part of something but not have all of the attention on me. Obviously that’s not how things have worked out, and I wouldn’t change what’s happened to me for the world, but certainly in the early years I was far too self-conscious and lacking in confidence to think I could ever be well known in my own right.
    Not only did The White Swan provide me with my first paid singing work, it was also where I met my first serious boyfriend, Darren. There isn’t any big romantic story behind it. I think he bought me a drink and we had a chat and that was it, we were a couple. He lived with his nan and granddad, who were lovely people, and I was round there constantly. I was absolutely smitten and it was much more fun than being at home. I remember Darren having to meet my dad for the first time. Everyone was winding him up because they knew my dad would give him a hard time. He was nervous so I told him to take my dad some beers, and when he turned up with some Special Brew they were instantly best mates. It didn’t take a lot to win my dad over!
    Darren’s nan and granddad ran a company which sourced homes for foreign students to stay in. My mum decided it would be a good way to make some extra money, so she started taking in students regularly. We used to have two staying at once and they had to be taken to the coach each day in Eltham, and then picked up and fed each evening. They had to speak English the whole time they were aroundus to improve their language skills and I think Mum liked it because it meant that Dad had to behave himself when they were around. We had so many students our front room started to look like a European knick-knack shop because they always bought us gifts, and sometimes we had a real laugh with them.
    My mum’s so generous and such a good host she would end up spending more money on the students than actually earning it. She used to buy them so much nice food and really take care of them. Because my brothers still lived at home some of the time, my mum had to be very particular about which students she hosted. She was terrified that one day