Susan Boyle: My family values

I still live in the same house I grew up in, in Blackburn, West Lothian. Dad, Patrick, was a miner and Mum, Bridget, was a shorthand typist. They were just 20 when they got married and started our large family. I’m the youngest of nine – five sisters and four brothers.

During the war, Dad served as a sergeant major with the Royal Engineers and I know he took great pride in training his men. Afterwards he went back to mining before getting a job as a storeman at British Leyland. One of my favourite memories is of him going to work in his boiler suit every morning.

Doctors advised Mum to abort me because she was 45 and going ahead with the pregnancy could have killed her. But she was a devout Catholic and refused point blank. I’m only here today because she kept her faith.

She developed eclampsia and I was delivered by caesarean. We both nearly died and she was told I’d suffered brain damage as a result of being starved of oxygen at birth. She was very protective and treated me like a bird with a broken wing. But she had no favourites; we were all loved equally.

Mum would have loved to have been a teacher. But back then, you never went to college or university unless you had money. So she became a shorthand typist for a couple of years, but gave it up when she got married.

I was bullied at school and found it difficult to form relationships because I wasn’t very articulate. I got through it with Mum and Dad’s support because, however rough a time I had, I knew there was a loving home to go to.

Music was in the Boyle blood. All of us could sing and Mum played piano. My parents had this fantasy that we would become like the Von Trapps from The Sound of Music. Dad passed an audition for ENSA, the entertainment wing of the forces, but his superiors wouldn’t let him go because of his army duties. He was desperate to be a singer and I always get a little sad when I think what might have been.

I was singing around the house from about the age of five, and although I think Mum realised I had some talent, she didn’t push me because she wanted me to have a normal childhood. She hoped I’d become a shorthand typist like her. I never really announced to my parents that I wanted to sing for a living. I sang at church and karaoke nights in local pubs but I was in my 30s before I found the courage to audition for a few things, including Opportunity Knocks. Every time I auditioned, Dad would say: “Sock it to them, girl, and do your best.”

Dad passed away in 1997 when he was 83. I lived with Mum and cared for her until she died at the age of 91 in 2007. I felt a part of me had died with her and I was also in danger of losing our family home because I wasn’t working. I was totally lost, but then I remembered how she always told me to follow what makes me happy. I so wanted to make her proud, so I found the strength to apply for Britain’s Got Talent and I truly believe that she was the angel on my shoulder that day.

Some people seem surprised that I choose to stay in my family home. Why shouldn’t I? I feel Mum is still here and there are so many good memories. I did buy a posh house after BGT, but I never moved in. My niece lives there now.

When I was nine, Mum gave me a gold ring, which I treasured, and just before she died I had my birthstone put in it to remember her by. I always wear it when I perform, so I know she’s by my side.