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Lesley Garrett

Down-to-earth diva Lesley Garrett is one of the few members of her family to uproot herself from her Yorkshire homeland - but she admits the need to touch base there whenever she can.

"It's a conundrum to me. I have to go back and visit my home regularly, otherwise I feel very bereft. But despite that, I couldn't live there."

The much-loved singer reveals that she has reached a crossroads in her life.

"My children are becoming more independent," she explains. "I've reached an age where I thought my career would have stopped, or I would have wanted it to stop and I want to understand why I'm such a driven person. It's a sort of therapy.

"I have to understand this strange, churning restlessness I've always had.

"I know there were ancestors back there who were like me; I want to meet them, I want to shake hands with them and I passionately want my children to know about them."

But Garrett's researches turn up a skeleton in the family cupboard. Her great, great-grandad, Charlie Garrett, was a parish councillor in Thorne, South Yorkshire, where he was absolved of any fault when he 'accidentally' administered a fatal dose of carbolic acid to his wife.

"I can't believe he didn't know what he was doing," says Garrett. "It's inconceivable that someone could have died so easily and no-one asked any questions."

She is also outraged that her ancestor voted against the town library - a place the young Lesley spent many happy hours as a child.

"I think without any doubt he was a drinker - even the parish council meetings were held in the pub. That's why his daughter-in-law Mary didn't want anything to do with him. She wanted to have a cleaner life, a better life."

Musical talent runs in her mother's side of the family. Her great-grandfather Colin, a miner, taught his son to play piano to concert standard though he himself had never had any lessons. Colin eventually played for the silent screen.

"I knew there were musical miners on my mother's side," says Garrett. "The sensory deprivation in the pit is so complete that you'd be desperate to find music to nurture your soul!"