I had been playing since I was 2 years old, never remembering a life without music, always playing everything naturally and mostly by ear, and all the grownups wanted were more scales and drudgery out of me.
I had left school at 16, gone to stage school - and, until I was 22, I hadn't really played anyone but myself. Then in 1979, I made a film with Mike Leigh called 'Grownups,' which went out on the BBC, and overnight this new career opened up.
I've made music for grownups most of my life as a singer/songwriter - often with my band, Nine Stories - recorded many albums, and 10 years ago I started recording kid's music, too.
Grownups, as a rule, should always be ready to pay for their own meals - or else ready to graciously accept their date's insistence on paying. The point is, one doesn't sit there batting one's eyelashes, fully expecting someone else to claim the bill.
I feel bad for the kids that are in school right now and the young people all across America who don't realize that the grownups who are supposed to be running this country are the verge of leaving them as the first generation of Americans worse off than the generation before.
We all know how tough children are with toys. It turns out grownups are much worse.
Being on the left is supposed to be about unbounded optimism, a belief that what is deemed politically impossible by the 'sensible grownups' of politics can be realised, with sufficient imagination and determination.
When people are grownups they're grown ups. They make their own decisions you know.
As a young girl, I used to dream of giving an interview. You dream of stardom as a kid. People think they don't want to be stars. Everyone wants to be a star! That's the truth. Even grownups; they pretend they don't want to be one and don't care. But everyone wants to.
In school you teach us not to fight with others, to work things out, to respect others, to clean up our mess, not to hurt other creatures, to share, not be greedy. Then why do you go out and do the things you tell us not to do? You grownups say you love us, but I challenge you, please, to make your actions reflect your words.
