I WAS first tempted to sing when I was eight years old. Miss MacDonald, my hip-looking primary teacher at St Louise in Arden, Glasgow, held a knitting class every Thursday but she would also ask pupils to perform.

Not me. I wasn’t part of the super smart crowd. I always had egg on my tie, my legs were too skinny and my socks would always fall down. She would ask my classmates like the beautiful Belinda. I had been singing at home in the close and loved the sound it made in that echo chamber, so I thought “I’m going to sing next week”. I asked my dad to write down the lyrics to Love Me Tender, and I learned every verse.

Thursday came and after Belinda and her pals had performed I put my hand up and asked to sing. They were aghast.

I stood at the blackboard, put my hands behind my head, leaned back, shut my eyes and began to sing. If I had looked at them, I would have died of fright and not been able to control what was coming out of my head.

When I got to the end I had tears streaming down my cheeks. It had been so hard for me, but something changed that day. I never shook off my awkwardness, but Love Me Tender sealed my fate as a singer.

2. Sunshine

IT was 1975 and I was 15. During the school holidays, I got on the 45 bus from Carnwadric and headed into Glasgow to look for work. There was a Help Wanted sign at the Regent Cinema on Renfield Street so I headed in and, lying about my age (I was 5ft 10), got a job taking tickets and cleaning.

I had to work on Sundays when they showed porn – I couldn’t look and all I remember are fried eggs and belly-buttons. They got a laugh though - they knew I wasn’t 18.

There I saw a film called Sunshine – I watched it 32 times. It was the story of a young woman who lived in a beautiful Rocky Mountain idyll. It was the environment that affected me more than the story, which was tragic. They were hippies, living together and playing acoustic guitars – I so wanted to be one of them. I had started playing guitar but was still on three-chord tricks. Here I heard glorious John Denver songs and had to learn them.

We moved to Irvine that summer. I was at the beach, with boats and a harbour – I was in the movie! I ripped my jeans, started wearing cheesecloth shirts and bought an Afghan coat from my mum’s catalogue. Sunshine made me seek out alternatives, and that’s when I started going to folk clubs.

3. As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

EDUCATION was always a priority for my dad, a real Labour man. He was adamant that the seven of us had library cards and that we used them.

I was never an avid reader but I loved the Mary Poppins books. There were four in the set, and they were read, but my sisters and I did use them for keeping our scraps in.

When I was 17, I was given As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee, and I’m sure that started my wanderlust. My dad was a welder and worked away on contracts – a bit like Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. He would come home from Skye with lobsters and Gaelic phrases. He would return from Germany with German phrases. I got the idea that there was a big world out there and Dad was bringing it back, one piece at a time.

I wanted to be Laurie Lee. To have that sense of freedom -- the way he writes about Spain is so inspiring.

There was also Knut Hamsun’s Hunger. I left home for Glasgow at 18 and was so skint that one day I relished a single slice of bread and butter. But Hamsun let me know what real hunger was. These were my books – I was creating my world.

4. Jane Aire

I MADE a lot of friends on the session scene in London. By that time I was known as someone who could really do the job on backing vocals, but I was still looking for songs of my own. I was drawn to singers like Edith Piaf, who laid their hearts on the line.

One night Anthony Thistlewaite (The Waterboys) turned up at my squat in his 2CV and pleaded with me to help someone called Jane Aire who was doing a gig and needed backing.

A guitarist called Mark Nevin was playing with her but was interested in working with me as a singer. He sent me a couple of songs that were right in my pocket – totally Piaf.

He was involved with Jane though and they headed off to the US, but we kept in touch. As soon as I said I thought he was the writer for me he got back on a plane and that was the beginning of Fairground Attraction (pictured, above left).

We were never lovers but it got too intense in terms of control. There was success of course, but he didn’t want me to go off and do my own thing. At that time I had a baby so I kinda went with it but eventually he left, and I was relieved.

5. Songs of the Free by Gang of Four

WANDERLUST took me to Europe at 19. When I came home after three years of busking, The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me was number one. I thought it was good, but it wasn’t for me.

I started working at Mary Queen of Scots knitwear factory in Irvine, but when I caught up with what was happening in the music press, there was an ad from the Gang of Four, looking for a vocalist. I went out and bought Songs of the Free and other albums. I was still going to folk clubs, which were almost all left-wing, so when I listened to Songs of the Free I was amazed to hear serious content.

For the audition I was asked to play percussion and learn every backing vocal I could hear on the album.

At that audition it was clear I knew the album better than they did. I got the job and it took me to The Old Grey Whistle Test a few days later. Then I flew for the first time, to the gigantic US festival in California.

This showed me I could use my voice as part of a group in the same way as an instrument. Before my options had been cheeseball or folk. I would have chosen folk but this allowed me another way.

6. The writings of Seamus Reader

WHAT started with the clearance of my uncle’s house in Dublin has turned into a four-year commitment to my great-uncle’s writings. It’s a detailed account of the revolutionary movement between 1900 and 1930, including Scotland and England’s involvement in the Irish rising. He was head of the Scottish Brigade supporting freedom for Ireland.

I have 50 books and about 5000 pages - all handwritten so I’ve been transcribing it. He has cut things out of books written in the 19th century and references that connect the militias and the revolutionary groups back to the time of Culloden.

There is also family history. It seems that my great-grandfather sang Robert Burns songs in lodges all over Scotland.

In those millions of words, it was a sentence, and when I read it I realised that I don’t make my own destiny – or at least it happens in conjunction with my DNA.

I feel much more connected to Scotland than I ever did before and I love it even more than I did before.

7. Sirocco Studio/Shabby Road

IN Irvine I had my John Denver songs, but I was also introduced to the Hissing Of Summer Lawns by Joni Mitchell. That taught me about harmony. I would sing into a cassette recorder I had bought at the Barras and conscript my sisters into my singing sessions, whether they liked it or not.

Shabby Road in Kilmarnock was where I really started to sing, however. At that time it was called Sirocco Studio and owned by Clark Sorley and a bunch of musicians. I just went along with my harmony work and asked him if he needed any singers. They asked me in and this was the place where I learned how to work in a studio.

8. Celtic Connections

IN the nineties I was in London making albums and raising my children alone. It took Celtic Connections to bring me home in 2001. It was crucial to the revival of the folk scene – now that the older ones had sobered up and the younger ones were coming through. I was blown away the likes of John McCusker and what he had done with the Kate Rusby Band.

I approached John and asked if he could help me put together an album of Scottish traditional songs. When we started picking songs it just happened that they were all by Robert Burns. I never meant for it to happen that way, but the more I investigated the more fascinated I became, and the Burns album was released in 2003.

9. The Trick Is To Keep Breathing

THROUGHOUT the 1990s I returned to Scotland and was back at Sirocco Studio, now called Shabby Road since it was taken over by my brother’s band the Trashcan Sinatras. Theatre director Michael Boyd turned up looking for me and said he thought I would be perfect for the role of Joy 3 in his Tron production of Janice Galloway’s The Trick Is To Keep Breathing. I loved it. It set my teeth on edge to do creative things outside of music. It was truly collective and everybody was in it together. It also featured Sailing By, the Shipping Forecast theme, and inspired me to use it as walk-on music for my Candyfloss and Medicine tour.

10. Wild Mountainside

I FELL in love with the boy next door. John Douglas, who was in my brother’s band, brought me a cassette with Wild Mountainside and many other beautiful songs on it. I was on tour in Northumberland and he came down from Kilmarnock. I completely fell in love with this boy. I was ripe for finding a home and I found it in John Douglas. This was around 2001, about the time I was thinking of moving home. We got married in 2012. I recorded Wild Mountainside on the Burns album but this was also our wedding dance. I’ve known him for such a long time but always recognised him as a great pal. He brought me home and I’ve never been happier.