Susan Boyle (2 page)

Almost half a century later that impish sense of humour, mixed with an ability to happily be the self-imposed target of a jest, would captivate the world. That and a voice that could bring grown men and women to tears.

In the intervening years Susan Boyle suffered abuse, insults and rejection. She had, in her own famous words – whether said tongue-in-cheek or not is somehow irrelevant – ‘never been kissed.’ And all the time she wished she could be something else; that she could inhabit a world different from the mundane one that circumstances had deemed she was a prisoner in. In that
she was like millions the world over. The difference was that Susan Boyle was going to make it happen. And, whether knowingly or not, she was going to make it happen not just for herself but on behalf of those countless men and women all over the world who, every day of their lives, think to themselves, ‘If only…’

Susan Magdalene Boyle was born at the small Bangour Hospital, near Broxburn, 14 miles to the west of Edinburgh. The now-closed hospital was built before the First World War and designed in the popular style of the day for asylums, its original purpose being the care of psychiatric patients. Called into action in both wars to care for the wounded, it subsequently became a general hospital for the people of the area and Susan was born there on 1 April 1961. Her mother, Bridget, was a shorthand typist before she had her children; her father, Patrick, who sang in working-men’s clubs in the area, had been in the Royal Engineers during the Second World War and worked as a storeman for British Leyland in nearby Bathgate. The closure of the Leyland plant in the mid-80s hit the area – originally a cotton-manufacturing centre and then a coal producing area – hard.

Susan was to say that it was from her father that the family inherited their singing voices. Bridget and Patrick had known each other at school and been together since they were 20. Susan’s was not an easy birth. Her mother Bridget was in her mid-40s and Susan suffered from a lack of oxygen that was to result in learning difficulties
she had to cope with all her life. As she was to recall years later: ‘When I was a baby they didn’t really give me much scope. They told my parents not to expect too much of me and just to play things purely by ear because I had a slight disability. My faith got me through that. You never give up on anything really; you never give up on yourself and the people around you.’

She was the youngest of nine children in a large Catholic family: Gerard, known to all as Gerry, James, John, Kathleen, Joe, Bridie, Mary, and Patricia, who sadly died from cot death.

Home for Susan and the rest of her family was a four-bedroom council house in Blackburn, about five miles away from where she was born. So what was Blackburn, with a population of about 5,000 where she was to spend her entire life, like?

When the frenzy over Susan was at its peak in 2009, there was a rumour that she would be a contestant in a forthcoming series of
I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!
, the television show in which a host of fairly recognisable, or almost-recognisable, celebs are left alone in the jungle to fend for themselves. In the rain and dark they have to perform a series of revolting tasks in order to earn enough food to eat. The sanitary arrangements are primitive, the living conditions Spartan at best, disgusting at worst.

The suggestion that she might be in the programme prompted the Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle to
remark: ‘She’ll sleep in a hammock above dirt teeming with spiders and snakes. How will she be able to return to Blackburn after that kind of luxury?’

Unkind no doubt, but Blackburn, although described by Susan as a ‘village’ is no idyllic Brigadoon. Bridget and Patrick and their eight children lived in a cramped postwar end of terrace in Yule Terrace – the family moved there shortly before Susan was born – although there was more room as her elder siblings gradually left home.

School for Susan was St Mary’s Primary and later the senior school of St Kentigern’s. School days have famously been called ‘the happiest days of your life’ and for some they might be, but for many others they are far from joyous. True, some children enjoy their time in the classroom; others merely endure it. Susan was to recall, ‘I was born with a disability and that made me a target for bullies. I was called names because of my fuzzy hair and because I struggled in class. I told the teachers but, because it was more verbal than physical, I could never prove anything. But words often hurt more than cuts and bruises and the scars are still there.

‘The majority of my childhood was quite happy until I started getting bullied at school. They used to knock me about a bit and try and make me cry. There’s nothing worse than another person having power over you by bullying you. I didn’t think I could trust anybody and it made me a bit of a sitting target.’

She went on to say that by the time she got to
secondary school she wasn’t sure who was her friend or her enemy. ‘I didn’t make friends very easily – I did try and speak to people, but they made fun of me. I often felt pushed aside. I was often left behind at school because of one thing or another. I was a slow learner. I’m just a wee bit slower at picking things up than other people are. So you get left behind in a system that just wants to rush on, you know? That was what I felt was happening to me… I don’t think the resources were there for me back then at school.

‘Teachers have more specialised training now. There was discipline for the sake of discipline back then and I would get the belt every day. “Will you shut up, Susan!” Whack!’

Even at an early age Susan had a beautiful voice and when she sang at a family wedding at the age of ten she enthralled the guests. She was a musical child and, at the age of 12, her mother placed her in the choir of her local Catholic church. She sang in musicals at school too, as well as continually singing at home, especially at New Year or family celebrations. She would stand in front of the mirror holding a hairbrush as though it were a microphone and sing along to Donny Osmond – ‘Puppy Love’ was her favourite – or the musical
Grease
. Later she showed a liking for the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, especially those sung by one of the finest interpreters of his songs – Elaine Paige. Susan would sing in the shower. She’d sing anywhere.

Her favourite childhood memories to this day are of
her family. ‘Special moments in my childhood include when I used to go to the Ireland with my mum and dad on holiday. I went to Ireland first of all when I was six and I visited a woman called Mrs Docherty in Dungarvan House in a place called Portrush. I always remember that place because I would always go down to the seaside, everybody would be looking for me, but I was up to my backside in sand.’

When she was 18, Susan took her one and only job, as a trainee cook in the kitchens of West Lothian College. It was a six-month contract and then it stopped. After that, she did voluntary work helping the elderly while being financially supported by her parents. She did not move out of the family home, and she did not go out on dates.

‘I always sang, but it was just something I did for pleasure,’ she says. ‘I was needed at home most of the time anyway.’ On occasions Susan went to the theatre to hear professional singers. She first heard ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ at a production of
Les Misérables
at the Playhouse in Edinburgh. ‘It took my breath away. It was amazing.’ She was singing in public, too – after a fashion. Shaky, grainy footage of several of those ‘performances’ was to emerge once she was a star. There would be stills from them in newspapers and magazines and they too would take their place on the internet for her growing number of admirers to watch.

In 1984 Susan appeared behind the microphone at Motherwell FC’s Fir Park Social Club in a singing
contest between locals and visitors from the Coventry Tam O’Shanter Club after one of the visitors dropped out. A pretty, slender Susan, sporting a typical 1980s perm, sang note-perfect versions of ‘I Don’t Know How To Love Him’ from
Jesus Christ Superstar
and Barbra Streisand’s ‘The Way We Were’.

One of the audience that evening was to recall after Susan became famous: ‘I can remember that she was a shy young girl but also very attractive back then – she turned a few heads when she came into the club. She was not even supposed to be singing but agreed to perform for the Tam O’Shanter team because someone had dropped out.

‘Even back then, I don’t think anyone expected too much from her because she was so shy, but when she began singing people took notice. I watched Susan on
Britain’s Got Talent
but didn’t recognise her as the girl from my video until a relation called and asked if I still had the tape. It’s great Susan is finally getting some recognition. She is a great singer and it seems right that at some point she would get the credit she deserved.’

In 1995 Susan went to Braehead Shopping Centre in Glasgow to audition for
My Kind of People
, a popular ITV talent show presented by Michael Barrymore, then at the height of his fame and popularity. Susan, her hair short by now and wearing a sober coat, bravely sang ‘I Don’t Know How to Love Him’ as Barrymore pulled faces behind her back and at one stage lay on the ground
pretending to look up her skirt. He ended by throwing his arms around her and giving her a mock embrace.

‘I was too nervous,’ she said. ‘I was shaking so much I could hardly sing. I got through it, but I never made it onto television. I just wasn’t ready.’

That wasn’t her only failure. She entered a local talent competition a number of times from 1997 but never won the £5,000 prize. Robert Norris, who organised the Fauldhouse Miners Welfare Club competition, said, ‘Susan was a very, very shy person, but when that voice came out she was absolutely wonderful. She always came to the competition on her own – I think her brother would drop her off. Susan could sing any song from any musical, it was effortless. I remember when she performed ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ and you could have heard a pin drop. She didn’t ever win, but the talent there was of a very high standard.’

In 1999 she sang the classic sad ballad ‘Cry Me A River’ for a charity CD recorded by the local community to celebrate the Millennium. Only 1,000 copies of the disc were made and, a decade later, they were to become collector’s items. The song remained one of her favourites and she recorded it again once she was famous.

Two years later she appeared in the West Lothian Showcase talent competition final at the Deans Community High School in Livingston. She was presented with a certificate – along with around 15 other finalists – for her troubles after performing
‘What I Did For Love’ from the Broadway hit musical
A Chorus Line
.

Other finalists in the event organised by the West Lothian Voluntary Arts Council included a ten-year-old trumpet player and a girl singer aged 12. The audience paid £3 each to watch. There were other appearances, and other failures.

In 2001 she appeared at Linlithgow Rose Social Club, with its 70s-style decor visually reminiscent of the hit comedy series
Phoenix Nights
. One of the audience filmed the evening, and again it turned into an internet hit when it came to light years later. Wearing a long, sequined dress she bumped into a table of drinkers as she moved towards the microphone. In front of an audience of fewer than 200 people she sang ‘Whistle Down The Wind’ from the musical of the same name, another Andrew Lloyd Webber song, followed by ‘I Don’t Know How To Love Him’ from
Jesus Christ Superstar
. Standing virtually stationary she then gave her version of the Jennifer Rush ballad ‘The Power Of Love’, accompanied by an amateur keyboard player. Once finished she pulled a funny face and hurried off stage.

There was tragedy too around this time in her life. Susan’s sister Kathleen died from an asthma attack and her father also passed away, both within a relatively short space of time, leaving Susan living alone with her mother.

Susan carried on along with the karaoke machine at local pubs and bars. On Friday nights she’d sing at the
Happy Valley Hotel, while on Sundays she’d go down the road to Moran’s Turf Bar. Customers recalled how she would sit drinking lemonade and eating a packet of crisps. ‘We have the karaoke here just to cheer everyone up. She’d pop in and no one really paid her much attention, and if she wasn’t in the mood, she’d just walk out. She’s a Blackburn bairn through and through, keeps herself to herself and she does what she wants,’ said one. The day after Susan took the world by storm on
Britain’s Got Talent
, she went to Moran’s and, to the astonishment of the crowd that Sunday got up on the tiny stage in the corner and sang ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. She also got a standing ovation at church that Easter and had to sign autographs on the way in.

For several years she took singing lessons from a local voice coach, Fred O’Neil, who said, ‘As a singer she always had a lovely, calm, beautiful rounded voice. It is a very good instrument.’

But there was further heartache ahead.

In 2007, her beloved mother Bridget, whom Susan had cared for devotedly in her later years, died aged 91, leaving Susan alone with just her eight-year-old cat Pebbles for company in the pebble-dashed council house.

Susan carried on with her life, collecting just under £130 a week in various benefits and spending her time watching television and reading. She was a volunteer at Our Lady of Lourdes church in Whitburn, visiting the
elderly, but her mother’s death cast a giant shadow. She had already considered stopping singing, and for two years after Bridget’s death she did not sing at all.

Much of her shopping was done at the Mill Centre in Blackburn. She regularly went to David Stein Butchers or into the Mill Café for a snack. If she fancied going further afield she would catch the No. 8 bus into Bathgate, two miles away, and have a £5.60 fish supper – her favourite meal – at Valentes takeaway. Sometimes she would have her hair styled at Val’s hairdressers. She still received some abuse as she walked around the town, with youngsters calling her ‘Susie Simple’ – or worse.

But all this was to change and shortly Susan Boyle, middle-aged Scots spinster, would become SuBo, a true superstar. And a large part of that transformation was due to her late mother Bridget.