Born on the 25th of November 1978, I entered the world in the general hospital of Burnley, Lancashire, England. As a young child my parents soon found that I had far too much energy and, in an attempt to tire me out, decided to send me to gymnastics lessons! Apparently one characteristic of an only child (that’s me) is that they tend to throw all their energy into one thing… so it was that I became obsessed with gymnastics; entering competitions, reading books, choosing the subject whenever I had to do a school project and eventually going to training sessions 4 days a week. At around the age of 7, whilst still a gymnast, I expressed an interest in playing the guitar – my dad had always played and we would often sing songs together. My parents bought me a child-sized nylon strung acoustic guitar for Christmas and I started taking classical guitar lessons.