Rock matriarch writes about life, family & more

Brixton then was a good place for kids to grow up. It was a poor part of London, like Compton in Los Angeles, which meant it was cheap. There were the market arcades under the railway line full of little stalls, like the pie and mash shop with its metal trough of jellied eels that they would chop up, which made me gag but fascinated me at the same time. And then there were the Indian shops with saris hung up outside the little entrances, all those amazing colors and strange foreign smells.

Just up from the market was Woolworth's where, as well as spending any money we might have, my brother and I would go stealing candy. My role was to go up and ask for something, and when the assistant went looking for it, David would stuff his pockets with anything he could find: play cigarettes, blackjacks, fruit salads, flying saucers.

The other place we stole from was a tiny candy store that was the only building still standing on the World War II bombsite behind our house, at the end of an alley. The lady who ran it was very old so taking anything was easy: flying saucers, sherbet dips and Jubblies, a pyramid of iced orange that you used to squeeze.

In those days my brother was very industrious in trying to find ways of making money. When it was Guy Fawkes night he used to dress me up, put me in an old-fashioned carriage with big wheels, stick me outside the pub, and I'd be panhandling bait. My father was a Black and White Minstrel for a while, on the hit TV show that was broadcast on Saturday nights. It would never be allowed now. In America it's called blackface, exactly what Al Jolson did, and it was probably the highspot of my father's singing career — so there was always plenty of greasepaint hanging around the house. David would black me up, then find a bit of black cloth to drape me in, shove on an old hat and push me along to the pub, and we'd get all the Irish drunks as they came out.

Those were the good days. Bad days were when I'd be put in the coalhole, which was like a horrible underground cupboard off Nigel's bedroom. Coal still got stored in there — delivered down a chute from the street — and whenever my brother or I misbehaved, my parents would lock us in there for what seemed like forever, but was probably only an hour or an hour and a half. It was horrible. And the worst thing was the spiders, and scufflings that David said were rats.

My grandmother Nana lived in Prestwich, a smart suburb of Manchester, and I absolutely adored her. She's probably the only woman I ever met who was bald, and to hide it she had this terrible combover, a real wraparound hairdo (think Donald Trump) — except hers would wrap around twice. When we were out — Nana was a big one for afternoon tea at the Midland Hotel — she wore hats to cover it up. Hats with matching gloves and matching handbag. Everyone wore hats in those days, if they were ladies. There were other things she taught me about being a lady, like using rose water and witch hazel on your skin and not sitting on the lavatory seat when you were out because you could catch things. Unspecified things, but which later I discovered included babies when you didn't want them. So she showed me how to cover the seat with overlapping sheets of shiny toilet paper and then try to sit down quick before they fluttered away.

Whenever my parents were on tour in the north, they'd take us out of school and leave us with her. They didn't give a shit about the academic side of life. But the atmosphere between my mother and Nana was terrible, and until my parents left the house it was like walking on eggshells, so I couldn't wait for them to leave.

Being with Nana made me feel warm and safe. She was motherly. She would cook for me. She would tuck me up in bed. And she was very house-proud and would scrub the front step every day. Everything in that house was scrubbed and cleaned till it shone.

She couldn't have been more different from my other grandmother, who unfortunately I saw more of because she lived not far from us in Clapham, just off Wandsworth Common. She'd been a dancer like my mother, and again like my mother she now ran a theatrical rooming house. Dolly O'Shea had long white hair that she wore down to her shoulders, curled under and tied with a huge red satin bow, and she always had dark red lipstick, like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, that went over the lines of her mouth, and I never saw her without a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. She was incredibly ugly and had the biggest nose I have ever seen. A real Fagin nose. She frightened me and she stank, stank of her fanny and BO, and her flat stank of fried food. She adored my brother — she even paid for him to go to stage school in the beginning — but she hated me. If she'd been Chinese she'd have been the sort of person who had the girls put out to die.

MORE FROM TODAY BOOKS: BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIRS

Andre Agassi: I have the body of an old man

Andre Agassi: I have the body of an old man Former Miss California: I was smeared How dog poop led to love for Paula Deen After having 15 abortions, motherhood saved her Book excerpt: Testimony of an abortion addict Alan Thicke on raising kids who won’t hate you ‘Full House’ star writes about meth, coke binges Parents share diary of child’s cancer battle How America can get 'Smart on Crime' Hulk Hogan: Why I almost killed myself   Add Today Books: Biography/Memoirs headlines to your news reader: