Dame Felicity Lott

And suddenly there were these gorgeous chaps who'd sit at the back of the class.

They'd be about 17, and I was 20.

And you'd think, oh, golly, you know, there's something else out there.

I like this place.

LAUGHTER

But I mean, that's by the by, but I was embarrassed and shy.

Yes, I think probably I was very nervous.

I went and enrolled, can't believe I had the nous to do it, at the Conservatoire in Grenoble and I met this Madame Maksimovic singing teacher who was super and sort of adopted me more or less.

She said if you worked a bit harder at your singing, she was a singing teacher, maybe you could do something with singing.

No, I don't think so.

Well, I was awkward, you know, and hadn't had any drama training.

So Madame Maksimovic sent me on a summer course in Nice.

And I met lots of other would-be singers and I thought everybody would be nasty and ambitious and we were all the same.

We just loved music and wanted to sing.

So I came back to England and finished my degree and then got a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music to have a go at singing.

It was a consolation prize, I think, because I couldn't win any competitions.

So they gave me the principal's prize.

I'd sung in, I did a Handel opera.

We did a performance of Athaliah.

And all I can remember about that is it says, Blooming virgins, blooming virgins, blooming virgins.