This interview was published in "Woman's Weekly" in August 1989.
In a few short years, singer Barbara Dickson's life has been transformed: as well as having a successful career she's now a wife and mother to two little boys. And, she tells Constance Craig Smith, she's loving every minute of it.
The man from Barbara Dickson's management company is looking worried. "Please remember," he pleads, "that Barbara wants to talk about her work. She doesn't want to answer a lot of questions about her family." But when the lady herself breezes in, looking trim and stylish in a black polo neck, mini skirt and cream-coloured jacket, she's bubbling over with the joy of motherhood - and it's clear she could talk on the subject for hours. "The wee one has just gone off to sleep," she says, referring to her younger child Gabriel, born in November last year. "He's such a lovely little boy - simply beautiful."
The Scottish-born singer with the pure, beautiful voice married relatively late, at thirty-seven. She and her husband, BBC production manager Oliver Cookson, who's eleven years her junior, had been friends for years and finally took the plunge in 1984. When she talks about her two sons, there's a note of wonderment in her voice, as if she can't quite believe it's happened to her. First-born Colm is three this month and is a truly enchanting little boy with flaxen hair, and a broad grin.
Barbara admits, though, that Colm was rather thrown by the addition to the family. "He was fine to begin with, but when he realised the baby was here to stay, he wasn't so happy. He's starting to get used to Gabriel now, but he still has periods of being very ill-disposed towards him. We did all the right things according to the books - prepared him for the baby coming, explained the baby was in my tummy, showed him where it would live once it was born. But you can't cater for the child's feelings towards the new arrival - after all, even as a mother you can't tell how you're going to feel!"
You'd think that with two small children to look after, Barbara would have her hands full. But no sooner was Gabriel born than she was back in the recording studio making her first album in two years, "Coming Alive Again", which was released in April. She also has an exhausting schedule of tours and has been on the road all through August, and will be again in Autumn.
"I need to work; it's an important part of my life," Barbara says. "Of course, it is difficult to tour and record and look after the kids. People who say two are no more trouble than one are talking absolute rubbish. It's bound to be twice as much work.
"I thought, laughably, that it was tough having Colm. It's mindbogglingly tough having both Gabriel and Colm. Colm needs my attention and so does the baby - I'm always attending to one end of him or the other!" She chuckles and adds: "But I've been lucky so far. Colm has the occasional wobbler, but it's nothing like what they call the 'terrible twos.'"
Barbara Dickson's career plans aren't limited entirely to singing either: earlier this year, for example, she was on our screens as co-presenter of the BBC's "The Diet Programme". She was an inspired choice: articulate and down-to-earth, she managed to get across information about sensible eating without sounding bossy.
"I'd done two series of afternoon TV shows in Scotland before I was asked to do "The Diet Programme". I really enjoyed it."
Barbara has been a vegetarian for eleven years and feels strongly about the value of good nutrition. "I was the only person involved in that programme who wasn't dieting. Like everyone else I'd been through all those extreme diets in the past, like the pineapple diet, and the yogurt and banana diet. What was so good about the BBC diet was that it told the public at large to forget fads. What's important is that if you want to get thin, you musn't eat fat and sugar. I used to eat sunflower margarine because I thought it was better for me. The series taught me it may be better for your skin, but it's just as bad for your heart as it's got just as many calories as butter."
She has no patience with diets which say "you can't mix one thing with another, or you shouldn't eat meat after four o'clock. You have to decide how to temper good eating with your lifestyle. I'd love to have a big lunch and a tiny supper, but I don't see Oliver until 8 o'clock at night, and having supper together is our way of unwinding. I don't want to sit down and have two crisp-breads when he comes home."
Although she's a vegetarian, Barbara insists she's not fanatical about a healthy lifestyle. "If Colm eats meat when we're out, I don't stop him - but I won't keep meat at home. He has a wonderful diet on the whole. Mind you, he loves chocolate. Someone gave him a piece once and he was hooked! We were on holiday in Ireland recently and the waiter asked him what sort of eggs he'd like for his breakfast. He replied 'Chocolate'!"
One topic she will admit to being passionate about is the environment. It's something she's spoken about for years, long before many of today's pop stars jumped on the bandwagon. "I've never used my popularity as a soap box, but if people ask me how I feel about things, I'll speak my mind," she says. "I think it's acceptable for artists to include social comment in their work, as long as it doesn't get in the way of what they do."
Her latest album is an example of that. One number, "Precious Cargo", which Barbara co-wrote, sounds at first as if it's in the same mould as her most popular songs, "Answer Me" and "I Know Him So Well" (which she sang with Elaine Paige). Listen more closely and you realise it's not about love but about nuclear waste. "When I say to people that the song's about pollution I can see them thinking, 'Oh dear, that sounds a bit boring'. But I hope it's quite subtle."
