The following interview is taken from the Manchester Evening News. Barbara is interviewed by Helen Tither.
BARBARA DICKSON SINGS FOR HER SUPPER
Oh to be a fly on the wall should Barbara Dickson ever come face to face with glamour model Katie Price, aka Jordan.
"At the height of my fame I didn't enjoy it one bit," she says, in her softly lilting Scottish tones.
"I didn't like the fact that people were taking control of my life. I have always wanted a career and a life, an ordinary life like everyone else with a husband and a family - a private life.
"To me, being a singer is just a job. I have always been careful of taking my career too seriously.
I take my music seriously and my attitude to my work is 100 per cent serious. But I don't believe publicity is OK whatever it is.
I would have been horrified to have special attention put to me because of anything other than my work.
"Although I would imagine that attitude is impossible now for people like Jordan who are famous for being famous - or for their breasts."
Point taken. Perhaps it is this indomitable attitude that has seen Barbara survive for so many years in such an infamously chauvinistic industry.
After starting off as a folk singer, touring clubs across Lancashire in her early days, she found fame on the musical stage with the hit show John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert, only to become a household name with recording contracts, hit albums and another starring role in the musical Blood Brothers.
Her smash hit duet with Elaine Paige, I Know Him So Well, cemented her place in the nation's heart and roles on TV followed, with a much-acclaimed appearance in the smash hit drama Band of Gold.
Now, surviving in an industry which prefers its female singers to be size eight and 16-years-old, she is about to go on the road once more and has just released another album, this time of Beatles covers.
Forever lodged in the public consciousness with her big 1980s perm and statement jewellery, she is looking fantastically stylish and vibrant these days.
It's a wonder she hasn't been snapped up for another prime-time role before now. Quite simply, she says, there just aren't the parts around for middle-aged women these days.
"I loved being in Band of Gold, I would like to do more acting on TV," she says. "But we live in an ageist society and basically people aren't interested in writing scripts for older women. People would be interested in them if they actually got written.
"Grannies always get work but you have got all these glamorous middle aged women around who are still seen as not glamorous enough to be on TV.
"I think we older women need to be more assertive and stop trying to look younger to get parts - the facelifts should definitely stop right now."
However, while she wouldn't mind another TV role, it is unlikely she would be lured into another stage musical role, despite her previous successes (she's a Olivier award winner, don't you know), due to the fact that she says there aren't that many she actually likes.
Instead, she is quite happy concentrating on her music career for now, going back to her roots to put a folk-style twist on Beatles classics for her latest CD, Nothing's Gonna Change My World.
That's when she's not got her hands full as a mum to three boys - Colm, 20, Gabriel, 18, and Archie, 12.
"I've just taken the children back to boarding school for the new term, I was almost murdering them by the time they had to go," she laughs.
"It's so slob-like when they are here, as you can imagine with three boys, the mess makes me so cross.
"Although I do miss them when they're gone, the place is like a tomb.
But at least it gives me time to concentrate on the new album. Like other mothers, it's all about juggling family with career."
Barbara Dickson will be touring in Stockport, Bolton and Buxton next year.
Her latest album, Nothing's Gonna Change My World, is out now.
