My mother always told me not to handle a buffalo by its tail, but always catch it by its horns. And I have used that lesson in everything in my life, including the Railways.
My most visceral childhood memory is getting home from hockey. Much of our family time revolved around hockey, and it rains a lot in Perth, and we'd get home tired and wet in our tracksuits, and the smell I'd hold in my nose is of mother's vegetable soup.
I am just like my mother. She raised me to love and take care of animals, especially the ones that need it the most and so I started Eddie's Rescue Ranch. We take in animals that need extra care and attention and the animals that get left behind.
I met Gemma, my wife, when she was 12. She had a schoolgirl crush on me and her dad had arranged for her to meet me. Later, she started coming to my concerts, but I only got to know her well after her mother died. I rang to see how she was, and that's how it started.
What are Raphael's Madonnas but the shadow of a mother's love, fixed in permanent outline forever?
On the rare occasions when my mother perfumed herself, she was going out, and so I rarely smelled those special scents up close on her body, except during kisses goodbye.
Like every mother, it's my children; that's the first thing that makes me really proud. For my own part, it would be when I became a Queen's Counsel in 1995. I was the 76th woman ever to become a Queen's Counsel, so it was still a pretty rare thing.
My mother early on taught us to respect all animals, and I mean all animals - not just cats and dogs but rats and snakes and spiders and fish and wildlife, so I really grew up believing they are just like us and just as deserving of consideration.
Country and western is the music of the devil. That's the real truth of the matter. My late Mother, bless her, loved country and western. God, I couldn't handle it.
If you are confiding in someone, it needs to be the woman in your life. If that woman is your mother, you may as well scuttle back under her petticoats and let the real women in pencil skirts and tortuous heels get on with the job of husband-hunting.
I'm more of a realist when it comes to life, and I'd much rather my mother be in a spiritual place in Heaven than in a bed, sick, fighting for her life.
Let every mother realize that she has no greater blessing than the children who have come to her as a gift from the Almighty; that she has no greater mission than to rear them in light and truth, in understanding and love.
I was barely in grade school when I helped my mother rearrange the living room furniture for the first time.
Maybe it's because my mother divorced and my grandmother divorced, so maybe I'm frightened deep down. But then I also feel there is no real need. Why do I need to get married? To reassure me? No I don't need reassurance.
I had no boundaries at home, so I had nothing to push against. I only rebelled with clothing when I was 14. I would wear purple Doc Martens and had purple streaks in my hair, dirty jeans, and baggy tops. Very Britpop. Anything that wasn't girly or feminine. My mother hated it.
I was born in Paris, and my mother was a French teacher, but then I rebelled against my upbringing and studied Spanish in school. So now I just speak bad French and bad Spanish.
I was the product of very young parents, and they had wild ways. My mother was in a punk band. Rebelling would have been learning to play piano.
My childhood was all about going to church, singing in church. And later on, after I got a little older, my mother taught me how to do poems for Easter and Mother's Day, recitals and so on. I got attached to that, so as I got older and older, I began to recite poetry.
Part of what I want to do is sort of reclaim my story - it belongs to me and to my children, who have to live with whoever their mother is.
It was not always easy because I was always an individual and found it difficult to be one of a group. One person who was very supportive was my father. My mother was great but my father really recognised my individuality and supported me in that.
