English
translation supplied by Kevin Bedingfield
GOLWG, the weekly Welsh-language magazine published the following article in its 26 April 2001 issue
If Charlotte Church is in the US as her first book is about to be published, her grandmother is willing to talk about the little grand-daughter who's her little angel
Granny's little angel
Charlotte Church gives no press interviews even though her autobiography (her life history, though she's only 15 years old!) is about to be published.
The singer from Cardiff is out in the States this week and she'll be returning to face her Year 10 examinations at Howells' Girls' School. She has another year to go before she sits her GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Examinations).
This is when you realise how young the soprano is. She's already released three albums, bought her own home and met both the US President and the Pope. She's also had to face a very public court hearing where her former manager claimed that Charlotte's mother had sacked him unfairly.
The confidence and the voice make you believe at times that Charlotte Church is a young woman, but she's only a girl. She'll remain a young girl for many years because Charlotte Church celebrated her 15th birthday only two months ago. But to her grandmother, 'CharI' will always be a little girl.
"She loves doing what other 15 year olds do," says her grandmother, Maureen
Cooper, who lives in the Canton area of Cardiff.
"She loves meeting friends, shopping, dancing, music, going to discos. People think she likes listening to classical music, but she loves Top of the Pops, and normal things like that.
"She was quite unique at the beginning because of her voice. It was very mature for a
small girl of her age, and still is."
And that confidence and maturity isn't something that's just come with fame, either.
She hasn't become hard because of all the attention she's had, it's something she's always had.
"She lived with my husband and me and my other daughter, Caroline, until she was four or five years old and she was always in adult company because her parents had separated," says Maureen Cooper, who is the mother of Maria, Charlotte's mother. Maria remarried when Charlotte was six, and her new husband James has adopted Charlotte.
"That's where the music in her came from, because her grandfather played in a group
when he was younger, and her aunt - Caroline - sang too.
"Charlotte would sit and listen to her practice, and then she gave us all a shock when she was three and could sing every single word of some of the songs on the radio because she'd heard them so often.
"But she was also a child, playing with dolls. It was just that she'd never had children
around her. "
Maureen Cooper wasn't very keen to speak to Golwg initially. "Everybody knows everything about Charlotte, there's nothing new to say", she said before going on to say that she's not very keen on journalists and that this interview with Golwg was the first she'd ever gIven.
"I think Charlotte deals with everything far better than anyone else. She's fantastic, she can do it, she's just one of those children who can talk. I can't, I don't like newspapers, you're my first. Not only that, I hadn't flown in a plane until I was 58 - two years ago - and since then I've been with Charlotte to Rome, Hollywood and Vienna, but that all that's changed for me."
But if Charlotte has shot to fame almost overnight, she is still the same happy, talkative little girl to her grandmother, who is looking forward to her coming home from the
States so that she can see her again.
"Yes, I'm proud of her, but I'd be proud of her anyway even if she was only my grand-daughter," said Maureen Cooper. "She's a lovely child, she was always happy when she was small, and we've always been very close. She always wanted to stay with me on Friday nights because I let her stay downstairs late to watch television!"
But now Charlotte has her own home, where she lives with her parents, she can do as
she likes. But she's too young to live there on her own yet, her grandmother says.
"Good gosh, she's only 15, she would never be allowed to do that. She's only a child."
.Cerys Bowen
[Side stories:]
Charlotte and her slippers ...
"We decided to record the first album in the BBC studios in Cardiff, as it's only five minutes from home, so that I didn't have to travel far - and so that I'd be relaxed.
That's why I wore my bunny slippers.
One was called Robbie and the other was called Bobby, and I wore them so that I felt comfortable, just as if I were still at home."
Charlotte has enough ...
"I sometimes think my head is older than it should be. Sometimes, when I'm travelling and I'm homesick, I just think how I want to be normal, and have a normal life with normal problems, though everybody's problems seem normal to them, whether they're large or small. Mum says that I should give everything up if I get fed up working.
But I don't want to give everything up.
I love singing. I love travelling, and what I love most is learning. Learning about other people's lives puts your own life into perspective."
Charlotte - this is me ...
"My family realise that fame is nothing special. They understand that fame is only a word. Being famous is no different from being normal.
I think famous people think of themselves as normal. I know I do. If you stay with normal people - like Mum, Dad, Aunty Caroline, Nan and Bampy and all my other aunties, uncles and cousins - who'll tell you when you're wrong or being a pain, then you're going to stay normal.
I do all the things young people usually do, like sleeping in friends' homes. We talk about boys and clothes and music, and I can forget who I'm supposed to be when I'm in the public eye, when I have to smile and be nice and talk to the press and answer questions and shake hands.
I can just be myself. I can even lose my temper. Because at the end of the day, I'm
only a 15 year old trying to work out the meaning of everything.
I know I'm very lucky."
Charlotte and her new house ....
"The best thing about being in the new house is that it's big enough for the whole family to sleep in it. It's got six bedrooms. The other day, Mum said how glad she was that her 15 year old daughter was able to buy her ideal home.
'It's fantastic,' she said.
I suppose it is.
What's really fantastic is my bedroom. It's totally soundproof, so I can have all my
friends over, and we're able to play loud music without my parents hearing it. Though, I must say the swimming pool's rather fantastic too".
Charlotte and the Millennium Stadium on
"I made the bed in the spare bedroom the other day. Next morning, after breakfast, a car arrived to take us to the Stadium. I was supposed to sing at 2.30 and it was now 1.30.I'd done my hair and my makeup, but I needed to get dressed.
"Come on, CharI," Mum said. "The car's waiting."
I went upstairs to change. Seconds later, I was shouting downstairs, "Mum!" "What?" she called upstairs.
"My clothes. Where are they?"
The two of us started searching for them everywhere - in the drawers, the cupboards,
everywhere we could think of.
"I put them on the spare bed last night as I told you."
"Oh!" Mum said, as she realised what I was saying. "I threw them out."
"You did what?"
"I put them in the dirty linen basket."
You can imagine how we shouted and screamed at one another. Mum rushed to get them from the dirty clothes in the basket, ironed them, and away we went."
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