My Haven MELANIE C

The former Spice Girl, 43, in her rehearsal studio in west London

1 SOUND OF THE 50s Having a rehearsal studio near my house in London is great. When I’m touring, as I am now, this is where I get ready with my band. The time we spend here is productive, but it’s also where I relax. I bought this vintage Martin guitar, which I use for songwriting, in Los Angeles in 1999 when I was working on my first solo album over there. It’s from the 50s and has cigarette burns from smoky clubs. Stumbling across it was like finding the perfect pair of jeans. 2 GIRL POWER This programme is from an early Spice Girls tour, Spiceworld. When we released our first single, Wannabe, in 1996 people in the business thought a girl group would never sell records. But that gave us real fire in our bellies. We were so naive though that we never really appreciated our fame at the time. The silver disc on the wall was given to us on our reunion tour in 2007, and I have to say I enjoyed it much more second time around. 3 SPORTY! I find sport is a release that takes me away from the pressures of work. I like to challenge myself, which is why I took up triathlon. I do the ‘sprint’ version – a 750m swim, a 20km cycle and a 5km run – half the Olympic distance. I’ve now completed three of them, which has added to my collection of medals here. Last year I set a new personal best of one hour, 28 minutes and five seconds. I’m sportier now than when I took on that nickname. It’s become a selffulfilling prophecy! 4 IN THE BLOOD My mum Joan O’Neill is a singer from Liverpool. She started singing in bands when she was 14 and she loves Motown and 60s soul. There was always music in the house as I was growing up. I remember going to sleep to the rumble of bass guitars. This old photo reminds me of those days. It shows my mum, my stepdad Dennis on the left, who played with her in the group, and another of their band members, Stan. I’ve lived in London for years, but I still feel a strong affinity with the North. 5 MY EVERYTHING My daughter Scarlet, who’s eight years old, is everything to me. She’s my Little Sporty and I love these sparkly Adidas trainers of hers – my tour dresser painstakingly stuck tiny crystals on them for her so they look just like the ones I wear onstage. When she was born it changed my life in more ways than I could have imagined. Sadly, her dad Thomas and I are no longer together, but we split the childcare between us. They adore one another and he’s a brilliant father. 6 BRITPOP DAYS We won this award for Outstanding Contribution at the BRITS in 2000, but our most memorable year there was 1997, when Geri wore her Union Jack minidress and we mixed it with the Britpop boys. Liam

Gallagher of Oasis had made some disparaging comments about us, so in one of our acceptance speeches I said to him,

‘Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!’ It was funny when I bumped into him later, but he’s a great character – the music business needs people like him.