"Starting on the bins was a big deal for me. I had always wanted to be a refuse collector, long before I even had a feel for the drums!! I remember following the dustmen around the streets when I was about 10!

It all came around after I'd left an office job, feeling sorry for myself, and came across an old friend from the market, who worked on the carts himself. I, for a joke really, asked if there were any application forms available for the bins... and the rest, as they say, is history!

I maintained life on the bins for a staggering 5½ years. Of course, I got plenty of grief from the guys on the gang and folk on the street hurling abuse. At the time, I suppose it did bother me, but it has, in the long run, made me a stronger person. So I really don't regret the job for one minute... especially the bargains!!!!!

Another great aspect of the job was the intense fitness that I gained from it - literally running from 7am through to 4pm. It was inevitable that after a few months the guys realised that I was there to work, just like them, and in the supervisors words "She is the fastest binner in the yard".

"I had to knock the bins on the head in 1999 due to a knee injury caused through extensive running. I still get pains now, but it never affects my drumming so all is cool!!

My next job was with a packing company, where I found myself driving literally up and down the country as a courier. My average mileage a day was 400 miles! Strange really, cos when I past my driving test back in 1996, I swore blind I'd never drive again... wot a poof! But the job taught me alot, and I developed my skills as a "shit-hot" driver, not to mention with a fork-lift!!! But the call of my old stomping ground was just too much, and so I returned to a life of grime to haul a rusty, clapped-out transit box van around the city picking up clinical waste (good job I didn't mind dirty work innit!). Apart from the 'not so nice things', it was a dirt easy job and gave me time for my playing, which was really important once I had joined Findley Webster.