Reproduced from Smash Hits 6 February, 1991

She's 29! She's almost married to another pop star! She wears "interesting" hats! But there's more to this chirpy cockney "gel" than meets the eye. Mark Frith is proud to present...

She falls onto a chair, smiles brightly, asks for tea (with sugar), declines the offer of something to eat because she had a big breakfast, and gets ready to talk. She's taller than you'd imagine, very thin and looking healthy. She is also brimming over with happiness, perhaps not surprising since, of course, she has just enjoyed a Number Two single and a hit solo LP. But it wasn't always like this, for the Kim Appleby story is one of highs and lows...

Kim Appleby always wanted to be famous. Born in Hackney, East London on 28 August 1961, she grew up surrounded by music ("My mother had the radio on all the time," she says), watched the ultra-glamorous Diana Ross and The Jacksons on TV, and terrorised bus passenger with her taste in music.

"On the way to school, we'd meet at the bus stop, laugh out loud and annoy those people who just wanted to read their newspaper. We'd take our boogie boxes on and listen to The Jacksons very loudly. When you get older and go on buses you see these really cheeky girls and you think 'God, they're sooo rude' and then you remember you were exactly like that yourself."

Kim will talk at ten to the dozen in her chirpy cockney accent about her childhood. Explaining that she was a happy child, if unexceptional at school ("I left school with no qualifications at all"), she rebelled against her strict upbringing by wearing make-up against her parents' orders, coming in late from clubs and generally upsetting people.

When she left school she went through various jobs like being a typist ("Boring") and working in a department store ("Horrible") or not working at all and just going shopping and popping round to her friends' houses.

In 1980, when she was 18, she had a baby called Sharna. "I had my daughter with my first boyfriend who I was totally in love with and went out with for six years. I say this because whenever I mention that I had a child at that age people think I was a loose woman and didn't know who the father was, but that wasn't true. I was in love and wanted a child."

Kim is obviously devoted to her daughter. Now aged 11, she describes Sharna as very normal, incredibly polite and not like a lot of horrible showbiz children that she sees. When Kim was 21, she split up with Sharna's father, but ensured that Sharna grew up in a "loving family relationship".

During this time, Kim and sister Mel kept going out dancing, listening to tons of "up" and becoming starstruck. They were determined to be famous, all they needed was that elusive lucky break. That came when Mel, then working as a model, started mixing with various record company people who put them in touch with Stock Aitken Waterman - who were at that time seen as being trendy dance music creators. The trio wrote the sisters a rather tame, soulful record called "System", which was quickly recorded at their PWL studio. To celebrate, the producers took everyone involved with the record down to the local pub where Mel and Kim were suddenly transformed from laid-back soul sisters their producers thought they were, into shouting, swearing East End girls. Stock Aitken Waterman were so taken aback by this that they rushed back to the studio, scrapped the soul tunes they were due to release as singles and wrote songs about night-clubbing and having fun instead. Mel & Kim -sassy, street-wise pop stars of the first degree- were born. "Showin' out (Get Fresh At The Weekend)" reached number Three at the end of 1986 and "Respectable" went to Number One in May 1987. They were tunes about carefree young cockney girls going out and having a laugh, and they made Mel & Kim very famous indeed. Aah, fame... "I always thought I should have been famous," Kim laughs, "I loved the glamour of the whole thing. These night-clubs that wouldn't let us in six months before, were now providing us with tables. You get to ride in lovely cars and we'd go to these hotels and they're so lovely that you just burst out laughing. But the novelty wears off."

It's here that the story takes a less happy turn. In the middle of 1987, when she was 21, Mel was diagnosed with cancer - something she had suffered in her teenage years - and recording for the second Mel & Kim LP was cancelled. Kim and her family now had to face the fact that Mel was slowly dying. It was around this time that Kim first met Craig Logan.

"Melanie's illness was a real eye-opener for the family and it pulled us all together," Kim explains. "It pulled everything into perspective, all the other little things that you worry about become so trivial. Meeting Craig as well made me more settled than I was."

Mel died at the beginning of 1990 after a two-year illness. Putting her grief behind her, Kim spent the next few months with her family deciding on her future. Kim and Craig had had a small recording studio built in the home they shared in the Surrey countryside and Kim started to make pop records again. Mel, Kim and Craig had written several songs during Mel's illness so the songs were already there for her to record, but Kim did contemplate giving up all together. "I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. My main purpose at the time was looking after my mum, who was obviously totally devastated. When Mel passed away, that was what really concerned me. If I was going to make a comeback I had to be prepared mentally and make sure I was ready. If I was to come back I couldn't have just stumbled back and had people thinking 'Oh look, she's back", I wanted to make whatever I did really hot.

The person sitting here drinking lots of tea in relative calm, appears very content these days. And so she should. She's been busy promoting her LP in Europe ("Don't Worry" has been a Top 20 hit in Holland, Belgium and Germany as well), preparing for a possible tour later this year and tinkering around in her studio. The world of technical wizardry has posed a few problems for her though. "There are a lot of things I can't figure out at all. I'm not a studio sort of person but Craig is. Craig's really technical, he loves all of that stuff but I get really bored with it. He usually works out the backing tracks, puts them down on a tape for me and I take them away and work out a melody and words. It's only then that we'll get together in the studio and work it out. Craig is very easy going. There's no power trip or anything.

The two have considered getting married "I've given it some thought but the idea comes and goes. Who knows?" is all she'll say) and would like to have more children in the future ("Not now, but maybe in five years or something",) but Kim appears settled anyhow. Which brings us back to her family.

"Actually, we're all very normal and down to earth. I still come home and help Sharna with her homework. She knows that life is tough and you have to work hard for what you want. Like me."

And with that, Kim Appleby draws the interview to a close. It's four in the afternoon and she wants to get back home. But before that, she's got an important record company meeting to attend and three more interviews to conduct with foreign magazines. It's a busy old life and no mistake ...