SALLY KING talks to pop singer Tina Cousins, heading for the charts again with a charity Abba medley

She's blonde, she's tall, she's got the most fabulous eyes, a lovely voice and has had three Top 20 hits.

Stands to reason then that she's got nerves of iron and the sort of self-confidence that makes DJ Chris Evans feel under-rated.

But Tina Cousins, Southend's home-grown pop star, admits to feeling a bit shy when people ask for her autograph and a little bit nervous about appearing on Top Of the Pops.

Tina spoke as she was heading round the M25 to Elstree studio to make her most recent TOTP recording - she's currently at number 26 with her re-released Killing Time - and although she'd been there and done that before, she was still feeling a bit weak at the knees.

"I'm a little bit nervous. It's being recorded today, and I'm going to sing it live."

Killin' Time is a dance track so Tina wasn't to be alone on the stage, there would be six dancers up there with her.

That provokes another surprising confession: "I don't dance. . . I can wiggle a bit." She used to dance, but now she concentrates on the singing.

Tina has had a charmed career, a tale of every little girl's dreams. Working as a model a 19-year-old Tina stood in for a singer who failed to turn up.

That gave her the confidence to sing in public. She then gigged with bands for three years before launching a solo career.

There again the fates were kind to her - her promotional tape was chucked in the bin with the morning mail, but someone noticed a photo sticking out of the envelope.

A wacky photo taken during her modelling career was enough to make them listen to the tape - and she was signed with the label Jive.

A career in singing hadn't been a burning life-long ambition. "I was the sort of child who was in all the school plays, and drove my mum and dad mad by singing round the house all the time but," she says, "I never thought 'I want to be a pop star'."

Fame has had a strange effect on her friends from her days at Prittlewell High School. She finds it a bit sad when people who have ignored her for years suddenly phone up just because she has a record in the charts.

One friend has stayed constant since they were young. Suzanne Walters sings too.

"She does lots of theatre stuff and has a really good voice and even if we haven't spoken for a couple of months we just chat away."

The girls go back a long way. "We used to sing in front of the mirror with a hairbrush," laughed Tina. "I know you shouldn't own up to that sort of thing, but we all do it."

Even with star status Tina still has doubts when she's about to perform. She's just come back from Spain, where she performed in the Plaza de Roma to an audience of 100,000: "I was a bit nervous there - I followed Pavarotti. When I walked out it was so crowded I couldn't see the floor."

Tina's single Pray, which made the top 20 in the UK, was at number two in Spain, and she received a tremendous reception. "They kept shouting Ti-na! Ti-na!, and they knew all the words."

She is awed by people's reaction to her. Sounding genuinely embarrassed she said: "I still find it really strange when people ask for my autograph.

"The other day some men came up and asked me to sign their arms. Then they said they'd never wash again!"

The "most embarrassing thing ever" for Tina was a recent trip back to her old school, where she was invited to hand out the awards at prize-giving.

"Some of my old teachers were there, which was odd." Not that she didn't get on with her teachers when she was still in uniform. "My English teacher, Mr Ashworth, was wonderful. Very strict though.

"Most of us could hardly breath without getting into trouble, but I got away with a lot. He used to call me TC, you know, from the cartoon Top Cat."

Had her teachers guessed what lay ahead? "Really I don't think so. I was a bit cheeky, and absolutely tiny, with freckles and national health glasses.

"When I went back I talked to the first years in a question and answer thing. A boy said 'sing something then'. The teachers said to me later 'we never knew you could sing like that.'

And the future? She has plans for a broader range of music. An album, Killing Time, out at the end of May, has a ballad and a jazzy number on it.

"I'd like to broaden my music, but I don't want to alienate the fans. A bit of variety is more interesting for me and for them.

At 25 with no plans as yet to join the ranks of the pop mums, she is happy living in Chalkwell with boyfriend Bret, a model: "I like to stay in this country, it's still the best. I love to sit on the balcony of my flat and watch the water."

"I travel so much I look forward to coming home. I miss my friends and family." She is very close to her family.

Dad is an admin manager for a Southend firm, and her mother works at the Lancaster School with children who have special needs. She has two brothers Mark, 21, and Lee, 14.

An Abba medley she sung with Steps, B*witched, Cleopatra and Billie at the Brit awards just been released for charity: "It's so embarrassing. People automatically think you like Abba, but I couldn't turn down an appearance on the Brits could I?

"I didn't expect them to release it. That means I'll have to get that awful silver catsuit out again. I had put it at the very back of my wardrobe." she laughs.

That's the thing about Tina, she's always laughing.

Brit award turn with Steps, B*witched, Billie and Cleopatra - Tina Cousins, Chalkwell's own songbird

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.