Susan Boyle Read Free

cat. She was certainly able to afford her old home now. Estimates of her initial earnings varied wildly, with figures stretching from £100,000 to £6 million, but whatever the truth, one thing was certain: Susan’s financial situation was about to be transformed. And when she returned to Scotland she was greeted, as expected, as a returning conquering hero.
    Another concern, which swiftly proved to be unfounded, was that Susan would let it go to her head. In actual fact she seemed remarkably unfazed by her change of fortune. On returning to Scotland, where she had been advised to get some rest, Susan was photographed waving cheerily, clad in a polka-dot dressing gown and pyjamas, looking totally unselfconscious about being photographed in her nightwear. It brought to mind a very different woman who had also been surprised by photographers while wearing just a long T-shirt, but who had reacted very differently: Cherie Blair, the day after her husband was elected Prime Minister in May 1997. Whereas Cherie appeared flustered and uncomfortable about being photographed in such a revealing and unflattering light, it didn’t appear to bother Susan. It seemed she was adapting to her new life quite well.
    Even so, there were mixed reports from Susan’s neighbours, who suddenly found they had a superstar in their midst. One, Teresa Miller, told the Mirror that Susan had ‘definitely changed’, although she was aware that there was nothing malevolent about it. Susan’s situation was almost unprecedented, and she was learning to cope day-by-day. ‘I said hello to her in the street the other day and she blanked me,’ Teresa went on. ‘Then on other days she’s perfectly charming. It must be the stress getting to her. But I’ll always be here for her if she needs me.’
    Then there was Susan’s new album, which she had apparently taken to playing at full blast. ‘It was so loud on Thursday I couldn’t hear Jeremy Kyle on TV!’ said Teresa. ‘It started about a week before it was released, so by the time it was on sale we already knew every track by heart. I think her favourite song is “Wild Horses” as that’s the one she plays the most. We’ve also seen two ambulances and a doctor come to her house. Susan had told me she had been feeling pains in her stomach.’
    On the whole, however, Susan’s neighbours were very protective of her. She was one of their own; she had grown up in the community, and while she might have experienced difficulties with a few, isolated individuals, on the whole people just wanted to make sure she was all right. They knew about Susan’s learning difficulties first hand and had seen her transformed in front of the whole world. They understood that she was subject to the kind of pressures that more robust individuals have difficulty dealing with, and they wanted to make sure she was able to cope.
    Helen Barkhouse, who had looked after Susan’s mother Bridget until she died in 2007, was another neighbour who portrayed Susan as sensitive, generous and not at all spoiled by fame. ‘Susan was here wearing a black beret and a necklace and I told her how pretty she looked,’ she told the Mirror . ‘She took them off and gave them to me. After her mother’s death Susan got really low. She once came up to me in the supermarket and said, “I really need a hug, can you give me a hug?” She might be a star, but whenever Susan comes home we’ll make sure she’s properly taken care of.’
    It was certainly what Susan needed, because by now her album had débuted at number one in the charts, guaranteeing her even more attention. In her first audition for Britain’s Got Talent , Susan had said she wanted to be as big as Elaine Paige. At the time, given her then unrefined appearance and having not yet proven the power of her voice, the viewer could have been forgiven for being a little doubtful. Now it was beginning to look as if this might actually be the case. ‘It’s fantastic,’ was all a