One night, desperate for the loo, I stepped on a giant slug and it squelched between my toes in long green tubes. I think that’s the night I became a soprano. After that, I made myself a salt path every night to dispose of them. As young, first time tenants, we had no idea that we could complain – we had to pay the whole term’s rent up front, so we had no leverage at all. God, it was awful, but we loved having our independence.

Len was calm and introverted; he didn’t stalk the stage like an arrogant rock god. After a year, I had to make the really difficult decision of taking him out of the band line-up. That was really hard. We assumed he would be my guitarist, and had no idea it wasn’t going to work, and he found it difficult letting go, but we continued writing songs together, including some of our biggest hits.

Back then, a shaven-headed black girl was seen as quite radical and made some people uncomfortable, but I also realised the thing I’d been trying to run away from was what people liked about me the most – that I was uncompromising with my look. If you try to conform, I concluded, you’re taking away your own power, putting your best asset away in a box, so instead I decided to accentuate and love my differences.

So, after all the positive things that I had come to believe about myself, like being open and political about my sexuality, I suddenly found myself having to be guarded about my life. I tried to get round it by convincing myself I was just being economical with the truth, but you get yourself into trouble pretending to be single when you’re not.

I looked down at the frills in horror. ‘You know what, you’re right.’ The dress was tossed and I bought a whole new outfit. Shortly after, I shed the boyfriend as well. He was a great guy but he brought out an inner frill in me I’d rather never see again.

I’m not particularly girly, I’m happiest being in the middle, and it’s so strange to have a career where I’m constantly being asked by journalists about my sexuality. In the 1990s and early 2000s, there was still pressure to put yourself in sexual categories, like lesbian, bisexual and straight. How wonderful it is that sexuality is now seen as fluid, and if I’m forced to define myself, queer is the flag I’d wave – it’s what I’ve always been and I guess always will be.