KATRINA Tia Charles is a very talented Barnsley musician who has a passion for writing and performing her own songs. She’s intelligent, effervescent, and now has a lovely settled life. But that’s not always been the case.

When Katrina was six, her family moved to Mansfield but four years later Social Services discovered her father was addicted to heroin and her mother had also been dragooned into using it.

Consequently, the six children were taken off them, split up and dispersed to different parts of the country under the care of foster parents.

“Me and my brother were fostered by our auntie at a village near Tuxford in Nottinghamshire.”

I asked: “Did you show any musical promise at school?”

“Not at all but there were two things I did enjoy. One was singing informally – you know, like you do, for no reason and no audience. And the other was writing poetry because I found it cathartic and soothing.

“At 15, I returned to live with my mother who had a house in Great Houghton and I spent the last few weeks of my school career at Foulstone School. But staying at my mother’s didn’t work out and I was given a place to live in Pitsmoor, Sheffield. At a time when I desperately needed love and guidance, I was all alone. The accommodation was a nightmare for a vulnerable young female, surrounded by creepy gangs of men intent on taking advantage, so I was moved to Holden House in Barnsley and that wasn’t much better.”

By the age of 20, Katrina had two sons – the “circumstances of which were not great” – but she says her children were never anything but a blessing. She then started working in a call centre and developed her career over the next decade, rising from the bottom rung of the ladder to being National Recruitment manager. She was head-hunted three times during this period and also met her ex-husband and had a third child.

“The career success was welcomed, the money was good but the personal satisfaction I should have felt was absent.

“I was in a more stable relationship for 13 whole years but that eventually came to an end.”

Katrina’s next relationship was a massive disaster. From initially being kind and caring, this new partner turned into a violent monster, smashing her with his fist and tearing at her face.

“The Barnsley police officer in charge of the case was superb” and her ex-husband, and children, helped extricate Katrina from this horrific situation.

Predictably, Katrina’s whole life, apart from the period when she was in a stable marriage, seemed to lurch from one crisis to another but then something extraordinary happened.

Despite her low self-esteem and her weight plummeting to almost seven stones, Katrina was persuaded to sing at an Open Mic Night for the first time. She knew only two songs, and the guitar chords to them, and when she was encouraged to climb the stage, she was ‘shaking like a leaf’.

Her rendition of ‘It Must Have Been Love’ was raw, unrehearsed but from the heart, and to her astonishment it was well received. However, something much more amazing happened during this debut performance.

At last, for the first time in her life, Katrina Tia Charles, felt like a real person – fully alive, fully present. She began to cry on stage. She couldn’t help it. She was overwhelmed and it felt good.

From there she never looked back. She was invited to perform at many venues and during Covid she was able to create and write hundreds of original songs.

She busked regularly outside Boots in Barnsley Precinct, got paid gigs and recorded some of her original creations.

I listened to one of her moving albums the other day and make no mistake, the woman is pure class.

Life may not have always been too kind to Katrina but last year she was married at Barnsley Town Hall to Jonathan, her hero. Afterwards, Spiral City was kind enough to throw a wonderful reception for the pair and their Barnsley friends.

It’s such a privilege to know Katrina Tia Charles and I feel honoured to relate her thoroughly inspirational story.