INFORMATION
Baby Jo
Incredibly, Jo's earliest childhood memory was at the age of one! "We were on holiday in Malta and I really fancied this boy. He was only one as well, and I was sitting in the sand with my little hat on and my factor fifty, playing around. I've got pictures of it and everything. Apparently, I was a very sickly baby, but also quite good when it came to sleeping and would sleep all the way through the night. But as a toddler I was quite naughty and always being found in places that I shouldn't be."
Aged 1
Jo grew up close to her family and loved spending time with them but, sadly her school days were far from happy as she was bullied from a young age. "I was quiet at school and I didn't have alot of confidence as a kid, probably because the bulling started when I was about seven and went on for years. My brother and sister are quite a bit older than me so I didn't have anyone at school to protect me from the bullies, and I tried to deal with it myself by ignoring them. It was really hard. I was treated as a bit of a freak so I went into my shell." Jo was too scared to tell her parents about what was going on at school because the bullies had warned her against it. "Bullies always tell you not to tell, and they make you think that something terrible will happen if you do. But that's rubbish. When I did eventually tell my parents about what was going on, they got me out of the school straight away and I was so relieved."
Aged 2
During the hard times, music became Jo's main comfort. Little did she know that it would play a massive part in her life. "I enjoyed quite alot of my subjects at school, especially History and English, but the school didn't really concentrate on music very heavily, so I would do that in my spare time. It was a huge comfort to me. Somehow just being around music made me feel better." Jo had her first boyfriend at the age of ten- a guy called Danny, who she went out with for two years. "I thought he was the love of my life and I was going to marry him. We got on really well, but then he cheated on me with another girl and broke my heart." It was in her early teens that Jo realized that despite initially wanting to become an air hostess, what she really wanted was a career in music. "Up until then I'd be too shy to even get up on a karaoke machine. But something inside me decided that singing was for me."
Aged 9
After leaving school, Jo worked in a pet shop and a supermarket before she had her first taste of musical success as a backing singer. "It was a family friend called Annette who really inspired me to go for it with the singing. She's got the most unbelievable voice and she really helped me out with contacts and stuff. She was amazing." Soon Jo found herself working in a country-and-western theme pub, where she got to sing on stage every night. "Our hours were six in the evening until midnight, so I got to sleep all day and then sing and have a good time in the evening. It was my perfect job!"
And it was while she was doing the hoedown that she was spotted by someone from S Club 7's management company, 19, who just happened to have popped in for dinner. But it wasn't until two years later that Jo got a phone call from 19 asking her to go along to the S Club 7 auditions.
"I was really nervous going to the auditions because I still wasn't very confident, but I was so, so happy when I got the phone call to say that I'd got into the band. I think at that point, one of the reasons I really wanted to make it as a singer was to show everyone who had given me such a hard time over the years. I know a few of the people who bullied me have got kids now, so it gives me real satisfaction to think that those kids are probably going up to them asking for an S Club CD! I've changed so much since being in S club. I'm really confident and these days I'm doing this for me. The band has given me a whole new lease of life."
