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From The Sunday Times

November 9, 2008

Time and place: Katie Melua

The singer recalls growing up in a 1960s bungalow in post-Soviet Tbilisi, where she bathed in a bucket and her eccentric granny slept in the kitchen

Interview by Rosanna Greenstreet

When I was a child, I lived with my grandparents in Tbilisi. I was born in Kutaisi, where my mum’s parents lived, and, when I was three, we moved to my dad’s parents’ place. In Georgia, people marry young and the wife usually moves in with her husband’s parents, so it is normal for children to live with their grandparents.

Most people live in flats in Georgia, especially in the capital, but my grandparents had a bungalow with a cellar and a big garden. The property was grey cement and built in the 1960s. It was a spacious house with three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. My two uncles lived there as well. They had their own rooms and my parents, my brother and I were in the largest bedroom. It sounds weird, but my grandma slept in the kitchen on a pull-out bed. This is not a local tradition, it’s an eccentric-granny thing. My grandad slept in a little flat on stilts in the garden. There was also a separate room out there with a huge dining table where we entertained guests.

When you have a Georgian meal, you invite about 30 friends and neighbours. It’s a huge affair, particularly at Christmas, when a whole pig is eaten in one session, including the snout. My grandad is a lecturer in catering, so he is the main chef. My grandma does all the hard stuff, like peeling the potatoes. When I was a child, my grandad used to take me to the market, where he would haggle. Often, he’d be buying grapes or something, and the weighing scales would be fixed, so it would seem like you were getting more for your money.

I was seven when Georgia got its independence in 1991, with the break-up of the Soviet Union. The economy collapsed, civil war broke out and we didn’t have electricity or hot water. Georgia is full of natural resources, and food is plentiful, but I remember standing in bread lines and having coupons.

I had a wonderful childhood, though. We heated water on the gas stove and, being little, having a bath in a bucket was fun. We’d be plunged into darkness almost every evening, which was frustrating, but also exciting, because we lived by candlelight. We’d sit around the kitchen table and play cards. This meant I wasn’t in front of the television all the time, and we didn’t have computer games or many toys, so I had the wildest imagination. I was always outside, playing or climbing trees with my best friend, Nino.

Our house was full of crocheted things: my grandma made blankets, tablecloths, even curtains. When she got new sofas, they arrived covered in plastic. It was four years before she took it off. My grandparents had a piano and their house was where I first heard music. My mum would play and I enjoyed singing. When I was six, my parents arranged for me to have lessons with a singing teacher called Mzia, who came to the house.

My dad was a heart surgeon and, during the early 1990s, it was difficult for him to get a well-paid job. He applied for posts in various countries and got one in Belfast. I was excited. We had a warped, idealistic impression of the West from films such as Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman, which came to our country after the break-up of the Soviet Union. I was expecting Hollywood and got Northern Ireland – but, compared to Georgia, Belfast was wonderful. The electricity didn’t go off, you could always have baths, the shops were colourful and we had toys to play with.

I was eight by then, and within three months I’d picked up English. I loved my new school. In Georgia, I always felt sad when my school had to close in winter, as it didn’t have heating. It was a stiff kind of education: we had to learn the Vepkhistkaosani by Shota Rusta-veli, Georgia’s Shakespeare, by heart.

Although my school in Belfast was on the Falls Road, and I used to walk it every single day, my only experience of the Troubles was seeing soldiers in tanks driving down the street.

If we’d stayed in Georgia, I am sure I’d have been happy. I’d probably be married with kids, like Nino, who married at 19 and has two children. It was scary watching the events that unfolded in August. But everyone I know is in Tbilisi or the seaside town of Batumi, and the fighting didn’t go on in those places.

I go back as often as possible to hang out with my friends and see my grandparents. They are in their mid-seventies now and live in the same house. They are really proud of me, and are always making toasts to my success when we have dinners. It can get a bit annoying!

The Katie Melua Collection is out now; www.katiemelua.com