07 Nov 2023
We ask a different figure from the local community to choose 10 questions to answer from a list of 50. This time: Fame Academy runner-up, professional musician and mother-of-three Sinéad Quinn.
So where do you go to listen to music?
Most of the time, it was always The Boot. The Boot was where I first sang and heard live music after I moved to St Albans. Other pubs as well include The Mermaid – where during Covid they did a fantastic job in their garden to make it accessible for people to come out – The Horn of course, the list goes on and on.
Have you ever asked anyone for an autograph?
Yeah I have actually… One of the first autographs I ever asked for was when I was at university. A guy who was drummer in Skunk Anansie. He was from Scarborough and came to the university to do a lecture. I’ll tell you who else I met and asked for an autograph, Brian May.
Who is your favourite St Albans musician or band?
Jim Rodford. I watched him playing so many times right up until he died. What a bass player! Oh my gosh! An absolutely amazing bass player. The whole family are musicians. I’m really good friends with Anya and Cara, his granddaughters. They are in a band with Jim’s son Russell called Arc, and they are fabulous. Also, Jim’s son Steve is a fantastic drummer, and still plays with the Zombies. And they’re just brilliant. Brilliant family.
If you could travel back in time and offer your younger self some advice, what would it be?
Oh, that’s always a good one, isn’t it? Yeah, the advice I would give is don’t stress and panic as much about stuff that you can’t control. There’s no point wasting energy worrying because if it’s out of your control the only thing you can control is your response to things rather than what anyone else is doing. So I would definitely tell my younger self that.
What’s your favourite place to have breakfast in St Albans?
Hatch. The little hash brown bites are just worth going for on their own.
Do you have any phobias?
I hate rats. I could let spiders crawl all over me and I would not care, but I hate rats. We had some work done on our house here and when we moved in there was like a little lean-to that was going to get knocked down by builders. When they actually knocked the side of that lean-to down, a flattened rat was stuck inside the brickwork. So when we got the extension done, I made them go round with extra cement, extra on the extra, so there was literally no little crevice they could crawl into to get into the fricking brickwork!
What’s your worst habit?
Eating really grubby food when I’m really drunk even though I tell myself I’m not going to do it. So eating kebabs and loads of cheesy chips with garlic mayonnaise, when I’m really hammered.
How many pairs of shoes do you own?
Too many, too many. I’ve given loads of them away. I would say definitely over 100. When I moved house I had to get one of those beds that you pull it up and it’s on like hinges and I store them under the bed now.
Which day of your life would you most like to relive?
That’s a big question because obviously the obvious answer is having your kids but if I had three of them. Singing at Murrayfield [stadium, Edinburgh] for the rugby [the RBS Six Nations Championship match between Scotland and Ireland in February 2003].
I sang Ireland’s Call, I sang the rugby anthem for Ireland in front of Princess Anne. But the record company didn’t give me a backing track in the right key, so I’d love to relive that to sing it in a key that’s higher up for me.
But it was incredible, 60,000 Ireland fans singing it back. And that was the first time that Ireland had beaten Scotland in ages. And I remember being in a pub afterwards with all the Ireland rugby players, they were massive. And they were like, come with us to Australia and be our mascot as you’ve obviously been good luck. I think that’s a bit special.
What’s your favorite hidden gem in the district?
I would say all the walks like the Alban Way, some of the walks we’ve got are just amazing. Also the [Sopwell] ruins, my kids love hanging about there. St Albans is the kind of town where you’re proud to bring your friends to. You just go down to the ruins, do a nice walk with them, go for a nice pint somewhere and if the Clock Tower’s open go up there.
