'I wouldn't wish my journey on my worst enemy'

Not even the wildest of dreams would allow most people to imagine the wonder of singing on a Glastonbury stage with their favourite childhood band in front of hundreds of thousands of people. And that's exactly how Glynneath-born singer Catherine Anne Davies felt, until it became her reality.

The 38-year-old has been captivated by legendary rock band Manic Street Preachers since her pre-teen years, whose music she said helped her connect with her Welsh roots when she moved away. Starting her music career later than most successful artists during her time studying for a PhD, Catherine said she still has a lot of "reverence" for the band and now considers its members as friends.

Speaking to WalesOnline about how her music career began, she said it has everything to do with her Welsh heritage and love for the Manics. Catherine, known as artist The Anchoress, said: "My family is from Wales and we left when I was eight weeks old to go to Australia and spent a couple of years out there before we came back to the UK. My dad was a paramedic, so wherever he was stationed, the family would be for a short while. Eventually we settled in Buckinghamshire until I went to University in London.

"That’s probably why the Manics have meant so much to me, because you reach your pre-teens and you are looking for connection, to figure out who you are and where you come from. While I spent a lot of time in Wales because my family are from there, I didn’t really know who I was. With the Manics being from just down the road, it was a way in to that and helped me get a sense of my Welsh identity. Wales means an awful lot to me, not everyone defines themselves by their bloodline, but I think because I didn’t grow up with my family around me it has become much more important to me."

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Catherine, who said she has been learning the Welsh language over the last few years and hopes to one day move back to her motherland, said her family's connection to music had a profound influence on her growing up. "When you think about Welsh identity and culture, a lot of it is about music and poetry - it certainly was in my family. My granddad and grandma used to recite poetry to me from books and they were always singing. My granddad and godfather both sang in male voice choirs and my dad was a massive singer too.

"Growing up music was always played in the house - we didn't really watch much TV, but we would always have music on, so I had a massive musical education from my parents' vinyl collection. From really early on - from two or three years old - one of my favourite things to do was to put on a sad album and cry. I loved the way that music moves you, and the feelings it gave you that I wasn’t able to access for various reasons. We had a lot of grief in my family and music was a way for me to express the sadness that my family was experiencing."

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Although Catherine always had a deep and meaningful love for music and dreamed of making her own music one day, she said her career path was different to what might be assumed. It all started with her 2016 debut album Confessions of a Romance Novelist, which she quietly worked on while studying for her English Literature PhD at University College London.

She said: "I was quite late to the party while making music. I didn’t learn to play piano until I was in university, when I taught myself. I played guitar a little bit at school, but there weren’t many female role models so it wasn’t necessarily something I thought I could do. While I was in university I started recording my own demos. It was always working in the studio that was more interesting to me. I always wanted to work on records.

"I wanted to be a music producer or engineer and I quickly realised that people assumed that if you were a woman in music you were a singer - I found that quite frustrating. I started making my first record when I started doing my PhD. I kept it to myself and didn’t really tell people what I was doing. I’m not a natural show off and I like spending time on my own, which is where the name Anchoress comes from."

Catherine, who was in her early 30s at the time, said she was elated when the album received brilliant press - something she had "no expectations" for at all. Then, to her absolute joy, she got a call asking her to support the Manics.

She said: "When my first album came out I was asked to support the Manics at the Eden Project in Cornwall. About two weeks before the show I got a phone call from the tour manager asking if I would like to duet with them on the song Little Baby Nothing - I think I did a little scream at that point. I wouldn’t even have called it a childhood dream because it’s not something I ever thought could have happened. It wasn’t even something in my wildest dreams that I could have imagined ever happening."

Since then, Catherine said she had worked on countless exciting projects with the band. She said: "They asked me to sing on their album Resistance is Futile and we did the duet on Dylan & Caitlin. Then James Dean Bradfield returned the favour on [my album] Art of Losing. We’ve played a lot of shows together and I like to consider them as friends now. It has been very nice because often when you meet your idols they don’t turn out as amazing as you thought, but they are very lovely human beings. They are generous with their time and they are very supportive of my music which is such a huge thing."

Putting her love for the band into perspective, Catherine described how she would listen to the band every day as a teen, which helped get her through some tough times. "My love for the Manics started around the time the album This Is My Truth came out - I was about 12 at the time and just making that transition from listening to pop music as you do at that kind of age," she said. "I was just really drawn to them. They were very proudly Welsh and that was an instant connection to that side of my identity which I felt a bit distanced from, but felt curious to reconnect with. It wasn’t long before I had a Welsh flag proudly displayed in my window for everyone to see.

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"I became - in a very positive way - obsessed with the band. I devoured all the interviews they did and started to write a reading list with all the books they cited. I started going to the local library and ordering these books and reading through them. My relationship to the band wasn't just about music - they introduced me to culture."

Last year details about The Anchoress' private life hit the headlines after it was heard at Guildford Magistrates court that she was a victim of stalking by former Mansun singer Paul Draper. Draper strongly denied the claims against him and this week told followers on his social media channels that a police investigation into him had been dropped - something which has now been confirmed by Surrey Police. WalesOnline asked Catherine how she felt about this and the whole situation, but she said she could not comment at this time.

However, processing her thoughts, feelings and identity through music is something that Catherine has continued to do throughout her life and career. Her last album The Art of Losing - which was released in 2021 - helped her to navigate and express some of the darkest moments of her life. She explained how since 2013 she had dealt with losing her beloved dad Stefan to a short illness, as well as enduring six heartbreaking baby losses.

"How do you process that? How do you find the words?," she said. "I used music instead as my way to process all of those things. It was a difficult time in my life because I lost my dad and then a couple of months later I lost a baby and then went through that repeatedly over the next few years. I finally had my daughter in 2020, which was my seventh pregnancy. It was a big long journey to get there and It was horrific - I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy."

She praised Myleene Klass for campaigning for making history and changing pregnancy loss laws this year. The singer called to ensure women will not have to suffer up to three miscarriages before receiving help – an issue with which she is personally experienced. As a result, in July the UK government announced a package of new measures to 'boost the health and wellbeing of women and girls', including a pilot scheme that will see medical intervention for women after every miscarriage.

Catherine said: "It is great that they are changing this because it’s such a horrible thing to have to go through. There’s this rule of don’t tell anyone about your pregnancy until after your 12 week scan as if it doesn’t matter before that point. It doesn’t take into account the enormous emotional and physical attachment that has already taken place before that point.

"Very often there is a medical reason as to why it happens and can happen repeatedly, so it’s very important that we don’t just expect women to go through a physically gruelling and potentially very dangerous thing. I had to have a lot of surgeries and got a womb infection after one of my miscarriages. It’s really quite physically traumatic.

"It’s emotionally like getting hit by a truck because of the grief. I had never before in my life experienced depression before and it got to the point where I didn’t want to be here any more, which is a profound change for someone who really enjoys life. Making that album was a way back to myself."

Catherine said the response to that album "makes her job worth it" as fans shared their experiences of grief and thanked her for helping them through it. She said: "I find myself crying about the touching stories that people share with me because the record has really meant so much to them."

Although she has experienced grief so strong it will never leave her, Catherine said music has continued to provide her with an outlet to continue forward. She started working on her upcoming album Versions while she was isolating in 2020, which this year has led to one of the most amazing experiences of her career: performing at Glastonbury alongside the Manics.

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She said: "In Versions, I’ve been reimagining some of my favourite alternative songs, and one of them is the Manics: This Is Yesterday. I put that out as a single a couple of months ago and the band messaged me saying how much they loved it. James asked me what I’m doing [in June] and asked if I’d like to do Glastonbury with them and sing This Is Yesterday.

"It was an honour and it was a really special moment, it was emotional. The Manics album The Holy Bible really meant a lot to me - I put it on every morning as a teenager before I went to school and it got me through some really tough times. To then get to sing it at Glastonbury in front of hundreds of thousands of people and for it to be broadcast to so many people on TV, it was a very emotional moment. I will genuinely remember it forever."

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But this wasn't Catherine's first Glastonbury stint. In June 2013 just two days after her dad passed away, she made the very difficult decision to perform alongside artist Ed Harcourt. She said she did it because she knows her dad would have wanted her to - but that didn't make it any easier.

"I was at a loss after my dad died," she said. "I cancelled a lot of shows around that time, but my mum said dad would want me to do that. When he was on his hospital ward, he would be blasting out my music and would tell anyone who would listen that 'this is my daughter’s music'. My only regret is that he didn't get to see how much success I’ve had. It’s really difficult and he would have been shouting it loud and proud to everyone."