Farmer Spice! - Mel B Escapes To The Country

The singer tells Louise Gannon she’s finally found happiness back in the UK

- Louise Gannon

Against the glorious backdrop of the northern English countryside, fields full of sheep, a handful of hens and four beehives, Melanie Brown is sitting on the doorstep of her farmhouse, sporting her pink sequined Ugg boots.

Pink Ugg boots are not standard footwear in this neck of the woods – more gumboots, really – but then Melanie, 44, aka Mel B or Scary Spice, is not the sort of person you would generally meet on the English moors.

It’s a world away from the hysterical, Swarovskistudded recent Spice Girls tour, which took in more than $113 million and was enjoyed by 700,000 fans. It’s thousands of miles away from Los Angeles, which has been her home for the past 15 years. It’s also completely different from the working-class council estate where she grew up. But it’s all part of what’s next.

“People are surprised I’m living here because they don't know who I really am or what I’m really all about,” Mel says.

“To be honest, for a long time I didn’t know who I really was. I’ve always been known as loud, wild, big-mouth Scary Spice and that is part of me, but it’s not all of me. All I know is I’ve never felt more relaxed, more myself and more happy since I’ve been here.

“I’ve got my mum and sister half an hour away, and cousins and aunties less than 10 minutes away. My sister has just had a baby girl, so all of us go round and coo over her.

“It’s life as it should be. I spent 10 years of my life not speaking to my family, not seeing my friends and now I’m back just a few miles from where I grew up. I always felt I needed to break away and prove myself to the whole world, but now I realise the most important thing is to come home, mend bridges, be a mother, a daughter, an aunt and a sister.”