A week in the life of Andrew Johnston

Last updated at 11:48, Monday, 15 December 2008

Meeting celebrities... TV and radio interviews... star concert appearances... features in Hello magazine and The Sunday Times... they are all part of choir singer Andrew Johnston’s new life. Mark Green caught up with him during his packed non-stop schedule (AJ’s, that is)

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I managed to chat with Andrew Johnston during a brief stop on his drive down the M1, somewhere near Leicester.

He’s a busy boy these days with a schedule that looks only only slightly less hectic than Barack Obama’s.

To contact him, I had to go through his press agency and then his tour manager. But Andrew himself is just, well, Andrew.

There’s no big-headedness, no off-handedness, not a smidge of the big ‘I am’ .

He is confident, he giggles a lot, answers everything straight and is refreshingly chuffed at what is happening to him and genuinely loving every minute of it – even a chat during a quick stop at a motorway service station.

The 14-year-old Carlisle choirboy rocketed to stardom when he sang his way to the final of ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent show earlier this year.

Since then, his diary has been packed with meetings, interviews, TV and radio chats and concert appearances as he has clocked up thousands of miles, criss-crossing the country.

On rare occasions, he leaves home in Carlisle at 7am and doesn’t return until midnight.

Not long ago, he was switching on Carlisle’s Christmas lights, last Wednesday he was at the Woman's Own Children of Courage Awards at Westminster Abbey along with Princes William and Harry, Girls Aloud and a whole crowd of other A-listers.

Andrew is hoping for a second invitation to the Oprah Winfrey Show – he couldn’t complete the paperwork to appear earlier this year.

He and mum Morag Brannock are in the latest edition of Hello magazine, the Bible of celebs, sharing the issue with Mariah Carey, Rachel Stevens, Cheryl Cole – oh, and The Queen.

It’s a magazine that uses an orchestra when celebs want to blow their own trumpet.

But for once, they seem to have got it just about right when they say: “He’s the boy who won the hearts of the nation on Britain’s Got Talent...

Andrew doesn’t even mention that – nor the fact that he’s also been interviewed by The Times, and he’s certainly not complaining about his schedule which can start at 7am and finish about midnight.

“I’m all right, I’m not tired,” he protests when I use a stronger word to suggest he might be a bit wearied of it all.

“I love the experience of it all, there are no bad bits and we have a laugh.”

“I just carry on with what I do. It is massive fun.”

Andrew travels just about everywhere with his mum who has given up her job with the Office for National Statistics to be with Britain’s latest star.

Since his soaring voice made judge Amanda Holden blub (and millions of others watching Britain’s Got Talent at home) and sent chief judge Simon Cowell diving for his cheque book, the Stanwix lad has covered more miles than an Eddie Stobart truck.

Asked to run through some of his diary over the past week or so he chirps: “I went to the Albert Hall on Sunday and sang for the Salvation Army Christmas Concert, on Monday I was in Reading for an interview with Henry Kelly, that night I went to a tribute concert in Leicester Square for Pavarotti, there were lots of famous people there and his family.

“On Tuesday I had media training and vocal training and on Wednesday I went home for the day and did nothing, just lazed around.”

Today he is the star singer at Bradford Cathedral and on Friday he’ll be singing on GMTV.

As well as radio and TV studios, he is touring a lot of schools as part of the Sing Up campaign to get more youngsters to join school choirs.

I ask if any of them are worried about being bullied, as Andrew was for his singing. “I get a good reception and they ask me lots of questions.

“You can get the mickey taken, but they don’t ask about that, they ask questions about how it is on stage.”

His biggest highlight of the past six months was recording his album One Voice on Simon Cowell’s label.

“That was brilliant, that was really good – just to be in a recording studio and meet the different people, I had a really good time.

“I have met quite a lot of celebrities, they are just the same as anyone and I have not been star-struck by anyone really.”

While there’s no longer any time for school for the ex-Trinity pupil, he does manage 16 hours a week with a personal tutor who often travels with him.

His mum and tour manager Sue Bellarby make sure he fits the tutor in.

Sue has seen major changes in her young ward in just a few months.

“He has grown up and matured. He has grown in stature for a start, he’s six inches taller.

“He was never shy, but he was wary of a situation, now he is a lot more confident, he understands the business and he knows what people want.

“He likes a laugh and has an incredible sense of humour, very dry and quick-witted.

“He is a young boy becoming a young man.”

Just then, the phone went dead. When I redialled, he was on the motorbike in the games arcade of the service station.

The young man is still only 14, after all.

Vrrrrreeeeooowww.

So Andrew, what are the plans for the New Year? more interviews? a new album?

Vrrrrrrrroooooom.

“Nothing really, if I was offered a new album, I would love to do it, but I will have to wait and see what Simon thinks.”