Kimberley Walsh has opened up about her son’s love of all things creative
(Picture: PA)Kimberley Walsh says she can already see her eldest son Bobby, seven, following in her footsteps into the arts after displaying a natural flare.
The former Girls Aloud singer-turned-West End star, 40, told the Standard: “I think it’s inevitable when you can see that it’s in them as it was for me from a very young age. I will just try to help and encourage him as much as I can to allow him to express himself.
“I don’t think he quite knows yet what he wants to do, but he’s very interested in music, performance, and role play and he’s quite naturally good at it.
Bradford-born Walsh grew up part of a creative family – her two sisters, Amy and Sally Walsh are both actresses and have starred in Emmerdale.
Now a proud mum-of-three herself, Walsh – who also shares Cole, five, and Nate, one, with husband Justin Scott – says she’s always singing and dancing around the house and encouraging her boys to join in.
That’s why she is now championing the first ever Sky Access All Arts Week, a new nationwide learning programme for Primary Schools.
Running from 6 June to 10, it pushes to encourage the idea of 65 minutes dedicated to the arts every day, broken down into 17 minutes dedicated to literature, 14 minutes to art, 12 minutes to music, 11 minutes to drama and 11 minutes to dancing.
Speaking about her involvement, she said: “The arts in particular have had the toughest few years. They were such an important part of my life growing up, whether it was singing with a hairbrush to Kylie, dancing with my sisters or performing plays in front of the family.
“I think it’s great that Sky Arts is doing so much to make sure that every child across every part of the country has the same opportunities to access the arts.”
Access to the platform and all content is free and open to all teachers. After June 2022, the website will remain live as an ongoing resource.
Elsewhere, Walsh spoke about her boys starting to realise more that she is famous.
She said: “They take it with a pinch of salt. It goes quite over their heads and they don’t seem too fazed by it, but they are starting to get it more because of the way kids are at school and I think it’s more once they get to a certain age other people reference it so they’re like ‘oh!’.
Walsh also recalled one particular meeting that left her totally starstruck – The Queen.
She, along with bandmates Cheryl Tweedy, Sarah Harding and Nicola Roberts met Her Majesty in 2012 after performing at the Royal Variety performance.
She said: “I was very starstruck meeting the Queen. It was like the same feeling that I used to feel towards my grandma, it’s so weird, but like the way she carried herself, my grandma always looked pristine and carried herself like that. [The Queen] was just a very warm, lovely woman.”
The former Strictly Come Dancing star was also stunned by what The Queen said to them.
“She said ‘I thought you girls were on a break?’ because it was our first engagement after having a little hiatus. We just laughed our heads off, we couldn’t believe that she had any idea what was going on or who we were.”
