Born in Hampshire in 1974, James Blunt is a singer-songwriter. He studied at Bristol University and became an officer in the British army, serving with Nato forces during the Kosovo war in 1999. He left the military in 2002 and released his debut album, Back To Bedlam, in 2004. The record, featuring the global hit You’re Beautiful, sold 12m copies. His seventh album, Who We Used To Be, is released on 27 October. He is married with two children and lives in Ibiza.
I’m aged nine and in the mud at low tide in the River Alde in this photo. My parents have a tiny holiday cottage on the estuary and we would go when we were children. To get to the river, you had to slide through the mud. There was no heating or hot water at the cottage, so when we got back we would have to have a cold bath outside.
