'My wonderful life 15 years on from Britain's Got Talent'

Britain's Got Talent (BGT) finalist Jean Martyn will never forget the call from her son to say her mother had died - just moments before she was due on stage at the O2.

It was June 2011 and the retired music teacher was on tour with the other series five finalists, performing uplifting tunes on her piano to crowds across the UK.

"It hit me like a brick," she said. But her mother's voice came to her, saying, "I paid two and sixpence for your piano lessons, you get on there and you entertain."

"I played like I'd never played before, because I was on another plateau," she said.

Afterwards, host Stephen Mulhern guided her to the front of the stage and encouraged her to tell the audience what had happened.

"The whole of the O2, you could have heard a pin drop," she remembers.

"And suddenly everybody stood up, so I had a standing ovation in the O2 and then I cried."

The musician, who lived in Brewood in Staffordshire, near Wolverhampton, at the time, said her late husband had entered her into the contest without her knowledge.

"There were 60,000 entrants and they chose me to go and audition, which was hilarious," she said.

She turned up to the NEC with a portable piano under her arm, wrapped in a duvet.

"A woman who was sitting there, she said, 'have you brought a coffin with you? Or a body?'"

She played a boogie woogie version of a carol to a panel of producers, who invited her back for the next round, a filmed audition in Manchester.

Arriving at midday, nine hours later she was one of the last contestants to play in front of Michael McIntyre, Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell.

"I had a terrific audition there, and then the third one was the reveal," she recalled.

Described by Holden as "Victoria Wood on acid", Martyn was one of 10 contestants to reach the final.

The TV show catapulted her to newfound fame, the subsequent tour taking her to major arenas across the UK.

She remembers being on the road with the other contestants as "a laugh a minute".

"I was 59 when I did BGT and my 60th birthday, we had a night off on tour, and they took me and the nine other finalists to the Dominion in London to watch We Will Rock You."

When she played the NIA in Birmingham, "half my pupils from the school I taught at in Huntington... were standing outside," she said.

She added she was still in regular contact with Mulhern, and would always be grateful to Cowell for his kindness after her mum's death.

She had retired from teaching because she wanted to be out there playing concerts. Already a seasoned pianist and organist, the venues and crowds she was playing in front of suddenly became much bigger.

"I went into theatres, I did outside broadcasts under a big arena. I went with Chris Evans to CarFest," she said.

She has since performed in the United States, Europe, the United Arab Emirates and India, and along the way met countless celebrities, played for royalty, and even made an appearance on Holland's Got Talent.

Now living in Stoke-on-Trent with her Dutch husband Hans, who she married in 2020, she also regularly streams live performances to global audiences via social media.

She will be playing a concert at St John's Church in Walsall Wood on 26 June, and fondly remembered her father's words, that she should "go out there and share that talent".

"I'm having a terrific life with playing and enjoying travelling and concerts here there and everywhere," she said.

"It's wonderful."

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