I love pop music and a new book, The Best Of Smash Hits, got me reminiscing about my favourite singers and bands of the 80s.

Regular readers of this column might have heard me talk before about how, as a teenager, I adored tracking pop stars down and interviewing them on my little tape recorder.

I think they were so surprised by a kid barging through and demanding to talk to them, it just threw them and there was nothing else to do but answer my questions!

Smash Hits was a brilliant magazine, they had some amazing covers with the likes of Wham! and Culture Club. It's so interesting, too, how those outlandish 80s fashions and hairstyles have all come back now.

Just take a look around Topshop - it's all leggings and baggy, spotty tops and plastic jewellery for the girls, and rips, zips and pastel colours for the boys.

Hair bleach is practically flying off the shelves at Boots - though I have to saw, I've no desire to get dressed up like that again. I like my designer suits and polished shoes too much.

Anyway, I'm straying from the point. I started talking about how much I love pop music. My all-time favourites are The Lighthouse Family - but the pop singer I've liked best this year has to be Leeds' own Corinne Bailey Rae.

Despite the fact I meet celebrities all the time - or maybe because of it - I'm still very much a fan, I've never grown out of that. Not that I get starstruck, there's nothing I like better than striding up to pop stars and actors and introducing myself.

Corinne's album is amazing - it was my favourite record of this summer, despite the fact I spend all my time in bars and clubs where they play banging house music.

That song, Put Your Records On, has been giving me goose bumps since I first heard it on the radio, all those weeks and months ago.

The album is so calming, she sings so sweetly. She's lovely-looking and she's won so many awards. Corinne picked up two awards at the MOBOs at the Royal Albert Hall last month, Best Newcomer and Best UK Female. No wonder she looks so smiley all the time!

But do you know what the best thing about her is? The fact that she's got all the time in the world for her fans.

I saw her signing her CDs at the Virgin Megastore in Leeds last month and she was so, so sweet. Kids were coming up to her and saying: "You went to the same school as I go to!"

Instead of just moving them along as quickly as she could, I saw Corinne chatting to them about their favourite teachers, and who her favourite teachers had been. No young fan will forget that, as long as they live.

Corinne's an inspiration - that's real star quality. You get so many celebrities, with lesser profile's than hers, acting bad-tempered, causing a fuss, wanting everything their way. They forget they're just ordinary people and the way they treat others makes me cringe.

Something tells me that, however big a star she becomes, this Yorkshire lass will never forget her manners and good nature. Good on her!