Ellie Goulding

I met Prince William at a musical festival and he let me know he was a fan of my music. But the invitation to sing at his wedding reception came completely out of the blue. The fact that Kate and William knew the words to my songs was very touching.

I started getting these attacks in 2009, just as my music career was taking off. I’d be doing photo-shoots and started to feel like I was having heart attacks. Increasingly I found it difficult to step outside my flat. Things started to get better after I saw a therapist, who told me I needed to make peace with my panic attacks.

I start really missing London when I go away. I have a little flat, but very central. I live above a pub and you’d think it’d be a nightmare, but I like hearing the music and it’s quite comforting.

I’m obsessed with the countryside: woods, forests, fields, lakes, mountains. I’m really into folk music and folklore. But more so I’m into electronic music. I’m into bands that have both aspects, like Boards of Canada is a perfect example. You could listen to that type of music running through a woods. It’s kind of what I wanted to achieve.

I don’t really have a style icon but I really admire the way people dress like Gaga, Rihanna and Gwen Stefani. It’s good to be inspired by singers who write music and dress incredibly – rather than models and people in the fashion industry who dress immaculately anyway because it’s their style.

I maintain that when I finally retire from my career in music, I will go and live back in Wales – when I am an old person, if I live to be an old person. The water I miss, and the air, there’s something different about it. And I miss the simple life.

I’ve always said that Adele has turned so many people on to British singers – whether female singers or just like music from this country in general.

I could always sing, from a really young age, but my voice was really weird. I used to make my mum turn up the radio every day in our house. She was well into music so I got that from her.