FAYE Bailey still remembers the essay she wrote about Stevie Wonder because it got her a distinction, something she’d only ever dreamed of achieving.

For a severely dyslexic child with memory retention problems, whose place was secure in the “dumb class”, it was nothing short of miraculous.

But one wonders what Faye’s old teachers would make of her now that’s she’s an entrepreneur with an unusual musical business which encourages people to sing together — not in a formal choir but in an upmarket karaoke sort of way.

Faye, 32, from Helmshore, left Longridge High School with one GCSE — a C grade in music.

She was devastated because she’d studied hard and achieved nothing to prove all the hard work she’d put in. Her school days were filled with anger and frustration.

She was picked on by the other kids for being in the bottom class and suffered a crippling lack of self-esteem. Bizarrely, her severe dyslexia was only diagnosed at the age of 17 when she went to college.

“So many people think that being academic is the bee’s knees. There was a lot of pressure on me to achieve and I wanted so much to be good at school, but I would take much longer to do everything than my friends.

"If I was asked to watch something and write about it I couldn’t retain the information in my mind for long enough to write down my thoughts and spelling was a nightmare.

“When I finally found out that I was dyslexic I cried my heart out because it explained why for all those years people had been telling me I was bright, but I just couldn’t do what the other kids did in lessons. The only form of relief was my music. That was the one thing I felt I was good at.

"I wrote about Stevie Wonder because I loved his music. He had overcome a serious disability to achieve amazing things and that inspired me, so much that it came through in my writing.

"In fact, I’d say to anyone who is struggling educationally you just need to find the one thing that you’re passionate about and work on it.”

With support from tutors at Accrington and Rossendale college and her mum, a trained counsellor, Faye learned how to cope with her problems and started to live as a confident young woman.

“You get good at what you do most. So I started to read and read to help with my dyslexia and then I developed strategies for remembering how to spell certain words.”

With a handful of music qualifications and a new-found confidence, Faye went to Camp America near New York for three months and found herself teaching music and choreography to kids out there, some of whom were disabled.

She worked as a carer but wasn’t happy. However, she always sang — in fact she learned French and Latin to sing classically.

“I’ve always found foreign languages easier than English because they’re phonetic. Italian is easy for me.”

Finally, in 2010, frustrated by her lack of work in the industry she loved, she plucked up the courage to walk into a private music and dance school in Bolton and ask if they needed a vocal coach. To her utter surprise and joy, they did.

But it was while doing some one-to-one vocal coaching at Mellor Village Hall that she was approached by a committee member who asked her to come up with an original and fun idea around group singing — but not in the formal style of a choir.

“I racked my brains and came up with Singing For Fun. There was nothing like it on the internet. So I went into the group with my laptop and backing tracks and sang Another Suitcase in Another Hall, followed by a Monkees track.

“They absolutely loved it. I provided the lyrics and they sang along with me and I taught them about vocal dynamics, how to count time and the basics of conducting. They enjoyed it and really felt that they had learned something about how to sing properly while having a bit of a laugh.

"Word spread and it took off and I now have groups in Ribchester, Edgworth and Ramsbottom. It seems like the whole of East Lancs is getting into Singing For Fun. If it continues like this I hope to do it full time.

“Due to the success of the groups, I identified a gap in the market for ‘singing for fun’ at hen parties and other special occasions. My aim for these lessons is to take away the stigma of ‘traditional’ choirs and make people feel confident when they sing.

"I try to encourage people to arrange dinner parties and other activities so singles or people who don't have much of a social life can feel connected in a community.

“I needed something to inspire me to achieve. Music is my passion. I say to my pupils you need to fall in love with your voice, then your confidence will grow. The best thing a teacher can give a student is confidence to believe in themselves. A lot of teachers want to mould you when they should be teaching children to be individual.”