In Newcastle, where I grew up, my childhood dreams were all about escaping the poverty I came from. My teachers told me I wouldn’t get through life on looks alone, but I watched beauty pageants on television and worked at being pretty. Within a year of leaving school I had my first boob job. Mum had to sign a consent form because I was still 17, but I paid for it myself – I’d saved up the £2,000 I needed by working as a shop assistant.

I found an agent and started glamour modelling – Page 3, calendars, swimwear and lingerie. Success didn’t come overnight, but by my early 20s I was becoming well known and I headed South.

In London there was a big group of us Northern lasses and Heather Mills was one of them. We all looked out for each other. The other girls were modelling too but after a while I noticed that some of them would go out at night and come back with wads of cash. Their extra income, I learned, came from escort work. They introduced me to their madam, who had a string of wealthy clients, and the next thing I knew I was being flown to Madrid to see the billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.

He picked me up in his private jet which had a bar and big round fur bed and we went to the Canary Islands where he was throwing a lavish party. He was a lovely guy and nothing about it felt sleazy. I pity girls at the low end of the sex trade who are forced into it. This wasn’t like that. I wanted to do it – I saw it as an opportunity. The boyfriends I’d had back up North could be rough. These guys – many of them were Arabs – treated us like princesses, with kindness and respect. We would go out to dinner and parties and then they would have their chauffeurs take us to spas or shopping for fur coats, diamonds and expensive handbags. Sometimes we would be flown to stay on their yachts for days at a time. Who is going to say no to that?

At the end of an average night I would be handed up to £10,000 in an envelope – as much as my dad earned in a year. It meant I could treat my family to holidays and cars. I helped Mum buy the four-bedroomed detached house she lives in today and Dad has a two-bedroomed flat that is mine (they’re divorced). I remember buying my nanna and granddad a Suzuki van – it was lovely to see them drive around in a vehicle they had never been able to afford themselves.

None of my family knew where the money came from – although my brothers Michael and Billy later told me they had twigged that it couldn’t all be down to modelling. My parents always supported me. As far as I was concerned, what went on behind closed doors stayed there – and it probably would have done if Heather hadn’t gone on to marry Paul McCartney.

I finished the escort work in my mid-20s, after meeting Tony in a Monte Carlo nightclub. He was charming and gorgeous and we fell head over heels in love. Back in London we moved in together and I was soon pregnant with Chantelle. But our relationship quickly became volatile. We split up, came back together again, married, had our second daughter Chloe, now 22, then – three years after we met – we divorced. The marriage breakdown was horrendous. And for a while, to finance my High Court legal costs, I went back to the escort work.

In 2002, Heather married Paul and there were a lot of journalists sniffing around for stories about her past. Heather and I had lost touch long ago, but she called me to say that if neither of us said anything, nothing would come out. My girls were 11 and nine by then and I decided that I needed to tell them the truth before they heard it from someone else. I sat them down and explained that Mummy used to have boyfriends who gave her presents and that something nasty might be written about me but they could just ignore it. They said: ‘But Mummy, we have never seen you with a man’ – which they hadn’t. Whenever I had boyfriends, I never allowed them into our home.

As it turned out, it was another four years before the stories emerged – around the time that Heather and Paul split up in 2006. I spoke to the press then. It was a difficult time – the girls were bullied at school so we left London and moved North for a while.

I’m proud that I have been able to give my daughters a different start from the one that I had. When they were younger we had nannies and chauffeurs, but I made sure that they came back to Newcastle and saw the other side of life. They’ve attended good private schools and Chloe is studying media and theatre at college. Although I’m happy that Chantelle has gone into modelling, I told her that education was the priority and she had to finish her A-levels first.

I love taking them shopping because I am a lifelong spendthrift. If I want something I have to have it – that comes from my poor upbringing. I’ll pay £5,000 for a dress, £2,500 for a bag, and I’ve got around 100 pairs of shoes. Today I’m wearing a £300 pair of Gucci wellies, but my leggings and top are from Primark. I’ve got a Tag Heuer watch on my wrist, but I don’t like a lot of bling. Most of my jewellery is in a vault at Harrods.

I’ve also spent around £70,000 on cosmetic surgery – nose, eyes and lips, regular Botox and veneers on my teeth. I had liposuction to get rid of my belly after my pregnancies, and three boob jobs. I’d like another one now, to get them reduced. As far as my self-confidence goes, it has all been worth it. First impressions count – if you don’t turn heads when you walk into a room you end up being the wallflower. So when Chantelle told me last year that she wanted a breast augmentation, I supported her. Why go through life disliking an aspect of yourself when, these days, you can do something about it?

Chantelle has inherited my love of shopping, but I am trying to teach her and her sister to invest wisely. They bought a flat in Belgravia for £750,000 last year and, after renovations, it is now worth double that. Chantelle is living there, but Chloe is away at college and, for now, I am back in Newcastle. Seven years ago, I had a son, Freddie. His father and I are no longer together, but this time the separation was amicable and I am loving being a mum again. I don’t party much these days and I have got involved in charity work for the school that my eight-year-old nephew Ryan, who is autistic, attends (gibsideschool.org).

The one blight in my life is that a couple of months ago I was diagnosed with kidney cancer. It was a total shock, especially as I was given the news shortly after losing my dear friend, the actress Sally Farmiloe, to breast cancer. But doctors tell me that they have caught my disease early and it is treatable, so I shall be having surgery to remove the tumour. I have the love of my family to help me through, and although the girls are worried, they know their mum is made of tough stuff.

(dailymail.co.uk)