Nicky Stevens

Nicky Stevens (born Helen Maria Thomas in Carmarthen, Wales, 3 December 1949) is a Welsh singer, best known as a member of the pop group Brotherhood of Man. To date she is the only Welsh person to have won the Eurovision Song Contest.

Early career

Nicky Stevens began singing at an early age. At the age of four she was singing in a chapel in Carmarthen, and following lessons eventually joined the Hywel Girls Choir. She also studied classical music as a singer and pianist. At the age of 16 she held a residency in Swansea's Townsman nightclub. She later toured the Continent as a singer, performing in night clubs. Following this she went on to tour South Africa as well as clubs around the UK. She also appeared on stage as a support act for the likes of Neil Sedaka, Norman Wisdom and Little and Large in the early 1970s.

Brotherhood of Man In 1972, while working as a session singer and trying to secure a record deal as a solo artist, Stevens came to the attention of Tony Hiller, who was looking to recruit new members for his group Brotherhood of Man. For the next three years, the group regularly hit the chart and scored two more No.1 singles in the UK, "Angelo" and "Figaro".

In addition to singing, Stevens is a pianist, and performed the piano accompaniment to an otherwise a cappella recording of "Send in the Clowns" in 1978, which was featured on the band's Twenty Greatest album.

In 1984, while the group was on a two-year break, Stevens joined The Vernons Girls and performed with them at live shows. In November 2013, Stevens was the subject of a documentary Time of Your Life on ITV Wales talking about her career and early life growing up in a musical environment in Carmarthen. The documentary celebrated the fact that she is the only Welsh person to have won the Eurovision Song Contest.

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Stevens helped out at a nursing home in Ferndown, where she offered music therapy, ran arts & crafts sessions and spent one-to-one time with individual residents. Upon her departure, residents and staff gathered to perform their own version of "Save Your Kisses for Me", with amended lyrics to thank her for her time there.

Personal life Nicky Stevens was the second child of Ossie and Blodwen Thomas. Her father had been a musician and was killed in a road accident in 1974. They divorced at the end of the 1980s. In May 1993, she got married again to an American man, fourteen years her junior called Brett. Within a year however, they had separated and then divorced.