Suggs

Graham McPherson (born 13 January 1961), known by his stage name Suggs, is a British singer-songwriter, musician, radio personality and actor.

He came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead singer of the ska band Madness, which released fifteen singles that entered the top 10 charts in the United Kingdom during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, including "My Girl", "Baggy Trousers", "Embarrassment", "It Must Be Love", "House of Fun", "Driving in My Car", "Our House", "Wings of a Dove" and "Lovestruck". Suggs began his solo career in 1995, while still a member of Madness. Since then, he has released two studio albums and two compilation albums. His solo hits include "I'm Only Sleeping", "Camden Town", "Cecilia" and "Blue Day".

Suggs has also been an actor, with roles in films, theatre and television. He is married and is the father of two children.

Graham McPherson was born on 13 January 1961 in Hastings to a Scottish father, William Rutherford McPherson (1935–1975) and Welsh mother, jazz singer Edith Gower. The couple had married in the Paddington area of London in 1960 and Suggs was raised in Hastings by his mother. His father had left by the time Suggs was three. In a 2009 interview, Suggs responded when asked about what happened to him:

I don't know, but what I've heard hasn't been good: heroin, injecting his eyeballs with paraffin, being sectioned. He must be dead now. I mean, he would have got in touch if he was alive, wouldn't he? Yeah, he must be dead, poor bugger.

Three years later in 2012, Suggs learned that his father had died in 1975.

Suggs spent three years of his childhood in his mother's hometown of Haverfordwest, Wales, and had just started at a grammar school there when his mother moved to London. He then went to the Quintin Kynaston comprehensive school at St John's Wood. On the official Madness website, he has stated:

I was born in Hastings on a stormy evening on 13 January 1961. I only lived with my mum, so we were free agents. She was a singer in the pubs and clubs. We moved to Liverpool then London. I lived with relations in Wales for a while and came back to London. Because I was an only child, I was pretty insular and stubborn. All the upheaval made me lazy academically, so by the time I got to Quintin Kynaston school in St John's Wood I didn't bother much, I stayed onto the sixth form for social security reasons, and got two O-levels and a CSE on the way. I met Mike Barson hanging around Hampstead School.