Brian Connolly was the flamboyant lead singer of Sweet, the glam-rock group that sold oyer 50 million records in the 1970s with hits like 'Blockbuster' and 'Ballroom Blitz'. After enjoying a typical rock-'n'-roll lifestyle of excess, Brian was in later years plagued by many health problems, which eventually led to his death at the age of 53 on February 9, 1997. Nicola, 23, is the eldest of Brian's three children.

She and her 20 year old sister Michelle are from Brian's first marriage, to Marilyn, which lasted from 1972 to 1986. Brian was married for a second time, to Denise, in 1990 and, by the time their divorce came through in 1994, he was already living with Jean the mother of his son BJ (Brian James), now aged two-and-a-half from whom he parted company in March 1996. Nicola is very close to B.J, who often spends weekends with her. The little boy is the spitting image of Brian, while Nicola also bears a strong physical resemblance. And the word within the music industry already is that she sings even better than he did. "I am very, very proud of my father, but I am not trying to be like him. I am my own person," says Nicola. "Yes, his success has influenced and inspired me, but that doesn't mean to say I'll be stomping around a stage in spray-on leather jump-suits singing Ballroom Blitz. I'm more of a modern-sounding singer and I'll be performing my own songs, wearing my own kind of clothes and doing my own kind of thing."

Nicola is currently considering different offers of management and record labels, but insists she's not using her father's name to progress in the pop world. "Although I'm also proud to have my father's surname, I don't usually go around telling people I'm Brian Connolly's daughter. I want to know that I've got on through my own talents and not through my Dad's reflected glory."

Nicola is currently helping to write a biography of her father, and is keen to use this opportunity to correct wrongly reported facts about his life. "Contrary to popular belief, my Dad was not a cousin of the actor Mark McManus (of Taggart fame), nor did he think he was," she maintains. "Dad grew up in a foster family he thought were his real family until he was 18. In that family there was a Mark McManus, and among the cousins of that family was the actor Mark McManus. But it was the press who got it mixed up, not my Dad."

Nicola does concede, however, that her father's confusion over his family and background was probably the reason he desired success and then indulged in the excesses which went with it. "Dad was never very demonstrative and affectionate with us children," she recalls. "He'd tell everyone else that he thought the world of us, but he never said it to our faces, probably because he thought it would make us big-headed. He once told a friend, 'Nicola's been a diamond!'The guy said: 'Well, tell her you love her then.' And Dad just said:'She knows I do!' "Dad was very old fashioned a woman's place was more or less in the kitchen! So, as daughters, we were expected to do things, but it was always a pleasure. Even when he was horrible, he just made you laugh like he'd tap his teacup on the table to let you know it was empty!" Nicola and Michelle spent much of their childhood in Brian and Marilyn's five-bedroom house in Gerrards Cross.

Their father also owned three black cars a Rolls-Royce, a Mercedes and a Volvo and a £100,000 yacht."Unfortunately, Dad wasn't at home very much he was always touring," says Nicola. "When we did see him he made a fuss of us though' and I remember him coming home with armfuls of cuddly toys. He'd play with us a lot he'd pretend he was the Incredible Hulk and chase us up the Stairs! Occasionally, we'd see him practising with the band, yet we often wondered how come there was someone exactly like him singing on the TV when he was watching it in the living room!"

"We used to get embarrassed about the fact that Dad wore make-up and girly clothes when he was with Sweet, but we came to be really proud of him and his achievements. He could be a pain in the bum, but there was nobody else like him." At the peak of Sweet's success, between 1971 and 1976, Brian had a huge following of mainly young girls. Of his reputation as a womaniser, Nicola simply says: "That was just Dad! All the women he was ever with always accepted me and Michelle. He always made that a big issue. We've been friends with every sing1e one of them. When he was drinking we were kept out of the way quite a lot, because Mum didn't want us getting upset. We knew he did it though, even though we didn't quite understand it." By 1981, two years after Sweet split up, Brian's health had deteriorated so badly that he had 12 heart attacks in just six weeks."Dad was ordered to give up drinking immediately, and he did," remembers Nicola. "But he still wanted to go on gigging and eating junk food, saying, 'I'd rather live a short life to the full than have a long boring life'. By rights, he should have been dead by then. He was told so many times that he wouldn't make it, yet he did. He lived on borrowed time for ages".

In the final stage of his 1ife,Brian was largely looked after by his devoted daughters. "That brought us closer to him," Nicola says. Michelle lived with him for a while before moving to the Kent coast to run a cafe with her boyfriend. And Nicola put her music career on hold for Brian's last year and commuted from her north London home to visit him in Denham. "In the last couple of years we were quite argumentative and would shout at each other quite a lot, but we loved each other. He toughened me up and when he died, I got really strong. It was almost like he knew he was going to have to leave me in charge, looking after Michelle and BJ and his business. I'm sure he's watching over me now, making me strong."

Although Brian's finances also suffered a setback in the latter part of his life, he worked hard at ensuring his children were well looked after. Sweet's hits continue to sell well around the world, and Ballroom Blitz alone has featured on the soundtracks for the hit films Wayne's World and Home Alone 3 "Dad's money doesn't really matter to me," says Nicola. "I'm still going to work hard and do the things he wanted me to do." Nicola helped organise the sale of Brian's house in Buckinghamshire to Crystal Palace soccer star Neil Shipperley, and she's recently bought her own flat in north London. At the moment she is single, but in the autumn she was seen out and about with Rolan Bolan, son of another 70's pop superstar, Marc Bolan.

"Rolan and I are, as they say, just good friends," says Nicola. "But I'm hoping to stay at his home in Los Angeles soon and, in the meantime, we chat on the telephone occasionally." Marc Bolan was killed in a car accident in 1977, and Nicola adds: "As you can imagine, we have a lot in common. Our Dads were friends, and Rolan is also working on his own career at the moment. Maybe we'll even do some work together!" Nicola still has some memorabilia of her father's heyday, including gold discs and stage outfits, as well as the ring he was wearing right up until his death. "Like Rolan, I miss my Dad, but I only have to put on a CD or tape to hear his voice," she says. "I find it comforting to play his music. I only wish he was able to hear mine too. I'd like to think it would have made him as proud of me as I am of him."

INTERVIEW: PETER ROBERTSON
PHOTOS: ALAN STRUTT
CO-ORDINATION: MARQUESA DE VARELA INTERNATIONAL LTD