Edinburgh pop sensation Bow Anderson recalls freak accident that set her on road to stardom

The 24-year-old, who has just released her third single, Island, and now boasts a global record deal with EMI, is in good form when she recalls how it was a freak accident as a teenager that set her on the path to pop stardom.

A pupil at Parsons Green Primary and Portobello High School, Bow admits she was never particularly academic as a child, instead putting all her energy into dancing and gymnastics.

“I enjoyed the social side of school,” she says, “I chatted with everyone and anyone but I struggled at school because I’m dyslexic and didn’t find out until I was 15. That could be frustrating but not necessarily a bad thing,” she continues. "A lot of creative people are dyslexic. There was a sense of relief when it was diagnosed because although I got learning support a couple of times a year, I think teachers just thought I was lazy or not making the effort when, actually, I was really struggling.”

As a result, she threw herself into the physical side of life. “I guess that’s why, from a kid, I did swimming and sports and summer school activities.”

Bow started dance classes at the age of four, “Me and my cousin would put on little dance performances for the family, then get a hat and go round at the end and ask for money which we split between us,” she laughs.

At secondary, her focus began to drift from dance to gymnastics after she was spotted by a Team GB coach.

“It started off as a hobby, then I did a couple of gymnastic competitions at Meadowbank Stadium. This coach came along and asked if I wanted to join the club and then, as time went on, it became more and more serious. I was training more, I was competing more, and then I joined the squad. Just before the injury, I was heading towards a place on the Team GB.”

Entering the world of competitive trampolining, the freak accident at the age of just 13 put a halt to Bow’s dreams of competing at the National Championships. “I didn’t even fall off the trampoline,” she says, explaining, “I have hyper-extension in my legs, basically they are more straight than the average leg, and I was doing a pretty basic move one day when my leg dislocated and then popped back into place. But it popped back in with such force that it broke below my knee and, because it was a clean break, it severed my artery.

“When the ambulance came, they thought I’d just broke my leg but by then I couldn’t feel my toes. From the outside you wouldn’t know but I was bleeding internally and my leg just started swelling up. By the time I got to hospital, I knew something was wrong but they kept saying everything would be okay. Then they asked my dad to sign a form agreeing that if in the following 48 hours the injury didn’t react the way they hoped, they could amputate my leg. I wasn’t told, thank god.”