Kirsty Bertarelli: Is Britain's richest woman set to become the next queen of pop?

Thousands of mums will share Kirsty Bertarelli's pain right now. Just back from the family summer holiday in America she's struggling with three jet-lagged children who are "waking at all hours of the night".

But that's where the similarities end. Kirsty, 43, is often referred to as Britain's richest woman thanks to the estimated £9.75billion fortune that she and her Italian biotech magnate husband Ernesto are sitting on.

You could almost forgive the girl from Staffordshire for putting her feet up at one of the family's two luxury homes in Switzerland or aboard their £100million yacht but Kirsty will have none of it. A talented singer and songwriter she's just released her latest album Indigo Shores. Before you roll your eyes and assume this is just a rich, bored housewife who's bought herself a record deal, read on.

Remember the number one smash hit Black Coffee by girl band All Saints in 2000? It was Kirsty who wrote the lyrics.

"I'd written many songs at the time and was set to record an album with Warner Bros when I met the music producer William Orbit," Kirsty tells me on the phone from their chalet complex in Gstaad, which comes complete with helicopter landing pad and a lake.

"He listened to Black Coffee - which I'd called I Wouldn't Want To Be Anywhere Else - and said he wanted to give it to All Saints.

"Although I never got to meet the girls it was amazing to hear them singing it on the radio and see them take it to number one."

Kirsty's debut album Elusive was released in 2010 and went straight to the top 20 in Switzerland. The following year her eco-themed song Green was chosen by the World Wildlife Fund as its 50th anniversary anthem, and she then collaborated with DJ Armin van Buuren when he remixed her song Twilight. That and two other dance tracks Free Of War and Hands High each made number two on the Music Week Club Chart.

Indigo Shores has a country-pop vibe and features Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason. It was co-written with Don Mescall, an Irish singer songwriter who has also written for Boyzone and the Backstreet Boys.

This is a woman with genuine talent as well as a bulging bank balance.

Born Kirsty Roper she had a privileged upbringing of her own in Stoke. Her father and his two brothers owned Churchill China which Kirsty describes as "a big gun of a ceramics factory" and she and her brother and sister went to boarding school.

"We were privileged but my parents instilled a real work ethic in us, making us work in the factory in the school holidays," says Kirsty. With fine features and hair tumbling in waves down her back she reminds me of Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen . "We moved from a little bungalow into a big country house with a tennis court but it was a real home. There was always a hive of activity in the kitchen and lots of laughter. I love going back there with Ernesto and the children once a year. They all feel very much at home and my mum still makes the best shepherd's pie."

Amid the long list of thank-you messages on the sleeve of Kirsty's new album is one which credits her mum for her musicality. "Mum opened my eyes to the beauty of music," she explains. "She doesn't write music or perform professionally but she has a lovely voice. Our house was always filled with music and the sound of mum singing along to the likes of Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald.

"One of my earliest memories is of mum taking me to watch a musical at the theatre and when I saw children singing and dancing on stage I told her I'd love to do that. I enrolled at the local amateur operatic club but I was too shy to go on my own so mum came with me every week."

After leaving school at 16 Kirsty joined a modelling agency in Manchester in the hope it might help her to establish a music career.

Within months she was crowned Miss Manchester, then Miss UK when she was 17 and came third in Miss World in 1988.

She moved to London in the same year where she partied with the upper echelons of society and honed her skills as a singer and songwriter. Her parents bought her a flat in Chelsea and she dated multi-millionaire conservationist Damian Aspinall.

As the saying goes, money often attracts money.

Kirsty has a reputation for avoiding conversations about wealth but I'm curious to know when she first discovered the extent of Ernesto's fortune after falling in love with him at a dinner party while on holiday in Sardinia in 1997.

"Ernesto is so down to earth. He's interested in outdoor pursuits and it was his adventurous nature that really brought us together. But of course he's very wealthy and I remember being incredibly nervous about meeting his mum and dad for the first time.

I worried that their house in Switzerland would be enormous and that I'd be intimidated but I couldn't have been more wrong.

"They lived in a beautiful but humble thatched cottage and his mum cooked sausages with lentils for dinner. They made me feel so welcome.

"We got married in Switzerland in 2000 and I sang Black Coffee at the wedding because nobody knew I'd written it. It was nice to claim it as my own on my wedding day."

Kirsty and Ernesto are utterly devoted to their three children Chiara, 13, Falco, 10, and Alceo, eight, although she admits that one of their greatest challenges is to keep them grounded.

So as well as luxury holidays such as the recent trip to Alaska and others to Indonesia they've also been known to take off in a campervan and Kirsty refuses to employ a nanny.

"My kids are very loving and we want them to understand nothing comes easy in life," Kirsty continues.

"We teach them that if you want something you have to get up and go for it, that it's important to take pride in yourself, be thankful for everything that you have and eager to succeed.

"We also expose the children to our charity work with the YMCA in Staffordshire, a literary festival in Stoke and also in the fields of neuroscience and marine conservation.

It's not easy being a parent. All you can do is give your children as much time, love, advice and care as you can. Spending time as a family is so important and we love outdoorsy things such as bike rides and skiing."

The 12 tracks on Indigo Shores are inspired by special moments in Kirsty's life, from the moment Ernesto proposed to her in Mexico to treasured holidays. Inspiration for her lyrics, it seems, can strike at any time.

"I tend to sing my words into my iPad to record them or if I'm inspired on the school run or in the supermarket I'll jot down the lyrics instead. I wrote three songs while we were on holiday this summer.

"I want my children to see that you should always follow your dreams. They like my music and also the usual stuff such as Beyoncé and a little bit of One Direction. Normally if I like a song they don't like it any more. If mummy likes it, it's not cool."

Is it important to her to prove her own talents despite her husband's vast wealth? "I don't think I'm doing it for that reason. I honestly just hope people will give me a chance and listen to my music.

"If you can touch people with a song and they enjoy it - that's what I want to achieve.

"Music is my dream, something I can't stop doing."

Speaking of dreams, most of us will have fantasised at some point about winning huge pots of cash but are riches all they're cracked up to be? "I'd be lying if I said money didn't help because we're very fortunate that we don't have any financial worries," she admits, as down to earth as she has been throughout our interview.

"But I'm no different to any other mum in that I worry all the time about my children - are they safe, are they healthy, are they happy? "But I have nothing to complain about and it's important for me always to remember that and never take anything for granted. I'm very, very lucky."

• Kirsty's new single There She Goes and album Indigo Shores are out now.