HAVING always shied away from writing records that catalogue her own life, renowned musician Eliza Carthy has at last sat down and penned an autobiographical album.

Neptune, which is launched this month, charts various stages of her life and has, she insists, a happy ending.

She is returning to Bridport next week to promote her album and says the concert will be like a homecoming, as she is a friend of Billy Bragg and has performed at the arts centre with him and Simon Emmerson in the band The Imagined Village.

“I have always been the sort of person who looks down at people who write about their life but that’s what I have ended up doing,” she said. “Why? Because my life is more interesting than everyone else’s!

“No, it’s not quite that. At the time of writing, my poetry was all about my life and the songs ended up like it too. It is more of a song cycle really, one that tells a story.”

One of the songs on the album, Hansel, is about parenthood.

“Not my parenthood,” she hastens to add, “but about people who spend a lot of time thinking about themselves and not the consequences of their actions or divorce on their children.

“It’s the people who want to go off and ‘find themselves’ and I wonder what that’s all about.”

Eliza, who has two small children, says that life growing up with her parents – award-winning musicians Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson – was ‘absolutely lovely’.

“I grew up on a farm with family and extended family, music and animals and the sun always shining and it was brilliant,” she said.

She remains close to her family, touring and recording with both parents – in fact her father Martin was in the car with her when the lyrics of Hansel first made themselves felt.

“Sometimes songs come to me in the night, sometimes they need working on and sometimes they are just there,” she said.

“Hansel came to me as I was driving my dad and I was trying to write the words down on old bits of scrap paper and receipts. It was rather dangerous and I don’t think he was too impressed.”

The Eliza Carthy band is at Bridport Arts Centre on May 13 at 8pm. Tickets are £15 plus concessions standing, £17 plus concessions on the balcony.

Call 01308 424204 for full details and bookings.