New career heights? Kate Bush receives CBE from The Queen

She made her name as the precocious teenager whose unique musical talent – and uninhibited stage performances – saw her rocket to the top of the charts with hits such as a Wuthering Heights.
Within just a few years, however, Kate Bush had withdrawn from the public eye and has spent the past two decades as an enigmatic musical recluse.
Now aged 54, the singer made a rare public appearance at Windsor Castle yesterday, where she received a CBE from the Queen for services to music.

 

Thank you Ma'am: Kate Bush receives CBE from The Queen

The eccentric star added to her mystique by insisting that she would not pose for photographs and leaving the Queen’s residence by a different entrance to the rest of the recipients so that she could not be seen by reporters or members of the public.

 

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She did, however, agree to a single official photograph being released of her receiving her award from the monarch.
Gone was the wild-eyed eyed ingenue whose hits, including Babooshka and Cloudbusting, inspired a generation of women to don their leotards and dance, arms-flailing, around their local nightclub.
Dressed in black palazzo-style trousers with a loose-fitting, gold-trimmed tunic-style top, Bush clearly cut a more portly figure than her lithe teenage self.

 

Pride of place: The Queen pins the medal to the music star, although she has said she would like to put it on her Christmas tree

Her mane of jet-black hair was, however, instantly recognisable as she stepped up to collect her gong in the castle’s Waterloo Chamber after being introduced as Katherine Bush.
She smiled broadly and chatted animatedly to the Queen for a few moments before walking to a side room – and was not seen again.
Afterwards, her agent released a statement in which she said she felt ‘incredibly thrilled to receive this honour which I share with my family, friends and fellow musicians and everyone who has been such an important part of it all’.
Typically, however, she continued in eccentric fashion: ‘Now I’ve got something really special to put on top of the Christmas tree.’
Bush’s musical talent was spotted while she was still at school and after coming to the attention of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, she landed a deal with EMI at the age of just 16.
Her debut single Wuthering Heights - released at her insistence in 1978 - was a global sensation. The following year she went out on her one and only public tour.

 

Royal Chat: Bush spoke to the Monarch for several minutes before disappearing from the ceremony

Her 1985 album The Hounds Of Love is often seen as a career high and included one of her best known songs, Running Up That Hill.
But from that point on, her releases were sporadic and when she released eighth album Aerial in 2005, it was her first for 12 years.
Much of that intervening period had been devoted to bringing up her now teenage son Albert Jack- known as Bertie -with husband, guitarist Danny McIntosh, as well as perfecting her songs from a studio built in the grounds of her Berkshire mansion.
She insists, however, that she is not a recluse and simply just wants to retain her privacy.
In one rare interview she said: ‘I suppose I do think I go out of my way to be a very normal person and I just find it frustrating that people think that I'm some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world.’

 

Eccentric: Kate on stage in 1980