'I sang at an Amy Winehouse vigil...'

I was about 11 or 12 when I first heard Amy Winehouse. All my friends were into girl groups like Girls Aloud, but Amy was very different, very powerful.

I immediately fell in love with her voice and her attitude, and the way she handled herself. There was a sort of dark side to everything she wrote and sang. Then she released 'Back to Black' and I really became a fan of her music.

I was at a music festival in Sheffield on the afternoon it was announced that she had died. A friend of mine got a text from her dad saying 'Amy's dead'. I thought she was joking - just trying to wind me up - because everyone knows what an inspiration Amy is to me. I suppose sometimes you don't want to believe things.

It wasn't until the next day when the story was in all the newspapers that it really clicked. I was shocked. It was devastating. Even though people always said it would happen, I don't think anyone really believed it. 

I came home and listened to each track on both of her albums all the way through. It was upsetting hearing a voice you will never hear sing anything new again. And such an iconic voice as well, not just an average pop voice.

My sister and I used to go to Camden all the time when Amy was alive, to see if we could find Amy's house or see her out somewhere. We never did, and I never got to hear her sing live.The Saturday after she died we booked a coach down from Sheffield to London early in the morning and finally found her house in Camden Square. There was a small crowd there, and a big pile of flowers.

It was quite sad. I thought if it had been John Lennon died again, or someone like that, there would have been endless people. But it was really quiet. For someone like Amy Winehouse it didn't really seem enough.

When some people found out that I was singer, I was asked to sing two of Amy's songs. I was quite honoured. I didn't have a guitar with me or anything, but they just told me to sing acapella. I sang 'Tears Dry On Their Own' and 'Valerie'.

It was so moving. There aren’t really words to describe it, when you've been looking for her all these years, and when you find her and it's too late. The only thing you can do is sing.

When I was growing up my dad used to mess around on the guitar and I used to sit with him singing the Beatles and the Monkees, things like that. But Amy inspired me to try to make it myself: I even went to Sylvia Young's - the theatre school where she went - when I was 13.  Now I'm at college doing a diploma in music, putting bands together, performing- it's my whole life.

It's sad to think that she was trying to get off drink and drugs when she died. It's tragic that it ended like that, while she was trying to clean up. It was as if she couldn't kill off the character she had become. The public image of Amy Winehouse that had been created just took over.

There's no one out there like her now, and no one will ever be as iconic.

Naomi Biggin was talking to Simon Freeman.