Charmaine standing tall

For she has finally found a fitting way to voice her anger and sorrow by using £20,000 of her National Lottery winnings to help stage an ambitious musical about bullying in a London theatre.

Mrs Watson, who lives in Eynsham with her husband, Robbie, and three young children, is surely one of the most unlikely theatrical impresarios that the capital has seen for many a year.

When she won the National Lottery she had been a single mother struggling to bring up her baby son, Ryan. But her love of music coupled with her own painful experiences at school meant that when she heard of plans to stage a new rock musical about bullying, it immediately struck a chord with her.

It was the work of West Oxfordshire musicians Lee Wyatt-Buchan and brothers Aldie and Sandy Chalmers.

The original version of the musical had gone into local schools and won a Princess Diana Award for its anti-bullying message.

But the enthusiastic reaction to what had been designed as an educational tool — with author Philip Pullman among the early fans — encouraged them to rewrite the piece as a full-scale musical to be staged in London.

Word about the project reached Mrs Watson through her husband’s brother, David, a drummer who knew some of the team working on the project.

Mrs Watson, 31, said: “I’ve always enjoyed musicals. We’ve been to London to see We Will Rock You a number of times. But it never crossed my mind to get involved in something like this before. But when I was played the music I made up my mind to help them.

“The song Stronger Than This, the finale to the musical, really touched me. It just pulled at my heart strings. It brought back memories, but not in a bad way.

“I thought that if I had heard that song when I was young and being bullied at school, it would have made me stronger.

“I really believe that if this musical helps just one person who is a victim of bullying then, for me it will have been worth every single penny that I’m putting into it.”

Husband Robbie agrees: “It is a piece that literally makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.”

In its transformation from Oxfordshire classrooms to London stage production, the show’s title has changed from David and Goliath to Stand Tall.

It is being performed at the Landor Theatre in Clapham from October 12 to November 12, directed by Simon Greiff, whose previous directing credits, by chance, include the touring production of her favourite Queen musical We Will Rock You.

The professional cast of five actors, backed by a four-piece rock band, will be led by Ryan O’Donnell who played the lead role of Jimmy Cooper in a recent touring production of the Who rock opera Quadrophenia.

The show’s composers, together with Mike Dove created Shrill Productions last year to produce contemporary musicals that focus on topical issues.

From studios in West Oxfordshire they also have their own school — the Witchwood School of Rock — where children learn to write, record and perform their own material.

The team will doubtless be encouraged by the fact that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat had begun life as a show for schools.

Mr Dove said: “There is nothing preachy about Stand Tall. Charmaine just loved it straight away. She is now an associate producer and hopefully will be coming to the rehearsals, which are now under way and going well.

“The immediate aim is to ensure Charmaine gets to keep her money. But, who knows, if the review are good, maybe it could get into the West End. Nothing has been confirmed yet, but there has already been some interest in America from the Rosie O’Donnell television show.”

He said none of the team had been initially aware of how deeply Mrs Watson had been affected by bullying herself.

Sitting in the Eynsham pub where her sister works, Mrs Watson said she believed bullying was still just as prevalent, and social networking sites had meant it could take ugly new forms.

She said: “Other people suffered from it more than I did. But I was bullied enough not to want to go to school. It started on my third day at secondary school and went on until the day I left.”

Naturally shy, she said her tormenters focused on her weight, height, hair colour and where she lived.

“It got to the stage where they were saying things about my family. I remember one day just running home and crying into my mother’s arms. It was only then that I realised how bad it had got.”

Since winning the Lottery she and her husband have had two children.

She says that having money to provide her youngsters with what they need has been the real joy of her Lottery win.

For all her move into the world of showbusiness she appears to have kept to her pledge “not to let the lottery win go to my head”.

Instead of an exotic honeymoon, she spent a week in the Lake District, followed by a holiday in Weymouth with the children.

Her big purchases were a four-bedroom family home and a detached home for her mother.

Last year she won friends across the city by delivering a giant Advent calendar packed full of toys to the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, where all her three children were born.

But if on the surface the Lottery money appears to have hardly changed this shy mother-of-three, it remains to be seen whether it will transform the fortunes of an Oxfordshire company pursuing its musical dream and, who knows, maybe even some bullied youngsters doubtful of securing a winning ticket in the lottery of life.