THE past few months have been a whirlwind of success stories for Katie Melua. The young singer-songwriter has gone from being a complete unknown to the UK's brightest new talent after scoring a number one with her debut album Call Off The Search and then following it up with a number one hit single in the form of the smoky love song The Closest Thing To Crazy.

Not bad for a girl who grew up in Georgia, the former Soviet republic - light years from the buzz of the entertainment industry.

After spending her formative years in Georgia, Melua lived in Belfast for five years as a young teenager.

Despite growing up in a constant climate of political instability, she says her childhood was "great".

"Obviously it was a bit unstable in the early '90s in Georgia and I do remember hearing gunshots and being very scared. There were also things like there not being any electricity in the winter or any hot water.

"But it's all relative really, until you come over here and learn a different lifestyle you don't realise how bad it was and none of those things affected me because the adults didn't really tell us what was going on.

"Obviously it affected my family hugely, but they never related that worry to me."

Melua moved to Belfast when she was nine. Her father, a heart surgeon, had found a new job there and took his wife, a nurse, Melua and her younger brother with him.

More by accident than design, she found herself at an all-girls' Catholic school while her brother went to a Protestant school, but says neither of them experienced any problems.

"It's possible in places like Georgia and Belfast to have a good life," she says. "The average person will not encounter anything bad unless they're directly involved in what's going on."

Melua and her family upped sticks again when she was 14 and the budding singer found herself in south London. She'd always sung from a young age "as a kind of hobby" but says she never dared believe she might have any success at it.

Instead she dreamed about becoming a politician - "One of those mad things you want to be when you're young," she laughs - but in London she started to become seriously interested in a future as a singer.

And at 16, Melua went to the Brit School for Performing Arts where a chance encounter found her auditioning for the composer Mike Batt, who was searching for a blues and jazz singer.

Batt was entranced by Melua's vocals, saying since that he "never expected to find someone quite so unique".

They immediately started working together and found it a prolific relationship.

"Throughout the year we recorded a lot of songs," says Melua.

"We found we had a choice of going a jazzier way, a much more bluesy way or going for a rocky sound.

"In the end we settled for a mixture of those and I think it's worked really well."

Despite knocking Dido, one of the UK's biggest selling artists, off the top of the charts and receiving acres of press coverage, Melua still goes about her business unnoticed, although she realises that, with the latest tour and schedule of personal appearances plus her new single Call Off The Search due out on March 15, anonymity may soon become a thing of the past.

But Katie Melua is taking it all as it comes. "I didn't see myself in this position at all. I guess I'm quite ambitious, but ambitious in that I just want people to hear my music and like it," she says, before adding with a laugh: "Not in the sense that I want to rule the world."

Katie Melua plays the Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre tonight (March 10).

Call 0870 111 3000 for tickets and further information.