“It’s been a bit difficult blending the two sides of my life,” says 16-year-old Steph who two years ago won the Gazette’s Blackpool’s Young Talent competition and will be heading back to Canada for her second summer tour (and fourth performing visit) in July.

“I had to take a couple of weeks off last time for Canada but generally I can switch off from school whilst I’m performing and likewise forget abut my singing when I’m at school.”

Having signed with locally based Sonic Vista over here and sorted a separate management, pr and marketing deal in Canada with plans to expand her growing fan base into the USA, Steph’s still in no rush.

“I want to get my education out of the way first and if that means taking another two years for A-levels then so be it,” she says. “At the moment I’m planning going back into the sixth form.”

Laid back musical partner and collaborator Phil Simpson – who she first met two years ago at a Garstang Unplugged session but didn’t team up musically with until this year – is of a similar mind.

The world will still be there – and hopefully theirs – in another three years, they feel.

“Phil has helped my music mature a lot and with a really important year ahead of me it’s good to have someone there who thinks along the same lines,” she says. “My songs are more upbeat now.”

Her new maturity can be heard on the recently released cd Pretend – a four track sample of what’s in store on an album she will be completing on the next Transatlantic trip.

“My writing is just how I feel at the time,” she says. “I don’t sit down and think ‘oh, I’ll write a song today’, it’s just something that can happen at anytime. I want to develop as a serious song writer rather than someone on Pop Idol.”

So far she has a catalogue of between 15 and 20 ready to perform self compositions – and a book full of lyrics.

“Some people at school think it’s strange to have this double life but they’ve been good friends and really supportive.”

She’s no idea how many gigs she has done over the last couple of years (“I think mum might count them”) but knows there’s “about 20″ lined up for the next three months.

Stage nerves are kept to a minimum, and vanish after the first note, though facing the Illuminations switch-on crowd did cause a slight flutter, she admits.

Having played guitar since she was five and had classical singing lessons, it was after hearing Eva Cassidy that things changed.

“I thought ‘I can do that’ and set about doing it,” she says. “I came second in a school talent contest and that was it. I don’t know what happened to the person who came first.”

* Steph Fraser and Phil Simpson can be heard in concert on Saturday at The Grapes in St Michaels.