Few singing stars have been thrust into the spotlight of fame as young as Lena Zavaroni who died on 1 October, 1999, aged 35.

The Scottish starlet was only 10 when she won the television talent show, Opportunity Knocks, for a record-breaking five weeks in a row. At the same age she became, and remains to this day, the youngest person to have a top 10 album in the UK charts.

During the mid 1970s she was barely out of the spotlight, becoming a household name all over the world including America where she sang for President Ford in the White House at the age of 11.

Yet the strain of such immediate and overwhelming exposure took its toll and she began suffering with anorexia nervosa at the age of 13. Though she battled the disease bravely for 20 years it would ultimately defeat her.

Lena Zavaroni was born on 4 November, 1963, in the small town of Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. She grew up in a council house where her father, Victor, would play guitar and her mother, Hilda, would sing. It was no surprise when she began singing at the age of two.

She began singing in public at the age of six and would regularly win local talent contests. Her success story began in 1973 when record producer, Tommy Scott, who was on holiday on the Isle of Bute saw her singing with the Zavaroni Family Band.

Mr Scott contacted impresario, Phil Solomon, and the pair travelled to Scotland to see Ms Zavaroni perform. Mr Solomon was not disappointed and within weeks she was under the management of Mr Solomon’s partner, Dorothy Solomon.

She exploded onto British television screens on Opportunity Knocks at the end of 1973. Her elfin looks, stage presence and powerful voice proved an irresistible combination and she won the viewer’s vote an unprecedented five times.

By January 1974, she was at number 8 in the UK Charts with “Ma, He’s Making Eyes at Me,” in the process becoming the youngest ever person to perform on Top of the Pops. She was still only 10.

Before long, Ms Zavaroni was stunning American audiences alongside Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball at a Hollywood charity event, playing sell-out concerts at the London Palladium and making television appearances all over the world.

In 1976 she attended the Italia Conti Stage School in London where she met fellow child star, Bonnie Langford. The two became friends and would later go on to star in their own television show, “ Lena and Bonnie.”

Still a teenager, Ms Zavaroni was being given her own shows on television such as “Lena Zavaroni and Music” and “Lena Zavaroni on Broadway”. She was still immensely popular with the public but privately the strain was beginning to tell.

A sufferer of anorexia nervosa since the age of 13, she had been hospitalised on various occasions but she would invariably recover and return to the stage. She played a summer season in Blackpool in 1985 but within a year anorexia forced her to stop working again.

The collapse of her marriage, suicide of her mother and the effects of her illness combined to send her into an ever deepening depression. Desperately thin, she succumbed to bronchial pneumonia following a last ditch operation to cure her depression.

It was a heartbreaking decline for the effervescent child star who had once given joy to millions.

After Lena Zavaroni’s death, her friend Bonnie Langford said: “I am deeply saddened that such a lovely person is no longer with us. She was an incredibly gifted and very sweet person. It is a tragedy that she died so young.”