It all starts with a question on a local Facebook group: “Whatever happened to Mandy Winters?”

“She was everywhere in the 90s,” one woman replies, adding: “She’s gone off-grid.”

“I’ve not seen or heard from her for ages,” another writes, with further comments suggesting the local celebrity has been struck down by an “awful illness”.

Mandy, from Broadstairs, had made her name on the Kent entertainment circuit, best known for her larger-than-life hair and the Dolly Parton tribute act she’d taken from Thanet to stages across the world.

But what is she up to now? And is there any truth to speculation her life on stage has been cut short by health woes?

Her own Facebook profile gives little away, with the last picture shared five months before showcasing her in her glory days: Stevie Nicks-esque blonde hair, a blazer scattered with sparkling diamante studs, skin-tight trousers and a black acoustic guitar hanging from her neck.

So I decide to message her, keen to hear more about her extraordinary life, but also to find out why she’s no longer in the spotlight.

Weeks go by without a response, and I all but forget about the Facebook post that prompted my search when more than a month later Mandy replies.

“I’d love you to do an article on me, thank you,” she writes. “Let me know when and where you’d like to maybe meet up?!”

We arrange to sit down with each other at the Royal Albion Hotel in Broadstairs.

Mandy arrives with her famous hair in full pomp and wearing heavy eye makeup, red lipstick, a black fur coat and a red scarf. She’s accompanied by her ex-Tory councillor husband Jeff Kirkpatrick, who at 81 is 23 years her senior.

The unlikely pair - the extravagant singer and the former Thanet council chairman - sparked much press attention in the noughties, not least because of their age gap, but they remain happily married after almost two decades.

Mandy is a far cry from the confident and fearless performer I’d heard and read so much about.

The mum-of-one is quite shy and fidgety but quickly relaxes into the interview.

“I am a nervous wreck generally and I’m surprised I got here today,” she says.

“The only time I am relaxed is when I’m at work on stage.”

Given the reason I first contacted her, the conversation soon turns to Mandy’s health and whereabouts over the past few years.

She reveals she was admitted to hospital on Boxing Day 2019 after some concerning symptoms.

“I had been in the studio and my guitarist said: ‘Mandy, what’s happened to your face?’,” she recalls.

“It had dropped on the left-hand side and it looked like I’d had a stroke.

“I had lost my way getting to the studio that morning as I’d missed the turning for the junction.

“Lots of things had been going wrong, like leaving my car keys in the fridge.”

Mandy says a doctor thought she had Bell’s palsy – an unexplained episode of facial muscle weakness or paralysis – and she was sent for an MRI scan.

She adds: “About 20 minutes later, the doctor opened the curtain dramatically, looked like the Grim Reaper and said: ‘Mandy, I’m so sorry but we’ve found some shadows on your brain’.

“I replied: ‘Was Cliff Richard there?’.”

The shadows were inoperable tumours known as central nervous system lymphoma – a cancer that occurs when malignant cells form in the lymph tissue of the brain or spinal cord.

Mandy spent months in London’s King’s College Hospital during the Covid pandemic receiving chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant.

At one moment, there were fears she wouldn’t survive.

“Her temperature was sky-high, her blood pressure was rock bottom – almost like she was dead – and her heart was beating 10 to the dozen,” Jeff recalls.

“There was green stuff coming out of her and the nurse never left her bedside for a week and a half.

“She was so poorly and I thought she wouldn’t last the day so I had to phone our family to tell them.

“The treatment can kill you, and it nearly did - but she pulled through.”

Mandy was transferred to Kent and Canterbury Hospital in August 2020 and was sent home two weeks later.

She is now in remission but has been told the cancer will rear its head again.

The last time she performed on stage was Christmas 2019, shortly before she was admitted to hospital.

The first was when she was seven, at the Queen’s Hotel in Margate.

She performed with her mum, soprano Nola Collins, and her stepdad, the yodelling cowboy Ronnie Winters. Her biological father left home the day she was born.

Mandy continued to do the odd one-off performance and started singing at age 12 with a big band conducted by her grandad, drummer Al Collins.

She joined the country band American Brew as the lead vocalist when she was 15, performing in clubs she “really shouldn’t have been going into”.

They became the resident band on the Olau Line – a ferry service operating between Sheerness and the Netherlands – when she was 17.

“I went to Germany quite a lot as I had a boyfriend who was a drummer in the army staff bands and I ended up singing with the staff band Big Band,” she says.

“That was great because there were all these men in uniforms – so I was a happy bunny.”

Mandy went solo at 18 and was on the road performing cabaret at holiday camps and miners’ clubs.

As well as country music, she was also one of Europe’s “only, very rare” female yodellers.

“I was once asked by Chris Tarrant to do a broadcast on his Capital Radio morning show and yodel for everyone,” she says.

“It was the Switzerland v England football match and we got London yodelling, which was hilarious.”

Mandy is perhaps most recognised for her Dolly Parton tribute act, which she has performed across the globe.

“It was the fault of Stars in Their Eyes because everyone started becoming tributes to someone or other,” she explains.

“And I said someone should just become a tribute to me, but nobody did!

“I loved Dolly Parton as a kid and had every album she made.

“She was my pin-up girl and I love her. She's an absolute legend.”

Working in the business meant Mandy rubbed shoulders with many famous faces, including the Queen of Country herself, who she met at Wembley.

“Dolly came out and she looked into my chest and I looked down at hers,” she recalls.

“Hers were bigger than mine – but mine are real.”

But she says the “loveliest person” she has ever worked with was the late Eastenders star Mike Reid, who played Frank Butcher in the BBC soap.

“His hands were like shovels,” Mandy recalls, holding up her own.

“He used to walk into the dressing room and he'd give me the biggest bear hug going.”

Mandy worked with Reid for about five years – performing a yodelling routine in the middle of his act – and he regularly slept at her flat, although they remained only friends. Reid died suddenly in 2007, aged 67.

“It was one of the saddest days when they announced he’d passed,” Mandy says.

“I couldn't believe it. He was so full of love.”

Despite her ill health keeping her off stage for five years, Mandy yearns to get back to doing what she loves most.

“Oh, I’d love to, because it’s my life you know,” she says, her eyes lighting up.

“I want to do a show called The Final Curtain. It would be in concert and I’d have a couple of acts I know.”

“I want to get my suit on and rhinestones out…”, she continues, before Jeff soberly shakes his head and interjects: “All she wants is that spotlight on her. But sadly, her condition won't allow it.”

Recently, a Britain’s Got Talent producer headhunted Mandy to appear on the show.

“He’d looked at her website, spoken to people who knew her, said ‘Simon [Cowell] will love you’ and she has to come on the show,” Jeff says.

“We had to say he was too late, but it would have been the break she needed.”

Mandy bleakly adds: “It would have been fun to do that. Life’s a b****.”

She’s not giving up hope, however, and remains optimistic about the future.

“The band are all ready to rock and roll,” she continues.

“We’re ready to saddle up and rock!”