I was brought up in Stoke Newington, in east London. My parents split up when I was two. Both were from Norfolk, which is where they met. I had a good relationship with my dad when I was small, as I would see him regularly at weekends and go and stay with him in Spain in the holidays.

My mother is a remarkable woman. She had struggled to have children for 10 years before she had me when she was 36. I was a very wanted child. As she became a single parent, the bond between us strengthened.

Our street was very community-orientated but it was a tough area to grow up in. I remember playing in the street though, with the other kids, and my mum saying it was OK for them to come back to ours. As my mum wanted a large family, she was very motherly to a lot of people. She would always be drawn to help people and she gave meals or furniture to squatters.

Mum came from a large family of seven brothers and sisters. I've been fortunate to have wonderful aunties. They are all glamorous, vivacious and well-dressed, and have a lot to say. Whenever I've introduced boyfriends or friends to my family they are always amazed at how quiet I become around them – they are worth listening to.

My grandparents on my mother's side, who are not with us any more, lived in Norfolk and bred ducks, rabbits and labradors. When I was small, I remember going there in the spring and being shown a shed full of chickens. I would be asked to choose one and then go out while they wrang its neck.

My Spanish grandmother also lives in Norfolk. She has a very strong Spanish accent, sings in a choir and is Catholic. She doesn't have a close relationship with her son; he never introduced me to her. I got in touch as my mum encouraged me to connect with her. I never met my Spanish granddad.

Christmases used to be very large gatherings when I was small because I have 24 cousins. As I got older, our family Christmases changed. My mother has had a long-term relationship with a man who is Chinese but was born in London, so I have had a multicultural upbringing. They have a pretty unconventional relationship – he lives five minutes down the road from her. It works though.

I get my dark sense of humour from my father. My mother brought me up to be very well behaved and with quite strong feminist values. I was aware, though, as a child how hard she had to work to bring me up and I didn't like to be naughty or upset her. I think now I am kind of rebelling and letting that side of my character out. She always says that I should mention that I was brought up on Jungian principles – she read a lot of books about psychology.

I have a strong relationship with a sister from my father's relationship after he left my mother. She came to live with me when she was 16 – I am nine years older than her – and I felt a bit like her guardian. We are very close. I knew her when she was small, but then my father left that relationship so I lost touch with her.

I would like to be a parent at some point. My mother would be a wonderful grandmother. I'm happily in a relationship at the moment. I have been married once already but it was short-lived and not as significant as some of my other relationships. It was kind of a rock'n'roll, "let us do this" type of situation.

I have very strong, yet quite disparate bonds with my all the strands of my genetic family, but the bonds I have with my close friends mean they are like a family to me too. At Christmas, I have all the waifs and strays I know to stay – I tend to attract people who have strange family backgrounds. Family means a lot of different things to me.

Paloma Faith is a mentor in The Ones to Watch, part of Samsung's Launching People Campaign on Sky 1 in May