Everywhere I glance I’m greeted by sequins and stilettos.

Long and short frocks, 5½in high stilettos – oh, and the blonde bouffants and beehives sitting pretty on wig stands.

Amazingly, this isn’t a girl’s boudoir. Welcome to the costume department in Gareth Riggs’s Eccleshill home.

Gareth’s cross-dressing wasn’t intentional. His love of singing led him into his drag act.

Conscious that his high-pitched singing voice often turned heads at karaoke sessions in pubs, Gareth went along with a suggestion. “I’ve loved singing from as far back as I can remember, but I’ve also always been aware of having quite an unusual, high-pitched singing voice,” he says. “Most singers would kill for that kind of attention but it made me nervous. Then someone said, ‘why don’t you sing as a woman?’”

Gareth feels at home belting out Shirley Bassey classics and Whitney Houston hits, but says his 14st frame wouldn’t allow him to impersonate a celebrity diva! So he invented himself a name and became a family-friendly female impersonator. “The first time I performed in drag it was almost like a mask,” says Gareth.

His alter ego is Candy – The Blonde Bombsite!

“There is a rule about drag queen names, and one is to take the name of your first pet and the name of the first street where you lived. It’s just a fun way of making your own drag queen name!” he says.

Candy was the name of the family’s Golden Labrador. Gareth and his proud mum, Sally, began trawling the internet for dresses but he admits he’s learned quite a bit since stepping out on stage in his first ensemble.

“The first time I did the drag queen act I was singing I Am What I Am and I looked more like Betty from Coronation Street!” he laughs.

Sally says she felt more nervous than Gareth when he made his debut. “It was his first show and I was more nervous than him because I was doing the music and was frightened of messing it up,” she said. “But I felt so proud – especially when he got a standing ovation.”

Gareth adds: “It was standing room only, absolutely mad, and it was the first time I had carried a show on my own.”

Word soon spread and Gareth secured another booking. He has become a regular performer at the Northcote Conservative Club in Undercliffe where he will be wowing the crowds on New Year’s Eve. And, as ever, he is looking forward to it. So is Sally. “I’m his roadie!” she laughs. “I’m quite excited because I knew Gareth had a talent which was going to waste and he needed to do something with it.”

Sally helps Gareth prepare for his shows, often helping him apply his make-up. “He has always done his own base, but last time he did his own make-up and it looked good,” she smiles.

“It was trial and error trying to get it right!” laughs Gareth.

He always asks his mum’s opinion about the costumes he mainly sources on the internet. He has ten pairs of heels in black, red, gold and pink, all are size nine and some are 5½in high platforms, but Gareth doesn’t have any trouble strutting his stuff. Maybe he inherited his head for heights from Sally?

“I wear stilettos but I only go to 4in high!” she says. “I wear them because of my height – I’m only 4ft 10in.”

Gareth’s favourite outfits are his sequinned gowns. The most expensive dress he bought was £80. “We drool over dresses together,” says Sally. “But I also ask his opinion when I am buying because he has very good taste.”

Handing me his favourite gown, a stunning floor-length sequinned strappy number, he asks me to feel the weight. I’m amazed how heavy it feels, then I recognise him in it on the framed photo on the wall when he collected a car he won in a competition.

Gareth, who is learning to drive, won the car through a DSA theory test book. He had to say in 25 words why he deserved to win the car. “I said I deserved to win it because I was running out of taxi drivers to take a 14st drag queen in a beehive wig, pink ballgown and 5in heels!” he says.

Gareth, a human resources assistant with a law firm, says he was ‘amazed’ to win, but delighted. Once he passes his driving test he hopes to take Candy on tour.

The star he most aspires to be like is Jane McDonald, or ‘Dame Jane’ as he affectionately refers to the Yorkshire singer who found fame on the BBC reality show, The Cruise.

He is a member of Jane’s fan club and a photograph of him with the star takes pride of place on his wall and on his computer screen. He met Jane, who is a panelist on ITV’s Loose Women, at a ‘meet-and-greet’ session organised through the fan club.

“Jane has got it right. She is successful but she has never forgotten who she is,” says Gareth.

And I suspect, should fame come knocking on Gareth’s door, Candy would be exactly the same!