She says she’s a normal person at heart – but winning the X Factor, supporting Beyoncé, coping with facial paralysis and now headlining her first tour, Sam Bailey is anything but normal. And if that’s what she classes as being ordinary, well she is certainly putting the rest of us to shame.

The 37-year-old former prison officer and mum of three from Leicester won the reality show in 2013 and since then she has had a whirlwind of a year.

“I didn’t think you could cram in as much as I have in a year – it’s just been spectacular,” says Sam.

She began 2014 with the X Factor Live Tour, then supported Beyoncé on one leg of her UK tour.

“I went along to the LG Arena in Birmingham and there were about 14,000 people there, probably more. And when I went out on stage it was the most incredible feeling ever.

“Unfortunately I didn’t get to meet her. She turned up, dropped her fur coat in the wing and on she went.”

And that was just the start. In September, she gave birth to her third child, Miley Beau, and shortly afterwards she announced she was suffering from Bell’s Palsy, a condition caused by a dysfunction of the facial nerve resulting in the inability to control facial muscles.

“I would say I had a mild to medium case of it,” explains Sam, who started singing when she was 15, “but it was really bad. I couldn’t speak and the funniest thing was Bell’s Palsy is the hardest thing to say when you have it – when people ask what’s wrong with you, you say ‘Bell Pally’ – so whoever made up that name did it for a laugh.

“Some people have it a lot worse and I think there needs to be some sort of encouragement for people to go out and not be stared at or taken the mickey out of.

“It was hard for me to go on TV, but I did it because I didn't want anyone to think I was hiding away from it. You’ve just got to get on with it as normal; I could still walk and talk.”

Sam suffered from the condition for roughly two months and in that time, she says, she did have to cancel a few gigs.

“I couldn’t sing at first, but towards the end, when I had the milder version, I did do a few gigs.”

Sam is now set to embark on her first headline tour, to coincide with the re-release of her first album, The Power of Love, and will stop off at Watford. Despite looking forward to it, she says she is also nervous.

“But it’s always good to be nervous. I’ve made the tour personal, put a few songs in that tell a story about my life, and I’m just going to be myself as that’s all I ever wanted, to be on stage and be myself, even before The X Factor,” says Sam, who will be joined on the tour by husband Craig and baby Miley, and will be travelling home regularly to see children Brooke, nine, and Tommy, five.

And after all this, Sam still insists she is ordinary. “It's all relatively normal at home: we live in the same house in the same little cul-de-sac and the kids still go to the same school. I still do the ironing, the housework and go shopping.

“I think it was a bit manic for the first few months, but if I say to my son ‘What did mummy win?’ he'll say ‘The X Factor’, then shrug his shoulders and carry on playing. It doesn’t faze them at all now.”

And Sam herself still gets star-struck.

“I once went up to Jason Donovan and instead of saying ‘Hello, how are you?’ I started singing Especially For You. I had no idea where it came from, it just appeared out of my gob.

“I also once went up to Joe Mangel from Neighbours and said ‘G’day, mate’ with the Australian accent. I think I have celebrity Tourette’s!

“I get people coming up to me and being star-struck and I think it’s nice. If I can make that person’s dream come true by giving them a hug or signing something, then, yes, I would – I’m the same person.”