Close-up: Dee Anderson

The music industry may be dominated by teenage popstrels, but Dee Anderson knows there is no substitute for experience. With the second single from her successful debut album The White Rose out this month, the jazz singer – who laughingly admits only to being "fortysomething" – isn't worried by her relatively late arrival on the scene.

"I have moments when I think I should have done this 20 years ago, but now I'm able to put things across that I wouldn't have then – it all adds depth," she says.

If Anderson's almond-shaped eyes and blonde locks look familiar, she has her parents, Thunderbirds creators Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, to thank: they used her as the model for Britain's favourite marionette aristocrat, Lady Penelope.

Raised largely by her grandparents, Anderson attributes her tenacity to her prize-fighter grandfather: "He taught me how to survive in a man's world. When people hear who my parents are, they presume I'm loaded, but I'm self-made."

Indeed, Anderson single-handedly built a property development portfolio, the profits from which allowed her to fund last year's record and set up the charity Music Across the World, which redistributes unwanted instruments to disadvantaged young people.

The response to her album has been so good that it is now paying for itself and Anderson has already begun work on a second. "I've enjoyed everything I've done but music has always been my passion," she says. "You might not know what you want to do until you're 90, but people waste so much of their lives doing things they hate that when you do know, you have to take a risk."

For more information: www.deeanderson.co.uk; www.musicacrosstheworld.com