Singer-songwriter Goulding, 23, who also won the Critics’ Choice Award at the Brits, has knocked Lady Gaga’s The Fame from the top spot into second position on the UK album charts in its first week of release.

In a recent interview, Goulding admitted that the album is dedicated to her former lover, Matt, “who found and saved me,” in the absence of a father figure at home.

“I was 18, he was in his thirties,” says Goulding of the her ex-beau. “He was really clever and we’d laugh about how complicated our families had been; how we had no money.

“He persuaded me to go to university. I loved having someone in my life who was never negative. I met him just at the right time, otherwise I really could have lost it. I’m so grateful to him.”

Unlike many of the current crop of female singer-songwriters, Goulding is a working-class girl who didn’t enjoy the privileges of a private education and piano lessons.

“A lot of girls seem more edgy than they really are. But I can say with complete honesty that I’m not privileged. Sometimes I wish I had been because I’d have got a bit more support.

“But I’m doing OK and I’d like to think I give hope to people who have a lot of ambition but who aren’t necessarily encouraged.

“I didn’t have the best childhood. We grew up in the smallest house. Moth-eaten, flea-ridden furniture with holes in it was handed down from my nana. But my mum had pride and we always dressed nicely.”

Goulding’s love of music comes from her mother, an Eighties raver who went to art college but then fell pregnant with Goulding’s older sister. It was her mum who introduced a young Ellie to Bob Dylan, an introduction that would certainly go on to inform her work – Ellie’s music has been dubbed folktronica.

The speed Goulding’s success has taken a lot of people by surprise, not least Goulding herself, and she admits it has had an effect on her physical well-being. At the end of last year she began experiencing bad panic attacks, but has found that physical exercise keeps her balanced.

“Some days I felt like I was having a heart attack and dying. I ended up in A&E. Now I wear a heart monitor so I don’t go too high. I really monitor it.
“I’m emotionally all over the place but when I’m running I keep totally focused. It’s what our bodies are meant to do. If music suddenly disappeared for me, I’d be constantly training.”