ALTHOUGH she’s still suffering from jet lag following a business trip to Singapore, Kate Hardcastle looks polished, poised and ready for our photoshoot.

We’ve asked the founder of the charity Dreamgirls to show us some old-fashioned glamour and model just a few of the 70 or so evening dresses that hang in her wardrobe – gowns mostly used for fund-raising performances.

Kate, 34, who now lives in Holywell Green, has arrived with a small sample of her vast collection, including her newest dress created by Huddersfield designer Kevan Jon and a valuable Jimmy Choo number that she wears for both Dreamgirl performances and business events.

Given that the gowns, all her own personal property, are worth thousands of pounds and have to be separately insured, it would be easy to assume that Kate lives the sort of glamorous lifestyle familiar to readers of glossy magazines. And it’s true that she is a founding partner in a business transformation company called Insight With Passion, travels around the world on a regular basis, heads a charity that organises blockbuster concerts featuring some of the top names in music and takes to the stage herself.

Kate, who is married with an 18-month-old daughter Nya, says being a Dreamgirl is extremely hard work and, at times, not glamorous at all.

“When we do shows, I’m always the last one to get ready, because I’m flying around sorting everyone else out,’’ she said. “I don’t even look in the mirror before I go on stage.”

The gowns made especially for the stage have no hems and are lined with practical rather than luxurious fabrics.

“They are not the sort of gowns that you’d wear for a night out and don’t bear close inspection,” said Kate.

“I’m always standing on the bottoms of the dresses in my high heels so they also get torn around the edges. I like showing people the raggy hems so they realise it’s not as glamorous as they think.”

The Dreamgirls came into being five years ago after Kate lost her much-loved maternal grandparents, Ken and Jean Fletcher. Jean had died following a stroke and it was the support given by The Stroke Association that got Kate thinking about charity work.

“I wanted to do something in memory of my grandparents and to raise awareness of the Stroke Association,” she explained.

In her teenage years Kate had been a member of a successful band the BBKings and had thought about becoming a professional singer.

In the end, however, she did what she describes as the “sensible thing” and got a job in marketing.

Never afraid of hard work, Kate also signed up to do a degree in business management at Salford University and has continued to study as well as work, raise her daughter and front the Dreamgirls charity.

She is married to drummer Matt Morgan, who she met when auditioning for a band.

She says setting up the Dreamgirls was a way to satisfy her urge to perform while giving lesser-known charities a boost.

It has always been her aim to support small charities and she sees her organisation as being as much about raising awareness as raising cash (about £20,000 so far). She says there are 169,000 charities in the UK and most of us haven’t heard of even a small fraction of them.

While organising her first major Dreamgirls performance at the Victoria Theatre in Halifax Kate wrote to 700 celebrity singers – all the people whose songs had inspired her – and waited for replies.

When none arrived she gathered together a group of fellow singers and musicians and ploughed ahead with her plans.