LONG before he was munching caviar with Shirley Bassey in first class, time travelling through BBC cult show Torchwood as Captain Jack or languishing on Jonathan Ross's sofa, there was already a price for John Barrowman's services.

It was the cost of pushing his pram around their cul-de-sac in Mount Vernon, Glasgow, paid by his mum Marion to his big sister Carole.

"Carole then did what any smart Scottish lass of eight would do," recalls John in his newly-published biography, Anything Goes.

"She outsourced the labour, paying one of the other kids in our cul-de-sac to walk me."

The episode dating from 1967 is just one instant in his Glasgow childhood recalled with fondness by John, who spent the first nine years of his life in Dornford Avenue before his family moved to the United States for his father's job with Caterpillar Inc.

Thankfully, the pram-pushing scheme was brought to a swift, if unusual halt. His parents, Marion and John senior, wrapped the newborn in brown paper and threatened to put him in the bin.

Soon both Carole and elder brother Andrew, then five-years-old, agreed to care for their baby brother.

Unless you've been living in a Doctor Who-free time-warp, you'll recognise Barrowman as the 51st century time agent Captain Jack Harkness, who was brought in to star alongside Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper for five episodes and proved so popular was given his own spin-off series Torchwood.

Barrowman has also recently appeared as a panelist of How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and Any Dream Will Do, and was one of the first contestants to don their skates on for Dancing On Ice.

His biography recalls those early days in Scotland before the move to the US, falling in love with musical theatre and his journey to becoming the household name, supplemented by photos of him cuddling up to A-list stars such as Kylie Minogue, Claudia Schiffer, Ashley Judd and Robert De Niro. A fresh faced John Barrowman as a boy, John in The Extension', showed early promise in posing for the camera Young John, far right, with his brother Andrew and sister Carole

Yet Barrowman is living proof you can take the boy out of Glasgow, but there's always going to be Glasgow blood coursing through his veins.

He still says "messages" instead of shopping, has longings for his late gran Murn's deep-fried Spam and fondly recalls New Year's dinners at the Barrowmans' grandparents in Springboig.

That Barrowman family bond - and John's Scottish heritage - is still alive and kicking today.

Sister Carole has written the biography, while Barrowman confesses to phoning his mum every day and regularly takes his five nieces and nephews on holidays.

Happy families indeed, but you have to wonder what strict US fans who have watched him perform with Uma Thurman in Mel Brooks' The Producers or alongside Kevin Kline in De-Lovely will make of John's early upbringing, as he relates stories of a dummy dipped in whisky.

Or how, as a toddler, he broke free from the garden to play with the traffic whizzing past in nearby Hamilton Road.

Unimaginable now that his mum and beloved Murn (his mum's mother who lived in the nearby "high flats") would hide in the doorway of C&A on Trongate and have "a great laugh at my expense" when the young lad "turned around and couldn't see them behind me".

The Barrowman family moved to the US in 1976 - Carole wasn't impressed, nor was keen Andrew who was about to be signed to Rangers' junior squad.

They first lived in Aurora, Illinois - swapping their East End abode for a luxury house with a shared swimming pool - and later Joliet, when his father became general manager of the plant.

His father had worked for Rolls-Royce in East Kilbride from 1954 until 1963 and was the first non-American plant manager.

But Barrowman junior took with him images from his childhood, including the day when Murn burst into his class at Mount Vernon Primary School in 1973 to slap the teacher on the back of her head as retaliation for punishing John.

It may have been at high school in America that John discovered his passion for musicals that would see him go on to study theatre and dance at International University in San Diego from 1985, yet it was on the Glasgow streets that he took his first steps on the road to stardom - and got his first big break.

His earliest memories include donning a kilt for performances at home, then progressing to singing novelty ditties such as Two Little Boys and Lily The Pink in the Shettleston Road record shop where his mum worked.

Fast forward almost two decades and John was back in Scotland in 1989 when he got the major break that inspired the title of his biography. John's mother and father Marion and John With partner Scott and their beloved dogs John adopts a hippie look to hang out with Robert De Niro

His dad's brother Neil spotted an advert for an open casting call for Anything Goes at the Prince Edward Theatre in London's West End.

Barrowman wowed the producers in his audition at the RSAMD for the part of Billy Crocker and was soon jetting down to London.

Since then, Barrowman has starred in everything from Miss Saigon and Beauty And The Beast to Hair and A Few Good Men with Rob Lowe.

He's been based in Britain since 1989, and he and his partner, architect Scott Gill, split their time between homes in London and Cardiff, the latter where Doctor Who and Torchwood are filmed.

Barrowman was back in his kilt for his and Scott's civil partnership ceremony on December 27, 2006 - shared with their beloved pooches Tiger, and Lewis and Penny who have since died.

Barrowman has spoken of his desire to have a family with Scott, and also hopes to make a trans-Atlantic transfer for his Dreamers Workshop organisation, which teaches motivational workshops and acting classes to schools and community groups in America.

He's in Glasgow on April 10 for a date at the Royal Concert Hall to promote his biography and album, Another Side.

For a natural-born performer, who said that "Scotland gave us the family closeness, America the get-up-and-go", you can bet on perfect showmanship and much swinging of his beloved kilt to boot. Anything Goes: TheAutobiography by JohnBarrowman, published by Michael O'Mara Books, is in shops now priced £18.99. John Barrowman is appearing at the Royal Concert Hall on April 10.Tickets priced £27.50 available from 0141 353 8000.