This is Gilbert’s story of figuring out what worked for her, as a musician and as a mother:

When I joined New Order, I was made to feel equal to everyone else in the band so I didn’t feel like an outsider. I was treated equally, I was paid equally, and my opinion was sought after. Having come from an all-girls environment, because in those days they had girls schools and boys schools and I had sisters, I didn’t really come across many men. To be thrown in that environment was a bit of an eye-opener, but I wasn’t made to feel any different, really.

I think you only really start to notice the difference when you have children, and the men have someone looking after their children at home. I didn’t want children until my late thirties because my career was taking off and I was having such a good time in New Order. But when you have children, you have to make decisions; I always wanted to stay at home with my kids.

In the early days, me and Steve were the only ones that didn’t have children, but Bernard [Sumner] and Hooky [Peter Hook] did, so we didn’t really know what it was like. We could go to the studio at any time, stay up all night working on songs, stuff like that. But as soon as you have children — as soon as I had children — I tried to keep it 9 to 5, but you can’t really work like that in a band. Some people want to stay up writing, and they could carry on because they’ve got mums at home with their children.

There came a point before Grace was ill, that I was trying to accommodate everybody all at the same time. I just couldn’t, but you think you can. I didn’t have nannies, I had a nanny until six o’clock, but when you’re in the studio working it over and it gets to be 10 o’clock, that would cause the nannies’ problems. It was hard juggling.

I remember my daughter, Matilda, starting school when she was about five, and we were due to go in the studio for a long stretch to finish ‘Get Ready’ and it was like, ‘Oh god.’ I remember Hooky saying to me, ‘Well, if you’re there, you’re there and if you’re not, you’re not.” It was very cutthroat. I’d like to think that wouldn’t happen anymore, but we didn’t think about those things then. When you had children, those were decisions that you made and not the rest of the band. I think at some point you just become an argumentative woman [to your bandmates]. If you say what you think, that’s wrong. You just get put down a lot. Hooky saying that I didn’t do anything in the early days is not true.

I know it sounds horrible, but I knew there was probably going to come a point where it was the band versus the kids. I wouldn’t have liked to make that decision, but the decision was made for me. My daughter became ill when she was 18 months old, when I’d started ‘Get Ready.’ As we were going to finish the album and go touring in June, she got sick in really early March, which left her disabled. We had to go to hospital appointments because she became paralyzed from the waist down. She’s recovered, not fully, but she’s 15 now. She did need a lot of care when she was younger, so it’s just life.

I didn’t want my daughter to be ill, but at the time I couldn’t think of going on tour with the children. Stephen did suggest that he stay home and I said no, no. I think he just said it, really [laughs]. I wanted to stay at home, it had become impossible to do both. I told them I was leaving and I was taken straight off the fax machine list.

After that, I sort of put my head down and looked after my children, and I was getting paid from the back catalogue. I was happy — well, I wasn’t THAT happy at the time, because I was leaving New Order. You’re always thinking, “Was it the right decision? Will they get another woman keyboardist? It would be awful if they carried on without me.” But then New Order carried on and was fine without me.

I’m glad I had a break and focused on something else, because I have loads of other things that I like doing. You need to have a break from what you’re doing. I think New Order should have done that too. But I suppose men just go on, don’t they?