Mitch Winehouse shares daughter Amy's handwritten letters in book

New York, June 18 (ANI): Amy Winehouse used to pen down letters to her father Mitch in the age of emails and a leading newspaper got a glimpse of one of the intimate missives in his upcoming book, 'Amy, My Daughter'.

"Dear Daddy, I love you so much and can't wait to see you again in a few weeks," the New York Post quoted the letter, written in 2003 on Valentine's Day while she was recording her first album, 'Frank', in Miami, as reading.

"I'm working, and I haven't spent a penny. A few thousand dollars have gone, but no pennies as such," she wrote.

The tragic memento was one of dozens of letters the self-destructive singer, best known for her second album 'Back to Black' and struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, wrote to her father beginning at the tender age of 12.

In the book, which is to be released on June 26 by It Books, Mitch describes Amy's losing battle with heroin, cocaine and booze.

Amy Winehouse was born in a London suburb on Sept. 14, 1983. Her parents - Mitch was a cabby, Janice a pharmacist - split when she was 9.

Though she lived with her mother until age 16, Winehouse remained close to her father, a failed pop singer, who introduced her to jazz and the music of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

When she was 20, she completed her first album - inspired by, and named for, Sinatra - and on it she included the song 'What Is It About Men'. It tackled the bitterness she felt about her father's infidelities.

Despite her early ambivalence, the two remained intensely close.

"She phoned me three times a day, every day, even when she was at her worst with the drugs," Mitch said last year.

But he could not save her from her demons. She met and married Blake Fielder-Civil, a video production assistant who allegedly introduced her to heroin, crack and self- mutilation.

Out of the muck and a brief breakup with him, though, came 'Back to Black' - with her biggest hit, 'Rehab' - in 2006.

Mitch claims that once Winehouse divorced Fielder-Civil, she was regaining her health and kicking her heroin habit. But she would drink heavily and then detox suddenly - a deadly combination.

Mitch plans to donate the proceeds from his book to the Amy Winehouse Foundation, which he founded to help provide children with music education.

"It's just incredible that a force, her force, her nature, has gone," he said of his daughter in 2011.

"But it hasn't really gone because, you know, I'm a firm - as all my family, we're firm believers in life after death. And she's right here with us all the time," he added. (ANI)