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2 ‘You need to get your head out of the clouds’

‘Cheryl Tweedy,’ the teacher called out at afternoon registration. ‘Yes, Sir. Here, Sir,’ I replied. ‘Oh, and by the way I was late this morning. Sorry, Sir.’

The teacher rolled his eyes as if to say ‘not again’ before giving me a late mark for the morning, even though I had not even been there, and then marking me in for the afternoon. After registration I walked straight out the back doors of Walker School at the first opportunity, as cool as you like, wagging off for the afternoon with my best friend Kelly, who’d pulled the same trick.

‘Can you believe he fell for that again!’ we both cackled before pegging it down the road.

Kelly was as feisty as hell and I loved being with her. Usually we went back to her house because her mam and dad both worked, but if we heard someone come in the house we’d run out the back door and go and sit on the train tracks at the bottom of her street, or hang around Walker graveyard. God knows why we went to the cemetery; it seemed quite cool at the time and nobody would ever see us there.

I had no interest in being educated. My life took place outside the school gates, not inside them. I was always more focused on getting the next dancing part than wasting time working out why x equalled a plus b or whatever my teacher was on about.

‘Cheryl Tweedy, you will amount to nothing!’ the maths teacher exploded one day. I was chewing gum and rehearsing my dance moves in my head. The audition for the Christmas panto I’d made my ‘No Limit’ music tape for was tonight, and all I wanted to do was get out of school and practise.

‘Amount to nothing?’ I thought cheekily. ‘Just you wait and see. I’ll show you!’

I couldn’t have cared less what any of my teachers thought of me, because I knew for a fact I was going to make my living by performing. Nothing and nobody was going to stand in my way.

It’s just as well I had that attitude, because at break time I went to find the music tape I’d left in my locker and found it had been stolen. I was really annoyed because I’d gone to all the trouble of making the cassette myself, and there was no time to make another one.

‘What will you do?’ the man at my audition asked later that day, looking worried for me.

His name was Drew Falconer and he’d come into the dance school to watch a few of us.

‘Don’t worry, I’m gonna sing the song meself,’ I said. Then I just started singing and dancing in front of him, giving it my all.

‘The poor guy must have thought I was mental,’ I laughed to our Gillian that night.

‘He sat there lookin’ at me gobsmacked while I was bustin’ these moves and singin’!’

I was offered a part in the panto the very next day, but my excitement was short-lived because it turned out they couldn’t fill the other places and the show had to be cancelled.

‘There’ll be another one, Cheryl,’ Mam said.

‘I know,’ I replied. I was disappointed but I wasn’t too bothered. I didn’t ever feel I had to chase my dream, because I firmly believed I’d make it happen one day, when the time was right. It wasn’t about being famous or rich, I just wanted to dance and sing and entertain people, because it’s what I loved to do. It was that simple, that clear.

I remember explaining all this to Dolly one day, who was an old lady who lived across the road from us. Dolly had six kids and lots of grandkids and I’d known her and her family all my life. After I started at Walker School I’d begun to spend a lot of time with her, partly because she didn’t care if I wagged off school and her flat was another place to go to during the day, if I wasn’t with Kelly.

‘Eee, Cheryl, it’s lovely to see you,’ Dolly would say every time I knocked on her door, even if it was clearly during school hours and I was in my uniform. ‘Come in, and stay with us for a bit of company.’

Being with Dolly was far more interesting than being at school. She told me stories about the war and I was absolutely fascinated by her. She didn’t have a tooth in her head and her language was shocking, but also very funny to listen to because she couldn’t pronounce an ‘f’ through her gums.

‘Who’s that knocking on the buckin’ door!’ she’d shout whenever someone came to her flat.

I soon learned why she reacted like that, as it was often the police asking questions about one of the colourful characters in Dolly’s large family.

‘You haven’t got a warrant!’ she’d shout, knowing all the spiel. ‘You can’t come in here!’

Whenever a woman came in from social services or the home help service, Dolly always made a point of telling them proudly that I was her granddaughter.

‘Hi darlin’,’ she always greeted each helper warmly. ‘Do you want to put the kettle on an’ we’ll ’ave a nice cup of tea? This is me lovely granddaughter, Cheryl. She’s going to be a pop star, you know.’

Whenever the visitor was out of earshot Dolly’s smile would fall from her face and she’d whisper to me behind her hand: ‘Watch that one, she’ll be all nice to me face but she’ll be dippin’ in me purse when me back’s turned.’

I found out many years later that when my back was turned Dolly would often say, ‘Cheryl? She’ll never be a buckin’ pop star!’ That was typical Dolly, and I don’t mind at all, not now.

I’d push Dolly in her wheelchair to the shops along the Shields Road, which was the big main road separating our estate from Walker, or I’d go out and pay her rent or get her some teabags and milk if she needed me to.

Dolly would forget all about cups of tea when the helpers weren’t around, mind you. She liked vodka and Irn-Bru, and even when I was just 12 or 13 years old she’d be trying to give me tumblers of the stuff. I’d take a swig just to keep her happy even though I didn’t like the taste at all, but sometimes I’d go home feeling drunk and dizzy at 5pm.

Her daughter lived in the flat upstairs and if there was any noise Dolly would take a broom and bash the ceiling like a mad woman, making dents in the paintwork and shouting, ‘Keep the buckin’ noise down!’ I’d often stay the night at Dolly’s, and my mam was quite happy with that. She knew Dolly well and she always knew where I was, so she didn’t mind. It wasn’t out of the ordinary where we lived to be in and out of each others’ homes like that. Besides, Mam had her hands full being a single mother, especially with Garry still at primary school, and she was always happy to let me come and go as I pleased.

One afternoon Mam told me there was a little festival on, just two minutes down the road. ‘Let’s take our Garry,’ she said. ‘There’s hook a duck, toffee apples and all that. Shall we go and have a look?’

As soon as we got there I saw someone I recognised. ‘Mother,’ I hissed. ‘That’s that guy that auditioned me for the panto.’

‘Never!’ Mam said.

The man started walking towards us, smiling. ‘It’s Cheryl, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘I’m Drew Falconer,’ he told my mam, shaking her hand enthusiastically.

‘We were very impressed by Cheryl’s audition. It was a real shame the panto never went ahead. Your daughter is very talented. I reckon she has it in her to be a pop star.’

I couldn’t believe it when I heard that because it was absolutely amazing to hear someone as important as him confirming what I already felt in my heart. It turned out that Drew ran a local talent management company and was always looking for young acts to bring on. He put up-and-coming singers on the stage at Metroland, which was like a big indoor theme park within the Metrocentre shopping complex in Gateshead.

‘What d’you think?’ my mam said when he left us with his card, asking us to get in touch to discuss giving Metroland a try.

‘As long as I can still do me dancing as well as singing, I’ll do it,’ I said. Even though I’d been telling people for ages I was going to be a pop star, dancing was still the biggest thing in my life; the singing just came along with it.

‘You’re a weirdo,’ Kelly said when I told her I was going to meet Drew to listen to music and plan some stage routines the following week. ‘What d’you wanna do that for?’

‘Why not? It’s brilliant,’ I told her. ‘I love all this.’

I don’t think any of my friends really understood how passionate I was about music and dancing, or how I could be so convinced that was where my future lay. My dad was the worst, forever repeating what he’d said to me for years.

‘Cheryl, sweetheart, you need to concentrate on getting a proper job. You need to get your head out of the clouds.’

‘No, Dad, being a pop star is a proper job. I’m going to be on Top of the Pops one day and I’ll be number one. Watch.’

None of my mates took the mickey or anything like that. I was never bullied or picked on for doing something different, but neither was I ever one of the in-crowd, or the ‘it’ girls as we called them. I was somewhere in the middle, and I liked it like that. I had just a few close friends, and when I wasn’t singing or dancing I spent my time either with Dolly, hanging around with Kelly, or messing around with another good mate of mine, Lindsey, who was a year older than me and lived up the road.

Lindsey was always up for a laugh, and it was around this time that she suggested we should sneak out one night and go camping with some of the boys we knew on the estate. I readily agreed, but I was just 13 and I knew my mam wouldn’t let me go out camping at night with boys.

‘We need a plan,’ I said. ‘You tell your mam you’re staying at mine, and we’ll sneak out when my mam’s asleep.’

Why I didn’t just say I was staying at Dolly’s I don’t know, but I suppose Lindsey had to say she was staying at mine so her parents would let her out. When the big night came, Lindsey and I pretended to go to sleep in my bedroom, but underneath our quilts we were fully clothed, waiting to make our escape at 2am.

Meanwhile, the group of boys we’d arranged to meet were in my back garden waiting for us. Lindsey and I peeped out of my bedroom window and saw them mucking about. One of them, Lee Dac, was doing Mr Motivator aerobics routines to keep warm, because it was the middle of winter. The other boys joined in and they were all flexing their muscles and posing. We thought it was hysterical, but we buttoned our lips and scrambled back into bed when we heard footsteps on the landing outside.

‘It’s me mother!’

Lindsey and I were trying not to snigger under our quilts, but the boys gave the game away because they’d started chucking clumps of mud at my bedroom window to get our attention. My mam must have heard them from her bedroom, and she stormed in and went berserk, pulling back my quilt and smacking me so hard that she nearly took my head off my shoulders. I literally saw stars, and I couldn’t believe it because my mam normally flounced around the house like a little fairy, being super gentle and soft. She’d given me a clip round the ear plenty of times before, or a smack on the legs when I was naughty, but nothing as bad as this. I’d never seen her lose it like this, ever. I was so shocked, and really annoyed that our camping adventure was over before it began.

We couldn’t sleep and Lindsay and I stayed awake for ages, whispering to each other.

‘Have you kissed anybody yet?’ she asked me.

‘John Courtney,’ I confessed.

My first kiss had happened quite recently in fact, in the back alley one afternoon after school.

Me and John just liked each other and so we had a kiss, that was all. I was at that age when I was starting to get interested in boys, but it was all very innocent. I was a typical teenager, giggling like a little girl with my friends one minute and wanting to be all grown up with the boys the next.

All of our family was close with John’s and I really liked him because he was very cheeky and always smiling. He was also a really good footballer. People said he had the potential to play for Newcastle one day. He trained hard and was ambitious, which I admired. I know it can’t have been true, but at the time it felt like me and him were the only two around our area who knew where we wanted to go. I never said that to any of my friends, of course, but that’s how it felt, especially now I was working at Metroland

‘I’ve got you a gig, Cheryl,’ Drew told me one day. ‘I think you’re ready for it.’

I’d done lots of rehearsals with him by now and I’d been on the stage plenty of times at Metroland. I honestly can’t remember much about my early performances there, but I think that’s because it really didn’t feel like a big deal to me. I must have been only 12 the first time I took the microphone, but right from the start I always felt very comfortable on the stage. It felt just like an extension of all my dance shows, except I happened to be singing as well.

I think my experience of ballroom dancing, as well as ballet, helped. When I was younger I’d had a regular ballroom partner for a few years called James Richardson. We won loads of competitions and made the finals of the National Championships in Blackpool. The pair of us also appeared on Gimme 5 together and on Michael Barrymore’s My Kind of People, which at the time was a really popular TV show. We went our separate ways when I suddenly got taller than James, but it had all been good experience for me, and it meant Metroland just felt like the next step in my career. The audience would typically be made up of families on a day out, or other kids who’d been dropped off while their mam went shopping. I never felt under pressure because the atmosphere was always friendly and people always clapped and cheered. ‘What’s the gig?’ I asked Drew confidently.

‘You’re doing the warm up for Damage,’ he replied, which made my heart skip a beat.

‘Bring it on! Wait till I tell me sister!’

Damage was a really well-known boy band. To me they were proper, famous pop stars, but I wasn’t fazed at all. I felt ready, and I was really excited. When my big moment came I wore high-top trainers and baggy trousers with a little crop top, trying to look all cool and R&B like the boys. I remember my heart was pounding when I ran off the stage after completing a few well-rehearsed numbers, but my biggest memory from that time is being invited along to watch Damage perform on the Smash Hits Poll Winners’ Party, which was a TV show filmed at the Metro Arena.

This was a programme I’d watched for years, dreaming of being on it one day. I remember standing in that arena literally open-mouthed, feeling within touching distance of making my dream come true.

‘Wow! This is it!’ I thought. ‘This is what I want to do.’

From that point on I started performing regular gigs at Metroland. It was on the other side of the River Tyne to where we lived and took me 40 minutes to get there on the bus but I always did it willingly, every time. I just loved being on that stage. I felt alive. It’s where I felt like me.

By contrast, when I was wearing my school trousers with their little pleats down the front, blue shirt, black blazer and striped Walker School tie I felt completely disinterested and out of place. My tie had a red stripe in it, showing I was in Walker House. ‘Red for danger’ the teachers probably thought, because I was nothing but trouble.

‘Cheryl Tweedy, you have brought shame on this school,’ my head teacher told me one day, after hauling me angrily into his office.

I knew what this was about. A boy had spat at me on the bus, and so I’d sworn at him. That’s how I was brought up. If someone attacked a Tweedy, we were taught to defend ourselves.

Right from when I was a small girl Joe and Andrew used to say to me: ‘Come on, Cheryl, if you don’t hit back you’ll get chinned.’

‘But I’m a ballerina!’ I’d say.

‘Well, what are you going to do – pirouette them to death?’

My brothers would then hold up a couple of cushions and tell me to punch each one in turn.

‘Come on, Cheryl, left, right, left, right!’

I’d reluctantly hit the cushions as my brothers drummed it into me to always stand up for myself.

‘It wasn’t me that started it,’ I complained now to the head teacher, rolling my eyes insolently.

‘Take that chewing gum out of your mouth this instant! There was an old lady on that bus who has complained to the school, and she has identified you from a picture line-up.’

I was suspended for two weeks, which was the second time I’d had that punishment. On the previous occasion I’d been caught fighting, again when I was trying to stand up for myself. My dad never found out about the suspensions because he would have gone mental. Mam just said: ‘When will you learn, Cheryl?’ and sent me to go and tidy my bedroom, which was always a complete tip with crisp packets all over the floor.

I spent the fortnight’s suspension mostly with Kelly. She wagged off and we went and stood outside the newsagent until we spotted someone who we thought looked like a ‘cool’ adult and wouldn’t mind buying us some cigarettes.

‘Excuse me, can you buy us 10 Lambert & Butler?’ we asked if we were feeling flush and had some of our £1.50 weekly pocket money left. Otherwise we asked a likely looking adult to buy us a ‘single’, which usually meant we got a Regal cigarette.

I smoked from about the age of 13, because everybody did. It was like with the vodka and Irn-Bru Dolly gave me. I didn’t really want the booze or the ‘tabs’, as we called cigarettes, but I knew that despite the scrapes I got into at school, most people saw me as a Goody Two-shoes because of my singing and dancing, and I didn’t want to stand out any more.

For the same reason, it wasn’t long before I smoked weed too. Everybody did it and I gave in to peer pressure at a party in someone’s house one weekend.

‘Go on, Cheryl, it won’t kill you,’ one of the lads said, and so I puffed on a joint. I didn’t particularly like it, but after that I started smoking more and more. Loads, in fact. It didn’t seem to affect me that much; it just made me feel a bit more relaxed, like nicotine did. It did have one big advantage over cigarettes though: weed was a lot easier to get hold of because you didn’t have to ask an adult to go into the corner shop for you. It was always readily available on the street and that’s why I smoked so much of it.

Other drugs were a different matter. I knew stuff like speed and Ecstasy and even cocaine were available on the street, but I was scared of all those drugs. I’d seen some of the older boys in local gangs looking completely out of control, off their heads on God knows what. Andrew’s glue-sniffing had freaked me out too, and I hated to see anyone with that crazed look in their eyes. My dad was fiercely anti-drugs, and so was Drew. They both drummed it into me to avoid drugs and I listened. I didn’t think they meant weed because everyone smoked weed, and it didn’t worry me because it didn’t make people lose control like all the other stuff did.

Once I was well established at Metroland Drew started to encourage me to think about recording music as well as performing, and he began fixing up some studio sessions, both in Newcastle and down in London. I just went along with whatever he suggested. I was keen to learn, and going to London seemed like the right move if I wanted to make it as big as a band like Damage.

‘You hated it down there when you went to the Royal Ballet,’ my mam said.

‘I was only 10 years old!’ I replied. ‘It’s different now. I’m 14. I’m ready for it.’

She sent Gillian with me the first time I went to London, and a few times after that. We travelled in a tiny Mini Metro that only did about 60mph. A friend of Drew’s drove, and it felt like it took us about 20 hours to get down south.

When I was there I did a ‘showcase’ for different record labels and met the ‘development team’ of a ‘management company’ called Brilliant.

‘What the hell does all that mean?’ Gillian asked.

‘I don’t have a clue,’ I replied. ‘I’ll just do me singin’ and then we’ll go home.’

It was always like that. It probably sounded quite glamorous to my mates back home but to me it wasn’t much different to going into the studio in Newcastle. I’d be asked to have a go at different tracks, and I knew I was one of lots of other teenagers who were looking for a break and doing exactly the same as me.

We would usually travel there and back in a day, and I remember once the car got broken into when we stopped on the North Circular to go and get a McDonald’s on the way home. Gillian’s quilt was stolen along with a few of her bits and pieces, but the worst thing was that the whole back window was smashed out, and we had to drive all the way back to Newcastle with a plastic bag taped over the gap where the window should have been. The rustling noise did our heads in all the way home. It was freezing cold and we clung to each other for the whole journey, trying to keep warm.

‘Why is there always some kind of drama with you, Cheryl?’ Gillian moaned.

‘With me?’ I replied indignantly. ‘It’s not my fault we get into these types of pickles, is it?’

Not long after that trip I decided to dye my hair blonde. I loved Destiny’s Child and I wanted to be Beyoncé. ‘Blonde hair looks brilliant on her,’ I said to Gillian. ‘I’m sure it’ll work for me too. It’ll look good with me dark skin.’

Gillian didn’t try to stop me, even though I had form when it came to experimenting with this type of thing. One time I decided to wax my sister’s top lip by melting some candle wax, sticking it on her ‘tash’ and then ripping it off quickly when it hardened. Once that was done I dabbed the red-raw skin with lemon juice. God only knows what I was thinking. Gillian had a massive red rash for ages afterwards and Mam went crazy with me. I did the same to myself and to one of my cousins’ eyebrows once too, with the same disastrous results.

Anyhow, I took myself off to a local hairdresser’s one day, where they put coconut bleach on my head for about eight hours. I sat there patiently, thinking it would all be so worth it, but I was absolutely mortified when they’d finished. I didn’t look anything like Beyoncé. Instead, to use Dolly’s phrase, I looked more like a ‘buckin’ Belisha Beacon’.

I cried and cried, and Dolly’s daughter was so angry she took me back to the shop.

‘Cheryl, you look ridiculous!’ she said. ‘You should get a refund!’

Red-faced, I trailed back to the hairdressers with her, only to be sent away with the offer of a free conditioning treatment I didn’t even want.

‘If they think I’m stepping foot in there again they’ve got another thing coming,’ I sobbed.

Before long Drew introduced me to Ricky, a musician friend of his down in London. Ricky had heard me sing, and he and his wife took quite a shine to me and said I could stay with them whenever I wanted to. Sometimes I did, or sometimes Gillian and I stayed in a £19-a-night hotel with just a bed and a sink, but at least it meant I didn’t have to go up and down to Newcastle in one day if I had the opportunity of some studio time at Brilliant.

I began writing songs with Ricky and I just loved it. I’d go down to London during every school holiday and sometimes at the weekends, getting a lift or taking the train to King’s Cross. I wasn’t being paid and I had never signed anything with Drew; I was just trying to get as much experience under my belt as I could.

Brilliant eventually became the hugely successful 19 Management company, but back then it was only a small outfit, which was perfect for a teenager like me taking my first steps in the music industry.

‘You know what, Mam?’ I said one day. ‘Every time I get past Stevenage when I go down south I get a warm, tingling feeling in me body. It’s like I belong in London. It’s where I’m gonna be. And the funny thing is, the closer I get to home on the way back, the less I can breathe.’

Mam howled laughing, which was quite irritating seeing as she was supposed to be the spiritual one. I really did feel drawn to London, though. Everything looked twinkly down there. I can clearly remember the first time I saw Piccadilly Circus. ‘What is this?’ I thought, standing there looking at the giant advertising hoardings and flashy neon signs. Everything was sparkling, all around me. I’d been brought up to be streetwise and my dad in particular had always tried to keep my feet on the ground. But in London I couldn’t help dreaming big dreams. I was going to be a pop star. It was absolutely what I was going to do.

I was 15 now, and my school days were very nearly over, thank God. ‘You need to try hard, Cheryl,’ my dad would say. ‘Get some exams under your belt and then you can get to college.’

‘Dad, you don’t need GCSEs to have a number one record, and that’s how I’m going to make my living.’

While I was in my last couple of terms at school I got myself a job in the local café, JJs on Heaton Road. I wanted to earn money for clothes, as well as for my trips to London. I loved United Colours of Benetton at the time, and to afford clothes like that I’d started taking out loans with the ‘Provi’ man. He was always on the estate, the ‘Man from the Provident’, lending money out. I borrowed £200 from him the first time, which I had to pay back in weekly instalments, with interest, of course.

The café was perfect for me. It was only down the road from our house and I could work part-time, which meant I could earn a bit of money but still concentrate on my music. Right from the start I enjoyed chatting to the customers and making teas and coffees and all-day breakfasts. The owner, Nupi, was a lovely old Asian guy who’d led an amazing life. I was always attracted to people who had stories to tell, and we really hit it off.

‘Two teas, please, Smiler,’ Nupi said to me on the very first day, and the nickname stuck.

I have to be honest here; a lot of the time I was smiling about something else that was going on in my life, rather than at the joy of frying bacon and making tea. I had a boyfriend, who I kept secret from just about everyone. I have never spoken about him before, but he was actually my first proper boyfriend, and he affected my teens in a massive way.

Dave lived locally and I’d seen him around the estate for years before we started dating. I bumped into him in the street one day on the way home and I swear that something literally went ‘boom’ between us. I hadn’t seen him for a while and I had never fancied him before, but I fell for him in a big way, right there and then. I’d never experienced anything like it in my life before. He was absolutely gorgeous looking, and I could tell by the way he looked at me that he fancied me too.

‘Are you going to let me take you out for dinner?’ he asked after we’d done a bit of flirty catching up.

The question took me completely by surprise. I’d never been taken out to dinner before. I knew Dave was quite a bit older than me and I felt very flattered. I’d kissed a couple of other boys since my very first kiss with John Courtney, and I’d been out with one or two other boys for a week or so here and there, but nothing serious.

I’m sure I blushed, and I excitedly agreed to let Dave take me out.

‘How old are you?’ I asked on our first date.

‘24.’

I gulped.

‘Don’t worry,’ Dave smiled. ‘I will take good care of you.’

We were in a fancy restaurant and I felt incredibly grown up.

Dave really knew how to treat a girl, or so I thought. After that he took me out for lots of candlelit dinners and he regularly bought me flowers, CDs, teddy bears – you name it. I fell for him in a huge way, and I mean huge.

I didn’t tell a soul at first, because I was only 15 and still at school, and I knew my dad and Joe would go absolutely mad about Dave’s age. It was easy to meet in secret anyhow. Everyone was used to me going to Metroland on my own for hours on end, or to the local recording studios. It meant I didn’t have to lie or even sneak around when really I was going out with Dave.

‘Would you like to learn to drive?’ he said one night when he picked me up near school in his car.

‘I’m too young. How can I?’

‘I know where we can go. Hop in.’

He took me to an empty car park in town, and that’s where I had my first driving lessons. It was so exciting. I’d still be in my school uniform, but I felt like a proper grown-up woman, madly in love for the very first time. It was a really amazing feeling.

‘Go on, have a smoke,’ Gillian said one day, passing me a joint. She was 19 and had left home by now and moved into a flat of her own, but she was in the kitchen of our house at Langhorn Close, smoking weed, with my mam standing right beside her.

Mam knew Gillian smoked weed and just let her get on with it, saying: ‘You’re old enough to make your own decisions.’ But I was four years younger, and I would never have dreamed of smoking in front of my mam. I started shaking my head and looking at Gillian as if to say, ‘Are you mad?’

‘Go on,’ my sister said cheekily. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t smoke it, Cheryl. I know you do.’

I was mortified, but Mam just looked at me and said very calmly, ‘If you’re going to do it, Cheryl, I’d rather know, and I’d rather you did it here.’

Gillian passed me the joint and I had a smoke. I didn’t enjoy it and I was furious with Gillian, but at least we all knew where we stood. I think my mam’s open-minded reaction that day helped me confide in her about my relationship with Dave, not too long afterwards. I was relieved when she didn’t seem too bothered about his age and was only concerned that he was treating me well. ‘He’s amazing,’ I reassured her. ‘He can’t do enough for me. We’re so happy together.’

It wasn’t long before Dave and I became intimate, and I wanted to take precautions. I confided in my mam again and she listened patiently and agreed to take me to the GP for the Pill.

‘I’m not one of those girls who sleeps around,’ I told her. ‘I’d never have a one-night stand.’

‘I know that, Cheryl. I’m glad you’re being sensible.’

I was telling the absolute truth. I had always been ridiculously protective and respectful of myself, to the point where I’d been accused of being a prude many times.

‘We really love each other, Mam,’ I said. ‘He’s just the best.’

‘As long as you’re happy and safe, Cheryl, that’s what matters.’

Dave and I were together for about 12 months, and he became the centre of my world. I lived and breathed for him, to the point where even my singing and dancing took a back seat. I’d write lyrics in my bedroom and I always had music playing, always. I couldn’t imagine a world without music, and R&B and soul were my favourites. I still loved pop music, especially anything by Destiny’s Child, but I’d been drifting away from Metroland for months now, and I’d also stopped going down to London.

‘What are you doing about your singing?’ Joe asked when I left school in the summer of 1999 and turned 16 a few weeks later, at the end of June. ‘Don’t you give it up! You need to sort your life out.’

I’d tell him not to worry. ‘I’m working more days in the café and it’ll happen when the time is right.’

‘No, you need to make it happen,’ he’d argue.

‘I will … when the time is right.’

Working in the café did leave me less time for my singing and dancing, but the real reason I wasn’t pursuing my career was Dave.

Thankfully, nobody else questioned me like Joe did. I think other people in the family just assumed things had changed in my life because I’d left school. There was also plenty going on in the family to take the focus away from me. For one thing, we’d just found out that Gillian was pregnant. She had a really strong relationship with her partner and everyone was very excited that there was going to be a new baby in the family. Mam was very pleased. It’s always been the done thing where I grew up to have your kids young, and it wasn’t unusual to become a grandmother in your late thirties or early forties.

‘Eee, I can’t wait,’ Mam told everyone who would listen. ‘A new bairn in the family. What could be better?’

‘Will you be with me for the birth?’ Gillian asked me the minute her pregnancy was confirmed.

‘Of course I will!’ I replied, although I didn’t have a clue what I was letting myself in for.

We were both staring at the pregnancy test, and we worked out her baby was due in January 2000.

‘Oh my God, you might have the first Millennium baby!’ I shrieked, promising to hold Gillian’s hand every step of the way.

The other big distraction for the family was Andrew. He was in Durham Prison now, having been moved there as soon as he was old enough to leave the young offenders’ institution. Garry and I went with Mam for prison visits sometimes. I always found the trips upsetting, even though the routine was soon so familiar it quickly became commonplace.

‘I’ve brought all your favourites from the machine,’ Mam would say, passing Andrew some Pot Noodles, fruit jellies and hot chocolate drinks.

You had to put all your belongings in a locker before you went into the visitors’ room, but my mam would always make sure she had plenty of change in her purse for the vending machines once we got inside. Nobody talked about what Andrew had done. He would tell us about the canteen food or the latest fight he’d seen in the corridor and Mam would go ‘poor you’. It was always like that.

‘How’s the singing and dancing, Cheryl?’ Andrew usually asked me.

‘Fine. Just not doing so much now I’m in the café more.’

We’d shuffle out when the bell went, promising we’d be back soon.

‘Bye, pet,’ Mam would smile. It was the same smile she used when she said goodbye to me at the Royal Ballet all those years ago, or when she waved our Garry off on a school trip. She treated us all exactly the same, no matter what any of us did.

‘I’ve done something really stupid,’ one of my friends told me one day. She’d come into the café for a cup of tea and some sympathy.

‘It can’t be that bad. Tell me what you’ve done.’

She was in a terrible state and I sat down beside her and held her hand as she struggled to get the words out.

‘I had a one-night stand last night with someone …’ she sobbed.

I gave her hand a squeeze. ‘Don’t cry. Do you want to tell me who with?’

She took a deep breath and said, ‘You know that Dave, the one who lives …’

Nothing could have prepared me for that. It literally took the breath out of me and I felt I was going to suffocate. Never, ever, could I have imagined Dave would have cheated on me, let alone with someone he knew to be my friend. We’d been dating for 12 months and he meant the whole world to me. I was madly in love with him and I thought he loved me too.

I don’t remember my friend finishing her sentence but I heard enough to be left in absolutely no doubt she was talking about my boyfriend. My heart sank into my shoes and I started panicking like mad. I just couldn’t believe my ears.

Nobody beside my mam knew I was dating Dave. My friend didn’t have a clue, and I certainly wasn’t going to enlighten her now. It was all far too much to deal with.

‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to get back to work,’ I gasped. I felt the colour fall out of my face and I ran into the kitchen, thinking I was going to choke or be physically sick. I don’t know how I struggled through to the end of my shift, but I did, smiling at the customers and chatting away as best I could.

Afterwards I ran home, locked myself in my bedroom and cried my eyes out for hours and hours. I was heartbroken, absolutely devastated. They say the first cut is the deepest and they’re not wrong, or at least that’s how it felt at the time. I couldn’t imagine feeling a worse pain than this. It was like an actual physical stab to my heart.

I eventually went round to Dave’s and went crazy, and I mean crazy.

‘It’s not true. She’s making it up,’ he said pathetically, but I knew it was him who was the liar. My friend was so ashamed of what she’d done and wished it wasn’t true. By contrast Dave had good reason to lie, and his deceit was written all over his face. I felt so disgusted and insulted that he had the cheek to deny it to my face after behaving like that behind my back.

‘I was so proud of you,’ I shouted. ‘I was so proud of us! I had a ridiculous amount of pride in our relationship. It was so good! You’ve ripped me heart out!’

The betrayal was just unbearable. I didn’t know how I was going to cope with it, and the truth is I didn’t. The next morning I got up late, moped around the house and smoked weed before I’d even eaten anything. It sounds so disgusting now, but that’s what I did. I literally turned into a depressed teenager overnight. At first I couldn’t bear to tell my mam what Dave had done to me because I knew it would have devastated her too. Instead, I bottled everything up, smoking more and more weed every day.

I managed to drag myself into the café on the three or four days a week I worked and I somehow put on a brave face for the customers, but it was never easy. I remember having a row with Nupi once that must have been really bad, because he fired me on the spot even though we were close friends by then. I got another job in a pizza place, but after two weeks I was in a terrible state and Joe demanded to know what was going on.

‘I have to clean out this big dough machine,’ I cried. ‘And the owner is horrible. He keeps making suggestive remarks to me.’

Joe went crazy, threatened the guy and told me I was never stepping foot in the place again. When Nupi found out about the trouble he gave me a job in a new café he’d opened on the Quayside.

‘Thank you, Nupi, you’re a real friend,’ I told him, but inside I was dying, wondering how I was going to hold the job down when I felt so bad.

All of those events are quite blurred in my head because, looking back, I had sunk into a very deep depression. I began having panic attacks, gasping for breath and feeling my heart racing for no reason. I was skinny to begin with but now I had absolutely no appetite, and my weight dipped to less than six stone. I was incredibly anxious all the time, to the point where it felt like my heart was beating so fast it was eating me up inside. I ate crisps and junk food to survive, but stopped having proper meals. I didn’t have a clue about healthy eating and couldn’t have told you the difference between protein and carbohydrate, so I had no idea how bad this was for my health.

As the weeks went by I also became quite reclusive. If I didn’t have to go out to work I’d stay in the house in my pyjamas all day. Then I’d start feeling frightened and paranoid about ever going out again. I think I was a bit agoraphobic, because when I did step out of the house I felt really vulnerable, like something really bad was going to happen to me. Needless to say, my singing career was put completely on the back burner. I didn’t even have the will to sing in my bedroom or write the odd lyric, let alone think about getting back up on a stage.

‘I’m takin’ you to the doctor’s,’ Mam said one day. ‘I’ve had enough of this.’

I think a few months had gone by, and I didn’t argue. The GP took one look at me and said flatly: ‘She’s depressed.’

I was given a prescription for beta-blockers and was told I was actually suffering from clinical depression. Apparently there was a history of it in the family.

‘The pills will slow your heart rate,’ I remember the doctor saying.

‘Good,’ I thought. ‘I’m sick of it beating so fast.’

The tablets were bright blue, but were not the magic cure I’d hoped for. From the very first day I hated taking them because they made me feel dizzy and sickly, and at night when the rest of the world got quiet my brain became super noisy and loud.

‘What’s the point of life?’ I’d think to myself. I was too much of a wimp to think about actually ending it all, but for a long time the thought wasn’t far away.

‘Pick your chin up,’ Joe would say to me if he came round and saw me still not dressed in the middle of the day – but some days I was too low to care what anybody thought of me, even my big brother. Sometimes I’d go round to the neighbours’ house, still in my pyjamas, and play with their dog, Oscar. I must have looked a total mess but I didn’t care about anything, least of all what I looked like. ‘You need to snap out of this,’ Joe would tell me, but I just didn’t know how.

Joe had got himself a good job at the Nissan factory and his life was sorted, but I knew he’d had some problems in the past. He of all people was somebody I should have listened to, but I don’t think I was ready or capable of doing anything other than wallowing in my depression.

‘I wish I could snap out of it but I can’t,’ I’d think to myself, but I never said that to Joe.

My dad was kept in the dark about a lot of this. ‘Cheryl, you’re looking a bit thin, sweetheart, are you eating enough?’ he would ask, but I never told him the half of it. He’d have gone mad if he’d known I was taking pills, and so I kept it from him.

‘It’ll pass,’ Mam said many times, but I didn’t believe her. Other relatives who knew I’d split up with my boyfriend, though they’d never met him, would say things like: ‘Never mind, Cheryl, that’s puppy love for you,’ or, ‘You’ll be seein’ someone else before you know it.’ I just couldn’t visualise myself with anybody else, and those sort of comments made me feel so alone, because it felt like nobody understood what I’d lost and the pain I was going through.

It took at least six months for me to even begin to pick myself up and start seeing my friends again, but even then I was a shell of myself and it took me a few more months before I’d agree to do normal teenage stuff, like going out for a drink or to parties. One night I got talked into going to a house party on the other side of the estate, which I really wasn’t sure about.

‘I don’t want to be here,’ I thought as soon as I walked in the door.

There was a guy sitting in the living room called Jason Mack, who was quite a bit older than me and ran a second-hand furniture shop on the corner of the street. I’d seen him around since I was about 10 years old, and I knew there had been a fire at his shop a few months earlier.

‘What happened?’ I asked him, just for something to say. My confidence was low, and I definitely wasn’t in a party mood.

‘I split up with my girlfriend and she tried to burn the shop down,’ Jason said.

‘My God, I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve had a horrible time too. I split up with my boyfriend not that long ago.’

We shared sob stories, smoked some weed and just chilled out together. I felt a connection to Jason, and that night I saw him as an equal for the first time, rather than the much older person I’d always viewed him as. I fancied him, actually. He had blond hair, blue eyes and nice teeth, and he told me he was 27. I was still only 16, but after my experience with Dave I definitely didn’t feel like an inexperienced young teenager, far from it.

At the end of the night Jason gave me a kiss and I felt a spark of life inside me for the first time in nine months, which was the length of time I’d been on my own after Dave.

‘Do you fancy going out tomorrow, just the two of us?’ Jason asked.

‘Why not?’ I replied. I actually smiled and felt excited, and when I went to bed that night the noises in my brain weren’t quite as loud, because I’d cleared a little bit of space in my head to think nice thoughts about Jason. Maybe my life was about to become happier. I felt like it was, and I surprised myself by actually feeling ready to be happy again.