Cheryl Cole: Her Story - the Unauthorized Biography (2 page)

And so, the moment had arrived when one of the expectant children would become the happiest in all of Newcastle. ‘Thank you all for coming today,’ Whitehouse began. ‘It’s been a wonderful day, but of course there can only be one winner …’ Cheryl glanced at her mum one last time and conjured up her best Oscars-worthy smile so that, if her name wasn’t the one called, she wouldn’t look too disappointed. ‘And the winner is …’ Mike paused for dramatic effect. ‘Cheryl Tweedy.’

It took a couple of seconds for the words to sink in, but when they did, the little six-year-old erupted into squeals of joy. Her mother dashed towards her and wrapped her up in her arms. Cheryl had won yet again. It looked as if there was absolutely no stopping her. Nor was there any stopping her when it came to using those gift vouchers she had won as a prize. ‘It was a lovely day,’ her mum said of Cheryl’s triumph in the
Evening Chronicle.
‘She really enjoyed herself. As a kid, that was her thing – dressing up and putting on a show. She has always been into clothes and when she won those vouchers she was thrilled because she could buy more.’

But that honour was far from the end of Cheryl’s glories. Not long afterwards, she was awarded the top prize in the ‘Best Looking Girl in Newcastle’ contest and – as if she hadn’t already won enough awards – was also named the ‘Most Attractive Girl’
at Gateshead’s Metro Centre (the largest shopping and leisure complex in Europe).

Ambitious Cheryl wasn’t content with just winning beauty contests, however: she wanted to be a star. When she was seven, she finally got the break into TV that she’d been waiting for, when she landed an acting gig with kid brother Garry in an advert for British Gas. In the thirty-second clip, a naked Cheryl is seen being bathed in a bath full of bubbles with her brother. Although the ad could potentially be slightly embarrassing when viewed years later, Cheryl’s mum said in the
Daily Star
that this wasn’t the case for her daughter. ‘She isn’t really embarrassed about it because she was just a little girl. It proved she was a natural in front of the cameras.’

Shortly afterwards, the Tweedy twosome were hired once again to appear in an advert for Newcastle’s Eldon Square shopping centre. Cheryl’s award-winning dark eyes and prize-winning gorgeous face had captivated the folks of Newcastle, and it wasn’t long before she was being asked to appear in yet another advert, this time for Sunderland-based furniture retailer SCS – even if it did mean she had to wear a rather garish mid-nineties rainbow-coloured waistcoat!

While the youngster was enjoying every opportunity that came her way, ambitious Cheryl didn’t just want to live off her looks. She had a dream and she was determined to make it come true: she wanted to dance. But, as she would soon find out, sometimes dreams don’t always turn out quite as you’d imagined.

Ever since she could walk, young Cheryl Tweedy had demonstrated a keen interest in dancing. Whenever she could, she would sneak off to her bedroom, turn on some music and work out her own routines.

‘I’d shut the door, play my songs and pretend I was in a video,’ she remembered in the ITV2 documentary series
The Passions of Girls Aloud.
‘But I would always get caught in the middle of a dance move, and I’d be so embarrassed, because my older brothers and sister would take the mick out of me and say stuff like “We were spying on you”.’

Cheryl didn’t care, however. She knew she had rhythm, and she knew that she
really
enjoyed dancing. Although she was happy enough twirling, spinning and gyrating to the latest pop tunes on the radio, secretly, Cheryl harboured a burning desire to slip on a tutu and become a ballerina. What little ballet she had already seen had been enough to mesmerize her. The beautiful, graceful moves of the dancers were hypnotic
and she longed to be on stage performing pirouettes herself. Like most girls, Cheryl saw ballet as something magical. There was something so fragile and sophisticated about the way a ballerina glided across the floor. And she knew in her heart that she could do the same if only she were given the chance.

Recognizing that her daughter had a gift, mum Joan took Cheryl along to ballet lessons at the Margaret Waite School of Dancing in Whitley Bay, where Cheryl proved to be something of a hit. Even though she was one of many enthusiastic youngsters with a hopeful glint in their eye, it was Cheryl who stood out. She flew across the floor like a leaf on a breeze, and her lightness of step and ability to move to the music was immediately noted by Margaret, who declared that Cheryl was ‘an exceptional dancer’. As any mother would be, Joan was thrilled that her little girl’s dreams seemed about to come true; that her daughter was lucky enough not only to have the ambition and drive to succeed, but more rarely, the skill to match them. As Joan recalled on
The Passions of Girls Aloud
: ‘In her first lesson, the teacher took me aside and said that Cheryl had something special.’

With her expert knack for picking up routines almost immediately, it wasn’t long before Cheryl was being given parts in local shows. One of the highlights was a small role in the Whitley Bay Pantomime Society’s production of
Aladdin.
Despite only having a minor part, Cheryl saw her participation as a way to shine in front of an audience, which she relished. It may have been a far cry from London’s West End, but the Whitley Bay Pantomime Society provided yet another opportunity for her to dazzle in front of an audience.

Impressed by Cheryl’s stage presence and technical ability, Margaret suggested that perhaps her little nine-year-old protégé
ought to try for a place at the Royal Ballet’s Summer School in London. Cheryl’s eyes lit up immediately she heard this. The chance to go and study at the Royal Ballet in London? She just couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Not only would this mean that she would be training with professional dancers who had performed in many world-famous productions, but she would also get the chance to see another part of the world other than her beloved Newcastle. The process wasn’t easy: Cheryl had to take on five thousand other young, excited hopefuls. Luckily for her, however, the gods were on her side, and she made it through to the final selection with ease. She and her mum could not contain their excitement. Cheryl was going to London to dance with the Royal Ballet!

This was amazing news for the Tweedy family. After all, this kind of thing didn’t happen to people like them. Dad Garry was a painter and decorator, while Mum was a housewife, and with five kids they sometimes struggled to make ends meet. One of their children dancing with the Royal Ballet seemed like a plot lifted straight out of a film. But this was real. The Royal Ballet had decided that Cheryl was good enough to travel to London to be taken under their wing and perhaps to become a star of the future.

Although she was used to winning ‘Bonnie Baby’ competitions and landing roles in adverts during her early years, Cheryl was convinced now that her life was about to turn a corner. If she did well during the fortnight-long Summer School there was every possibility that Cheryl would be asked to attend the Royal Ballet School full time. She knew that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and there was no way she was going to let it slip through her fingers.

What she hadn’t realized, however, was the fact that, despite winning a place on the course, her parents were going to have to shell out £300 for the privilege. It was the early nineties, and the family were finding life relatively hard financially. While they were living a fairly comfortable life, having to spend such a large sum of money left Joan and Garry feeling anxious. There was just no way they could raise the cash for the course in time, but they both knew that there was no way in the world they could deny their eager young daughter the chance to fulfil her dream of dancing. So Cheryl’s mum and dad made the tough decision to ask around for help. Although they were a proud couple who didn’t believe in handouts, they knew that if their little girl was to be able to take advantage of this rare opportunity, they would have to try anything they could to make it happen.

And so Garry and Joan launched a fundraising campaign in their local area. As luck would have it, a sponsor came forward with the money. Cheryl and her family couldn’t hide their joy and Cheryl was keen to thank the kind Samaritan. ‘I want to thank them so much,’ she told the
Evening Chronicle
at the time. ‘I promise I will do my best.’ Giddy with delight, her mum was just as pleased, as it meant that her daughter was finally going to be doing something she loved: ‘It’s fantastic that she’s going to ballet school,’ Joan said at the time to the
Chronicle.
‘It would have broken Cheryl’s heart if she had missed out.’

At last, Cheryl was all set to conquer the world of ballet. Travelling down south was an exciting experience for the young Geordie lass. In her mind, London was the city she’d heard described by her elders; the place where the streets were paved in gold; where young people’s dreams came true; where anyone could become a star. As she made her way to the school
in London’s leafy Richmond on her first day, she couldn’t believe that she, Cheryl Ann Tweedy, was in the big smoke embarking on an adventure of a lifetime.

And when she laid eyes on the impressive White Lodge building, which was to be her home for the next two weeks, she was even more awestruck. Situated in the heart of the sumptuous Richmond Park, south-west London, the eighteenth-century building looked like the kind of grand pile Cheryl had seen in those Sunday afternoon BBC costume dramas. She couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw the grand cream building looming above her. It looked like nothing she’d ever seen before in real life. Cheryl squeezed her mum’s hand and the pair exchanged looks. This was it: the start of the rest of Cheryl’s life. They felt a million miles from the world they both knew. Certainly it would be hard to go back to what she was used to after this. The next two weeks were going to be the best of her life, she felt sure of it. If she did well and was offered a place on the five-year course, she would not only get to study classical ballet, she’d also be taught gymnastics, and Irish, Scottish and Morris dancing, while later on in the course she’d be schooled in repertoire, solos and
pas de deux.

Of course, there was a downside. In conjunction with the dance aspects of the course, Cheryl, if she were to be accepted, would have to study academic subjects, too, such as Maths and English. But as long as she could dance, she didn’t really mind if she had to squeeze in a bit of swotting. So the next fourteen days, Cheryl knew, were crucial. If she did well, a door would be opened and life would never be the same again.

Sadly, her experience on the course was not to live up to her expectations. The moment she stepped into the studio for the
first time and looked around at the other children, Cheryl felt she didn’t belong and that the life she had dreamed about for so long was perhaps not for her after all. For one, none of the other children or parents appeared to be too friendly and they all kept themselves to themselves. For another, Cheryl thought they seemed a little snobbish for her liking, appearing to look down their noses at her. There was a divide for sure: while she and Joan were dressed in their mid-price clothes from home, the other children’s parents were decked out in designer gear and seemed to walk around as if they owned the place.

London was certainly different to Newcastle, but the cultural and class gulf between Cheryl and the other children was even more immense. She had so wanted to enjoy her experience in London and the chance to learn and get to know some new and like-minded people, but it just wasn’t to be. Over the course of the next fortnight, miles away from her family and friends, she became increasingly introverted. She felt alone, out of place and homesick.

‘I wanted to go home straight away,’ she said years later in the
Daily Mirror.
‘Everyone was prim and proper and I was just a Geordie from a council estate. The parents all had money and we struggled just to get cash to travel down to London. I felt that I was the odd one out.’

In spite of her insecurities, however, she didn’t let her isolation put her off what she was there to do, and she excelled in her classes on the course. She realized, too, that no amount of money could replace the strength of the bond she had with her devoted mother Joan. When parents were invited along to see their children’s final performance, Cheryl told the
Mirror
she was the only one who acknowledged her mother.

After the final performance, Cheryl made a decision that she never thought she’d make: she was turning her back on ballet once and for all. The homesickness she’d suffered, the teary nights she’d spent tucked up in bed and the lack of camaraderie between the pupils had left her feeling very disillusioned, and her plans to be a professional ballerina who danced on stages around the world were forgotten there and then. ‘It shattered my dream,’ she admitted in the
Daily Mirror
interview, looking back. ‘But I didn’t want to have to stand a certain way all my life and only eat salad.’

Thankfully, this particular experience didn’t put her off dancing altogether. Back in Newcastle she attended the Newcastle Dance Centre, where she excelled at a wide range of dance styles. Her skill was of such a high calibre that she went on to win numerous dance competitions. Eventually, she teamed up with a boy from the centre for the British Dance Championships, and the pair of them appeared on Michael Barrymore’s successful TV show
My Kind of People.
But that wasn’t their only taste of TV stardom. They also appeared on the Saturday morning kids’ show
Gimme 5
and enjoyed enough screen time to have their friends back at the centre and at school agog with excitement. It was also clear to Cheryl that performing in front of the cameras came naturally to her. Little did she know then that it would stand her in good stead in the future when she’d take part in a TV show called
Popstars: The Rivals.

By the time she was a teenager, it seemed clear that Cheryl Tweedy was destined to become a star, but that didn’t mean her life was all song and dance. In fact, when she wasn’t singing into her hairbrush or bopping away to the hits of boyband Five, she was just like most teenage girls who passed the time hanging out with her friends, larking about with boys and watching chick flicks such as
Grease
,
Ghost
and
Dirty Dancing
so many times that she could probably reel off the scripts word for word if she were asked to.