One Direction: Dare to Dream: Life as One Direction Read Online Free PDF Page A

really young kid I used to dance around the living room to Noddy. I also used to put my dad’s glasses on, clasp my hands behind my back and sing along to his Oasis CDs, pretending to be Liam Gallagher.
     
    I’ve got two older sisters, Nicola and Ruth. I always got on really well with Ruth when we were growing up, but I guess because Nicola, being the eldest, was usually left in charge when my parents went out, I saw her as a figure of authority, so we used to bicker sometimes. Ruth and I are very alike in that we both like to sing and we don’t really drink or anything, whereas Nicola is more of a party girl.
     
    In Year Nine I joined the school choir and we used to do loads of shows in front of audiences, which I guess got me quite used to it. We set a world record when we joined with loads of other schools and sang the same song in unison. It was the Bill Withers track “Lean on Me” and it was great because I got one of the solo parts.
     
    Apart from singing I liked science, and of course PE. My parents even suggested that I could go on to be a PE teacher. I was a big soccer fan and I used to play every lunchtime, rain or shine. I also used to go and watch West Bromwich Albion, and I remember running on to the pitch when we got promoted. It was a great moment.
     
    Judging by photographs of me growing up, my hair has kind of come full circle. I had a big mushroom when I was a kid, then I had tramlines put in the side of my head and eyebrows like my sister’s boyfriend Martin. After that I shaved it all off till grade three, then I grew it long again, so it’s now similar to how it was when I was a kid. I keep thinking about shaving it all off again, because it would be so much easier to manage, but I’m a bit scared of doing it.
     
    Clothes-wise I made a few mistakes here and there too. I used to wear this bright orange Umbro t-shirt and a special pair of shorts that I loved. I didn’t really have much of an interest in fashion generally, so when my first X Factor audition came around I had absolutely nothing nice to wear. My shoes had a hole in them and I borrowed a pair of Armani jeans from Martin. He’s a 34-inch waist and I’m a 28, so they were really belted in. I wore a large shirt and then I bought a £30 waistcoat, which was the only thing I spent money on. When I look back now I can’t believe I got away with it. I did three rounds of The X Factor with a hole in my shoe.
     
    Despite my hair mistakes, I think I got away with it at school. I had a girlfriend called Charnelle in Reception, who used to send me love letters. I was also really proud of the fact that I went out with a girl who was in Year Six when I was in Year Four. She was one of my sister’s friends, and I thought I was really cool having an older girlfriend.

    I really liked one girl called Emily and asked her out 22 times, but she always said no. Finally I sang to her and then she said she’d go out with me, but she dumped me the next day. My friends used to wind me up and pretend that girls liked me when they didn’t, so I’d ask them out and they’d say no, which was mortifying.
     
    I had a few dating disasters along the way, with girls cheating on me, and one girl was the inspiration for me singing “Cry Me a River” on The X Factor . That was my payback to her because she was unfaithful.
     
    I’ve always preferred having girlfriends to just seeing people. I think it’s nice to have someone special. I was seeing a girl called Shannon while I was on The X Factor . We were seeing each other for a while, but we had to be apart for months on end so it put a lot of pressure on the relationship and we finally split up. We still speak to each other, but it was just one of those things.
     
    I was 14 when I first tried out for The X Factor . I had become really bored with running and although I was on the reserve list for the 2012 Olympics, I wanted to find something I could do apart from run. When I told my friends I was