Get daily celeb exclusives and behind the scenes house tours direct to your inbox
At the age most little girls dreamt of becoming nurses or teachers, Sarah Harding already had her sights set firmly on the stage.
"I wanted to sing, and I wanted people to hear me sing," she revealed in her autobiography, Hear Me Out.
"At family gatherings, when I was little, I gave performances for my parents and anyone else I could get to watch."
Born in Ascot to John and Marie in 1981, Sarah grew up in a small house in Wraysbury, near Windsor. She had a half-brother, Dave, 16 years older than her, from her mother’s previous marriage.
Sarah admitted that when they were younger, she didn’t have much in common with Dave, who later joined the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, where he was known as Sir Dangerous.
Long before Sarah shot to stardom with Girls Aloud, her musician dad John was in the limelight, performing and singing with various bands. "One of the things we have in common is that we've both performed at The Royal Variety Performance and met the Queen," she revealed.
John’s influence led to music becoming a major part of Sarah’s life – and one of the few subjects she enjoyed at school.
"What I loved most of all was playing Dad’s guitars," she confessed. "He would restring them every weekend and let me strum away."
The self-confessed tomboy would be found climbing trees and searching for frogs as a youngster. Later she enjoyed horse riding, cricket and netball. "You wouldn’t catch me dead in a dress," she recalled.
Although happy singing and playing her guitar, her early years were also unconventional.
She was diagnosed with ADHD when she was “tiny” and ended up going to seven different schools over the years which, she said, left her struggling to adapt to the new environments.
"I wish I could tell you why I went to so many schools, but the truth is I don’t know. What I do know is that I was not an easy child to manage, mainly because from a young age I had ADHD.
"I wasn't given medication at first because everyone felt I was too young. I didn’t start taking medication until years later when I was in the band and struggling somewhat with the pressures of fame" she said.
At the age of nine Sarah was sent to a boarding school, Thornton College in Buckinghamshire, which was run by nuns. "During my time there I began to have panic attacks and stopped eating properly because I was so anxious all the time," she said.
In Hear Me Out, she recalled the time when, still only nine, she was kicked out of the school disco for copying the "grinding" moves from the film Dirty Dancing.
On leaving Thornton College, she went to preparatory boarding school Godstowe in High Wycombe, where she enjoyed sports and indulged her passion for music – but developed a phobia.
"Emetophobia is a fear of vomit, and in my case it was a fear of seeing another person throwing up," she said.
"It started when there was a horrible stomach bug going around the school. It got so bad that I couldn’t go to sleep without being curled up with my fingers in my ears, even when I was at home – just in case I heard someone throwing up."
Her secondary school years took her to the Catholic Salesian School in Chertsey, where she was known as "the catalyst" by some members of staff.
"As far as they were concerned, whenever trouble or mischief was going on, I would be found right in the midst of it," she said.
She was soon on the move again, this time to military boarding school Gordon’s
in Woking before returning to Salesian.
At this point her parents moved to Manchester and their marriage became strained. In 1998 John had an affair.
Soon afterwards, Sarah’s grandmother died of cancer, and in a rift that lasted nearly two decades she became estranged from her father, who went on to have two sons from his second marriage.
In Hear Me Out, published in March, Sarah revealed John had re-entered her life a few years ago. But it was her mother, Marie, who was her rock during her battle with cancer.
When Sarah was 15 she "gave up" school altogether and dropped out. “The school
even got social services involved, but nothing seemed to work,” she said.
So she went to North Cheshire Theatre School three days a week, and later Stockport College, where she studied hair and beauty.
Keen to gain her independence, she soon started working. From being a waitress at Pizza Hut and working for a debt collection agency to delivering car parts in a van, Sarah tried her hand at just about everything.
But she never let her dream of becoming a singer die and soon began performing in pubs, social clubs and at caravan parks. She was also – briefly – in a girlband called Project G and auditioned for talent-search shows Fame Academy and Popstars: The Rivals in 2002.
Sarah revealed she had been “uncertain” about auditioning for the shows and “scared” to go through with them.
We’re absolutely delighted that she did, though.
Source: Read Full Article
