Getting High (11 page)

This sense of freedom aligned with a drinking culture made an impact on Noel. Later on, his music and band would stand precisely for that principle, for freedom, total and absolute freedom.

Another element of Irish culture that would also seriously affect the young Noel Gallagher was to be found at night-time. His relatives couldn't afford a television, nor, one suspects, would they want one. There was far more fun to be had when they gathered together at night.

These get-togethers occurred at one of the family houses. Everybody would crowd in, young and old, and, in Noel's words, ‘Talk all night. I remember sitting there crying with laughter. They all used to start taking the piss out of each other. And then me gran used to start going off at them, saying, “I remember when you did this when you were a lad.” And they'd all be blaming things on each other.'

A radio would be on in the corner, playing Irish music, inspiring one of the family to pick up an instrument and lead the rest into a sing-song. The songs would always be melodic, with a great emphasis put upon the choruses.

Many of the adults there would be encouraged to take solo turns, as would the children. It was a good training ground for a prospective entertainer, an Irish education that would serve as the perfect antidote to the stuffy English culture that Noel was also exposed to.

(This was the England, remember, whose national radio station only five years previously had refused to continue its coverage of the 1966 World Cup Final between England and Germany, preferring instead to switch to the news as the players went into extra time.)

Growing up, Noel heard and was struck by certain Irish songs. To this day he cites The Wolfe Tones' version of Ewan MacColl's ‘Dirty Old Town' as one of the greatest recordings ever made.

‘There's no drums in it, no bass guitar,' Noel enthuses, ‘it's just traditional Irish instruments and it's mind-blowing.'

Songs such as this, or other standards such as ‘Four Green Fields', would have as much impact on Noel's later songwriting as Burt Bacharach, Lennon and McCartney, Paul Weller, Johnny Marr [ex of The Smiths] and U2.

Neither would it have escaped Noel's attention how the humour, the wordplay and the art of story-telling practised by his relatives, all played a vital part in entertaining those assembled.

Much of this rubbed off on Noel. He soon became a great storyteller, never adverse to changing a few facts to heighten the drama. From an early age people would always be drawn to him. He exuded a warmth and a humour that people found irresistible.

‘Noel was always a happy-go-lucky type,' says Peggy, ‘always had loads of friends, Noel would be growing up and he'd always have loads of girls, every one that knocked at the door was for Noel.

‘Everyone loved Noel. Paul was more on the quiet side but they always had loads of friends. They were always well-liked as they were growing up and they were always happy-go-lucky.

‘I'd play Irish records to them as well,' Peggy explains. ‘They would be quite interested in them and they'd sit and listen to them. Big Tom and all these Irish bands. Later on, of course, they got their own type of music. All mine have done the paper rounds. They'd get three or four pounds and that would go on buying their records.'

It was Peggy who bought Noel his first record player, a high-fidelity machine with a glass top. It was bought on hire purchase. Peggy also bought her two sons their first guitars. Noel and Paul were obviously attracted to music, and anything her sons showed an interest in, Peggy would do her utmost to encourage.

It was her way of making up for their father's seeming lack of interest in his children, as well as expressing the sheer joy and pride she felt for them. She also covered for their father when their birthdays or Christmas arrived.

‘He wouldn't give a damn,' she recalls bitterly. ‘They woke up Christmas morning and there wasn't a thing for them. It was all me that done it for them. I always made sure they had loads of presents. He'd go out Christmas Eve and you wouldn't see him again until Christmas night.

‘And as the kids were growing up, he didn't give a damn as to whether there was a thing there for them or not.

‘Then he'd say, “Why are you buying all these things for them? They've got more than enough.” I'd say, “It's Christmas time.” But he never bought them a thing.

‘To be quite honest with you, I thought he was peculiar. I've never seen anything like it because he'd go out and spend money on others but his own never got anything. I always said that to him, his own never got nothing but everyone else did.'

Noel easily adapted to the tight monetary situation. He instinctively understood the pressure on his mum.

‘You know,' Peggy remembers, ‘as he was growing up, he'd say, “Will you do me a favour, Mam? Have you got a pound?” I'd say, “No, I haven't got it.” And he'd say, “Okay, it doesn't matter,” and he wouldn't bother.

‘He wouldn't ask for much because he knew I didn't have it. And, then later on, when he was working, he would always come in and give you his keep. I remember when he was growing up, he was about sixteen or seventeen, and he'd see his father going out, and there would be all this shouting, and Noel would come down and say, “Here you are, there's a fiver for you, you go and get your hair done or you go out as well. Don't sit there and watch him go out, you go out as well.” Mind you, I always brought them up to realise that if you can't afford something, you can't have it.

‘If the money isn't there, you can't have it. They knew they couldn't have the dead-expensive trainers. I'd say, “I don't care what your mates have, they've probably got a dad in the house who must be giving them money.” See, their father wouldn't entertain them with trainers.

“'They don't want them,” he'd say. “The trainers are bad for their feet.” It was just because he didn't want to part with his money. God, he was tight with them as they were growing up. He wouldn't give them a penny, not a penny would he give them.'

On 21 September 1972 there was a new addition to the family. Peggy gave birth to a third son, William John Paul Gallagher. He would be her last child.

Thomas Gallagher now found extra employment as a country and western DJ at the Holy Name Social club in Chorlton. For this, he earned £10 a night. Momentarily, Peggy was happy. She thought it might mean more money for the family. She was mistaken.

According to her, Thomas had now started drinking.

‘I don't know whether that is when things went wrong,' muses Peggy, ‘but I could never think the way he does. I'd think, you're out there doing a job, why not do it, get paid for it and come home? He felt he was getting paid and he should put all that money behind the bar for drink. That's when I guess his life turned around.'

As the father further alienated himself from the family, Peggy had to balance her life around work and her children. She was forced now to earn her own money, which she did by finding a job at the McVitie's biscuit factory.

‘That wasn't a very happy time,' she recalls, ‘because I had to go to work, I had no other choice. I had to feed them and clothe them. I'd leave for McVitie's at four o'clock in the afternoon and I'd work from four forty-five to nine-fifteen. I'd bring Liam into the sitting-room and I'd say, “Watch
Playschool
, Liam.”

‘He'd sit there, I'd draw the curtains, turn out the lights and he'd be quite happy, even though he was about six years old.'

Peggy would then rush to work. Every five minutes she would call Liam and ask if his brothers had returned home from school. She felt so guilty leaving her six-year-old on his own but there was no alternative.

‘I'd spend my time on the phone ringing again and again until I knew the others were in. I'd ring every hour and say, ‘Liam, is your dad home yet?” He'd say, “No, he's not back and I want you to come home, Mam, I don't like being here on my own.”

‘I would say to his father, before he would go out, “Liam will be here on his own, I have to go to work.” He'd say, “I'll be back, I'll definitely be back,” but he didn't come back until the next day. Liam would come down the road to meet me, crying and looking to see where I was because there was nobody in the house. So you can imagine the condition I was in, as well as Liam. And there was the father, out with other women and expecting me to give him money as well.

‘I was earning £40 a week but he'd always ask me, many times, if he could lend a fiver. He was going out with other women while I was trying to keep the three of them fed, clothed and put to school.'

In summertime, Thomas would force Noel and Paul to go raspberry picking with him. Thomas had discovered a patch of the fruit growing wild by an old disused railway line.

‘Of course, the jam-making fetish all Irish people have came out in him,' Noel recalls, ‘so after school in the summer I used to have to say to my mates, “I can't go out with you, I've gotta pick some berries, make some jam.” All my mates would say, “Why don't you buy some?”

‘Hey, that's not a bad idea. “Oi! Dad! Why don't you buy some jam like everybody else?” “I'm not fucking paying twelve pence for a jar of jam,” he'd say. I'd think, what, a full twelve pence?

‘And we used to have an allotment where they used to grow cabbage and all this shit. And he used to take us to the allotment and we used to fucking hate going there. All our mates would be playing football in the park. They didn't have that make-your-own-food nonsense. They went to a supermarket to buy it.'

Noel also remembers helping his father load up the car with his records for his night's DJing. But, however hard Noel tried to gain his father's love, it was all a waste of time. Out of his three children, Thomas seems to have hated Noel most. It was he who bore the brunt of his father's frustrations and anger.

‘He didn't particularly like me for some reason,' Noel softly muses. ‘I suppose I was a sarcastic little tyke and he could see right through it. I was always answering back, I was always asking, “What are you doing that for?” Or, “What's all that about?”'

‘He gave Noel a bad time,' Peggy confirms. ‘I don't know why. Maybe it was because Noel was that much closer to me. Noel got the worst of it but then again, Paul got a fair share of it as well, and Liam. Liam would be the most likely one to retaliate. Liam would stand there and you could see it in his face, Don't you dare touch my mam.

‘But Noel got... he really didn't treat Noel well and I can't understand why he would just pick on one. Maybe it was because Noel was that much closer to me.

‘I'll always remember Noel saying to me, “Soon as I can beat him, Mam, I'm going to kill him.” He had beaten him [Noel] that bad one night.

‘Maybe it was because Noel had gone out one night and he had said to him, “You be back by nine.” But Noel would be stubborn. Noel would come in at nine-fifteen or maybe he would wait for him to go out and then come in. But if Noel got in five minutes after nine and he was there, then Noel got it.

‘And it wasn't just a slap,' Peggy reveals, ‘it was proper, you know, they'd get it in the face, in the mouth, he didn't care. And he'd kick them with his walking-boots and he wouldn't bat an eyelid. But I put it down to his conscience.

‘He had a guilty conscience for what he was doing outside. He was coming back in and taking it out on us. I used to say to him over the years, “Why don't you walk out?” I swear if he had walked out, they probably would have had a bit of respect for him. But he didn't do that, he terrorised them.'

Peggy did her utmost to protect her sons but she was weak in the face of such a physical onslaught. Worse still, young Liam, who was constantly by her side, witnessed everything, engendering in him a pain he carries to this day.

‘Wherever I went Liam went, so Liam saw more of his father hitting me. Noel would come in and say, “What happened to you, Mam? Where did you get that black eye?” “Oh, never mind that,” I'd say, “I walked into the door.” I'd cover up, you see. But of course, Noel knew and so did Paul. They'd seen it all before.'

It's impossible to fully calculate the effect upon Noel of his father's violence. Would he have pursued his career if things had been different? Did his father's lack of love mould him into the quality songwriter he is today? Or what about the reverse?

Would unconditional love alone have propelled him into musicianship? Peggy certainly provided that.

One thing is for sure. Noel Gallagher's happy-go-lucky side was slowly being eroded. By the time he was fourteen, major depressions had set in. He became withdrawn and moody, as though there was a dark shadow constantly hanging over him.

Noel now suffered from a mild form of dyslexia and spent four years having a stutter in his voice seen to by a specialist.

Emotionally, his barriers went up. He wouldn't let anyone in. It's the standard response in all people, the only form of self-protection against unmitigated cruelty. Instinctively you learn to trust nobody but yourself. Your heart turns to ice.

And for many that will be their condition for ever.

Noel expressed his unhappiness in many ways. He became a thief, a football hooligan, and he found refuge from his miserable existence in drugs of many kinds. Later on in life he would find true lasting salvation in music.

And late at night as he lay in bed listening in abject terror to his father raging downstairs, waiting in terror for his steps to be heard on the stairs, the bedroom door flying open and himself being dragged out of bed to be hit for absolutely no reason, Noel imagined inflicting huge physical pain on his dad.

‘I can't remember who said this,' he now says, ‘but somebody said to me that Irish Catholic sons always turn out to be the antithesis of their fathers. They always grow up promising themselves they'll never be like their dad. The way he used to beat my mam and all that, that's why I'd never do that to a girl, like abuse them or take the piss out of them. I've seen me mam crying too many times to put anyone else through that.