Adele. Sean Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ when Adele was born. Fit and energetic, he was a big man with a darker, more Celtic appearance than his two sons. He may not have looked like a traditional grandfather figure, but he held conventional values: ‘He was a very hard-working man, my father – a very honest, straight-up sort of chap. He really was a lovely guy.’

      John was also very fond of Penny. ‘He just loved my mum,’ recalled Adele. John and Rose didn’t always wait for them to visit Penarth. Sometimes the proud grandparents would travel up to London and stay in a local B&B so they could see them both.

      Adele was very fond of her mother’s big family, but in Tottenham she was one of many, while in Penarth she was the centre of attention. Sometimes Adele would come down to visit with her best friend, her cousin Cema, who was Aunt Kim’s daughter. Kim had married a Turkish man called Ahmet in 1982 and subsequently had four children, Bren, Cema-Filiz, Erol and Erden.

      Occasionally, Penny and Adele would spend Christmas in South Wales, where the young girl was spoiled rotten. One of her earliest Christmas presents from her father was a red toy guitar, which she loved. She would often try to play Penny’s grown-up guitar, but she was too little for that; here was something of her own.

      These were happy times that Penny, in particular, always made fun for her daughter. One Christmas Eve, when Adele was asleep and Nana and Grampy had gone to bed, she carefully cut up a newspaper in the shape of feet and placed them on the stairs. When her daughter awoke in the morning, she said, ‘Look, Adele, it’s Santa’s footprints. He’s been.’

      The great treat for Adele was in summer, when her grandparents would leave Penarth in their caravan. Marc, who would go too if he wasn’t working, recalled, ‘My mum and dad were very keen caravaners. They had a close group of friends. They were all caravaners and always had a laugh and a sing-song. My dad could be the life and soul. Adele loved it. She was a kid, wasn’t she, and it was an adventure.’

      They didn’t go far, but it seemed like the open road to a girl from Tottenham. They would drive down the coast to stay at Three Cliffs Bay in the beautiful Gower peninsula or further along the coast at the Kiln Park camp in Tenby, one of the loveliest resorts in Pembrokeshire.

      Adele was a kind and pretty, blonde-haired little girl with green eyes, and she made friends easily in South Wales. Many of the men and women that Marc had known all his life now had young families and they were very welcoming to the youngster from London. Her proud father observed, ‘She was a lovely kid. She was one of those kids who, if she had a bag of sweets, would give them all away and keep one for herself.’

      She tended to be on the skinny side, even though she wasn’t sporty. She was not a girly girl. ‘She was funny and very sociable,’ said Marc. ‘She was more of a tomboy type than a girl with dolls. She was a scruffy yo-yo.’

      Not everything was idyllic. On one memorable day in Tenby, Adele went missing. One moment, she was bouncing away on a trampoline; the next, nobody could see her, which prompted a frantic search. Marc had been windsurfing at the top of the beach. When he got back to his parents and his girlfriend, he asked, ‘Where’s Adele?’ She had vanished.

      Marc panicked. ‘Imagine your child has gone missing on a packed beach. It’s terrifying, isn’t it? My mum is crying and screaming. There were sand dunes behind us and there were two old winos there and so I marched straight over and demanded to know where my daughter was. It was mayhem. So then I went straight to the nearest chip bar and I said, “Can I use your phone?” So I dialled 999 and fair dos to the police, they were there in five minutes.

      ‘Everybody was panicking now. So I sat down, took a deep breath and I thought, “Where is the little bugger?” Then I remembered the boat. We were on a boat trip the day before, so I made my way towards there. This woman came up to me and said, “Are you looking for a little girl in a yellow and pink dress?” She pointed me towards the landing point for the boat and there was Adele, just playing by the seaside. I picked her up and as you do out of fear and relief, I smacked her arse for her. And she cried and cried. She didn’t speak to me for days.’

      While Penny was filling her home with the cool sounds of the time – 10,000 Maniacs and Jeff Buckley, as well as The Cure – the young Adele was falling for the acts that were causing a ripple in the playground. In the summer of 1996 that meant only one group for young girls: the Spice Girls.

      Adele was soon dancing around the bedroom singing ‘Wannabe’, the band’s first record-breaking number one in July. Adele was among the millions around the world who could sing the song word perfectly without having any idea what ‘zig-a-zig-ah’ meant. She proved the point nearly twenty years later when she sang a spontaneous version with James Corden for his chat show’s ‘Carpool Karaoke’ feature.

      For a while, the Spice Girls were the biggest band in the world, effortlessly breaking America with their energy, pin-sharp image and consumer-friendly brand of Girl Power. In Geri Halliwell, they found someone with a drive and flair for publicity that was completely new for female pop stars. Adele was transfixed by her fire and energy: ‘I just remember seeing Geri and being like, “Fuck it, I’m going to do that. I want to be Ginger Spice.”’

      Ginger was Adele’s favourite, although, when she left the group, Adele switched her allegiance to Mel B (Scary Spice), who was equally mouthy and in your face. Despite being so young, Adele was inspired by the whole ‘Girl Power’ movement. The Golden Rules of Girl Power as defined by the Spice Girls were:

      Be positive.

      Be strong!

      Don’t let anyone put you down.

      Be in control of your own life and your destiny.

      Support your girlfriends, and let them support you too.

      Say what’s on your mind.

      Approach life with attitude.

      Don’t let anyone tell you that you can never do something because you’re a girl.

      Have fun.

      They could easily be the principles of Adele’s own life. To this day, the Spice Girls remain Adele’s favourite group. They did shape their own destiny, wrote their songs – or at least had important co-writing credits – and earned a huge amount of money very quickly. ‘Wannabe’ remains the biggest-selling single ever by a girl group, shifting more than seven million copies. It was number one in twenty-two countries, including the US, where it was top of the charts for four weeks.

      The Spice Girls were a manufactured group, however, in much the same way as Girls Aloud and, more recently, Little Mix and One Direction, except for the fact that their audition process wasn’t televised for a TV talent show. There was another aspect that would catch the attention of Adele: three of them went to stage schools or ‘fame academies’, as they were popularly known. Before she became Posh Spice, Victoria Adams had attended Laine Theatre Arts in Epsom. Melanie Chisholm (Mel C/Sporty Spice) was sixteen when she was accepted at the Doreen Bird School of Performing Arts in Sidcup. Emma Bunton (Baby Spice) was given a scholarship to the Sylvia Young Theatre School in Marylebone. They would probably have all ended up at the BRIT School if it had existed in 1990.

      Her father was unimpressed when Adele visited South Wales and told him of her enthusiasm for the Spice Girls: ‘They were her heroes but I used to take the mickey out of her about it. I used to say they were terrible, bloody awful.’ Fortunately, his lack of enthusiasm for Girl Power didn’t discourage his daughter.

      By this time, the dynamic of Adele’s visits to Penarth had changed. Her grandparents were still there to fuss СКАЧАТЬ