Noel and Liam Gallagher and older brother Paul were cute kids, and magic mum Peggy brought them up well, now new snaps show the brothers as adorable children
They haven’t always seemed so cuddly on stage or when getting into fights on their way to stardom. But here we see the Gallagher brothers Liam, Noel and Paul as loveable kids, in the years growing up before they became rock’n’roll stars who play Cardiff this weekend.
Peggy met compatriot Tommy, originally from County Meath just north of Dublin and they married in Chorlton-on-Medlock in 1965 and initially lived in the inner-city Manchester area of Longsight before moving to Burnage.
They had three children, the oldest being Paul Anthony Gallagher, along with Noel Thomas David Gallagher who was born on May 29, 1967 and much later William John Paul Gallagher, who would become known as Liam, on September 21, 1972.
Looking back, eldest Paul said: “We had bowl heads, knitted jumpers, little shorts. She used to knit our clothes. Imagine you’ve got no choice. You couldn’t say ‘I don’t want that mam’, because she just spent four years knitting your jumper. We were dressed identical. Maybe it was cheaper to do two instead of one.”
The family later moved to Ashburn Avenue In Burnage shortly after Liam was born. But by now Peggy and Tommy’s relationship was not a good one and in 1984, Peggy left Tommy and took the boys to live in a council house nearby.
On her sons, Peggy recalls: “Liam arrived five and a half years after, I don’t know, I think there was always that bit of jealousy with Liam and Noel, because there was only Paul and Noel for so long, I idolized Paul and Noel because I had only two of them. Noel was absolutely beautiful when he was a baby. Then, of course, Liam came along, takes the limelight. You could tell the disagreement was there with them.”
Noel insists despite sharing a bedroom with his brother they were not close, so the rivalry was more of a thing once the band began.
He says: “I didn’t hang around with Liam until I joined the band, although I shared a room with him five years as a generation apart all his mates when I was 15. They’re all 10, you know. So that’s massive. I’m leaving school at 15. He’s 10 years old. You’re fucking smoking weed at 15, he’s just out of short pants, so there is no relationship.”
Liam responded in the film Supersonic by saying: “I think we got on. I think he was a bit of a stoner, a bit of a loner, one of them people that you’d throw stones at. He had a guitar, so he was copping for it, you know what I mean. One of them walking around with his guitar, with his weird mates. Our Paul was a mod, so he had a bit more about him. He wasn’t so weird like Noel was.”
Peggy left her abusive husband and brought the kids up single-handedly. Liam said: “Any good that comes out of me is all from Peggy and all her sisters and brothers. They were a good, close bunch of people. I never miss my father because my mother was both a mother and a father figure. She was there with the cuddle. She was also there with the whack. I’m generalising dad’s there because dads give cuddles as well. but if I needed bringing down she could do that as well as elevate me.”
Oasis were formed in 1991 when Liam was still a teenager. He remains very close to his mum and took her on holiday earlier this year in the build up to the Oasis comeback.
They will begin the new live tour with two dates in Cardiff this weekend before heading to Manchester, London and Edinburgh.
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