Cheryl dives into the past
JUST as we all wait with bated breath for Cheryl to confirm her pregnancy with boyfriend Liam Payne (I mean, come on already!) – this perfectly timed episode delves into the pop star’s family history.
Of course we all know that she was born Cheryl Tweedy, before going on to become Cheryl Cole, then Fernandez-Versini, before everyone finally decided to give up and give her one-name status. And Cheryl, 33, only really knows that her family are true Geordies from Newcastle. “I feel deeply rooted to the North East,” she says. “I imagine my dad’s family has been in the North East for centuries, but my mother’s family feels a bit more mysterious.” When heading back to her old neighbourhood, Cheryl tells us a little bit about growing up on a council estate with five kids in the house. “We felt like a little gang,” she says. Then at her dad’s house, the father and daughter sift through some old photos and a family tree, discovering that she’s descended from a family of mariners. Keen to learn more, Cheryl visits a local museum, where a rather starstruck archivist gives her a striking Victorian photo of her four times greatgrandfather John Wood Laing and his wife Caroline. Mariners could be away for years at a time, leaving their wives alone to look after the family. “There’s a sense of strong, tough, hardworking Geordie women, and that tradition has definitely carried on,” says Cheryl. But among the seafaring tales, she also discovers a tragedy. And on her mum’s side, Cheryl recovers the story of her long-forgotten great-grandfather – a quintessential tommy in the First World War, who fought in one of the most famous battles on the Western Front. She says: “It’s true when they say Northerners are made of tough stuff.”