Cheryl Cole: My brother was addicted to drink, drugs and crime. He refused my help ... it hurt like hell

Family agony ... Cheryl Cole opens up about her brother in autobiography

IN our final extract from her brilliant autobiography, Cheryl Cole reveals her love of her council-house childhood in Byker, Newcastle — and recalls the day she watched in dismay as her family fell apart in front of her.

The star, now 29, was just 11 when her 14-year-old brother Andrew discovered the man he believed was his father was not. The news detonated like a bomb.

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“AFTER I first moved to London with Girls Aloud, I would travel back home at every opportunity.
I used to absolutely love walking to the corner shop near my mam’s house in my pyjamas, to get a pint of milk for breakfast — or going to Mrs Clough’s for sweets.
It’s what I’d always done, and I just felt like me.
When I look back on my childhood I still feel very grateful to my mam and dad for giving me such happy memories — especially as I know now it wasn’t easy for them.
The “massive” house I remember was in fact a really tiny, box-like council house that must have been really cramped with seven of us.

Heartbreak ... Andrew was in prison when Cheryl wed Ashley

North News and Pictures

There wasn’t a lot of money, but as a little girl I never remember feeling poor. I always had Barbie dolls to play with and didn’t care that they were second-hand.
For tea we ate beans on toast, corned beef hash or grilled Spam. A Chinese takeaway was a treat as we couldn’t afford it, but we were no different from anyone on our estate.
Pride is a massive thing for Geordies and Mam made sure that, one way or another, we always looked presentable and we never went without. But a big change was about to happen in my life, one I definitely didn’t see coming.
I was 11 years old — I can remember the day like it was yesterday.

Tiny ... Cheryl with big sister Gillian — and her brothers Andrew and Joe

“Tell me the truth! What the hell is happening? What’s going on?” My brother Andrew had burst in the front door in a terrible rage. I’d never ever seen him in such a state and he started ranting and raving at my mam and dad.
They looked really worried and my heart started beating super-fast.
“I’ll explain it,” Mam said. Her eyes looked sad and she had deep frown lines in her forehead. Dad had gone all quiet, which panicked me. The atmosphere felt chaotic.
“Is Dad my real dad?” Andrew screamed in my mam’s face. I swear the clock stopped for a second. He said someone told him in the street that my dad wasn’t his real dad.
Andrew was going so berserk that he looked like a crazy person. But however mad he looked, this was sounding horribly realistic.

Daddy's girl ... Cheryl with Garry, who brought up her older brothers and sister as his own

We all sat round the kitchen table — me, Mam, Dad, my brother Garry, seven, my sister Gillian, 15, and Andrew, 14. My oldest brother Joe, 18, was away for some reason.
My dad looked shell-shocked, I was sitting there panicking so much I wanted to be sick and Gillian and Andrew were still shouting and just going into meltdown.
“Be quiet and let me tell you,” Mam said, shushing Gillian. At last Mam spoke softly. “I was 21 when we met, me and your dad.” Mam nodded towards my dad, to make it clear she was talking about him.
“I already had Joe, and you two.” She looked at Gillian and Andrew now, but not at me. My brother’s and sister’s eyes were on stalks.
“I was married to your dad, to your real dad,” she told them. “But we broke up not long after we had you both. Andrew was only a baby.

Little beauty ... Cheryl aged 3 with her mum

“Your dad, Garry, was very young when I met him. He was 17. And he took me on, with three kids. Then we had Cheryl and Garry together.” Mam took a deep breath and we all just stared at her.
Gillian and Andrew were shouting and stomping around the room. My dad had lost all the colour from his face. I can remember a lot of sadness falling right down on us like it came out of the ceiling and just surrounding the whole family.
Andrew and Gillian’s faces were filled with confusion — devastation, in fact. I was just staring at my dad and thinking: “How could you know all these years and say nothing?”
Gillian didn’t come home that night or the night after that — and soon the days became weeks.
Joe finally found her after six weeks of sheer hell at home. She’d been staying with a friend and I heard she’d taken drugs to block out what had happened. Joe carried her home, kicking and screaming.

Budding star ... a young Cheryl poses for family snap

“I’ve met my real dad,” I heard Gillian tell my mam. “I’m gonna keep in touch with him.”
Andrew started running away a lot too and began sniffing glue — though I couldn’t tell you exactly when his habit started. I’d lie in bed waiting for him to come home.
This wasn’t the first time he’d been in trouble. He was done for thieving at 13, but the bizzies, as we called the police, were always knocking on doors all over our estate.
Andrew became more and more volatile and before long was unrecognisable as my funny brother.
Mam and Dad split not long after. Dad had an affair and Mam tried to take him back, but they couldn’t make it work any more.
The stress of bringing up five kids on her own, with the police banging at the door all the time, must have been hard to cope with.
When Andrew was 15 he stabbed someone in a fight. This guy had punched Gillian in a pub. Everyone was in pieces. People were talking about prison, and I was lying awake again, worrying myself sick. He got six years and was locked up in a young offenders’ institution to start with as he was too young for adult jail.

Agony ... Cheryl's devastated her brother turned down her help

Xposure

I’d be 18 when he got out, so felt part of my childhood was taken away too.
We’d moved into a house in Heaton, not far from our old home in Byker.
When Andrew left prison I assumed being locked up would have taught him a lesson and that he’d put his criminal past behind him and start a new life.
Unfortunately by the time of my wedding, he was in prison again. And to be honest I didn’t want to know the details of his latest offence. I went to see him in prison before the wedding. “Why can’t you stop?” I begged him. “You’re devastating the whole family. Why can’t you just change your ways?”
He shrugged and looked me in the face. “I’m too far gone.” I left in floods of tears. I had the means to help him now if only he wanted to be helped — but he clearly didn’t. That hurt like hell.
He had 50 convictions by now, and was as addicted to alcohol and drugs as he was to crime. His life was bleak and hopeless. But I still dared to hope he might want to reform one day.”