Stacey: My Story So Far

by Stacey Solomon

  As soon as the decision was made, the staff at King Solomon bent over backwards to welcome me. ‘No matter what has gone on,’ the acting head told Mum, ‘from this day forward, Stacey is a part of this school and a part of our community. We will look after her and do everything we can for her.’

  I think I was the first ‘non-Jewish’ person to attend King Solomon. I started in May 2004, two days before everyone took their SATS. I went backwards and forwards between Hackney and Dagenham to sort out my school uniform and equipment, then finally, the day before I started school, I went home for good.

  I was really excited. After months of doing nothing, I couldn’t wait to do something – anything. I was desperate to get back out into the world and be someone again, at last.

  Chapter 4

  I honestly believe that you make your own universe. If you believe something strongly enough, it will happen. So I walked into my new school thinking, I’m going to work hard and I’m going to make friends.

  I had to make friends, because my friends are my life. My best times are when I drive round to a friend’s house and sit on the kitchen counter, chatting. We talk about rubbish and end up rolling around on the floor laughing about stupid things. Those are the moments I always remember. I don’t remember sitting at home on my own watching a film.

  If you walk into a room thinking, Right, I’m going to make friends with everyone, people might be a bit off with you at first. But if you really believe it and think, I’m going to be nice to everyone, there’s no reason why everyone in the room can’t like you, as long as you’re not bitchy and you don’t talk behind anyone’s back.

  I tried to look pretty on my first day at King Solomon: my mum straightened my hair and I put it in a pony. One of my old schoolfriends recently told me that everyone was spying on me through the classroom window as I walked in. ‘She’s got nice legs,’ they said. They all remember it, but at the time I didn’t have a clue they were checking me out.

  It’s hard enough starting at a new school, but King Solomon was the complete opposite of my old school, so it took a bit of adjusting. It wasn’t cool to smoke. It wasn’t cool not to work or be disruptive in class. You were cool if you had never smoked a cigarette in your life. You were cool if you were really clever and got the best results, and no one bunked school. ‘No way! We’re not getting into trouble,’ they’d say.

  In spite of everything that had happened, I probably still went in with a bit of attitude on the first day, but I soon realized I’d have to change completely if I wanted to be accepted. ‘No, I’ve never smoked,’ I assured everyone. It was a half truth, as I hadn’t properly smoked and I didn’t enjoy it when I tried it, so for me it was a plus that no one liked smoking.

  As I started school on a random day, two days before the SATS exams, I had to sit the exams, too, and I passed them all with flying colours, even though I don’t know how. ‘Ugh! See what you can do!’ my parents said in exasperation.

  When I was congratulated on doing well at school, I was so happy because it was cool to be clever there!

  I was still cheeky and funny, and I still answered back to the teachers. But at King Solomon they reacted differently. ‘Funny! Good one!’ they’d say when I made a joke in class, ‘Now answer this question …’ The teachers at my old school would just have said, ‘You’re not funny and you’re not clever. Get out!’

  I got in with a nice group of girls from the start, and they included the really popular girls. Yes! I thought. I’m going to be with the popular girls! Before long I was going to Lauren G’s house on Fridays (at a Jewish school, you finish early on Fridays). We’d get McDonald’s, go back to her house and read magazines.

  It was a whole new experience for me. In the past it had always been, Get your pack of fags, get your bottle of White Lightning and we’ll all go over the park. Whereas now it was, Get your Heat magazine and your McDonald’s and we’ll all compare make-up and clothes. It was the complete opposite of what I’d known before, but I really enjoyed it. It felt good to be growing up and I was the right age to be doing girly things. Everything was falling into place.

  The first party I was invited to was at Lauren A’s house. This was something else new. We didn’t have parties at Abbs Cross. Instead, a friend would ring up and say, ‘Come round.’ Then everyone would pitch up to their house, pile in and sit around the kitchen, drinking, smoking and talking rubbish. It wasn’t considered a party.

  At King Solomon you’d be invited to a ‘house party’, where everyone watched films and you sat next to the boys on the sofa, thinking, Wow! I’m sitting next to Alex! People ordered in takeaways and we’d all eat together. It was really cool.

  People drank, but instead of White Lightning and Lambrini, they drank WKD and Smirnoff Ice, which were £3 a bottle. Where am I going to get £3 from? I thought in a panic. I had to save up £1 every day from my dinner money so I could afford a Smirnoff Ice to take to the next house party. Luckily, people shared their takeaways, so at least I didn’t have to come up with money for food as well.

  You had to dress nicely for a house party, in jeans and a really good vest top. I got really flustered about it the week before Lauren’s party. What am I going to wear? I thought, as all I had was jogging bottoms.

  ‘I really need jeans!’ I told my dad in a flap, so he bought me a pair at the market. They were a bit small for me and really tight, so my muffin top hung over the edge, but I still thought they were cool, because they made me look like I had a bum – and I don’t have a bum! Luckily I was OK for shoes. We didn’t wear high heels until we were about fifteen or sixteen and that was only when we went out. If you went to a friend’s house, you wore trainers or Converse.

  Some of the kids at King Solomon had a lot of money, or at least their parents did. I thought my Reebok and Adidas jogging bottoms were expensive, but the girls in my class wore £300 Victoria Beckham jeans. Oh my God! I thought. They wore Tiffany bracelets and jewellery from Links of London, which I’d never even heard of. My friend Melissa had a pair of Tiffany cross earrings and a check Burberry bag with black trim!

  A girl in the year below us had the most incredible wardrobe of designer clothes you’ve ever seen, from Vivienne Westwood to Ralph Lauren, Gucci and Juicy Couture. Her dad owned a designer outlet with stores in every major shopping centre in the south, from Lakeside and Bluewater to Canary Wharf. It was the biggest deal. You can’t imagine. She was the best-dressed, most popular girl in her year.

  There might have been some snobbery about money among people’s parents, but it wasn’t that bad amongst the kids. I think the parents wanted their kids to go to a good school and wear designer stuff, but the kids just seemed normal. I didn’t have expensive jeans or tops or a Burberry bag, but no one was bothered. I was still friends with everyone. I didn’t care too much, either. Occasionally I’d think, I wish I had that Burberry bag; one day I’m going to have one, or, I love those Tiffany earrings, but it wasn’t a really big deal.

  Sometimes we’d all go shopping in Romford on a Friday, which was really fun. It never bothered me when my friends bought clothes, but I was always amazed at how expensive everything was in places like Topshop. It was a long way from BHS or Primark, where my mum took me shopping.

  My friends always had loads of money on them – enough to buy clothes and McDonald’s and pay their bus fare. They often had £50 on them – at the age of fourteen! Looking back, I think that’s strange as it’s a lot of money. Even now I don’t go out with £50. But when I was a kid, I thought, Cool!

  I always had enough for a McDonald’s, though. Either I’d save up during the week, or about once a month I’d ask my mum for £5 on a Friday, and she’d give it to me if she had it. I didn’t get pocket money because I’d spend it on rubbish, so there was no point in letting me have any. Sometimes I did a few hours’ work at the children’s nursery where my sister worked. I wasn’t allowed to do much, though, because of my age, so it was stuff like ticking the register and answering the
phone.

  I also used to babysit a schoolfriend’s little sister, who was called Courtney. She was the sweetest little girl and I adored looking after her. She loved me and always wanted me to babysit her. I’ll never forget the first time I went to their house in Chigwell. It was the biggest house I’d ever seen in my whole life; it was like something out of a film, with a marble hall five times the size of our front room and a sweeping staircase leading up to the first floor. There was a front room for the kids and a front room for the adults, a computer room for the kids and a computer room for the adults; there was a patio and a huge garden with pools at the end of it and lights everywhere. The bedrooms were enormous. One of the girls’ rooms actually had stairs connecting one part of her bedroom to another. The kids had quad bikes and the dad had an Aston Martin. It was incredible.

  I was blown away. It was amazing, like a palace. I felt like Cinderella the babysitter and I used to daydream that one day I’d own a house like that and have loads of kids and someone to babysit them. One day a prince will fall in love with me, I’d think, lost in my own little world.

  Chigwell is full of houses like that. It’s even better than Hampstead. Loughton and Epping are the same. You’d never imagine there’d be houses like that there, but there are loads of beautiful mansions behind massive gates. It’s just unbelievable.

  All my schoolfriends seemed to have gates outside their houses, so when you went round to see someone, you had to wait for them to open the gates and let you in. The houses were all enormous, with kitchens the size of my house. There was always a sunbed room and at least one swimming pool, if not two or three, and there were gardeners to look after the huge gardens. It was a different life altogether. Everyone was well off.

  It was typical of the Jewish community, where the mentality is that you have to do well at school, make money or marry someone who is going to make money, buy a house in a nice area and send your kids to school in a nice area. Nothing less will do. I met mums who would struggle to get by and go without themselves in order to send their kids to a good school.

  Nobody could really be bothered to come to my house, because it was two bus rides away from school. Sometimes I stayed with my dad in Hornchurch, but I always felt more rooted in Dagenham. I didn’t particularly enjoy living with my dad, because it didn’t feel like my house. I never felt like I could settle there; I couldn’t chuck my stuff about or throw my dirty knickers on the floor, because my dad wasn’t doing my washing, his wife was.

  As lovely as Karen is, I didn’t feel as comfortable there as I did at home with Mum. I couldn’t say, ‘Mu-um, make a drink!’ I had to be polite and say, ‘May I make myself a drink?’ It just wasn’t home and I’m a really homely person.

  My brother and sister spent quite a lot of time living at my dad’s. They were always going backwards and forwards, neither here nor there. We’d all be together at my mum’s house around twice a week and we always did at least one day a week with my dad, me included. Me and Jemma still argued about everything. It’s weird to think that five or six years ago, we could hardly even sit in the same room together.

  Unfortunately, at Dad’s house we shared a room. Then one day we came home to find a wall down the middle of the bedroom. My dad had had enough of us arguing, so he’d built a wall to keep us separate. What the heck is that about? we thought. It was bang in the middle of the window, dividing the light on either side. It wasn’t appropriate at all. That’s when we realized that everyone was sick to death of us fighting.

  We tended to get on better on family holidays, especially when Karen’s children were there. I remember one fun holiday in Wales when seven of us squashed into a caravan. Me, Jemma, Matthew, Ray and Sam slept in the bedroom and my dad and Karen had a pull-out bed in the main room.

  On the last night of the holiday, us kids thought we’d sneak out and go and party. Before everyone went to sleep, we put a chair underneath the bedroom window in preparation. Then, when we were sure that Dad and Karen were asleep, we opened the window and snuck out. The caravan shook as each of us jumped out of the window and landed on the grass below. We were terrified that my dad or Karen would wake up, but to our relief, we all made it out without being caught. Then, when we were about ten steps away from the caravan, I looked back and saw what I thought was a silhouette at the window. ‘Oh no, Karen’s up!’ I whispered.

  ‘I can see her, too,’ Jemma said.

  We froze. Panicked, we ran back to the caravan and climbed in through the window, shaking the caravan even harder in the rush. Back inside, we lay in bed, petrified, waiting to be told off. But nothing happened. After a while, Jemma said, ‘We must have been seeing things. It was nobody.’

  We all relaxed and I went to get a drink from the fridge. But as I opened the fridge door, Karen yelled, ‘What are you doing?’ She hadn’t noticed the caravan shaking as we jumped in and out, but she woke up the instant she heard the fridge door squeak!

  My friends at King Solomon went on far more exotic holidays than me, of course, although that doesn’t mean they were as much of a laugh. Most of them lived round the corner from school and were picked up by their mums at the end of the day. All the mums were really pretty, with high cheekbones, perfect eyebrows and immaculately done hair and nails, and after school they’d take their kids to the nearby David Lloyd gym. They were always down the David Lloyd; everybody seemed obsessed with it, though none of them ever exercised. They just sat in the café talking while their kids swam or played tennis.

  Oh God! They’re off to the David Lloyd again, I’d think. I hated it because it would cost me £12.50 to get in there as a guest, which obviously I couldn’t afford. Where was I going to get £12.50 from? My mates used to try and sneak me in – sometimes we’d get away with it and sometimes we wouldn’t. I didn’t even want to go that much, because it was boring sitting in the café watching people play tennis. You also had to dress up to go in there, even though it was a gym. People wouldn’t wear their tracksuits; they’d wear really nice clothes. And you’d think, What the heck? This is supposed to be a gym, but everybody’s in jeans!

  Sometimes I used to wish my friends had less money and that we could do normal things. I much preferred it when we went to someone’s house and all each of us needed to have fun was a bottle of Smirnoff Ice and a magazine.

  At school, though, we were all equal, and I continued to do well. I think my parents had said to the teachers, ‘She knows too much, so challenge her and keep her stimulated.’ As a result, I enjoyed lessons, because as soon as I’d picked something up and started saying, ‘Yeah, whatever, I know it,’ the teachers would say, ‘OK, try this, then.’ That was all I needed: to be given something new to think about.

  In Maths they put me in the top class, where they’d sometimes give us A Level questions on mechanics and engineering, things that we’d never need to know, just to challenge us. ‘OK, I’ll do it,’ I’d say. ‘Go on, watch this.’

  I had some great teachers. I really struggled when I did Biology A/S Level and the Biology teacher once stayed behind after school to go through a whole topic with me until I understood it. We were there until seven o’clock, but he wouldn’t go home before he’d made sure I understood everything. I really appreciated that.

  Miss Pinnion, the head of year, was also very good to me. If I did something bad, she’d say, ‘OK, I’m not going to send you home. Come and help me with this instead,’ because she didn’t want me to get into trouble at home.

  Discipline was much less of a problem at King Solomon than it had been at Abbs Cross. I was always a little bit cautious of my head teacher. He never shouted, but he just had to look at me and I’d think, Whoops! We didn’t have detention, but we could be sent to isolation. In isolation, you sat in a booth facing a wall and wrote out a chunk of the dictionary all day. I went there a couple of times, but only when I’d been really naughty.

  At Abbs Cross, my friends had laughed at me for playing the piano, so after a while I’d hidden the fact
that I had any musical ability. Oh my God, this is so not cool, I thought during music and drama lessons. But at King Solomon people were impressed if you were good at the piano and singing. Everyone was into music and drama and it was really cool to be a performer. As a result I began to enjoy singing, acting and music again. Luckily, I don’t think you ever forget how to play the piano, so I was able to pick up where I’d left off.

  I had completely forgotten how much I loved singing, too. I liked acting and had fun in drama, but I absolutely loved singing. I loved the feeling I had when I was up on stage. And I loved the feeling I had afterwards, when people clapped. Wow! They’re clapping! They like me! I’d think, flushed with excitement.

  On Saturdays I went to Paul’s Theatre School in Hornchurch with my brother and sister, where we used to sing and make up stories. It was all right, but it wasn’t really me. I don’t think I’m very ‘drama school’. I probably would have enjoyed it when I was younger, but at least when I sang everyone said, ‘You’ve got a lovely voice.’

  At school, the kids in my music class often put on concerts in the school hall at lunchtime. Hardly anyone ever came to watch – sometimes there were only two people in the audience – but it didn’t matter to us, because we’d do anything to get up on stage and sing with the microphone. You could sing whatever you wanted, so I often chose my favourite song, ‘Over The Rainbow’ – the Eva Cassidy version, of course. Everyone probably thought, Get a new song, Stace! but I just loved that track. I used to love organizing the concerts as well, deciding who went first and which songs would be good to sing.

  ‘I’m going to be a singer,’ I started saying to my mum, who hadn’t heard those words for a while.