- Adele arrived two weeks early at the North Middlesex Hospital and weighed a healthy 5lb 10oz. Her mum, Penny Adkins, had given up her art and design course and was living in emergency accommodation for unmarried mothers in Finsbury Park.
- Just a week before her fourth birthday, Adele was hidden inside Penny's trench coat and smuggled into the Brixton Academy in South London. They were there to see The Beautiful South - her first concert.
- Adele spent her school holidays in the South Wales resort of Penarth, at the home of her doting paternal grandparents, John and Rose Evans. She would join them on caravan trips to the beautiful Gower Peninsula and Tenby.
- Adele has a half brother called Cameron, who is seven years her junior and was brought up in the small town of Llantwit Major in South Wales where her father Marc was living. She also has an Uncle Richard who is a policeman in London.
- Her best friend as a girl was her cousin Cema, part of the Turkish side of the Adkins family. Her Aunt Kim had married a Turkish man and had four children, who were Adele's childhood playmates.
- She was sent home from her senior school in Balham for fighting. She was voting for Will Young in the first series of Pop Idol and got into a brawl with Garth Gates fans.
- For her audition, aged thirteen, at the BRIT School, Adele sang 'Free' by Stevie Wonder and played a blues piece on the clarinet. She wasn't that keen on the instrument but had progressed to Grade 5.
- Adele was one of the brightest pupils at the BRIT School and achieved a distinction in her GNVQ (General National Vocation Qualification) when she was fifteen.
- Adele's favourite sport is swimming. Her dad first taught her at a leisure centre in Tottenham. As a teenager she would swim with her friends at the Latchmere Leisure Centre in Battersea - a particular favourite because it had a wave machine.
- Adele had a Saturday job as a teenager. She worked in Aunt Kim's café next to the River Lea in Stamford Hill. She tried working in a Gap store but only lasted four days.
Adele by Sean Smith is out now.
Adele by Sean Smith
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