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Lily Allen · S1 E4
The Schools
Expelled, moved, expelled again — education was never the point
Wells Cathedral, Somerset, Christmas 1996. Eleven-year-old Lily Allen stands alone at the front of the nave and sings "In the Bleak Midwinter" to a packed audience, while her mother and brother lie injured after their car crashed on the motorway driving down from London.
Somewhere Only We Know by Lily Allen (John Lewis Christmas advert, 2013). A Keane cover stripped back to piano and voice. This is what Grade 8 singing sounds like when it grows up. Pure, controlled, and completely unlike the cheeky pop star the world thinks it knows.
Thirteen Schools
Between the ages of five and fifteen, Lily Allen attends thirteen different schools. Hill House in Knightsbridge, Edgarley Hall in Somerset on a sports scholarship, Bedales for two and a half terms. Then a string of London crammers that blur into nothing.
“I was pretty brazen with all my behaviour. I think I just didn't care.”
— Lily Allen, Irish Times, September 2018
The Voice in the Playground
At Cavendish, a music teacher named Rachel Santesso overhears Lily singing "Wonderwall" by Oasis in the school playground. She calls her into her office the next day and starts giving her lunchtime singing lessons. Lily eventually reaches Grade 8 singing, the highest level in the British system.
TAP TO REVEAL: What did Lily do at Hill House School that would surprise you?
Everybody's Changing by Keane
The song every British teenager of Lily's generation heard in 2004. Keane came from boarding school backgrounds themselves. "Everybody's changing and I don't feel the same" could have been written about a girl who attended thirteen schools before she was old enough to drive.
School Report
How did music teacher Rachel Santesso discover Lily Allen's singing voice?
Thirteen schools, zero qualifications, one extraordinary voice. Next: her little brother Alfie, the kid she dragged through all of this beside her, who will one day sit on the Iron Throne.
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