Dare to Dream: Life as One Direction

Having our first book go to number one in the book charts was also pretty unbelievable. We were excited about it being out there and hoped that some fans would buy it, but we didn’t realise just how many would get it. It was a complete shock and really exciting. The fans that came along to the book signings were incredible. I got given a lot of turtles because I once said I liked them, and it’s so cool when people remember little things you’ve said and chat to you about them.

We’ve done so many brilliant things this year. Filming the documentary was an interesting experience, but we are used to the cameras now so we all felt pretty chilled out about it. Photo shoots are always cool too. Even though we’ve done them before, each time it feels like a new experience.

Going on the Alan Titchmarsh show was a good laugh, because it’s one of those shows that everyone has seen. And he was a really nice guy. That was the first proper TV thing we did after The X Factor, so it’s one that we’ll always remember.

LOOKING FORWARD

One of the surprising things about being in the band is how committed fans are to us. Some of them came to loads of dates on the tour. People still don’t expect you to recognise them, though. There was a girl who was in our hotel one day who had been on loads of the tour, and she was really shocked that we’d remembered her name and knew who she was – but of course we do. We remember people just like anyone else would, and it’s nice to have the chance to get to know them properly.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to the press attention. It still feels very strange when I pick up a newspaper and something has been written about me. It sometimes feels like I’m reading about someone else. But as long as people carry on writing nice things about us I don’t mind.

As a band, we’re having the absolute best time ever. We’ve become better friends than I could ever have imagined and it’s so nice to have four other lads to share this experience with. If ever one of us is down the others pick him up, and we’ve got really good at coming up with ideas and putting things into practice as a group. I think we’re going to get tighter and tighter as time goes on.

Out of all the things that we have coming up, what we’re most excited about is getting out on the One Direction tour. We can see a lot more of the fans and they can see us performing our songs. It’s down to us to show what we’re all about, and we’re looking forward to doing exactly that.

We’ve got a lot of big dreams. We want to have number ones, travel a lot, go back to America and have as much fun as possible. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

QUICKFIRE

DOB: 1/02/1994

STAR SIGN: Aquarius

favourite …

FILM: Love Actually, The Notebook, Titanic – there are so many (but I tell everyone it’s Fight Club)

BODY PART: My hands, because I’ve always been told that they’re soft

FOOD: I love sweetcorn

ALBUM: 21 by Adele

FRIEND: Louis Tomlinson

CELEBRITY LADY: Frankie Sandford

SHOP: Selfridges

DRINK: I’ve been trying to just drink water but I love apple juice

COLOUR: Orange

TV SHOW: Family Guy

AFTERSHAVE: Blue by Chanel

PERFUME: Alien by Thierry Mugler

COMPUTER GAME: Fifa

IPHONE APP: Texts From Last Night, where people send in texts that people have sent them when they’re drunk. My friend Ali and I send good ones to each and some of them are so funny

WAY TO SPEND A SUNDAY: Asleep or chilling out

DATE VENUE: Restaurant

COUNTRY: England

RESTAURANT: TGI Fridays

WAY TO RELAX: I love getting massages because I’ve always had a really bad back

MODE OF TRANSPORT: Dog sleigh

NIGHT OUT: Going for dinner with all of my mates

BAND: The Beatles, Queen

WHAT COLOUR IS YOUR DUVET COVER? Brown or pink and blue

WHAT KIND OF PANTS DO YOU WEAR? Boxer shorts. I like Calvin Klein

FIRST PET: A dog called Max

DO YOU LIKE YOUR OWN COMPANY OR OTHER PEOPLE’S? The company of people. I like being around friends and family

LAST BOOK YOU READ: Forever Young by One Direction

LAST FIVE THINGS YOU BOUGHT: A pair of shoes from Supra, an Adidas t-shirt from Selfridges, a Nandos, dinner at TGI Fridays and some toothpaste

WHAT TYPE OF GIRLS DO YOU LIKE? I don’t have a type, because with some girls I may not find them attractive immediately, but then I really get to like them because their personality is so attractive. I like someone I can have a conversation with, and I would always look for someone who could get on with my parents. It’s important to me that my family like her too.

LIAM PAYNE

KEEP ON RUNNING

I guess one of the strangest things I can tell you about my younger years is that I’ve only got one kidney because when I was born I was effectively dead. Weird, I know. The doctors couldn’t get any reaction from me, so I had to be brought round, and although it seemed like I was okay, there were underlying problems.

I was born three weeks early and I kept being ill. From the age of zero to four I was always in hospital having tests done but they couldn’t find out what was wrong. In the end they discovered that one of my kidneys wasn’t working properly, and because it hadn’t been discovered in time it had scarred, and the other one was working at 95 per cent of its capacity. It got to the stage when I had to have 32 injections in my arm in the morning and evening to try and make me better. I’ve still got both kidneys, but one doesn’t work, so I have to be careful not to drink too much, even water, and I have to keep myself as healthy as possible.

My first ever school was an infant school in Wolverhampton called Collingwood and I was a bit of a naughty boy. In fact, I was often called into the headmistress’s office in the first few days. I used to have water fights in the toilets and climb on the roof to get footballs back.

By the time I went to junior school I’d grown up a lot and I tried out for a lot of the school teams but I never got into any of them. Then one day I tried out for the cross-country running team and I came first in the race.

There was a guy who was running for Wolverhampton at the time and he was one of the best runners around, and I beat him, so everyone said that I cheated. The next week we ran the same race and I won again, and that’s how I found out I could run. From then on I was training all the time and getting up at six in the morning to run for miles. At the age of 12 they put me in the school’s under 18s team, so I was running against 18-year-old men and keeping up with them.

I joined Wolverhampton and Bilston running team, and for three of the five years I was the third best 1500 metres runner in my age group in the country, which was amazing.