an irregular paradise

Meg

Noel and I were together for three years, then married for another three before we decided to have Anaïs. We were staying at Christian Dior’s château in the south of France where Oasis were recording their fourth album, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, in 1999. I’d just been to Naomi Campbell’s White Party on a yacht in St Tropez and I got pregnant that same day.

My mum and dad came for the birth at the Portland Hospital in London and my friend the PR and party organiser Fran Cutler was there, dressed in a MASH nurse’s outfit. I was going to be induced so Noel could spend time with Anaïs before he left on a world tour, but I started pushing at 1pm and gave birth 15 minutes later.

I didn’t have a clue but I had my mum, Chris, and Noel’s mum, Grandma Peggy, a housekeeper and a nanny at home. I don’t want to talk about the end of my marriage, when Anaïs was seven months old, but I was never on my own. There was always family around and Anaïs used to stay with my parents in Norfolk and at Grandma Peggy’s sister’s place in Ireland. Peggy still lives in the same council house in Manchester where Noel and Liam were brought up. A lot of my family lived on the Isle of Sheppey. I wanted Anaïs to see that not everyone has our lifestyle.

Anaïs could so easily have been a spoilt brat but she has worked hard to find her own place in the world. She has been in therapy since she was 13 and I think that was the best thing that me and her dad could have done for her. It has been the building block that has made her into this amazing person.

I decided to send her to Bedales when she was ten because I was also an only child and I’d loved boarding school. I came out of school at 17 with two O-levels, hitched a lift to London to buy a pair of Vivienne Westwood shoes and never went home. At her age I was partying six days a week, living in squats, hanging out with roadies and going on tour with different bands.

Anaïs is completely different. She got into Camberwell College of Arts to study photography. She’s an influencer — I don’t understand what she actually does, but she’s completely independent. She lives a normal life in a not-very-glamorous place next to a railway track. Her dad pays her rent but she doesn’t get an allowance from either of us. She’s very bright and articulate. She goes to the theatre at least once a week, she has her book club and she’s never out of art galleries. She has the best people skills. I find her lifestyle and her enthusiasm very inspiring.

She gets on with her dad and her Uncle Liam, and the cousins are all friends too. They decided early on that their dads’ arguing wouldn’t interfere with their relationships with each other. This is the Gallagher brothers we’re talking about. They’ve been fighting since 1994. It’s best not to get involved.

Anaïs has never followed the pack. I’ll say, “You could make a bit more effort,” and she’ll say, “I’m not a people-pleaser like you.” I ended up in therapy because I spent so much of my life worrying about what other people think. She’s one in a million, my daughter, and I couldn’t be more proud of her.

Anaïs

How do you rebel against crazy parents? You become conservative, I guess. The character I most relate to is Saffy from Ab Fab. I was always saying, “I’ve got to do my homework,” and Mum would say, “Nah, it’s fine.”

She is still a bit wild. Mum is a fashion girl through and through. But what makes me “me” are her different sides. When I was a kid she’d help me back my horse out of his stable but she’d also take me in a black cab to Bond Street to go shopping. I loved sitting on the floor while she tried on shoes in Prada.

My mum is the most full-of-life person I know and she created a home full of joy and expression. Walking round Regent’s Park when I was little, she’d crouch next to the trees and rose bushes and point out where the fairies lived. She was childlike and so full of imagination. But I think her own insecurities distracted her from me. She worried too much about herself and what other people thought of her.

The only time I felt really frustrated was during my education. Mum couldn’t help me with difficult essays and I thought, “If only I had a parent who could, life would be easier.” I remember going to a friend’s house when I was applying for university. Her parents were devising a plan to get her the most Ucas points. I tried to explain this to my mum and dad and they were, like, “What the f*** is a Ucas point?”

All my friends wanted to stay at my mum’s because she was so fun and she’d let us get up to mischief. She’d overhear me saying I was planning to stay in and she’d be, like, “What do you mean you don’t want to go to a party?” And she’d force me out of the door.

The stamina of my parents and their friends in the Nineties was incredible. I know all the stories but I can’t equate my parents with them, especially my dad, who stopped doing drugs before I was born. He was always a really great girl-dad. I was obsessed with One Direction and he made sure I got tickets.

I’m quite empathetic but at the beginning of my mum’s menopause journey she was a f***ing nightmare. Very unpredictable, very angry. There was a lot of conflict. But as soon as she explained it I was able to stop letting it affect me personally. I’ve got quite a stiff-upper-lip, self-soothing British boarding-school mentality. If I felt ill or homesick, I’d talk myself out of it.

Our relationship is flipped in quite beautiful ways. She’ll send me emails to check over; I’ll call her if a friend sends me a slightly mean message. I don’t have a people-pleaser bone in my body, so sometimes I need advice on damage control. My personality is more like my dad’s, a bit standoffish, guarded, true to myself. I’m working on being more flexible.

I feel so privileged that nine times out of ten I’ll walk into a film or fashion event and someone there will have known me since I was a kid. And that, I suppose, is the absolute hallmark of nepotism. But it wouldn’t shock me if neither of my parents knew what I do. They don’t understand that posting on social media can be a job. That’s absolutely fine. I may have got to where I am because of my parents, but I’ve sustained it by being authentically me.

Strange habits

Meg on Anaïs She always puts her thumbnail through her front tooth gap when she’s thinking

Anaïs on Meg My mum has the worst table manners in the whole world

In the honour of a 2024 magazine article deeply regretting Liam's menacing aura and rock n roll attitude from 1997

And, if anyone can possibly make out what Liam says Noel is pointing his way, this one maxed out my comprehension skills: