His girlfriend is right. Gallagher is exhausting. He talks so quickly that a little plug of spittle constantly collects in the right-hand corner of his mouth and he flits from topic to topic with dizzying speed. It is terrifying to imagine what he was like when he was an addict.
He seems tough but has his soft patches: his affection for his more glamorous younger brother, his adoration of his mother. He credits her with giving him the strength to cope with the difficulties in his life when he saw how she dealt with her divorce from the father he says was ‘always out drinking and shagging’. She told her boys that it was over, they were moving house and starting again.
“I took a lot of strength from that,” he says. “We had no carpets on the floor, but mam wasn’t bitter. 'We have nothing, but look at us, we’re happy,’ she would say. I have corrected all the mistakes that I have made in my life, getting married to the wrong person and doing too many drugs. But I am still young. I can start again,” he says.
He is keen to be a good father but seems rather nervous of his small daughter, wishing that he had brother Liam’s easy way with babies. “ He is a fantastic dad. He and his little boy are like best mates. I wish I could be like that but I think I will come into my own when my kids are teenagers. I’ll be able to give them good advice about what to do and stuff.”
