Collabro star Jamie Lambert has revealed how he was an outsider at school.
The singer from Washington returned to Dame Allan’s School in Fenham to take assembly just hours after performing with his group at Newcastle City Hall.
Jamie urged current students to be who they are and follow their hearts, before visiting the music department, where he first took his tentative steps to stardom, to listen as classmates performed for him.
“I personally was never part of the popular crowd. I had pretty long hair and really bad skin and when everyone was playing rugby I was playing piano in the music department,” the 24-year-old told the packed assembly in the school’s Newsom Hall.
“I loved my time here and I did have a great group of friends, but it wasn’t what I centred around in school. The one thing you need to remember is it doesn’t matter what it is that you want to do, if it makes you happy, you work really hard for it.
“It is really hard work. Life is a long thing, it doesn’t feel very long right now as it feels like it was yesterday I was sitting where you are.
“It doesn’t matter if you are a girl or a boy, what your gender is, what your skin colour is, what your sexuality is, what crowd you are in, what you do at break time, what sports you like – you just have to be yourself and that’s the way you get to where you want to be. That is the most important thing.”
Jamie, who brought his pet pug puppy Peggy with him, also spoke of his long road to stardom and how he first studied Spanish before following his heart and moving to London to study musical theatre, holding down three jobs “to stay afloat”.
“Right now what seems important to you is whether or not you are part of a certain group of friends, or what your next class is or what time home-time is.
“None of that will be what matters to you in the future. In a few years you are going to be thinking about what you are going to do in life – your rent and whether the job you are doing is what you absolutely want to be doing.”
He then listened as Year 8 student Zoe Buckthorp, Ellie Hutton (Yr 9), Elizabrth Oma (Yr 13) and Daniel Vening (Yr 12) performed for him in the music department.
Jamie left Dame Allan’s six years ago. “It’s really strange. You remember how things look but you forget how you experienced them. I walked into Newsom Hall and it smells just the same. It’s been overwhelming and lovely to be back,” he told the Chronicle.
Of his Collabro gig at Newcastle City Hall, he added: “It was absolutely fantastic and to be honest it was a total dream come true.
“Everyone was there just to be completely supportive. I must have had hundreds in the audience I knew. We had more standing ovations than any other night on the tour and I was so happy and could see all my family and friends.”
