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Anyway, we were in the arcade and I noticed this hard knock and five of his mates across the way. They were all staring at me.

‘Gillian, let’s go. Come on.’

‘Why?’

‘That’s yer man who is after me.’

‘Why don’t you just go up to him and say something?’ Gillian didn’t stand for no messing.

‘No, no, come on, let’s just go.’

I grabbed her arm and we walked out of the arcade, but I could sense immediately that they were following us. By the time we’d walked down the street and round the corner, they’d caught up with us.

I was shitting myself.

‘Egan! Egan! Did you call my mother a whore?’

‘No, I did not. I don’t even know who you are, I’ve never seen you before in my life.’ Then I said, ‘My mum is waiting for me to go and pick some shoes.’

No good.

‘Meet me in the car park in 15 minutes. We’ll sort this out,’ he said.

This was ridiculous.

‘Look, if you want to hit me, do it now. I don’t want to wait 15 minutes, just do it now.’

I’m not gonna pretend – I was absolutely shitting my pants. I was terrified.

He took a swing and I reacted, finally. I blocked him and then hit back… hard . I just laid into him and really let loose. It was three years of frustration coming out. He’d picked on me on the wrong day.

But I wasn’t out of the woods yet. Word spread that I would hit back and some of these idiots saw that as a challenge. So when I got a little older, going to nightclubs and getting well pissed was always a bit risky. I often went out with my friend Graham, who would later join me at the start of the Westlife tale, and he was a hard lad, very capable of looking after himself. He had a bit of a reputation because he was from a slightly rougher part of town. If I was with him, people would leave me alone – he used to say, ‘If you hit him, I’ll hit you!’ However, if I went out alone or without Graham, it could get very nasty. Many times I would arrive at a club, spot a few faces in the crowd and just do a U-turn and leave.

Sometimes, however, confrontation was unavoidable, but even then I tried my best not to hit back unless I absolutely had to. Generally, I would let someone hit me three times before striking back. I figured if they hit me more than three times, I had to do something to defend myself. I would always say, ‘I don’t want to fight you, let’s leave it,’ but sometimes I was in a corner.

Since I’m being very open here, I must say that I was never going to move onto the next level: physically abusing people. I didn’t want to punch anybody, I was never a fighter, I only ever hit someone because I had no choice, you know, I was defending myself. Just sitting talking about the shit I let myself go through with these guys is annoying, it makes me angry. Kids shouldn’t have to deal with all that.

I know I have the benefit of hindsight now, but I think those difficult times made me a much stronger person today. I think they taught me a hell of a lot about life at a young age and helped me to be the person I am.

Since Westlife has become successful, one or two of these guys have come up to me in Sligo, apologized for their behaviour and offered to buy me a pint. I haven’t taken the pints, but it’s interesting to see the change.

I am being brutally honest with you when I say that I did sometimes turn on those who were smaller than me. I never hit anyone, but I did call people names. It made me feel better, albeit momentarily, I’m afraid to say. I was stuck in the middle between the older, tougher boys who would kick the living daylights out of you and the quieter guys, often from the country, who came into school. It was a strange cruel pecking order. One day we pushed a kid into the shower with his brand new tracksuit and trainers on. His name was Mark Feehily.

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