Ed Sheeran

📍Framlingham, Suffolk, UK

“Ed Sheeran was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, in 1991 and lived in Hebden Bridge until December 1995, when, aged almost four, he moved with his parents and older brother, Matthew, to Framlingham, a Suffolk market town gathered around a twelfth-century castle. His parents, John and Imogen, were art curators and consultants who ran their own arts business, and their house was full of paintings, books and music; his father took the boys to concerts, and they listened to Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and Elton John on long car journeys. He went to Brandeston Hall prep school and then Thomas Mills High School in the town. He was a self-described oddball, with red hair, big glasses and a stammer, and music gave him confidence. He sang in a church choir from four, played cello and piano, and began playing guitar at eleven. That year, he met the Irish songwriter Damien Rice backstage after a gig in Ireland and was told to write his own songs, which he went home and did, recording them in his bedroom and burning CDs to sell at school. He also rapped along to Eminem's albums, which he said helped him overcome his stammer. At fourteen he was already playing gigs in London, and at sixteen he left Framlingham to make music there full-time, sleeping on friends' sofas and sometimes on the Underground. Success followed with + in 2011, and he has written lovingly about Framlingham ever since, most famously in Castle on the Hill, which describes the hills, the castle, the country lanes and the friends he grew up with. He still lives in the Suffolk countryside near his hometown.”

Sources: gulfnews.com dhakatribune.com Wikipedia: Ed Sheeran