Early Life
Smith was born in Eye, Cambridgeshire to his English mother, Elaine who separated from his Jamaican-born father, Claude when he was young. He was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and put on Ritalin when he was seven years old. His mother commented that it was a case of his "running around the house and climbing everywhere or going somewhere more structured." His local friends included Aston Merrygold, later a member of boyband JLS.
When he was seven, Smith was offered a choral scholarship, but instead chose to focus on gymnastics. He first learned to use the pommel by putting his feet in a bucket that was tied to a rope and hung from a ceiling. He attended Arthur Mellows Village College in Glinton, Cambridgeshire.
Read more about this topic: Louis Smith (gymnast)
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Make-believe is the avenue to much of the young child’s early understanding. He sorts out impressions and tries out ideas that are foundational to his later realistic comprehension. This private world sometimes is a quiet, solitary
world. More often it is a noisy, busy, crowded place where language grows, and social skills develop, and where perseverance and attention-span expand.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“I have no doubt that they lived pretty much the same sort of life in the Homeric age, for men have always thought more of eating than of fighting; then, as now, their minds ran chiefly on the “hot bread and sweet cakes;” and the fur and lumber trade is an old story to Asia and Europe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)