Early Life
Brooks was born Rebekah Mary Wade in Warrington, Lancashire, to a father variously described as a tugboat deckhand and gardener. She grew up in Daresbury, and decided she wanted to be a journalist from the age of 14. She attended Appleton Hall High School – a state comprehensive school that had previously been a grammar school – in Appleton, near Warrington. A childhood friend, Louise Weir, described her as "more emotionally intelligent than academic", charming and always able to get what she wanted out of people.
In Brooks's entry in Who's Who she stated that she studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, but did not claim to have a degree, and did not later answer questions about this; in a 2003 Spectator article, Stephen Glover suggested that, since she was working at the age of 20 for the News of the World, "we can safely assume that she did not study at the Sorbonne in any meaningful way". In 2010, Brooks was awarded an honorary Fellowship from the University of the Arts, London, for her contribution to journalism. She attended the London College of Communication, now part of the university, as a student.
The commentator Henry Porter claims little is known of Brooks personally. Tim Minogue, who was one of her first co-editors before becoming a journalist at Private Eye magazine, recalled a "likeable, skinny, hollow-eyed girl who was very ambitious".
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