User:Ian Harbord

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Ian Harbord 1986- rose to wide-spread fame in the nineties and early 2000 as the result of a sucessful British reality TV show, Rose To Fame, which followed the exploits of his family. Though each family member was featured equally in the show, it is a widely held belief that Ian vastly outshone his other family members, to become the ackowledged star of the show. The other members of his family include mother Rose, father Michael, and older brother Neil (Ian's aunt Margaret, also resident in the Harbord household, refused to take part in the show on moral grounds, and as a result spent much of the intervening years in her own specially-built wing of the house. As a joke, the Harbord family have not told her the show is now over.) The most noteable peripheral member of the show, whose popularity also rose among the public, was one Mark Edwards, a good friend of Ian's who was often seen visiting the family home and whom Rose largely holds responsible for getting Ian into many of the numerous amusing scrapes that made his name. (Though Mark reportedly still likes to point out that he had no hand in the hideous "sausage incident" which brought the show its highest ratings during June 1998.)

[edit] Early Life

Ian was born 3 weeks premature on April 12th 1986 at North Devon District Hospital on the outskirts of Barnstaple, a popular local town. After the birth, one of the doctors was rumoured to have remarked to a nearby nurse that he had never officiated at the birth of such a large premature baby (though this has never been confirmed). Another unusual fact concerning his birth was that for 3 weeks Ian was not seen to open his eyes (though doctors were highly suspicious that he was doing so only in private).

At age 7 Ian was sent to a local preparatory school for gifted young men, though his habit of constantly altering his body and facial features with plasticine put him in disfavour with many of the teachers. This was a state that was set to continue for his time at the school, and is the factor his mother Rose attributes to Ian's poor academic performance during those - and following - years.

From the preparatory school, at which Ian had failed to distinguish himself, he was sent to the local comprehensive, Bideford College. By this time, the show had begun. It was during this time that Ian developed his interest in Italian culture, appreciating particuarly the work of Fellini and Carravagio. It is an interest that has stayed with him to this day. During interviews conducted during and after Rose To Fame, Ian often expressed a perceived affinity with the Italian people and a vast admiration of the country's cultural icons, the abilities and passion of whom he claimed "far exceeded the mild, trivial talents of gloomy Strindbergian theatre or Southern American literature crushed by its own hardship". (As a result of this remark, the Swedish government refused Ian entry during his 2003 "Walk the World" challenge.)

Finding himself bored by many of the activities he was asked to perform in school, Ian spent much of his time away from the school engaging in other pursuits. The only college-based activities he was ever seen to enjoy were Geography (though even in this area he ended up disappointing his classmates and pedagogue by failing to get the desired "C" grade) and some sports. He was known to show a particular aptitude for equestrianism and shotput. His significant achievements during the 2002 Sports Day, at which he shattered both the school record for shotput throwing and a nearby pavillion window, earned him the nickname "meathead", in honour of a previous holder of the record.

At the end of 2002 Ian graduted from Bideford College without distinction, and made his way into the world, watched, ironically, by the eyes of the world.

[edit] The Fame Years

The show began in 1996 after a huge push by ITV executive Daniel Bigglestone. Originally to have featured a working-class family from Norwich, they had to pull out after the untimely death of the family's pet snake, and auditions for a replacement family were quickly held. The Harbord family are reported to have "run away with it" at auditions, outshining the other two families by some way.