Oasis reunion: Liam & Noel Gallagher have brotherly beef, but sisters like me suffer from sibling rivalry too

I’m always surprised that Philip Larkin didn’t write a poem about siblings.

Sure, parents will mess you up, but brothers and sisters are even worse.

Noel and Liam Gallagher have squabbled numerous times over the years. The final straw was a bust up in 2009, which split the band permanently - well, so we thought.

Apparently it occurred before a cancelled show at the Paris Rock en Seine festival.

Noel quit the rock group and posted on the band’s website: “It’s with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on with working with Liam a day longer.”

I’ll be surprised if they make it as far as their 2025 reunion gigs, without another signature barney.

Maybe it’ll happen onstage, at one of Edinburgh's Murrayfield dates. Someone will get their Stone Island parka in a twist, and huff off for a pint in Roseburn Bar and that will be that. They’ll have to get a tribute band, like Noasis, to fill in.

Even in adulthood, siblings can, after all, really push your buttons. They are armed with the psychological tools and historical knowledge to hurt every last one of your feelings. 

Growing up with someone is like doing a PhD in their potential weaknesses. I’m sure that’s why so many end up estranged. 

I still blame the parents a bit though, because there’s so often a thinly disguised favourite - usually the baby of the family, in my experience -  to exacerbate the natural rivalry. 

As adults, my late father-in-law and his brother didn’t speak, simply because my husband’s uncle was openly considered the golden boy. 

In later years, the favourite moved abroad, and his sibling looked after their mother, when she grew infirm, but the absentee retained his status as the number one son. They never healed their rift.

The only unusual thing about Noel and Liam’s tumultuous relationship is that there’s five years between them. It’s usually a smaller gap - a year or two - that makes a siblinghood stickier.

Most people I know, who have a chunky age disparity, seem to rub along quite well. You’re not quite so mean, when they’re your vulnerable baby brother or sister.

My nieces have two years between then, and they love a good telenovela-level showdown. During the school holidays, my sister is driven demented by the door slamming and screeches.

It’s a pattern that formed years ago. The eldest knows the buttons to push, and, when bored - on a long car journey, say - can’t resist prodding them. 

It’ll be as simple as a jostling elbow, a muttered comment or a rolling of the eyes. Then, the youngest, instead of ignoring it, will get hugely upset and overreact. Job done, mic drop, as far as the eldest is concerned.

Sisters arguing | Boomanoid - stock.adobe.com

It’s just a pattern, and I wonder if they’ll always rub each other up the wrong way or if they’ll find something else to entertain themselves. I imagine them in the old folks’ home together, fighting over the remote control.

My sister and I get along well now, but we've had our moments, mainly back in our teens.

Apart from a shared sense of humour, we are quite different, especially back then. I was shy, anxious and weird-looking, and she was blonde, blue-eyed and, once she hit her teens, all the boys loved her, to my chagrin. 

Her phase of plundering my bedroom was one memorably irritating habit. It reached its zenith on a Saturday night when I wanted to go to a party, but couldn’t find my favourite coat - a very Nineties black leather jacket with furry collar - which had all my cash and bank card in the pocket.

I went out for a moody mooch and spotted her, on George IV Bridge, wearing the very item. Rage. The moment is seared into my brain. It seemed like total injustice. 

I was as angry as “a man with a fork in a world full of soup”, as Noel once described Liam.

After that, I remember buying a lock to put on the outside of my room, so she wouldn’t be able to pilfer my records, make-up and clothes. In the end, I had to jimmy it off my door because I’d lost the key, so that was a total fail.  The Big Sister Boutique was open for business once again.

I suppose I should’ve found it flattering that she coveted my wardrobe, but you don’t, at that age. It annoyed me that she looked better in my clothes than I did.

My husband’s sister, who is four years younger, used to wait until he got dressed every morning, before choosing her outfit to match.

He’d have to go and get changed, so he wasn’t co-ordinating with his five-year-old sibling. Very annoying, though that level of hero worship seems utterly adorable now. 

Otherwise, he swears that he hardly ever argued with his sisters. 

I told them that, and they revealed the only time that his granny ever smacked him was when he was hiding under a table, and gave his wee sister - then a toddler - a giant shove, and she nearly fell onto the electric heater to be frazzled alive. Naughty boy.

Maybe that’s all the Gallagher brothers need, to permanently sort their relationship. A good smack on the bottom from a Scottish granny. (Not that I condone any sort of violence).

It’s either that or we might be watching Noasis play Edinburgh instead. 

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