“I was the director – that’s what Liam Payne and the band meant to me”

I was 12 years old when One Direction took part in The X Factor.

I have often joked that I was the perfect age for indoctrination. I hadn’t shown any interest in boys before – but Harry, Niall, Louis, Liam and Niall were different.

Their youthful good looks, cheeky, charming personalities and the fact that they weren’t much older than me meant that they quickly came to dominate my entire life.

I followed all the classic fangirl rituals: I read One Direction fanfiction, watched every interview the band did, and maximized my parents’ landline bill by voting for them on The X Factor.

To me it was almost irrelevant that they were musically talented, which they demonstrated when they honed their skills as performers during the reality show’s weekly live performances after being put together as a group by Simon Cowell.

I wasn’t alone in my obsession. Fans – or Directioners, as we quickly became known – were a huge, sprawling community.

It was more common for girls in my year to be infatuated with them at school than not. We all had a favorite band member and wore bracelets with the name of Harry, Zayn, Liam, Louis or Niall.

Even in the early X Factor days, when the boys were seen in public they were mobbed by adoring fans.

During the band’s time on the show, ITV also released video diaries on YouTube that were not included in the television schedule.

Filmed while the boys sat on the stairs of the X Factor house, where they spent most of their time during the show, it offered a glimpse into the singers’ personalities.

In one clip, the band members were asked about their roles in the group.

“Liam is the smart one, Harry is the flirt, Zayn is vain, Niall is the funny one,” replies 18-year-old Louis, before Harry adds: “Louis is the leader.”

We all held on to the bizarre facts revealed in these videos: that Liam hated spoons (he later explained that he had a phobia of using them if they were dirty) and that Louis was obsessed with carrots.

After the band’s time on The X Factor, my bedroom wall was covered with their faces and I begged my parents to let me see them on their first tour in 2012.

I managed it and my mother drove me two hours with one of my school friends to a gig in Bournemouth – a show that was added to record the band’s tour DVD. I’ve never been in a room with people so excited.

The hysterical screaming didn’t seem to stop, but it didn’t bother me because of course I was screaming at the top of my lungs too.

When Zayn pointed in the direction of my One Direction banner, I fell to the ground crying. It wasn’t an uncommon reaction among the girls in the room.

Back then, I spent most of my free time online, keeping up with the boys and my new friends, One Direction fans.

One Direction emerged around the time Twitter was taking off as a platform. Long before social media managers became commonplace, Liam, Harry, Zayn, Louis and Niall often tweeted from their personal accounts.

Liam once tweeted then US President Barack Obama and asked him if he had bought One Direction’s debut album yet. He also asked Kim Kardashian what her favorite song was.

Fans, in turn, sent hundreds of tweets to the boys, trying to get their attention or follow them.

Social media was still in its infancy, but it made the band accessible to fans around the world in a way that it hadn’t when The X Factor first aired in 2004, 18 months before Twitter was founded would have been.

As One Direction grew up, I grew up too – and I started thinking about what I wanted to do for a career.

Thanks to my obsession with the charts – and One Direction, of course – I knew I wanted to work in entertainment and interview the pop stars I grew up with.

When I started working in the industry in 2016, the band had announced an indefinite hiatus.

But even though I was an adult and there were no longer One Direction posters on my walls, my dream of meeting the band lived on.

When I started working, the guys had already started their solo careers. Liam’s first single “Strip That Down” with rapper Quavo was a global hit, reaching number three in the UK charts upon its release in 2017.

He was eager to promote his music and wasn’t afraid to speak to reporters at red carpet events.

When I first spoke with him in 2017, I was a student at journalism school covering Capital Radio’s Jingle Bell Ball.

It was one of the first times I’d covered an event alone, and I was transfixed, like a rabbit in headlights amidst the crush of reporters and flashing cameras.

Then Liam walked across the red carpet in my direction and stopped to talk to me.

I was 19, completely overwhelmed and couldn’t believe my luck – I was completely unprofessional.

As soon as he walked up to me I blurted out, “Oh my God, I was such a One Direction fan.”

He smiled, looked me in the eyes and thanked me, managing to look interested even though he had probably heard my questions hundreds of times that day.

Liam appeared to be very media-trained and got along well with reporters. It seemed easy for him to build a good relationship with us.

At the end of our conversation, we took a quick selfie, which he was happy to pose for.

The next time I interviewed Liam was as a junior reporter for a national newspaper and his personable demeanor was much the same.

In the years that followed, I didn’t interview Liam again, but I continued to read about his career.

It was clear that becoming famous wasn’t always easy for him, and although he felt at home in front of the camera, he later opened up about how he struggled with the pressures of fame and alcohol.

When the news of Liam’s death broke on Wednesday, I was having dinner at a friend’s house and we were sitting in disbelief, watching the BBC News Channel. On the way home I listened to One Direction and couldn’t help but cry.

For me, and for countless others who grew up as directors, it feels like the end of something that was an integral part of our youth.

I will always thank Liam for that.