Editing David Bowie (section)

==Early life==
David Robert Jones was born on 8&nbsp;January 1947 in [[Brixton]], London.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.biography.com/musician/david-bowie |title=David Bowie |publisher=[[Biography.com]] ([[FYI (American TV channel)|FYI]]/[[A&E Networks]]) |access-date=20 June 2022 |archive-date=14 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210314180329/https://www.biography.com/musician/david-bowie |url-status=live }}</ref> His mother, Margaret Mary "Peggy" (née Burns),<ref name="news.bbc.co.uk">{{cite news |title=Bowie mourns mother's death |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1256864.stm |url-status=live |work=[[BBC News]] |date=2 April 2001 |access-date=9 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160111215005/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1256864.stm |archive-date=11 January 2016}}</ref> was born at [[Shorncliffe Army Camp]] near [[Cheriton, Kent|Cheriton]], Kent.{{sfn|Gillman|Gillman|1987|p=17: "[Peggy] was born in the hospital at Shorncliffe Camp [near Folkestone, Kent] on October 2nd, 1913."}} She worked as a waitress at a cinema in [[Royal Tunbridge Wells]].{{sfn|Gillman|Gillman|1987|p=44: "At the end of the war, Peggy Burns was working as a waitress at the Ritz cinema in Tunbridge Wells"}} His father, Haywood Stenton "John" Jones,<ref name="news.bbc.co.uk"/> was from [[Doncaster]], Yorkshire,{{sfn|Gillman|Gillman|1987|p=44 "John Jones was born in the grimy Yorkshire town of Doncaster in 1912."}} and worked as a promotions officer for the children's charity [[Barnardo's]]. The family lived at 40 Stansfield Road, on the boundary between Brixton and [[Stockwell]] in the south London borough of [[Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth|Lambeth]]. Bowie attended [[Stockwell Primary School|Stockwell Infants School]] until he was six, acquiring a reputation as a gifted and single-minded child—and a defiant brawler.{{sfn|Sandford|1997|pp=9–16}}

From 1953, Bowie moved with his family to [[Bickley]] and then [[Bromley Common]], before settling in [[Sundridge Park]] in 1955 where he attended Burnt Ash Junior School.<ref>{{cite web |last=Palmer |first=Jim |title=18 south east London places where David Bowie lived, learned and played |url=https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/14195175.map-18-south-east-london-places-where-david-bowie-lived-learned-and-played/ |url-status=live |website=News Shopper |date=11 January 2016 |access-date=31 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210806093810/https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/14195175.map-18-south-east-london-places-where-david-bowie-lived-learned-and-played/ |archive-date=6 August 2021}}</ref> His voice was considered "adequate" by the school choir, and he demonstrated above-average ability on the [[Recorder (musical instrument)|recorder]]. At the age of nine, his dancing was strikingly imaginative: teachers called his interpretations "vividly artistic" and his poise "astonishing" for a child.{{sfn|Sandford|1997|pp=18–19}} The same year, his interest in music was further stimulated when his father brought home a collection of American [[Gramophone record|45s]] by artists including [[the Teenagers]], [[the Platters]], [[Fats Domino]], [[Elvis Presley]] and [[Little Richard]].{{sfn|Buckley|2000|p=21}}{{sfn|Sandford|1997|pp=19–20}} Upon listening to Little Richard's song "[[Tutti Frutti (song)|Tutti Frutti]]", Bowie later said that he had "heard God".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Doggett|first=Peter|author-link=Peter Doggett|title=Teenage Wildlife|journal=Mojo Classic|issue=60 Years of Bowie|pages=8–9|date=January 2007}}</ref>

Bowie was first impressed with Presley when he saw his cousin Kristina dance to "[[Hound Dog (song)|Hound Dog]]" soon after its release in 1956.{{sfn|Sandford|1997|pp=19–20}} According to Kristina, she and David "danced like possessed elves" to records of various artists.<ref name="Childhood dreams">{{cite news |last=Marsh |first=Joanne |title=David Bowie's cousin pens letter about their childhood: 'He exceeded all his father's dreams' |url=https://www.nme.com/news/music/david-bowie-76-1199483 |date=18 February 2016 |access-date=26 December 2020 |magazine=[[NME]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161117052410/https://www.nme.com/news/music/david-bowie-76-1199483 |archive-date=17 November 2016}}</ref> By the end of the following year, Bowie had taken up the [[ukulele]] and [[tea-chest bass]], begun to participate in [[skiffle]] sessions with friends, and had started to play the piano; his stage presentation of numbers by both Presley and [[Chuck Berry]]—complete with gyrations in tribute to the original artists—to his local [[Cub Scout|Wolf Cub]] group was described as "mesmerizing&nbsp;... like someone from another planet".{{sfn|Sandford|1997|pp=19–20}} Having encouraged his son to follow his dreams of being an entertainer since he was a toddler, in the late 1950s David's father took him to meet singers and other performers preparing for the [[Royal Variety Performance]], introducing him to [[Alma Cogan]] and [[Tommy Steele]].<ref name="Childhood dreams"/> After taking his [[eleven-plus]] exam, Bowie went to [[Bromley Technical High School]].{{sfn|Sandford|1997|pp=21–22}} It was an unusual technical school, as biographer [[Christopher Sandford (biographer)|Christopher Sandford]] wrote:

{{blockquote|Despite its status it was, by the time David arrived in 1958, as rich in arcane ritual as any [English] [[Public school (United Kingdom)|public school]]. There were [[House system|houses]] named after eighteenth-century statesmen like [[William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham|Pitt]] and [[William Wilberforce|Wilberforce]]. There was a uniform and an elaborate system of rewards and punishments. There was also an accent on languages, science and particularly design, where a collegiate atmosphere flourished under the tutorship of [[Owen Frampton]]. In David's account, Frampton led through force of personality, not intellect; his colleagues at Bromley Tech were famous for neither and yielded the school's most gifted pupils to the arts, a regime so liberal that Frampton actively encouraged his own son, [[Peter Frampton|Peter]], to pursue a musical career with David, a partnership briefly intact thirty years later.{{sfn|Sandford|1997|pp=21–22}}}}

Bowie's maternal half-brother, Terry Burns, was a substantial influence on his early life.{{sfn|O'Leary|2015|loc=chap. 4}} Burns, who was 10 years older than him, had [[schizophrenia]] and [[seizures]], and lived alternately at home and in psychiatric wards. While living with Bowie, he introduced the younger man to many of his lifelong influences, such as [[modern jazz]], [[Buddhism]], [[Beat poetry]] and the [[occult]].{{sfn|O'Leary|2015|loc=chap. 3–4}} In addition to Burns, a significant proportion of Bowie's extended family members had [[schizophrenia spectrum disorders]], including an aunt who was institutionalised and another who underwent a [[lobotomy]]; this has been labelled as an influence on his early work.{{sfn|O'Leary|2015|loc=chap. 4}}

Bowie studied art, music and design. After Burns introduced him to modern jazz, his enthusiasm for players like [[Charles Mingus]] and [[John Coltrane]] led his mother to give him a [[Grafton saxophone]] in 1961. He was soon receiving lessons from [[baritone saxophonist]] [[Ronnie Ross]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.berklee.edu/commencement/past|title=Commencement 1999 – Berklee College of Music|website=berklee.edu|access-date=10 February 2018|archive-date=10 February 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180210180516/https://www.berklee.edu/commencement/past|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Sandford|1997|p=25}}

He received a serious injury at school in 1962 when his friend [[George Underwood (artist)|George Underwood]] punched him in the left eye during a fight over a girl.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Stokes |first=Tim |title=David Bowie: The man who left the Starman with mismatched eyes |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg2r9mvxz2o |access-date=18 October 2024 |website=[[BBC News]] |date=21 September 2024 |language=en-GB}}</ref> After a series of operations during a four-month hospitalisation,{{sfn|Evans|2006|p=57}} the damage could not be fully repaired and Bowie was left with faulty [[depth perception]] and [[anisocoria]] (a permanently dilated pupil); his eye later became one of Bowie's most recognisable features.<ref>{{cite web|first=Tanya|last=Basu|url=https://www.thecut.com/2016/01/story-behind-david-bowies-unusual-eyes.html|title=The Story Behind David Bowie's Unusual Eyes|work=[[The Cut (website)|The Cut]]|date=12 January 2016|access-date=21 January 2016|archive-date=17 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171117143944/http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/01/story-behind-david-bowies-unusual-eyes.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Despite their altercation, Bowie remained on good terms with Underwood, who went on to create the artwork for Bowie's early albums.{{sfn|Buckley|2005|p=19}}