The Phonebox Podcast With Emma Conway - Alison Perry: THE BOYBAND BONANZA!

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

IT'S TIME FOR A BOYBAND BONANZA! Grab your sun in! Get your scrapbooks out! Press record on your VHS! Alison Perry and I chat all about our misspent teenage years following boybands like Take That, Worlds Apart and Bad Boys Inc up and down the country.For more of Alison follow her on instagram here and be sure to check out her two amazing podcasts 'Twinning It' and 'Not Another Mummy Podcast'. She also has a brilliant book out OMG It's Twins!: Get Your Twins to Their First Birthday Without Losing Your MindFor more of me follow @brummymummyof2 on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok and follow the all new @phoneboxpodcast account on InstagramIf you have any guest suggestions or topics you would like me to cover email [e-mail] and be sure to tag so I can see where you are listening!Editing by Soundtruism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Who wants this last parachute? I do. until jackpot is awarded or 11 p.m eastern research and supply see full terms at canada.casino.fandu.com please play responsibly hello you lovely humans welcome back to the phone box podcast and we are back with a bonus boy band edition a bonus beautiful boy band edition which is hard say. Try saying that when you've had a bit of Bad Dog 2020 Kiwi down the park with your mates. It's difficult. We're going to be talking about, take that, we're going to be talking about East 17, Worlds Apart, Bad Boys Inc, Friendship Books, Squat Books, driving up and down the country to go to these random road shows in the middle of the night when we were 15.

And really we shouldn't be doing that kind of thing and we wouldn't let our kids do it now, but we still did it. I am doing this podcast with the wonderful allison perry who has a brand new podcast out called twinning it where she chats about all things twin like she also has loads of other different bits and bobs all over social media other podcast blogs i'm gonna leave everything in the description so you can go and check it out she's fantastic and we lived parallel lives she was in scotland i was in england we were doing the same shenanigans both wearing bomber jackets and boots with wood in that's what we were doing we were following the boy bands around the country and if you were

listening to this on spotify i am going to try and do a little vote where you can choose e17 or take that which was your favourite, let me know. And of course, it would be amazing if you could leave me a review or you could leave me five stars, that'd be wonderful. And go to the phone box podcast and direct message me if you have any. I wanna see any photo of any boy bands

you may have had a picture with so I can share them. These photos, I know, going to bring me so much joy so enjoy this very long bumper bonanza with Alison and I and I will come back at the end for a chit chat. Hello Alison and welcome to the phone box podcast a very special bonus boy band edition. Hi I'm so excited to be here. It's we're giving the people what they want. They want the boy bands. They want the 90s boy bands. And that's what we want to talk about. But I'm going to ask you a couple of normal questions.

I ask everyone so we gauge a bit of, as my tween would say, your vibe. So what year was it when you were 14, please? Well, when I was 14, it was 1993. So it was the year, I think, of Take That A Million Love Songs. I feel like I remember being in, getting changed for PE at school and telling my friend about this new amazing song that I'd heard on Top of the Pops and it was A Million Love Songs. Did you do a sax?

With a hoisting probably okay cool um what part of the country were you living in scotland so central scotland near a city called sterling right in the middle of scotland fab and you went to an all-girls school as well didn't you? No I didn't. Mixed. Mixed. Girls and boys. Did the boys have floppy hair? Some of them had floppy hair none of them were as hot as the boy band members that I fancied. Oh I mean it's it would be a hard it's a hard to live up to those boy bands. So I've got specific boy band questions I'm going to ask you that I want to know the answers to and then I'm going to look at some questions that people sent in from Instagram, some top topics that people want us to talk about. So go over to the phone box podcast on Instagram. I do polls over there. I do Q and A's. I'm going to do readers letters at some point.

I need to send readers wives there. We're not doing that. That's the late night edition. Don't send me any picture thank you very much okay so the first question I have for you I'm so interested who were your top three bands because I feel bands came in tiers so I had my number one band take that all day every day but then we're stepping down to tier two sorry if if any of these people are listening. Could you imagine? Just worlds apart, tuning in. Number two, I'd say, was Worlds Apart and Bad Boys Inc. And then we're going down to tier three. And these are bands that people probably never would have heard of.

Atlanta, who used to just go around and do road shows. There's different tiers. I think they're in tiers of availability of who you could get to. So what were your tiers I mean without a doubt number one top tier take that although I take that they were up there they were my first loves they were the they were the the band that introduced me to boy bands I mean NKOTB round about circa 1990 but I only took a sort of fleeting interest in them. Tier two, I would say, yeah, like Bad Boys Inc. Worlds Apart.

But then I'm trying to think who else. 9-1-1. Because actually 9-1-1 lived in Glasgow. And, or as we used to call them up there, 9-1-1. That's what we used to call them with our wee glasgow accents um so um yes we used to like bump into nine one one when we were just shopping in glasgow all the time there's spike oh look over there jimmy body shaking in war works i got my body shaking and she was dumb my sister once met nine-1-1 every podcast is a story about my sister she once met 9-1-1 she was by herself she took a disposable camera she developed the photos the photos came out her face was only on it 9-1-1s had been blurred by like a black this is the thing

this is the thing right in fact i've got this photo here of me and shane from boyzone oh i'll put it on my story. And look, like half of my chin's cut off. It's blurred. And like back in the day we didn't have digital cameras where you could just check whether it was okay. Shane looks great. I mean, Shane does look great, doesn't he? He looks hot.

This was taken in Aberdeen on Saturday the 24th of May 1997 because I used to write on the back. You've got really nice writing as well. That's like well-trendy 90s writing. A lot of practice went into this handwriting, I tell you. Really?

Yes. Okay, so I want to know just a bit more of the kind of the basics. Did you stick in Scotland or did you travel to other parts of the uk to see these bands well emma yeah we started off in scotland so any time um so back in the 90s there was a tv show called a saturday morning tv show called fully booked yeah and it was on in the summer when live and kicking wasn't on and fully booked was recorded in glasgow at bbc at BBC Scotland. And so we would find out when like Boyzone or whoever was coming up to be on Fully Booked. And on the Friday, we would head to Glasgow airport. And we knew roughly what time they'd be coming in and we'd meet them.

And we knew which hotels they were roughly going to be staying in. So we would head there and like hang out until we saw them. So that's how we started. And then were like hang on a minute like we could just like you know travel to Manchester and Birmingham of course you could all sorts of places so we definitely especially I mean I am a bit embarrassed because you know um this is a safe space this is okay thank you thank you you're reassuring me I was probably about 15 when I started doing this um and I had older friends who would like had cars we would jump in their cars and like travel down down south and then when I turned 17 and I got myself a little second-hand

Peugeot 106 I would like drive my friends around um and so we would like bomb it down to like Birmingham and Manchester when do we forever anywhere at the same time? We must have been. We have to have been. We have to have been. We must have been. We must have been. We probably were like, go and look at them lot over there.

We went to Belfast. We went to Dublin. We went to like all of Boisone's houses. We travelled. This is the bad one. It's not bad. This is embarrassing. I'm excited.

We went to Germany once. We went to Hamburg to see Boyzone we went to Berlin I had like German pen pals so we went to stay with them me and two of my friends and we went to like tv studios that Boyzone were recording at in Berlin and we I think we stayed actually in the same hotel as them in Hamburg. We booked in and just like saw them in the bar and like chatting to them. Do you know what? I am living for this. I never went to another country because I wouldn't have had enough money. But we'd go to Margate. We'd go to Huddersfield.

I was telling Stephen yesterday, if you had like the young person's travel card, the world was your oyster. We just used to go go everywhere we'd have the mate with the car we'd jump in the car you put the tape on take that and party yes please shove it in yes drive all over and i started when i was 14 my sister 12 she would have been 12 this is insane this is insane but we used to go everywhere and i absolutely loved it and birmingham used to have quite a lot of road shows so we were quite lucky yeah we did the whole hotel thing we'd go to the houses and once went to robbie williams house we were going to go to port vale obviously obviously of course um and then went to rob Williams house and he came out and he told us in no uncertain terms to f off no uncertainty he was just like you need to

I think I'm gonna be I'm gonna be really bad and I think I was thrilled I think I had I think I had a stussy hat on back to front I bet you did it's real and he came out and he told us to f off. And then about 10 minutes later, his mom brought him out because this is when he was living at his mom's house and made us apologize, made him apologize to us all.

No, you're kidding. Yeah. And then we got his autograph. That's amazing. And then we went to Port Vale and we went around the port. I think we just walked, I think we literally just walked

into Port Vale and just added a few photos on the pitch. Is that a thing? Can you do that? We did it. We just were like, da, da, da, da, da, just like it's so funny you're mentioning that

you had a sussy hat on because like um i had this little silver bead the sussy bead that mark owen had um and i went into um a shop in manchester that apparently i'd heard he'd bought it from of course he did. where that's where i would dream i'd be in affleck's palace howard donald might walk past me leather trousers and a leather waistcoat and go you're right do you want to come out with me howard no i like gary um i forgot with the top three bands i need to tell i need to know your top three hunks you fancied can you see how excited i am i was always into the real baby face like the ones with the curtains so for me Marco in them it was Marco in but you know what I don't know if you had this but I felt like there was my certain certain friends I had they owned like so my friend Helen Mark was her favorite so he wasn't allowed to be my favorite my friend

Lindsay yeah I basically ended up like Jason is my favorite and no offense Jason you probably are listening I'm sorry you know he definitely listening he was gorgeous you know but he wasn't my type but I just I lived a lie Emma because I just didn't want to hurt Helen's feelings well we are we're we're rectifying that lie today we are on a podcast we are we're telling the truth today you're you're out and proud you love Mark Owen yeah and you know what it was it was mark owen it was um like deck from or or duncan from pj and duncan duncan yeah it was lee from name one one yeah it was richie from five because obviously five came a bit later but i still loved

a bit of five i'm holding up a picture of me and jay from five and he's properly hugging me like i'm his girlfriend, which obviously was like the fantasy that I lived back in the day. Oh, I'm going to put this on Instagram, but guys, I'm looking at the picture and Alison, you look so happy in that picture. I look so happy. I look so happy. You just look like, just so happy.

What were we doing? So did you fancy any of Let Lo let loose i'm just going through people fancy sure i did actually i think what was the brunette one in in let loose calls it crazy oh there was there was richie wasn't there that was richie lee and lee who was the other one maybe but it was the weird thing it was the brunette it was the brunette in Let Loose I fancied Let Loose were great you know crazy for you 17

even now when I listen to it I'm like 17 look at them like it's me I'm 45 did you ever I'm going all over the place because I'm so excited did you ever get your name on any singles because you used to

be able to go in fan clubs and I had my name and they do like a big poster please please let me know if any of you out there did this you could send in your name and I'd have like my name beyond let loose 17 my name beyond bad boys inc um more than this world or whatever I don't oh can I just say more to this world I think is one of the classic pop songs it's genuinely like oh i love that song oh i love it so much and banga and um i used to feel like it was a bit of a claim to fame even though it wasn't do you remember there was a member of bad boys called ali beg of course i did scottish scott Scottish. Scottish and so my name right now is Alison Perry but back in the day my maiden name was Alison Begby and I used to get called Ali all

the time and I was like I'm pretty much nearly Ali Beg so that was my claim to fame. Clutching at straws. I am essentially Ali Beg. I'm very nearly a boy band member myself. Oh, and also I used to dress like a boy band member. Oh God, me too. I'm wearing a bomber jacket. You're wearing, why don't you fancy me? In this picture of me and Jay from Five, I'm wearing one of those kind of like puffer gilets.

You could be Richard. I basically was styling myself as a boy band member. Wood, boots with wood in the heels bomber jackets um tartan trousers with a jumper around the waist why did these men not fancy also around about this time when i was about 17 i had my hair cut in a kind of posh spice slash gwyneth paltrow from Sliding Doors vibe. It didn't work out well for me. Put it this way.

My friends called me Alan for a year because I essentially- Not Ali. Alan. I wasn't Ali Begg. I was Alan Begg. Alan. I basically looked like a man for the best part of a year. So I just, I don't know why. I bet you look great.

I don't know why these ladies didn't fancy me. I, yeah, I, it's, you know, I don't know why right I don't know why these didn't fancy me I I yeah I it's you know I don't know what we were trying to achieve we will come at the end we will do it we'll do a psychological breakdown of what on earth we were thinking we were doing um did you did you make friends and you still have friends from those days right so two of my closest friends still to this day I met one of them in Glasgow airport and I met one of them at the Manchester Ramada hotel oh lovely classic they're still you know one of them was my bridesmaid the other one like I still see regularly close close friends and I just feel like as much as you can

sort of look back and think oh god that was a really sad hobby to have imagine like chasing boy bands genuinely the friendships that I made were amazing like incredible just that bond that you make with other girls your age and yeah I just think you can't you can't beat that no I'm um Sheila who I met when I was 14 she will know I think it was a world apart thing she is Erin's godmother she was my bridesmaid my friends Melissa and Rachel we talk all day every day and I met them I imagine that was probably a world apart thing as well and it's just the hat it was just the happiest of days it was it was just so much fun and it's so much fun to reminisce with them as well it's just so oh we just had so much fun i'm still

in touch with like lindsay there's a girl called jenny carter um she moved to australia and she used to follow bands with us as well and hayleyley Evitt off of X Factor or Pop Idol. Pop Idol, yeah. She was a regular at my mum and dad's house, sleepovers. She was lovely. Yeah, it was really good. But I'm going to come on to the topics that the people wanted us to cover. There's some hot topics.

First of all, Janie H and Ashley smash it's poll winners party did you ever go to one discuss I did we traveled down from Scotland and we went to I'm trying to think which year it would have been I think it was oh I bet it was a good year it was 1995 and they always happened oh that sounds like great they always happened at the beginning of December I feel like it was the first weekend of December. And yeah, we, and like, take that with their boys. I think boys always sang Love Me For A Reason. Oh, the whole Steve. I know, I know.

Oh, RIP. Let's take a moment. Oh, sad, isn't it? So sad. What would hate that singing, was it? What era would that have been sure sure i think it might have been oh sure it's a great song did you ever go now allison this is one of my great tragedies in life i did go to smash it's pole wonders party but when i was about 25

were they still going then i was an adult i think it was the last one that ever was and i feel like it had like pop idol Louis Walsh was there it was like pop idol do you know what I can't even remember one single solitary person was there

I used to go to the road shows a lot I loved a road show so I'd go to the smash hits oh I love a road show and we'd book into the hotel well one person would book a room

and 15 of us would creep in and stay in classic yeah yeah I just told us what fun I just supposed to do this and I said Steve there's like people in the bath that in the bath yeah we'd always get a triple room

yeah can we get a triple room please but yeah there's like 17 of us in there yeah so we'd go and stay at them i'm trying to think who was on the oh that was when i got in the lift with backstreet boys actually that was what somebody else asked and i have talked about this on my instagram so sorry if people have heard it I was in a wheelchair because I was um I had split slipped disc what do you do when you have a wheel you know waiting for a spinal surgery you go to smash it's road show with your friends you're not staying in the house nothing's gonna hold me back um so I got in a wheelchair I was in a wheelchair got in the lift with the whole of the backstreet boys and me sat in the middle with every single one of them surrounding me

and they had jackets with like AJ written down or Nick written down and all I could just see was their sleeves with their names on. I think I held my breath the whole of that. What was I going to say? I would have said like something like it was all in amongst them it was like a rugby

it was like a rugby thing but instead of a ball it was me in the middle of them that was a bit of a thrill I wasn't the hugest Backstreet Boys fan so it wasn't you know but with hindsight I should have took my time I should have had a selfie

oh no we didn't have selfies selfies didn't have selfies. What would I have took a selfie on? Selfies didn't exist, did they? It would have been with like a Kodak camera with no filming and I got home and I'd be like, there's no photo. Who else was at the Rose shows? I mean, I loved the Rose shows. Eternal.

Oh, Eternal. I was always there. Oh, and in fact, we hated Eternal, even though we didn't, because two of them went out with two members of Boyzone. Vernie was with Ronan and Esther was with Shane. I think Esther and Shane got married. And Louise was with, I think, either Steve Hart or Dan. She was one of them from Worlds Apart.

So we kind of pretended we hated them, but really we didn't. We loved a bit of Eternal. Smashers, Paul, Winners winners party bring them back immediately i say but with the acts from the 90s can you imagine i don't want the modern people i want i would go to smash if somebody signed me up give me a ticket i'd pay 150 pounds if they did a 90s smash it's a poll winners party tour i'm there i'm their. With best haircut, and we could vote on our phones for best haircut. It would be Mark. Well, maybe not Mark Owen quite so much now.

But he won it, he won it like six years in a row. Of course he would. Why wouldn't he have done with that floppy hair? I would vote with my phone, 150, I'd buy a hoodie. Who would present it nowadays? It would have to be someone from back in the day. It would have to be.

Yeah, I'm trying to think. It would have to be Jamie Thicke and Zoe Ball. It would have to be them too. Ant and Dec. Oh, yeah. Ant and Dec, yeah. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning, which beats even the

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And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. I've got a question for you Emma how far did you go in pursuit of a boy band

I remember having such a brass neck I remember for example when I loved Boyzone I had Louis Walsh's phone number his office phone number and I remember ringing up his office and I remember being so nervous doing this

my heart was pounding and i asked his secretary to get put through to him and she did because like you know why wouldn't she and um i was just like hi louis um i've got tickets for the uh boys on show tonight in glasgow um can you get sort us out with some backstage passes please and he was like yeah he was like yeah sure no problem well give us your names and i'll put you on the list and firstly i'm sad you didn't do an irish impression then with your i've already done a glaswegian one i'm not gonna i'm not gonna get cancelled just got your back so you better what i bet your face so so were you in a phone box or you were doing it we were in

the we were in the phone box in the glasgow hilton Hotel which is where the band were staying I think we were we were staying there too in like a triple room with 17 of us and um yeah and we were a bit like we're he's just taking the piss like when we get to the box office to pick up our backstage passes they're gonna laugh at us but no they were there and we got to go backstage and went to the meet and greet and met them girl you're like girls i've secured the passes me like age 15 just like ringing up louis walsh in his office like i it was jace jason orange's twin brother we just regularly phone we regularly phone justin from the school common room put tempe in who you phoning just Orange. That poor man must have had thousands of phone calls every day.

Because they all had landlines, didn't they? And so their landlines must have just been ringing off the hook. Marco Wynne's mum and dad's number went round our school when we were about 15 and we rang it so many times and didn't ever get to speak to him. No, I don't know what I would have done if Marco Wynne had... I don't know what I would have... I don't know what I would have done if Marco had... I don't know what I would have...

We used to pretend, we used to phone up like BuzzFM and be like, hello, I was just wondering, you know, come up with some sort of absolute rubbish. EYC, I need to find out when... EYC, EYC-er. I love them.

EYC, we went to BuzzFM to see EYC EYC I love them EYC we went to BuzzFM to see EYC they were great and they were nice as well we used to do all sorts of we'd hide we'd hide in like little I remember hiding in like a little thing where you could sell tour programs with wheels in

and then we'd like move it a little bit further forward oh my goodness that's hilarious i got about five of us and then we're like it's unhinged behavior yeah but it seemed so normal it was a game like to us if we were like you know if we were in my friend's car and we were like i remember driving so what we would do is if like you know the band the boys and whoever left their hotel in manchester they all jumped into like you know a car together we would follow them

and they would like get to like a photo shoot studio and because they were there to do a shoot for like smash hits or whoever and we would meet them as they came out of the car they would go in and do their shoot and then we'd meet them when they came out again and it was just this massive game where it was just like we we're clever enough that we can we know where you are and we can come and find you but that sounds really sinister it really wasn't sinister we know where you are and we can come and find you. I tell you what, though, all of this without the use of the internet, we were rocket scientists. There was no internet.

There was no Instagram. There was nobody tagging anybody where they were. We were stalkers. But we were clever. It was just bonkers. I was saying to Stephen as well if you wanted tickets for a concert there was no like sitting on ticket master you had to go and queue up yeah you had to be queuing up outside or ring up yeah you because you know if those first

few people they get the front row I'll be like Sheila you better get me six tickets did you queue up overnight to get tickets um I didn't but I had friends that would do so i would do the phone call and then i would have friends that would queue up to get them when i think about that though so i used to do at the secc in glasgow and they always used to open up like a little kind of room for us to so we weren't actually outside they were really kind and they let us sleep indoors but i'm still a bit like okay i was 15 in the middle of glasgow and yes there were probably about 20 or 25 of us there overnight and we all knew each other and there was a security guard always there I'm still like

that's that's not great I'm not sure I could let my kid do that well that's what I was going to talk about at the end like would I wouldn't let Erin do none of these shenanigans I'd be horrified I'd get worried with her going to the corner shop it was a different time wasn't it me and my sister on a train down to London and because we we thought we'd heard that the um summer take that might be somewhere and they weren't and we're just like roaming around London it was crazy the stuff that we used to get away with and I'm sure a lot of the people listening to this, I would love it if you could send any of your, like, unhinged stories in. Okay, another topic that a lot of people want us to discuss. Take that splitting up on a random Tuesday.

Thoughts, discuss. I mean, I was heartbroken. Were you? I'm going to say something now, and I don't really know if I want this to be recorded. Okay. I didn't care because Alison it had got to that stage in every group is life where you become like 18 and you find actual boys that find you

attractive so I was a year older than you were a year older yeah you still are a year older I don't know I still am that's how age works so I moved on to actual right actual boys who didn't wear bomber jackets that are copied yeah actual and they would speak to me and you know what I didn't have to phone up their twin brothers in a vain hope to find out is that a thing so I kind of was like oh do you know what that's that's sad I saw it come in and you know what like that is a bit disappointing but I didn't there was no Robbie hotline for me I weren't I weren't nothing like that I weren't phoning up nothing I wasn't phoning up any hotlines I think I was 16 at the time and I was genuinely gutted because I was still so caught up in the dream and the oh the love of them and I I still feel a little bit teary if I ever see that clip of you know them all in that hotel

Gary wearing a stripy shirt saying yeah the rumors are true I remember, even now saying that, I feel like my heart is just like, oh. I was honestly, I wasn't in a good place. I think I, for me, I went, me and my friend went to see Atlanta at some dodgy clubs. They were all in dodgy clubs, weren't they? Like terrible dodgy clubs. I don't know. In Leamington Spa. Sticky carpets.

Random. And I decided, I was like, this is it. terrible dodgy clubs i don't know in leamington spa somewhere carpets random and i decided i was like this is it so i turned up and i just said to them i was like i'm just telling you could you imagine they were like who cares i was like i'm not gonna come and see you anymore now like this this is it for me and me and my friends just left we didn't even watch them on set i bet they were like who's that who's she i like that emma i like that you yeah created a bit of closure for yourself you were like put a boundary in and i was just like i'm just like that's it now i've got a proper boy i think i was just like i've got a proper boyfriend now and they were just like okay you're being weird so you definitely that's what i did

definitely blossomed onto boys way way earlier than me like I was there with I mean I was 18 I was there with like my you know my posh spice haircut and my 90s glasses and my you know boy band attire um for quite a few years after that yeah yeah I had a boyfriend and I heard that Robbie Williams was going to be at the Fort Shopping Centre promoting his, it must have been, what was his first song? Freedom. Yeah, so he must have been promoting Freedom and opening. Freedom 97. And opening a new HMV at the same time. And I went to the Fort Shopping Centre.

Multitasking. skin went to the fort shopping center and he turned up in a little like comedy car holding a white dog that had had a black patch painted to look like the hmv dog he was in a black leather suit um with black nail varnish you know like robbie probably had like half of his teeth missing and i queued up and he told me that i looked nice and still Alison as still to this day and I was with my sister and I said did he just say I look nice and she's like he did and I had a boyfriend at the time and I think I was like Robert Williams, Rory Lim said I look nice and I think I probably thought should I go back to it and I'm like no I'm gonna stick with the real boys. That's so funny. Because what was it did you ever what would you have done if one of them obviously when you were older like 17 had turned around and gone do you want a little kiss would you have died i would

have died i think i would have been scared because i didn't run the other way yeah i i built up this whole fantasy but if any of them had like saddled over to me and been like come on then come back to my hotel room i would have been like but you you saw, I mean, I saw that happen with bands and girls. You would see that happen. And, you know, and people that I know would go off with various members from various bands.

You know, they were old enough. But I would have died. If Gary Barlow just turned around and went, you're all right. Me and you would have been like, I've got to go. I'm been like is that the time sorry put my mama jacket on and like run away run down the road it's why why did we do it i know why i did it why do you think you did it okay i mean obviously like the psychologists say that you do it because it's like a safe way of like playing out all of these feelings about boys.

And that's why if Gary or any of them, even Mark, if they'd come up to me and like said, right, come on, how about it then? I would have been like, no, because that's not what it was about. It was about it being safe, unobtainable from a distance. And it's like a practice run, isn't it? Before you get to the real boys. Definitely. I think it was a lot of, because also I couldn't speak to a normal boy.

I would find it very hard if a normal boy had sat down. But if you give me a Ronan Keating, I'd have happily had a little chat with them, or, you know, or give me a, I don't know, Matt from Bad Boys Inc or whatnot. I'd be like but if an actual real life normal teenage boy had sat down next to me I'd have been like yeah it is very strange I wouldn't let Erin I would happily take Erin to concert I would

happily go to signings with her I would happily you know if I knew there was a way we could possibly meet somebody I'd go with her but I wouldn't be letting her get up to the shenanigans we got I just think it was a different time and I know that we hear that said a lot but it really was like you know kids had more freedom um and I just think that yeah it's it's not something that I would let my kid do I mean obviously when when she gets like a bit older and she can she's off doing whatever she wants to do anyway, it's up to her. But at the age that I was doing it, no way, no way. And also I'm not sure there's the same kind of boy band.

There's not that many out unless I just don't know them. Do you know them? Do you know any boy bands? I mean, what's that K-pop one called everyone loves? Oh, BTS. Yeah. Is it BTS? I think it is BTS. do you know any boy bands i mean there's that what's that k-pop one called everyone loves oh bts yes yeah is it bts it's bts we're such danners i think britain's got talent bgt i don't know what i think it's bts behind the scenes i don't know maybe i will at the end i'll tell you oh guys i do like a fact check at the end yeah i'd be there k-pop they ain't gonna be like they ain't gonna be in leamington spa at a gay club at two o'clock in the morning yeah i don't know i'd be really interested to know

whether there is any kind of sort of scene going on these days with i suppose there's tiktokers isn't that yeah there's tiktokers there was youtubers so there's those kind of people that are a little bit more obtainable um well let's see one last little thing that people wanted us to talk about. People are very, we'll do, it's a double one. Pen pals, scrapbooks,

discuss. So I had so many pen pals. I've got so many. I find this the other day, this is like my little address book and I've got like all my pen pals from the nineties and they're all called my little address book and i've got like all my pen pals from the 90s and they're all called in my address book they're all called things like hasn't bob from milton keen's so like whoever their favorite liz and marky liz and marky were from rotherham so i used to write

to liz and marky i love this so much um and yeah i used to write to them all the time so on a normal day i would probably get about six or seven letter pen pal letters yeah and we used to like decorate like the envelopes with like colored pens and like you draw things on them and stuff did you ever have um did you ever use fbs yeah friendship books and you would like write your name in oh my god and you'd send it on to somebody else and you'd pass it on like what a joy and then when you got to the end you would send it back to the person who started it and they would have a whole book filled up with everyone's names and addresses but isn't that maybe a security breach but isn't that absolutely lovely the GDPR nightmare that's what it is yeah, I mean, you're giving, sure you're giving all your details.

No proper last names though, because you're all like Emma Barlow. It was no proper last names, but I loved it. And I also used to put sellotape on the stamp so we could reuse the stamp. Always used to reuse the stamps. Sorry, Royal Mail, if you're listening.

It was just such a lovely time. And I still do keep in touch with a few of the um pen pal some of them have found me like on instagram and stuff and i don't remember me you know there was a girl called mia who lived in wembley whose mom worked at wembley cracking tickets for that what a dream what a dream any pen pal letters um i actually just got about four no i'd love a pen pal letter look at you do pen pal letters it's actually just got about I'd love a penpal letter Look at you doing penpal letters I'll send you one

I've still got all of mine upstairs When you say scrapbooks, what do you mean? Like cuttings of all of the interviews that take All of them, and even if there's like a little centimetre by centimetre square picture of Marco in his face I would cut it up and stick

it in my scrapbook yeah i did i used to do ring binders so i would get those like pull the pockets and i would i would put in all the cuttings into the ring binder and that would be how i instead of doing like the scrapbook that's how i did it you keep them no mine are all upstairs why can't i get rid of them they're just there did you also did you also on your vhs tapes record every single tv appearance that take that run sure no back for good the brit award yes that one was watched that i'm that was must have been watched a million times oh my goodness did you learn all the dance routines like so take that live at wembley that vhs that video did you learn all the dance routines the beatles medley is in my body like if at any point i'm walking

down the street and somebody said if you don't do the beatles medley now i'm gonna kill you i'll be like i'll do it i'll do it i'm gonna do the full oh yeah i'll tell you something I'd be like yeah whatever if I was at a concert and Howard hurt his knee we're looking for I'll be up there much like Lulu I'll be up there get me on the bloody stage yeah I just loved it I watched it all I had the scrapbooks I wrote a million pen pal letters. I spent hours on the phone. What I just, how I passed any GCSEs, I don't know. Isn't it lovely? Like all of those memories and I have had something that meant so much to us as teenagers. I just, and it was such an innocent, you know, hobby, really. It was lovely.

It was so innocent. It was so lovely. And I was, because I knew we were doing this podcast I was talking about it a lot with as you can imagine incredibly bored Stephen who was just like just stop talking about it at me um because I when take that reformed I remember I went to the concert and we were at the front and I was with my friend Lindsay who's and when the waterfall I'm gonna cry when the waterfall came down and I had like the little Robbie on the waterfall I just remember it took me back I just was like straight back to being 14 and even now

you know take that concerts and stuff and I just um transported back yeah I just love it may they never stop performing. I'd go if it was just Gary and Mark. You're saying that Robbie told you that, what did he say to you at the signing at the HMV? Hang on. You look nice. You look nice.

Yeah. Changed my bio to that. What Robbie once said, you look nice. You look nice. That reminds me that when Tick That did that big comeback do you remember they did they did the tv documentary and the whole premise of it was will Robbie turn up at the end will Robbie turn up and at that point I worked for I think I worked for Bliss magazine at the time and we were invited to the premiere there was like a big cinema a big old-fashioned cinema I think in like Notting Hill where they did the premiere of

this um this documentary and I got invited along with my colleagues and take that we're there like sitting in a box I already died and then we went to the after show party, Emma, and we got to meet them all. And I was wearing this black boob tube with a red ribbon and a big flower on it. Because it was like 2003 or something. And that was like well on trend. And Mark Owen told me that he really liked my top. So basically what we need to do is leave our husbands for Robbie and Mark. I think so. And then we can be abba

we could be alice and emma robbie and mark and we could be the new abba so that would be em emram we need to work on that right okay we're putting out there get us on dragon's den we've got a proposition ream taking us on tour are we going to do the beatles medley it's the only thing we can perform let's do it let's do it it'll be a sellout it would sell out oh you oh i bet you did look lovely in that top as well and i did look nice i. I did. I did. I looked ever so nice. I was 18. I was the hot one of 18. Do you know what? We didn't actually need Robbie and Mark to tell us that we looked nice

or that our top was nice. Are you trying to convince yourself? Because I did. I'm just trying. Do you know what? Female empowerment. I don't care what Mark Owen thinks of me. And I'm like, I really like the validation from Robin Williams.

But we shouldn't need it. You know, these bloody boy band members, it should come from within. But no, it should come from within. It has been wonderful having you on for this bonus episode. 10 out of 10 recommend loving boy bands.

Yeah. Me too. And I stand proud. I've still got my Gary and I stand proud I've still got my Gary Barlow doll I've still got my squat books sadly I don't have my Stussy hat wish I did I'd have put it on for this but no that's that's long that's long gone um but Alison it's been a joy it's pleasure she will send me all of those pictures so I can put them on my Instagram I need you to see her with Jay, her with Shane. That's what, and we're always looking for pen pals.

Always. As long as we don't have to pay for stamps. Yeah. As long as you return my stamps, me, when I write to you, then we're all good. And finally, a public apology for Justin Orange for calling him up 475 times in 1994. Speak to you later, Alison. Bye-bye.

Bye. You have to go and check out the photos of Alison over on my Brumming Mummy of Two account and the Phone Box Podcast account. They're cracking. And if you were listening to this the week it came out, we're going to be doing some boy band polls over on my Phone Box Podcast Instagram.

So go and check those out please and just don't message me anything out of boy bands because i flipping love boy bands i stand by those days were some of the happiest of my life i made so many friends and i just it was just the best of times even now when you listen to the music i went back to spotify and listened to loads of bad boys inc songs i was just oh my gosh, transported back to when I was 14. It was just such a joy. And it's just been such a joy to relive it again for you lot.

And I hope some of you out there related to what we were saying and, you know, can send us some of the stuff that you see. Do you have any scrapbooks? Just please, shove it on my way so I can have a little look at it.

Whatever you're doing for the rest of the week, have a wonderful day. don't forget to take a photo of where you're listening and send it to me I love you lots and I will see you for another episode really soon bye guys FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling winning which beats even the 27th best feeling saying I do who wants this last parachute I FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino.

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