The Phonebox Podcast With Emma Conway - Lauren Layfield: Snogging At House Parties

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

Who loved snogging at a house party and thought Justin Timberlake might fancy her in her baker boy hat? Lauren Layfield that's who! The presenter, DJ and author joins The Phonebox Podcast to chat how she thought the world was going to end on NYE 1999. Spoiler. It didn't.Be sure to check out Lauren's amazing new book perfect for tweens Indi Raye Is Totally Faking It and follow her on instagram here.For 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, topics you would like me to cover or send in a voice note to be featured 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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enjoy the number one feeling winning in an exciting live dealer studio exclusively on fan duel casino where winning is undefeated 19 plus and physically located in ontario gambling problem call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Phone Box Podcast with me Emma Conway. How the flipping heck are you? Hope you're well. Thanks so much for all your love and support on episode one with Gemma Bird. It was a cracker and we've got another cracker today with possibly the weirdest, just the weirdest poster that anybody would ever have on a wall. We've got presenter, DJ, author Lauren Layfield on the show. She has a brand new tween series out called Indie Ray is totally faking it

it's brilliant Erin's reading at the moment and she absolutely loves it but but if you have if you had a weirder poster on the wall please do message me please do direct message me on the phone box podcast or at Brumham with two because I want to hear it because I don't think you're going to beat this I really really don't think you're going to beat it there's been a bit of a turn in the weather I'm actually currently looking at a pumpkin snickerdoodle candle hot chocolate I'm going to have one of them later so grab yourself a cuppa and listen to a lovely long podcast or maybe go on a nice autumnal walk, whatever you're doing, let me know. I would love to see where you listen to the podcast and enjoy a very fun episode with the amazing Lauren Layfield.

Hello, Lauren, and welcome to the Phone Box Podcast. Oh, thank you very much for having me. I'm very, very excited about this podcast. I'm the most nostalgic person who's offered me my dream podcast. I just love to, I don't know if I'm living in the, I am, I'm living in the past. I just love talking about stuff like this. Okay, we worked out before. What year were you 14? I was 14 in 2001.

So just turn of the millennium. Did you think when the millennium was going to happen, the world was going to explode? I thought everyone did. Do you remember that? It was so weird. I remember really clearly looking on my watch, because I don't think I would have had a mobile phone at that time, looking on my watch and counting down to midnight that night. And everyone else was like, yay, all things out.

And I was going three, two, one, here comes the apocalypse. Very scary. What was all that about? They were like, all the computers, everything's going to break. It really is going to be the end of the world, guys. You've got to really brace yourself. Nothing happens. Very anticlimactic, if anything.

Not one single solitary thing happened. I actually went to the Millennium Dome when it was full with all the gump in it. Did you ever do that? No, I didn't. And now I look, I saw some photos of it recently because I kind of, the most random exhibition, like. It was rubbish. You wouldn't get what it was for or what it was trying to say.

It was very odd. It was rubbish. We just, there was bits where you'd go through like a blood cell I don't it was just it was just terrible it was full family come on let's go to the millennium dome for the day it was like people would walk around going I'm going to the millennium dome this week yeah I'm going to the millennium oh god absolute load rubbish okay what was your bedroom like that gives a good indication my bedroom I remember at that age, I think actually until that age, I've not been allowed to decorate my room.

So my parents were quite housebrows and they were like, no, no, no. And I think I basically warmed them down. So about 13, 14, so around this time, I decided that my colours of choice were going to be lime green and lilac. That was the colour scheme that was all of the rage at that time, which, by the way, not to promote my book already, but there is very much a bit of a green-purple combo. And it matches with my fridge and also my Stanley Cup.

Look at that. There we go. It was meant to be. Yeah, those were the colours in both. And it wasn't that green. It was out of the lime. Yeah. So I think what I'd gone for, I think mum and dad had said,

you're not having lime green paint. That is just a snuff bar. So you can have it purple across the top, then a dado rail across the middle. Of course. The bottom was purple and green stripes. Very nice. Not really sure how I'm supposed to sleep in such an environment it's a bit beetlejuice i think that maybe juice quite energizing kind of colors not not very relaxing but i loved it i remember thinking like this is

a bit of me you've made a dado rail was an absolute standard a classic so the good old dado rail they really went out didn't they no The good old dado rail. They really went out, didn't they? I tell you, no. One day, somebody just was like, no more, just pulled them all down. But just in every house, I remember it was just very necessary that my parents were dado rails everywhere, left, right and centre. Yeah, with the paint and the paper. One bit was paint, one bit was paper.

It was an absolute classic. Did you have any posters on your wall? I had rolled up. classic did you have any posters on your wall i had um roll done oh i presume like a cartoon not a not a like a picture a photo man it was massive it was a huge great big what would it be like eight two or something like that it was massive what i had that alongside the other ones of like boy zone and abel all those kinds of like boy bandy types justin timberlake was up there and and then for no good reason big old roald dahl 87 year old man was black i feel like it would be black and white and what i don't know why he was the biggest one

out of them all but this was the strangest thing i just love our books so much yeah i love roald dahl books they're great but the man wouldn't have him on the wall like nobody pulled me up on it like my parents never said it's a bit weird they were just like fair enough okay so you have boys own and that like did you have any crushes on any of the boys in the band justin timberlake was the big one of our era at that time we'd kind of gotten over boys over a bit more 90s yeah early 2000s your music kind of drifted into a little bit more that kind of rv like it got a bit cool didn't it and yeah and popped up that kind of turn and with it justin timberlake was like the the the white poster boy

oh cry me a river oh yeah and like and then i would move on to you know jay-z and 50 cent and stuff like that but like yeah justin timberlake was like my my gateway r&b drug basically there's nothing more r&b than a white man with curly hair beatboxing. Oh, yeah, well, Anthony, look back at him. I mean, even Justin Timberlake must cringe about that now. Good Lord. On the radio at the moment, for some reason, we're playing Rock Your Body. Oh, it's a great song. I like it. It doesn't age well, though, when he's...

Boom, boom, boom. At the end. Boom, boom, boom. Really not ideal. But God bless him. He was like my first concert and everything yeah and we loved him we just thought he was he was boyfriend material at that point so you you you're sitting down to do an interview and they're like we've got a celebrity today and it's going to

be a surprise and justin walks in would your heart flutter i think i know too much now i mean he's he's a bit of a funny one isn't he now yeah he's just i don't know if he was always funny or this just become a little bit funny over the past few years i think he looked me at the um nothing does some band show with a dance dance song like you can't find that sexy do you know trolls the troll song as a as a kid, we've heard that a lot in this house. A lot of Trolls, that one. And also Happy from Pharrell from the Minions. I mean, they know what they're doing.

You have to applaud it. They know how to make an earworm that's going to get into all children's heads and therefore their parents make it. An absolute banger. Yeah, just in Timberlake. The first album was unbelievable. The second album was brilliant. It was so good.

I went to see the concert a couple of times and he did a lot of beatboxing in that concert. Yeah, a lot. And I don't know if you remember this, but I seem to remember that there was a moment where he stripped it back to basics. No musicians, no backing vocals no instruments nothing it was just him for three minutes just I can I remember it vividly because I remember thinking this is

the time I'm gonna go and buy a t-shirt yeah because this is terrible they seemed I seem to remember there being like a bridge across the stage and he was just stood in the bridge and we were just like this just didn't know I'm off yeah we i mean we loved it i mean it was the first concert i've not been to a concert since i don't think i've been to gigs but i've not been to concerts yeah and i remember thinking i mean my friends it was like the first time that we we were we lived in warwickshire into like a small town and we decided we were traveling up to that birmingham to go and it was just um such a massive event we planned it for weeks we've been planning our outfits to go and find the perfect justin

timberlake outfit we'd booked it at a good and walk restaurant it would have been a pizza express or something yeah or have a a fine meal yeah maybe a tgi is on the hagley road i mean it just ruled our life for months because we were so excited to go and see him i mean then he's i bet you wore denim do you know what was it was um i think it was in the winter so it was either it was either denim flares yeah cord flares oh and it was very low v-neck tops even though i had no boobies no uh baker boy caps do you remember that and a suede kind of beige baker boy hat i've still got the photo somewhere and for no reason we'd really gotten into heels at that time our friends had just started wearing stilettos sky high this outfit does not

require stilettos you would expect to train and genuinely we were crippled walking around Birmingham trying to get there and that's before we even got to the dancing bit and these stuck and you put the sliders like over the over the jeans sometimes or you know whatever and and we were I remember I was like I'm gonna have to take my heels off during this like during this this concert because yeah and it's so funny can you compare it now to kids and it's all about the trainer oh Erin's always in trainers yeah and I think that now kids I they don't know they don't know how lucky they've got it you would I bet in your head you thought Justin's gonna see me in this Baker Boy hat. And Brittany, she's gone. It's now all about me.

Really? And do you ever get that as well? I think people still do this now, but where do you go? He definitely looked at me. I thought he... Oh, he definitely looked, of course. And he saw me. He saw me in my hat.

I think we should try and get it backstage because... There was a connection. Yeah. He wasn't laughing at your hat. He was smiling. Smiling at my hat. Like, what a't laughing at your hat. He was smiling. Smiling at my hat. Like, what a lovely Baker Boy hat I need for the post. Okay, what kind of...

I didn't have a... Now, I'm 10 years older than you, so I'm sad the Baker Boy hat skipped me. You know. I missed it. Maybe I should reinstate it now. I don't think anybody should... I'm going to help you with a beret coming back.

That's a classic. A Baker Boy should stay. Beret and a red lip lovely a baker boy okay maybe not what at school what kind of school was it was it mixed was it girl school all state school it was you know the school kind of everybody wanted to go to because it was like it was a night it was a nice school. And it was genuinely the funnest time ever. Oh, that's nice. No, and I find it so strange now because I do speak to a lot of people who go, oh, I hate school. Yeah. And I go, what?

Like, I had the most amazing friends. And we got up to so many silly things. We were kind of like the in-betweeners of our year group as well so we weren't the nerds we didn't have to deal with anything like bullying which we were very like lucky not to do but we weren't cool either so we were having this like lovely mid spot where we just could crack on just being you know tits basically just not that sounds so nice I've had a few people that didn't have a very nice time which makes me feel really sad really sad yeah so you were kind of you weren't

cool but you were just like in your own little yeah and actually our school was very nice because I say you know I don't think there was a whole load of but our year group was split into two sides and we were all one half and our half was just really really nice and accepting and I don't think there actually was that much like bullying and stuff though yeah it was it was always like you know the cool kids would still talk to like the nerds and stuff like that it wasn't like oh get away I'll never speak to you the other half there was a bit more hierarchy on that side for some reason so I think there was a bit more that went but we weren't really primitive our half was just really really like nice and you know

all the house parties that ever took place oh house parties oh my gosh the best times the best times best stories the best memories basically they formed so much of my book um because we had so much fun and so easily house parties my daughter was talking the other day because we were watching I don't know if you've seen um you're not coming to my bat bat mitzvah have you seen that on Netflix it's such a good film with Adam Sandler and it was all these Americans having these big massive parties in these big houses my daughter's like do we have parties like that in England I was like no you'll get 10 people around somebody's house literally that's back in it like it's changed though because I remember like they used to be I don't know maybe this was

what because I used to do drama so doing drama at school after every show that you'd put on there would be a house party to celebrate so a wrap party so the whole cast of the play would come down so you got more than 10 people at a house party. You got like 30, 40, 50 people. And they were loose. Like everybody was sneaking booze in. Yeah, snogging in corners. Yeah, all sorts.

And the room mill would be flying the next day. Just brilliant. Did you ever have a party? Because I know my mum and dad would have killed me. So I just went to parties. No, my mum and dad would have killed me, so I just went to parties. No, my mum and dad took offence when I wanted a sleepover. I used to get bollocks all of the time when I used a friend's round. The point that I didn't enjoy having people around.

My mum and dad would try to shut us up at like nine o'clock, like, keep it down, keep it down, quiet, quiet. My parents were quite strict. But we had so many where where we lived we had so many people who would i mean where i was from outside of sort of where i was you got into quite like posh territory oh lovely so you had a lot of these like spoiled brats that mummy would let them have these massive parties in these big houses and mummy and daddy would go and just retire to the bedroom and so oh my mum and dad would never have oh my god we you always get a couple of kids don't you whose mum and dads are just a bit cooler a bit chill and my dad does

listen to this podcast and dad you're lovely but you weren't cool and chill no um emily emily hill's mum and dad legend still legends to this day And I still think of them fondly. They always partied at Emily Hill's house. Always a party. One of my mates, she lived in like a townhouse. So it had like four floors. Parents would just go up there. And then particularly the basement just became the party basement, basically.

So she had people out regularly. That was great. Had this girl called Lucy, whose parents, they were the ones that put themselves in the bedroom and i remember me and my mates we'd had one too many alco pops just go and exploring the house and we burst in and saw mom and dad in bed with the duvet chins watching television we were like can you imagine the things that went down at that time like oh it was just and I tell you what I used to do I used to have a Saturday job I go to a party house party just go to straight wouldn't sleep straight to the Saturday job at next and you believe that you can do that as well at that age

you could just go straight into it like and I'd go out on a Saturday night as well yeah we used to have our big night out in our town was a Tuesday night oh Oh. Yeah. So everyone would go out at school, particularly this more stick form a little bit later on, but everyone would go out to the club and then come to school. You just, you just, oh, well,

if I went out on a Tuesday night now, by Sunday, I'd still be suffering. Yeah. I'd still be like, need to have a relaxing one. Yeah. I couldn't cope with it.

So your first question was just in Timberlake. Yes. Can you tell us about your first snog and was it any good? It was awful. Oh, no. So awful. I was just desperate to kind of get it done, basically. And I remember at that age, and this is something the carriage of my book goes through, Indy goes through,

it preoccupies your life everything becomes a competition because suddenly your friends are getting in there first yeah the middle they've done that or they've started their period or they've got a bra and it becomes this highly competitive thing i don't know if that's the situation now with young people but it certainly felt like getting a snog was very very imperative it almost felt like you couldn't join full teenagehood and that and I remember just being at this weird sort of gathering of people who I didn't really know and I kind of had this boy that was just looking around and he really couldn't even tell you his name to this day there's no good story to

it no I remember thinking he looks like he might just want to do a snog so I sort of just started talking to him a bit more and then he literally just like there was no preamble or anything like just like and just led straight in and it was classic washing machine wet what like like I swear I've got like PTSD no one my now husband gives me a kiss like a little bit soggy I'm like just so wet and then you finish it and you're like no but you know what it's like it was disgusting but at the same time I was exhilarated because I had gotten it done. Yeah. Go into school on Monday and be like, well, weekend, guys.

Had a cheeky snog. Well done, you know, and it was just like, tick, we've done that now. I've only had one person on the podcast whose first snog was nice. Everybody else is, they're disgusting. You don't know what you're doing. You don't really know what the crack is. I remember in year six, this was very young, but there was this boy and this girl.

What are we talking about? Yeah. And they were kind of like the cool ones. And they would do snogging in the school fields down from where they lived. But for some reason, somebody thought it'd be really fun to find them to see how long they could stop and honestly they were literally like bit with dribbling down their chin as they went on 17 minutes and we just sit around and be like yep 16 minutes then keep going guys like it was oh that's not hygienic they must

have had some repetitive strain injury oh no i do worry for their jaws like that is not no snogging it's a funny old thing isn't it it is it's but there was definitely a sense of you're right with like periods like and i was a late everything i was just late for everything 14 for my period 18 for my first snog i'm sorry that's terrible everything i didn't have my bra until i was like probably over 40 my my period came out yep on the day take that and party came out the album so it's forever what a celebration what a high and what a low low yeah, yeah. In one, in one. And I can't, whenever I see tight that, I've just gone back to that day.

But yeah, I was quite a late, late, late start for everything, really. I put it down to going to a girls' school. I don't know. Or I was just not cool. 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.

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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 well it's funny because my mate went to a girl's school and we were talking about this recently and she was saying the thing about girl's school is that like you were all just like a bunch of like funsters basically because there was no boys to impress just being idiots all day and then it was when you left school she was saying that that's when she put makeup on because that's when she might bump into a boy on the way home and she said that you know the opportunity to see a male in the wild was actually so much lower than if you go to a state school so she said one time one of these boys wandered up to the school gates and she said it was literally like a pack of lions descended down to school because they were like a boy it was

it we wouldn't i still remember right now we once had i don't know what the headmistress was thinking they got a band from the boys school to come and perform in the girl the girl's school and it was like the beatles and rocks up we we were just like like circling them and these poor boys they bloody loved it i bet no it was it was wild time and i still i i've talked about this before but i still when you go to a girl's school you still find it and I'm 45 I still find it a bit weird when I'm like working with men and stuff it's still a bit like and there's a male in the room oh my god so that's quite nice because you know like everything we did was like driven by boys you know what we're wearing how high your skirt is have you got your face on who are you going to see in the corridor next everything was about males and I think do you know what I would have got much better grades at school had I not been so distracted yeah we didn't care we there was no makeup we were just I mean but

but what you get at an all-girls school is very bitchy it's like you know imagine we're all in sync at the same time like it's just there's a lot it's a lot it's very catty which has actually set me up quite well for adult life to be fair that's good okay so you had your baker hat what other fashion faux pas did you have skirts over trousers they were pretty bad i'm telling you now my sister messaged me the other day out of nowhere and said i think they should bring skirts over trousers back why is she all right i was like i was like what why why like i don't understand the aesthetic of it i i kind of think was it sort of born from like a grungy kind of thing but that doesn't make sense either it was just pure white uk wasn't it it was i remember i really wanted a pair because

obviously you were diy-ing it for a while yeah and then they started selling them as an all-in-one situation so i remember going to georgia asda nice for a pair of it was like they were like uh gray jersey flares with the skirt on top and i just thought they were the most magical thing i wonder what we were thinking i don't know what we were thinking it's sad it's it sniffs very much of steps to me I feel like steps are wearing it yes I feel like they could they could be actually they could be blamed for a lot of things I think fashion wise oh yeah definitely stuff wasn't there like you know the the double denim was a big vibe but not in a kind of cool way that you might wear it now in a in a sort of denim skirt denim top denim britney and justin in the double demon outfit with the cowboy hat

what oh yeah and that was the that was peak that was the height of fashion wasn't it like bad it was all just bad it does shock me now like a lot of that stuff is like back in at the minute like that early 2000s is go is if you pop into urban outfitters you'll be shooker because you've got you've got your von hardy or whatever von dutch whatever the hats are called um the um juicy couture oh my daughter would sell her brother to get a juicy couture tracksuit if i said right you've got a choice your brother never lives here anymore but you can have a pink juicy couture tracksuit you're like well sorry Ethan sorry see you later yeah it's been nice knowing you yeah juicy couture's back I never wore that though I didn't have the bottom for that like

you didn't have the money you didn't have the money or the bottom yeah you're right no I don't think anybody had the bottom unless it was I just don't know yeah they're also the um combats with dragons that's there as well they're easy isn't it yeah and I actually

did buy recently at a photo shoot and I did see a pair of combats and I thought I'm gonna

buy them they were like a grown up combat so they were like a silky satin kind of material

so I was like let's give it a go I put them on I looked in the mirror and thought god these are comfy but I just can't pull them off it's too late for you you've got to put them down at some point I thought you're gonna say I looked in the mirror and I thought I'll add a skirt you know all this needs a skirt

anyway it's such a stretch what's one thing you wore then that you would wear now and you'd wear it again with no shame? You remember them? They were like a rolly, sort of a suede kind of boot. And it was all kind of roughly around the ankle and then they were pointy at the front. Yes, I remember them. Small heel, which was pointless. And we used to wear them. I mean, I wore them everywhere. i wore them everywhere i wore them like to school i wore them going to town i wore them when i went out and they just looked great with a rah rah skirt yeah a rah rah skirt had a revival it sort of went to the 80s and it came

back then in the 2000s and you'd pair it with like cool pair of tights and these little booties and the rah-rah skirt as a teenager gave you hips which was cute and then you had your little legs and then you had like these little stompy boots and i just felt like you just felt really really sassy in them i'd definitely wear that now with a little tank top and stuff oh lovely and the boots you'd wear them so much that the plastic would fall off and you'd just be walking around on a bit of metal literally on a bit of metal. Literally on a bit of metal. And also being made out of that suede material we always used to say and used to wear them to school and it would chuck it with rain.

We'd be walking through puddles and we would have to take our boots off when we'd go to school and hang them on the radiators. Yeah, soaking with just a little bit of metal because the plastic had gone. That lasted one half an hour of a wear. It's like a ballet flat. A ballet flat, you you'd wear it and they just disintegrate in the rain the ballet flats are back now and i do have a soft spot for them because they saw me through a lot of outfits but god as soon as you started flapping at the front you know when it would just the soul would come away you just have like a mouse at the front i loved a ballet flat but if you get a ballet flat in the rain you my friend you're having to buy more ballet flats on the way home

because you are absolutely oh my god and it almost was like the ballet flats i think i'm talking maybe like primark you want the inside was almost made like i think it was just cardboard cardboard 100 it was cardboard and they cost about four quid or something. So obviously they were cardboard. But they just, once they got soldered, there was no odour escaping them. So with your tights and your tights still have bits. Oh, no. But you know what?

I'll probably wear it again. No, I probably would as well. I'd wear some leopard print ones. I always dreamt of having like Chanel ones. Yeah, yeah. I loved a leopard print one that was very much like if you wanted to instantly make an outfit feel cool you'd put like a little leopard print pump on

you'd be like yeah I have got leopard print shorts on today and I said to Steve my husband I was like I feel phenomenal I love a bit I love a bit of leopard print I feel like it was proper leopard print back in the day as well like now it's various different animal prints which sometimes comes across as tacky but I think was proper leopard print back in the day as well. Like now it's various different animal prints,

which sometimes comes across as tacky. But I think a proper leopard print. A bit of Bette Lynch, a bit of Pat Butcher. Oh, you'd be absolutely classy. And what was your biggest teenage flop at school? I guess in a serious manner, I would probably say I literally, I was quite a smart kid in the early days and i loved learning and i loved reading i wasn't great in maths but i was you know generally quite good at other subjects but

i suppose god as soon as i found boys or i ruined it all because i was just so distracted so i think my my biggest fault was like i could have been one of those kids who could have like done the a's and jerry like applied to like the the really clever universities and but instead I just wanted to do snogging instead I just wanted to do snogging go to the house parties and just live your best life in your ballet flats yeah absolutely that was do you know what I wouldn't change it that's the thing like I think you call it like a flop or a failure. I had the best time and you can't replace that. So it's not a real flop, is it? No, it's not a real flop.

It was a life choice and it's led you to a very successful career. So you didn't do too bad, did you? No, exactly. And on a lesser, I think on a lesser serious note, I think my flop would have been, I, like I said earlier earlier used to do the plays and used to love drama and all that kind of stuff but god damn i could not sing so no makers audition for the musicals and i swear to god four years in a row i auditioned for each musical at one point

i'm gonna have to get in on one of them do you know yeah this was my best mate she would get all of the big roles as well she played at the dance nadia in les mis and she played you know the one of the main roles in west side story because she could sing and she was brilliant and i was there auditioning year after year standing up in front of like the boys i fancied and all I made going like thinking this is gonna be my time never going your time never going to one musical my sister was Sandy in Greece I was Chacha Gregorio's friend number three perfect just at the back I didn't even get number three emma they didn't even let me into the chorus i just but i did pull sunny and we went out for a bit so to be honest i feel

like i was winning that's all right is that yeah i must say like well me and another mate didn't get into the do sweeney todd one year so we were the stage hands and basically our job was to open the door so the actors could get onto the stage big big role but i must say well we had such fun because obviously like the fit like older boys from the years above would come you know ready to be on stage and stuff or we'd be there like just playing no pressure as well all you gotta do is this was the only way i could get to a boy was they did the musicals at the boys school so you can imagine yeah so the boy so all the rehearsals would be at the boys school the performances would be at the boys school so because they drafted girls in to be the girls oh my god imagine the joy i would have been they could have been emma would you are a wheel on the car in greece

lightning and i've been yeah i'm like i'll do anything that's so good so i was happy with the girl at the back going out with sunny and it's one of my still one of my life's biggest triumphs okay what's one of your um biggest successes that you were really proud of yourself well i think my biggest success story was is probably that the friends that I made are my friends today, like my best mates today. They are my biggest success story because it's very funny when you go from little school and you move into big school and you just sort of don't know what to expect or who you're going to meet.

And I never really considered myself an overly confident person so when I arrived at my big school I had my my best friend from my from my primary school and we kind of stuck together quite a lot and I just kind of thought at that stage well it's just gonna be me and me and my my oldest friends and that'll be us we'll just go through school that'll be it and it was probably not until maybe year nine that I met my best friends now not met them I knew of them but became really really good friends with them and they are literally now my sisters you know we talk all day you know and baby I I literally like couldn't live without. We've just got exactly the same pair of selves. And I always think, gosh, imagine if I'd never met them.

Imagine if I'd not reached out to them. And the amount of fun stories that we've got together. And they've got kids now. And we've not lived in the same area for gosh years about 15 years or something but they're still my like absolute closest mates in the world and I just think they are they are the biggest success story oh that's so nice cute like grades and stuff you know those things that they don't matter in the long scheme of things really you know um the boys that you fancy they come and go you know but to say you've still got those friends,

how many years would it be now? Like 25 years later is wild. There's nothing like reminiscing with an old school friend because you're just crying with laughter. Do you remember when? And also I'm going to say, and I do apologise if any of my teenage crushes listen, these lads didn't grow up to be the fittest men

i'm so mean because i'm currently getting asked a lot about who my first crush was and things like that and bless him the boy that i was in love with it's a totally different vibe to me now so i wouldn't even blink in the street it's just and we've all had a little look we've all had a little search on facebook and a little little on Facebook and a little look on Instagram and you're like oh thank god well yeah one of them like that I saw was seen a little bit he's now like this beefcake

kind of guy are you glad you were a teenager then or do you wish you were a teenager now so glad to be a teenager I mean we were on the cusp of social media so we were very much you were a teenager then or do you wish you were a teenager now so glad to be a teenager then i mean we were on the cusp of social media so we were very much um 14 would have been peak msn time uh we would have then gone into like the myspace era that kind of vibe um but i i don't know how teenagers do it now i think it is terrifying you know but you can never really switch off

from that world even things like whatsapp and stuff you know the drama now between younger girls like you're saying you at school that will now carry on we we have strict but we have strict rules i mean erin's 12 i don't know how long I'm going to be able to enforce these, but after half eight, the phone turns off because you were getting people like two o'clock in the morning, like FaceTiming. And so from half eight till seven, the phone is. It's got to be. Yeah.

And there's just so much, there's so much out there. You know, I find I do. I keep scrolling TikTok and half an hour, she's gone like that. I love TikTok though. Oh my God, it's so good out there. You know, I find I do. I keep scrolling TikTok and half an hour she's gone like that. I love TikTok though. Oh, my God. It's so good. And it's evil. Evil.

And especially, I tell you what's really difficult. Me and my friends talk a lot about if you're feeling sad, I can scroll until it makes me feel sadder. It is bizarre. Yeah. But also I think sometimes you see something, it can put life in perspective. So if I'm a bit annoyed because, you know know i missed my train and i was late to something whatever

but then go and find us you know a 999 call from a murder yes and watch that go how your life's not too bad then is it to be fair you've got a point there i do i sometimes i end up on murder tiktok and i don't know what i don't know what algorithm i'm on but I'm like murder TikTok I'm on cult TikTok at the moment and I don't know how I've ended up there. Mine at the moment is US medical drama TikTok. Oh. Like a woman's come in and she's got three eyeballs how could this be and then five stories later five videos later they've still not been told. Go to part two you're like oh my god just do it i'm on disney i'm on disney tiktok because i've just come back from disney and cult tiktok and i don't know if that's because disney's a bit of a cult and i am actually i didn't believe disney

is a cult so i'm sure if there's a little bit of a crossover there okay if you could go back in time and speak to little lauren what would you say I don't know how many sage words of advice I would want to give because I feel like all the mistakes you make are the best stories that you have. I mean, so what I'd probably say is be less worried about authority. I mean, we got up to some mistakes, but we were never bad kids. I feel like if I went back, I would actually be a bit naughtier because I feel like, you know, in customs and stuff I was you know pretty respectful rarely got into trouble there and you know it was quite a good kid to my parents I think and I think actually

I really could have afforded to get away with a bit more shit but I used to yeah I'm a rule follower a real and and um my son's not so much but my daughter isn't she's gone into year eight and I've said look year eight is a bit of a dossier, really. It's not year seven. So year eight's a great year to find friends, have some fun and just let loose a little bit. But she's very like rigid like me. That's the thing, was I feel like I let loose

at the worst times. So I went a bit mad when it was exam. Yeah. You know, I messed them up. And it's like, actually, if you just thought about like, year seven going out of lap year eight going out of lap you know maybe you're gonna do some exams then maybe like but you don't have that perspective ben do you so i'd probably tell them that just yeah don't be worried about authority you are allowed to get into trouble it won't like ruin your life oh yeah i do you know what i hate i still hate getting into trouble now

if i have an email, oh, my God. When I was a teacher, I once had an email and the subject just was issue. And I thought, oh, my God. I was like, it just said issue. Subject, issue. And then she followed up with, like, we'll speak about this tomorrow. Why I'm doing that? Don't leave me.

And it was something really rubbish as well. But the whole night I was like, oh, my God, my god my career's over even with my agent I hate when she calls me because I'm like she's calling me to tell me I've got to give me some bad news or something like that if anybody calls me I think they're dying I presume the worst

usually it's just like are you getting the train at 8 o'clock on Friday my friend said if we ever phone each other like are you getting the train at eight o'clock on Friday yeah my friend said if we ever phone each other they're like are you okay are you in a ditch like what's

if somebody phones me after nine o'clock well that's it the world's ending then we're back again aren't we well Lauren

thanks so much for coming on the podcast it's been so lovely to reminisce and I will I'm going to message my sister after this and say

another one says no skirts over trousers I think that'm going to message my sister after this another one says no skirts over trousers I think that someone needs to tell her she needs some help and I'm going to intervene I'm going to stage an intervention and say no don't do it it's just not right

but it was lovely to speak to you and I will see you soon thank you bye bye okay fess up did anybody else out there have roll doll posters on their walls as in a giant poster of the man because if you did i want to know i want you to send me i want you to send me a message and say yeah i stand with lauren i had roald dahl on my wall too

i just when i was when i was listening back to I was like, I still couldn't quite get my ass on. I still couldn't quite comprehend why that was on a wall. Thanks so much for listening to another lovely episode of the phone box podcast. I am back next week with another great guest. As per usual, I would love you to leave me a little review over on Apple. If you could give me five stars on Spotify, that would be amazing. And of course, don't forget on Spotify, I always do a quiz, little quiz, little poll each week, trying to work out, you know, what you think, who's your favourite, what was your favourite Boyz N' Song, that kind of thing, you know, the real hard hitting issues. So I will see you over on social media from Mamutu or the Phone Box podcast. And if not, I will see you next week have a great week guys fanduel casinos exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling

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