The Phonebox Podcast With Emma Conway - Lip Gloss, Destiny's Child & Playing Outside: Sandra Igwe

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

To highlight the start of Black Maternal Mental Health Week UK, amazing author and speaker Sandra Igwe joins The Phonebox Podcast. We not only giggle about life growing up in the 00's, but Sandra chats about where women can reach out and get help this week. Please take a look at the links below and follow Sandra for more advice.Follow Sandra on Instagram here.Follow The Motherhood Group on Instagram here.Grab a copy of Sandra's book My Black Motherhood: Mental Health, Stigma, Racism and the System here.For more of me follow @brummymummyof2 on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok and follow the @phoneboxpodcast account on Instagram for polls and nostalgic fun.If you have any guest suggestions, topics you would like me to cover email [e-mail] and be sure to tag so I can see where you are listening!#00s #00smusic Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Phone Box Podcast. My name's Emma Conway and welcome to another episode. Now, I like to bring some things to your attention if there's 90s stuff coming on the telly soon. And very soon, I think there's part one and part two. I'm not sure where it is. I'll leave it in the description. But there's a Vogue 90s special. And that brings me nicely to introduce as featured in Vogue the top 25 Sandra welcome to the podcast hi hi guys hi everyone oh my gosh top 25 in Vogue author TED Talk speaker holding a baby she's literally superwoman she is amazing so we've got a sandwich of the podcast now this is an important week for you it's important day for you before we kick start the podcast we want to chat about why this day particular is important so what is important about the 23rd of September then? Black Maternal Mental Health Week

UK coordinated by the Motherhood Group. Fantastic. Should I go into it now? Yeah definitely let's get into it and also I'll leave some links in the description if anybody needs any help or they need some guidance I'll leave it all down below. Black Maternal Mental Health Week UK is an awareness week coordinated by the motherhood group and we raise awareness to the disparities that black mothers face in the uk what disparities you might ask and we're more likely to have perinatal mental health challenges and the least likely to get follow-up treatment before that or the least likely to ask for support and we're more likely to have um you know a whole heap of disparities in maternal care and postnatal care, depression, as I mentioned before, but also maternal mortality rates, emergency C-sections, high blood pressure, neonatal deaths, miscarriages, stool births. as well and so every year this is our fifth annual awareness week we not only raise awareness to

these disparities but we also find recommendations and solutions for improvement and to tackle these disparities as a community but also we involve healthcare practitioners other stakeholders such as charities and politicians and the wider system as a whole because the more voices that raise awareness that the better so it's a really important week this week. Fantastic. So if they come to your, is it going to be mainly on Instagram? Are you going to be sharing stuff on Instagram? Yes.

So if you come on Instagram, sign up to our newsletter, themotherhoodgroup.org. Every day we'll be having a weekly webinar. We have fantastic speakers from the community. I have Angela. We have Chrissy Brown. We have have kemi akawale but we also have um nina for example who is the chief ministry officer for for london opening up our webinar so every day from 12 to 1 p.m if you click the link they're all free it's all you know we

have lots of activities going on uh throughout the week but if you want more information definitely visit our instagram and our website as well yeah so you've got to go sure to be sure to check it out i'll leave all the links in the description so this podcast goes live early in the morning so people should hopefully hear it in time to see the first kind of webinars that's why you're one of the top 25 of both thank you no it's honestly it's based really on lived experience what I experienced with my first pregnancy and birth, as well as my second. And then also eight years later with my third daughter as well. So clearly there's still so much that needs to be done, Emma. But we're tackling it on.

I'm doing so far the progress, even if it's just a tiny little bit as well. Yeah, that's amazing. And you've got a book as well. And I'll leave a link to that as well. So there's lots of information out there for you if you need it has there been any progress in um black kind of maternity care and mater you know since the 90s and noughties is it like a lot better yes so say a lot better yes and no so I know that the embrace came report came out stating that black women um were five times more likely to die and have complications.

And there's been so many fantastic campaigners, you know, raising awareness to this, putting out petitions. But it's now lower to where more than three times are more likely to die than our white counterparts. Should we have a party and celebrate? No. It's awful. It's still horrible no it's awful well it's still horrible it's awful and I personally believe this is because there's a lot more awareness um awareness raising that's happened within the community that's allowed us to equip ourselves a lot more with knowledge and ways to advocate for for ourselves yeah so hopefully we're getting there a little you know

we all get in there a little step by step, but yeah, definitely check the information out. So Sandra wanted to highlight that before we had our kind of bit more of a lighthearted chast about life growing up in the 90s and noughties. Now, Sandra, what year did you turn 14? Can you remember? Did I turn 40, Emma? 40, not 40. I can see the balloons in the background.

You're not 40. 14. The shock and happiness when I said 40. She nearly said the jerk. Not yet. I will be 40 in five more years. I've got five years to still enjoy my 30s. I'm 35 as of last week.

It was my birthday a week ago. You're so lucky. In four years, i'll be 50 you know you are you look way younger than me way way yeah don't be ridiculous but okay so 14 so when were you 14 not 40 so if i was born 1989 yeah i was 14 in 19 because my maths now is going to be terrible help me out 1994 no you'd have been five in 90 hang on when we go 2004 sorry yeah she's she's been in vogue top 25 oh no i i was a teacher and neither of us could work so I did I did my MBA in business and I did accountancy and I still don't know how to add up so yeah do you know what it's fine you've

got a poorly baby at home it's it's it's absolutely fine okay so 2004 was it 2004 okay but 2004 um where were you growing up and what was your bedroom like wow so in 2004 I had moved from southwest London Stockwell to Thornton Heath which is Croydon Borough and my bedroom oh my goodness it had like green paint and I had a bunk bed because I shared with my immediate younger sister who is only a year and a half younger than me and um we had a bunk bed because I shared with my immediate younger sister who is only a year and a half younger than me and um we had a bunk bed we had green walls we had um laminate flooring but it wasn't the the cute nice you know gray kind of simple one that we have now it was the wooden you know really clunky type um laminate flooring that's really super cold no underflooring heating but it was home and I really actually enjoyed my childhood I really enjoyed my teenage years as well I remember you know that age being allowed my mum was quite you

know she was she was Nigerian she is Nigerian so she had an element of strictness to her you can't you know you can't chat back you can't answer her back and all of that but she let us sort of go out with our friends go to the cinema and there was this new cinema that opened, the Odeon, right near our house in Norbury. And we loved going there to watch all the new movies. Did you have posters on your walls? Did you share the wall space with your sister or were you not allowed posters up? We weren't allowed posters.

I didn't actually have commercial posters. I had pictures of me and my friends. Oh, nice. Yeah, with taking pictures of those portable cameras and then getting them printed out and then sticking it and making like a wall collage of all of my friends from like secondary school, primary school and just friends that I made along the way.

And I was really, I loved people coming into my room, our room, I know we shared, and just seeing like different, like life, just life. And people would ask, who's that? And I'd go, this is my room, our room, I know we shared, and just seeing, like, different, like, life, just life. And people would ask, who's that? And I'd say, this is my friend Springer, this is my friend Charlotte. Oh, nice. I love a photo. Teenage years is a photo college war is an absolute.

Everybody has them. My daughter has, like, photo, well, Polaroid camera ones, even though they're really expensive, flip a neck. Or, you know, like, passport photos. No, what is it? Photo booth photos. Yeah yeah she's got them up it's very very good okay if you were gonna have posters of like music or film stars who would you have had up oh as a 14 year old um possibly destiny's child which was the band that Beyonce used to be in. I think 14 that age.

NSYNC. Oh my gosh, I loved them. Yeah. 14, right? 14 was the right age for NSYNC. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who else was like, I think I like Pink. Do you remember Pink? Pink's still rocking.

She's still bopping about and doing aerobics in the air. Aerobics? That doesn't sound right. Acrobatics, not aerobics. That's very different. Very different. But Pink in the 90s and the noughties was very different. She actually had like the pink hair,

but it was, you know, a different style. And she produced like R&B and hip hop. And she came out as that type of artist. And so I really liked her. I mean, now it's cool too but I loved it loved it those those days as well yeah she was good wasn't she pink she was kind of kind of like um not controversial but she was kind of like tough like her lyrics were like you know Destiny's Child and stuff like that so Justin Timberlake was he your favorite member of NSYNC or did you

like somebody else I liked JC you know JC Charez oh yeah yeah JC was the one for me I know everyone likes Justin but I preferred him because he had the darker hair the chiseled chin yeah you know was he your crush or did you have another ultimate kind of noughties crush he wasn't my ultimate crush but he was my crush in NSYNC from the last day that I got married but um but my ultimate crush as a 14 who was it who I think I liked um like Genuine and Tyree so I know I know JC was had the darker hair but I like the chocolate skin as well so Tyree and um and Genuine from the Marathon you know the typical sort of R&B soul singers that you know used to butter their bodies and okay let's say you're not you're not in this in this scenario I'm giving you you're not married you're fine I'm there at 14 no you're not 14 it's now

it's today and you're not married and one of them knocks on the door would your heart still flutter no she's being good where there's me I'm like if Gary Barlow knocked on I'll be like yeah I'm not that nice okay what kind of secondary school did you go to and where were you in the hierarchy wow so the secondary school I went to was a girl's school all girls school you went to one as well yeah um called Notre Dame girl school but it was a it was a Roman Catholic uh old coventry like convent covent school so it was run by nuns yeah and very controversial but um every single year had a different color or shirt so I was what we would call peach shirt so we would wear all brown brown skirt long skirt brown jumpers right only brown hair bands wasn't allowed other colors and this to have brown

socks and we had a peach shirt and then the other years had yellow shirt green shirt pink shirt and then purple shirt purple and brown would have been terrible. Yeah. Disgusting, right? That's not. So were your skirts long so you couldn't roll them up? Because at my secondary school we used to roll our skirts up. We could roll it up, but only after school. During class we wasn't allowed to, we'd get in trouble.

So my older sister was actually purple shirt. I was peach shirt and my younger sister was yellow shirt. I don't know what the best one I think green and brown you'd look like a tree yellow and brown is like the brownies uniform I'm not sure what suits and the weird thing about it now is that my kids are in primary school but guess the color of their uniform brown brown brown and yellow yeah I didn't even know where you buy but you have to buy them from a special shop or can you because you can't get that in Sainsbury's no no we want we had to go to a special shop that only sold our uniform yeah that was very interesting as well um and I was um

I we had uh at those days we had I was in the top set but um that's what you're talking about right Emma yeah yeah yeah or like or like that kind of like education hierarchy and also like friendship hierarchy where you're like who are you hanging out with either yeah so I was actually um initially top set but because I was such a chatty patty I couldn't help myself Emma I loved talking to my friends I got moved I got moved down two notches in year nine and that frustrated me but the strange thing about that when I got moved down after being in the top set I actually performed better I performed better after being moved down two rows and I think it's because I was around people that I really enjoyed they were like the

cool the cooler kids they were less know, sort of like uppity. And also my teachers could see so much potential in me. And I remember her name, Miss Dara, Miss Hanley, sorry. Her name is now Dara Hanley. She was my form tutor and my teacher when I got moved down. And I remember her saying, Sandra, why did you get, you're so brilliant. And she really spotted me for being a great speaker and I remember we had English language and she gave me an A star and in her class when I used to get like C's when I was in the top set I'm doing that because I

don't really believe in the how the school system even ranks children anyway um and so now we're quite good friends on Facebook everybody always has that one teacher don't they that is just mine was um Mrs Brown and I was poorly when I was 18 and I I missed a lot of school and she used to spend her lunch times going through me and helping me to get through my A levels and I did I managed to get a B in the end because of just because of her just sitting there like come on you know we can do this yeah and I still I still think of her fondly now yeah she was um a really really nice lady but we all have that kind of one teacher so friendship wise you were hanging out with the chatty kids chatty kids fun kids kids who are able to take risks um but also sometimes got me in trouble

yeah because that kind of trouble anything exciting um do you know what with the teachers they had a soft spot for us but they knew we were chatty and every time my mom would come in for parents evening they would say sandra's there she's great but she talks so much and or she sometimes um loses a bit of focus because that daydream bit and if a book wasn't that fun or that interesting I would kind of like just zone out and look around um but it just shows that anything that I found really interesting I high par sort of focused on that I would literally I love English language English literature I had to take the books read it in a day come back be putting my hands up every second

um and my friends really admired that that Sandra was either hot or cold really hate zone out or really loved it and you know helped the whole class really and you still like reading now you're still reading books now and I even they've got three kids. Emma, the time. I wanted to say yes, but realistically, I'm not really reading as much as I would like to or should be. I know I've written my book, My Black Motherhood, Motherhood, Mental Health and the System, but I'm not reading as much.

I'm not going to lie. And I used to love reading. I read throughout my whole childhood teenagers and just teenage years but before I had kids but then the kids when I get that little that gap that break I kind of just want to space out zone out yeah watch telly really really unwind because everything feels really intense especially being a mum of three, running an organisation, managing and supporting the household with my husband,

and just lots of speaking engagements have taken up a lot of my time. And I love it. And I couldn't imagine life without doing and having what I have. And, you know, you know, but it's just things like reading is like a super extra, extra luxury for me.

Yeah, it does. Yeah, I was saying to my husband, because I was saying to you earlier, both of my kids are in in big school I feel like I do have a bit more time but I don't know what to do with the time it is just like you're you're like oh I can't I dream of a moment and I'm like I don't know what to do it's so weird can't imagine not knowing what to do with time when did that start happening Emma just like this year or has it been like that for quite a while? No I think it's because like well you know as a mum you kind of have the kids till school run and then you get them back from school but now like my kids are

going off at like half seven and with clubs they might not be back till half five and that's quite a long it's just a long day yeah it's I know I'll get used to it and it's still really new, but it is, I'm really, I had a little cry to my husband last night going, I don't know who I am anymore. Emma, you've done fantastic. Literally, I love what you do. Oh, thank you.

Everything you stand for and what you post is amazing. So I'm not going to lie, I can't wait to have that problem of not, I can't wait. Yeah, it's luxury, isn't it it's it's it's luxury isn't it but I think it's also because you are as we've discussed considerably younger than me I'm going through menopause as well and the menopause makes you mad when you get to menopause problems because I'll be out at the other end I'll be nothing I'll be shriveled and in my 50s say Emma how'd you get through the menopause and I'll help you because it's really hard it's

crazy I was thinking about that the other day actually because um I'm a breastfeeding mom I'm still breastfeeding and um but my period came back not to be a bit graphical but just two days ago yeah I've not had a period in ages oh my goodness this feels so strange and I can't wait till this stops and then I remembered oh it will stop when I I'm like is it supposed to stop when you meet menopause right yeah so you're so I'm perimenopause this is the podcast about the 90s I'm perimenopause all my followers have heard this before and my dad's listening hi dad um I'm perimenopausal so perimenopausal is when you still have periods but you you're losing like all your hormones so you have to have hormone replacement to keep you kind of like balanced and then you stop your periods um and that's when you that's when you fall menopause but you have to wait so sometimes it

this is like a little less now sometimes you will have one period and you might not have another period for 11 months and you're like oh i've gone through the menopause you're like no and you have a random one and you have to start all over again you're going to go 12 months without having a period and the hormones are crazy and god knows how people in the 90s not talking to other women went through this because they must have thought they were going mad I didn't even know it was like them and now I'm scared don't be scared you've got years to go you're another 10 years to go as i said i'll be pushing 60 telling you what to do okay let's get back on track i got distracted i'll talk to anybody about the menopause i'm really boring about it okay so you hierarchy you were chatting at school i want to know um fashion

so something you wore that was absolutely horrendous horrendous everything in the in the 90s or the noughties and i'll say 14 i used to wear those um pedal pushers or flares flares are back in fashion now but the flares then yeah they were slightly different i think um this with the split the flares with the split the fishnet sort of um shoes those they had like um it looked like a fishnet but it was plastic and harder and had like gemstones all around it i like like almost like jelly shoes i remember them like ballet flat jelly shoes we think yeah i remember them i remember them yeah literally i had it in every like all the colors i was obsessed with it and my hairstyle i used to i used to gel the front but a little bit like this but it would be more like swoopy would swoop literally almost half of one of my eye like that

nice duck down i'd put like a whole tub of gel and literally gel my hair so it would it would cover and it would be rock like tapping you would hear clunk clunk clunk but in the back would be a little fan so I have was that full of gel as well was it a rock hard fan no actually you put spritz not the gel so you got to do spritz because in those days I had my hair with what we would call as afro-caribbean's termed hair so it was chemicalized and you put lots of this people still do it now but it's not as fashionable now a lot more black women are becoming um natural now this is a wig yeah but underneath the wig we're natural so yeah so i had my hair in a fan with a little clip with the bows or the we would create sometimes a bow

using shoelaces or ribbons and I'd make sure that it matched my outfit and my shoes so that was the style when I was 14. That sounds all right you know that doesn't sound bad. It doesn't sound bad just how did I have all the time I guess I had enough time but you had loads of time you had loads of time too because I think flares now are more like wide leg aren't they whether our flares are kind of like tight maybe almost like a bit boot cutty like but whether now it's all like wide yeah yeah yeah is there anything you wore then that you'd wear now maybe no i can't even wear the crop top my belly isn't how it used to look you could rock a crop

top of course you can no i can't i'm honestly i can't i can't do it anymore i've tried but it just looks ridiculous um there's nothing that i could maybe the lip gloss the lip gloss because when i was 14 it was really in fashion the really shiny uh they were down like a pound from those hair hair shops um to make your lips really shiny and glossy i would wear that now that's it nice yeah kind of almost like a re a rimel like kind of cheap like sticky if your hair gets in it you're like you're in trouble kind of lip gloss oh yeah that sounds nice okay i want to know about first snogs first snogs you don't have you don't have to name any names okay i just want to know first snog first snog i was 18 so you know i was an old i was old so

wow i know i wasn't 18 that's for sure i mean i was um a little maybe much younger my first with my boyfriend or my first ever fake fake boyfriend because I really thought he was like my you know my husband to be but he wasn't he was a guy I had a massive crush on and we would hang out all the time um and we'd kiss and I remember like how would you mean okay I'm panicking now a little bit. You don't need to panic. Don't say anything you don't want. It's like, just your first little kiss. Don't worry. No, we had a nice little kiss. A snooch.

A snooch. Yeah. Snooch. I can say his name because I don't know where that is, really. His name was Kieron, which was, like, a really popular name for like, it was mixed race. So, you know, half black, half white, half Caribbean, half English. And he had the curly little curly hair and everything, really tiny.

But like, that was my first crush. I remember taking a picture with him with those portable cameras and showing all my friends. And they were like, oh my goodness, Sandra. And then that was my boyfriend yeah so did you meet him at school's obviously girls schools it's kind of hard to meet boys we had a boys school that was like affiliated with the girls school so that's why we met our boys where did you meet your boys through my one of my best friend through my school friend yeah my friends yeah that lived right next

to us because we used to because i in stockwell in these um sort of like estate block kind of thing and we could literally walk over to the next block where my friend lived and we would hang out all the time and so it was really weird because i know most girls um we don't have boys in our school but a lot of us then have to make like be quite proactive in making friends otherwise you don't even um know how boys interact and me I have three sisters in my household so boys were like a new phenomenon and so I think um it really helped prior to going to college where I was like oh gosh there's boys in college I'm looking at a boy to my left and to my right it is wild isn't it because I didn't go to I didn't see boys until I was

university and then I was like 18. University? Boys? There was no boys in your college? No. There was no. But I went to Sade in sixth form. So there was no. It was an all-girls sixth form as well.

So yeah, it was. Crazy. And even now I still feel a bit like, ooh, if I'm in a meeting with loads of men, I'm like, ooh. Because I've gone into lots of very female jobs. Like I worked in PR and teaching and this is like a lot of women so it's I'm kind of not really hung around a lot of men okay so we've chatted snogs we've chatted a fashion is there anything then that you did that you were really really

proud of as a 14 year old yeah actually um I think think it's, can I increase the age by a few more years? Of course you can. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, when I was, when I just got into college, I think college, I'm about at least 17, right? Or 18 or something like that. When I auditioned for this musical, and I got through in college this is the first year and then because I got through a few of us got through we were able to then fly to New York to yeah to perform not on Broadway but off Broadway counts as something and we in collaboration with another university another college from New York a Brooklyn college so it was quite cool that our college and their college joined forces and I was really young at my first time sort of traveling without my parents without my mum and my sisters

going as a group of young teenagers and meeting exchange students and then putting on this performance throughout the week that was literally life changing that for me even though it's not looking back now it doesn't seem big at the time it kind of made me have a big appetite for the stage yeah or um you know crowds and also just for like creativity really yeah yeah oh my god because everybody when they were younger wanted to go to america that was like the big like you'd watch like tv shows and you'd be like i want to be to america i want to buy the step in america i want to be so So going to America, New York as a teenager, I went to New York as a teenager, my head would have just literally exploded.

That was, I was like, I never want to come back to England. I want to be an American. Yeah. But now I don't want to be American. But then it was honestly, it was so amazing. And they were learning about us and British culture too, because those days we watched a lot of their TV shows, but they didn't know about us and British culture too because those days we watched a lot of their tv shows but they didn't know about us too too much so they were also like

surprised that um you know UK British multicultural kids also like what they like too and we're not all tea and trumpets you know we have personalities and we we eat soul food as well and you know we're very similar so that was that that was a great experience and I'm really proud of that we got an award at the end of that that's so nice what was the play would it be anything I've heard of no we actually wrote the play ourselves so we yeah we actually created the play we was actually a musical so dance drama and acting so dance drama and singing um we was about basically a group of students us who had different lives we all met on a train and the train joined us all together different lives all together and the train stopped and that's when you kind of heard all of our stories

come alive and that was quite quite you know interesting because you know it reflected real life we all have different lives we're all from different paths or walks of, you know, of life in general. And but we all sometimes take the same path or the same, take the same train. And even if it's for a moment when we stop, we can then kind of come together. So we took that, took that to New York and then we came back to England and then took it to Edinburgh Film Festival. So that was fantastic. What? And you like, I was like, what did you do when you were 17?

Oh, I just watched, I don't know, Top of the Pops. And you're like, well, I went to New York and then actually performed in the Edinburgh Film Festival. Huh? Yeah. What college was it? It was like, is it like a fancy college? It wasn't. It was called St. Francis Saviour. So it was a Catholic sixth form in clapham southwest

london so that was big for them as well so i think they've raised quite a bit of um funds for that project and it was it was it was honestly life-changing it really created an appetite and for my kids now i want them to also experience something similar like that as well yeah i mean that'd be hard to top, to be honest. Really hard. You kind of go to a resident, usually year seven you go to a little residential where they make you do like canoeing and climb up a wall.

It's not quite the same as New York. But you know what, they love it. My kids both loved it. Okay, is there anything back then that you kind of have regrets about? Yeah, I guess I regret not valuing sort of like friendships I think friendships because there were some amazing people that I would have sworn we would have been friends for absolutely forever and I think only until you get to adulthood or you even have kids or you've navigated through life seriously that you realise the importance of good friendships and letting lots of things slide,

not massive things, but letting things, taking things not as serious when it comes to good people who genuinely do have your best interests at heart and genuinely love you as a person and just getting over, getting over smaller, smaller arguments. Yeah. I think it's probably just a process that all teenagers have to go through to learn the lessons to become better people because my kids fall out. And one thing you'll learn as your kids get older is to just not get involved because they'll fall out with somebody.

And then the next day they're back friends again. So I just have to really like just be like, listen to it and like, you know, sympathize with them. But not, you know, go, well, they're never coming to our house ever again. Because literally the next day she'll be like, oh, so-and-so's just been on the phone. And you're like, I can't keep up with it. But I think also now with social media, kids can keep in touch a lot better. I know there's lots of negatives, but I think the positives is that my kids have left primary school, but they can still speak to their primary school friends, whereas we left primary school and that was kind of it. Crazy. I still can't believe we had that.

You know, the last day of school, everybody would sign each other's shirts. I'm getting quite nostalgic actually thinking about that. The last day, signing of the shirts and then saying bye and literally saying bye forever. Yeah. So luckily now, like mine is still like, he can play PlayStation with them or she can go like, what do you want to go meet for, you know, a Costa or whatever. So that is one of the positives.

Are you glad you grew up then? Or do you wish you were growing up now? Oh no, then was better. Then was way better. We were able to play outside for goodness sake by ourselves. We're friends without our parents overly supervising us they were checking of course you know peep peep outside peep come back in for lunch you know well we had that freedom and we don't really have that now with my kids I'd be I'd be

too afraid to let my kids like to open the door and be like bye go and play outside yeah oh oh I was playing outside from like literally four we were because we lived in a cul-de-sac we were just going in friends houses in and out going on bikes going to the park oh i'd never do that now no way the parks then were full of kids and they were close and then we had bikes scooters as you mentioned my friend would knock on my my door like they'll call my mom auntie auntie can sandra and barbara and madrid play out she'd say yeah and we come back in for you know one pound to go and buy a nice lolly but now we have to have organized fun we have to

create and schedule in play dates and and also my kids level of fun now is holidays to Dubai. Sorry, but I'm just, their appetite is different. Those days, for me, the park was out of this world, you know. I couldn't imagine going swimming on the weekend somewhere or, you know, going to, that was like literally, McDonald's was the highlight of my week. Oh, yeah. I had a McDonald's birthday party. I found a picture of the day of a McDonald's birthday party. And I just just thought did you ever go to a mcdonald's birthday party yeah yeah you in the fridge so you were like just walking around the freezer that was what the birthday girl or boy

got to do your treat you can walk around the freezer like health and safety would never let a child in a freezer die just walking around touching the frozen buns and stuff like what never let that now it's just yeah life is just a bit more restricted now but also i don't know if the world's gone crazier or we're just more aware i don't know yeah i think it's i mean there must have been crazy people when we were little we just perhaps are a bit more like sheltered from it there's gonna be there's gonna have been bonkers people hanging out in parks, but we just didn't know. I used to play in streams and also my mum all did night, but I was playing in a stream with no adults.

In Birmingham streams. Can you imagine how dirty they'd be full of rats? See in my head, in my head, it's like this real picturesque, gorgeous stream. But in reality, a stream in Birmingham is going to be full of rats oh my days yeah absolutely okay if you could go back in time and say something to Sandra what would you say I would say keep going stay determined don't forget where you came from you know I grew up my mum was a single mother and she raised four girls by herself my dad was around but there was a bit of discord then um it gets better don't forget your past it builds character it builds resilience it builds um you know um hope and also remember to um to just to just take to celebrate the small the small wins because eventually the bigger ones come and then lita will be grateful for those as well oh that's so nice well on my instagram um every week i have

a poll and i get people to join in and i think for a poll for this episode we should do like things that we did when we were kids that we never get away with now so like going to the park or like going in a mcdonald's you know whatever so i'll get so if you're listening to this and you follow the phone box podcast on instagram i, so if you're listening to this and you follow the Phone Box podcast on Instagram, I'll put up a little call to action and you send in stuff that we did then that we wouldn't get away with nowadays. And we'll see what people kind of miss the most.

I used to love playing outside until like, you know, the lamps came on outside. Yeah. Two. Oh God, no way. It'd be like half past six. I'd be out like till 10 o'clock in the summer just walking around the streets of birmingham it's just wild thanks so much for coming on the podcast now guys don't um forget to go and check out all the links i've left in

my description go and phone um not phone don't phone sandra that'd be really weird hello i heard you you on the podcast you'd be like oh um go follow the um Sandra on is it the motherhood group on Instagram yeah and check out all the resources she's got over there um go and leave a review on Spotify thanks so much for listening guys and thanks for coming on Sandra it's been wonderful I hope your baby sniffles get a bit better and I'm sorry I said you were 40 not to worry thank you so much Emma I really enjoyed this actually oh I'm glad but I'll see you later then guys take care bye