‘This is just mad!’ Nicola said when she moved in a little while after me.
I clicked with Nicola straight away. I’ve always liked Scousers because they tend to have the same mentality and sense of humour as Geordies, and I soon found out that Nicola was from a similar background to me too. We laughed our heads off about how different this house was to what we were used to back home in Newcastle and Liverpool.
Nicola was very striking and I thought her long red hair was absolutely stunning, but she was painfully shy and right from the start I felt very protective towards her. She was only 16 and I wanted to take care of her, like she was my little sister. Nicola had actually been sent home from the competition earlier on but was given a second chance after another girl decided to pull out at the last minute.
I would have found that very stressful, but despite the set-back and her shyness, Nicola actually had an amazing amount of self-confidence, because she knew she was a good singer.
‘I know I’ll get through,’ she’d say every week.
Deep down, I also had plenty of self-belief, but that didn’t stop me suffering badly with nerves.
‘Whatever you do, don’t let the nerves ruin your chances, not now you’ve come this far,’ I told myself over and over. I also had the attitude: ‘If I don’t make it this time, I’ll still get there,’ which was a great leveller for me.
I was enjoying myself like I never had before, which helped a lot too. It was summertime, the sun was shining and I was spending my days practising my singing, making friends with girls who were all chasing the same dream, and all in such amazing surroundings. Even if I didn’t make the band, I knew I would never regret this time.
‘What will you do if you don’t get through?’ Nicola asked.
‘Learn from the experience,’ I said confidently.
That’s honestly what I thought, and when those words came out of my mouth I knew that just getting this far in the process had done wonders for my self-esteem.
‘Your skin’s amazing,’ was the very first thing I’d ever said to Kimberley, when we’d met in the earlier stages of the competition. I had walked up to her, completely out of the blue, and said that to her because I was just so fascinated by how beautiful she looked. Kimberley had looked at me deadpan, muttered ‘thanks’, and said something about using a certain foundation cream. At the time the only make-up I wore was eyeliner and a bit of mascara and lip-liner, and I felt embarrassed and wondered if Kimberley thought I was a weirdo.
She had been given a second chance too, after another girl who’d originally made the final 10 left because she was pregnant. I was absolutely delighted when I heard Kimberley was returning, because once we started to get to know each other at the auditions we really hit it off and had promised to keep in touch, come what may.
When she was initially voted off I’d felt devastated. ‘Look, Kimberley,’ I said very seriously. ‘If I don’t make it either, you and me will make a group together.’
She’d agreed, and so when she was brought back into the competition we already had a bond, and I loved having her in the house.
I liked the fact that Kimberley was a very down-to-earth person – a typical Yorkshire lass – and I noticed we’d both go ‘wow!’ at the same things. We did that quite a lot whenever Sarah was around, actually, because Sarah stood out. She has such a big personality and I’d never met anyone quite like her. She was very loud and you couldn’t miss her, but despite that I felt I hadn’t got to know her through the auditions at all. Sarah was another Northerner, having grown up in Stockport, but it felt like we were from completely different worlds.
In the house she was the one who was always doing crazy things like wrapping her whole body in clingfilm before she went to bed, saying it was a good way to detoxify. She’d done a beauty course and was always giving us tips, but to me all this stuff was new and really unusual.
I knew more about Nadine than any of the other girls to begin with because I’d actually seen her on TV. Nadine had won a place in Irish Popstars the year before, but was disqualified when she was found to be too young. It had been a bit of a scandal because she had said she was 18 when she wasn’t, but Nadine was really quiet and sweet and it was hard to believe she was the same person who’d caused such a drama.
‘Hi Nadine, it’s nice to meet you,’ I said when I first met her at the auditions. ‘I remember you from Irish Popstars.’ She seemed quite shy but right from the start, I don’t think anybody doubted that Nadine would make it through to the band, because her voice was just so good.
‘Who wants me to make some chicken and rice?’ one of the other contestants in the house asked one night. This was Javine Hylton, and she loved to cook.
‘Yes please!’ the rest of us chorused. I didn’t have a clue how to cook anything fancy like that and nor did Nicola or our roommate Aimee, so we were always grateful for Javine’s chicken and rice. It was really good, and I ate so much of it I noticeably started to put on weight for the first time in years.
We had several weeks in the house together before the live shows started, during which time we were encouraged to have singing lessons.
‘Use your chest voice, Cheryl,’ the teacher said to me one day.
‘What’s me “chest voice”?’ I replied. I’d never had a singing lesson in my life and I didn’t know what she was on about.
‘Well, how do you breathe when you are singing?’
‘I just do, with me lungs.’
Nicola and I retreated to our room afterwards and collapsed in a fit of giggles. Nicola painted my nails and I taught her how to put on eyeliner. Day by day our bedroom got messier and messier, until eventually you could barely see the carpet for all the clothes and shoes, hairbrushes and towels strewn all over the floor.
One morning a really awful pair of trainers arrived at the house. I don’t know where they came from or who they were for, as I don’t remember us having stylists or anything like that in those days, but I was full of mischief and I saw the opportunity for a joke.
I took the trainers to each girl’s room in turn and told them very seriously, ‘These have been sent for you. Davina McCall says you have to try them on now and then wear them for your first performance.’
Their faces fell but they dutifully tried on the trainers, not wanting to go against the wishes of Davina, who was the host of the show. When they eventually found out it was a wind up each girl had a fit and then cracked up laughing. That’s what it was like all the time in the house. It was full of fun, like being on a daft girls’ holiday.
I phoned my mam most days and she would always tell me if there had been a mention of anything to do with Popstars in the papers. There were bits of tittle-tattle all the time, with stories of the girls sneaking out of the house to party with the boys and silly things like that. I never took much notice because I wasn’t involved, but one day my mam phoned me up to warn me there was going to be a story all about me, and it didn’t sound good.
‘Cheryl, I think someone’s done one of them kiss-and-tells on ya.’
My mind went into overdrive. Only the day before I’d spoken to my dad, and he’d told me, ‘I’m so proud of you I could pop.’ Now my mind was going crazy. I was wondering what had been written about me, and what my family was about to read. Mam didn’t know what was in the story yet, explaining that she’d just taken a phone call at home from a reporter trying to get her to make a comment, and she thought she’d better