I’ll always be a Croxteth girl and Liverpool will always be home. It’s a friendly city. Everyone is down to earth and has a great sense of humour. We used to live just on the border between Croxteth and Norris Green, and when I was younger I would hang out in Norris Green, but as I got older I spent more time in Croxteth. I enjoy it up there, I feel safe, and there’s always someone you know around. All the neighbours have seen me grow up from a little girl to where I am now. That’s great, because I can just go to the shops and people won’t treat me as any different from anyone else. It’s just normal. When everything in my life isn’t always so normal, it’s nice to go back there.
I went to school in Croxteth. My primary school was St Teresa’s in Norris Green and then I went to St John Bosco High School in Croxteth after that. I always loved school, but I also loved the lesson breaks and chatting with my mates. I wouldn’t say I was a brainy kid, but when I tried hard I did well. I was always in the top sets, worked hard, did my homework, and ended up with ten GCSEs – A* in Performing Arts, As in English Language, RE and Technology/Textiles, and Bs in Maths, English Literature, French, Spanish and Science. I was on the Student Council, and involved in loads of different stuff, and in the sixth form the rest of the year voted me Deputy Head Girl. A year before I’d set up the buddy system. It was a counselling service that allowed girls in the younger years who were having problems to come to an older pupil for advice or help instead of going to a teacher. It worked because some kids are scared of taking their problems to a teacher and they would rather talk with someone of their own age.
When I went to see the careers advisor we chatted about what I was going to do in terms of university. For me, the choice was either Performing Arts or Media.
I used to love drama classes. Throughout my school years, if you’d asked me what I wanted to be when I got older I would have told you that my dream was to become an actress. In my first year at school we did musicals like Calamity Jane and The Wizard of Oz. I was young so I only got little parts – I was an extra in Calamity Jane and a munchkin in The Wizard of Oz. Later on I was in The Sound of Music as one of the von Trapp kids. I used to love it. I’d also go to drama school at night and I had a couple of walk-on parts in Hollyoaks. I just loved performing. From the age of 13, I also used to go to dance classes and was part of a dance troupe called The Harlequin. I would have loved to have gone to stage school, but you have to be good at singing too, so that counted me out. They reckon you can train a voice to sing but, believe me, they couldn’t train mine!
These days, one of my favourite ways of relaxing is going to the theatre and seeing a show. It’s then that I start thinking about how much I miss that part of my life. Recently, I’ve had invites to go and speak to the people at Coronation Street and do screen tests for Hollyoaks, but when I sat down and thought about it, I felt it was something for the future but not for right now. Maybe later on, when the spotlight on me has died down a bit, I might decide to give it a try. At the moment I think it would be hard for people to watch me on screen and see me as anyone other than Coleen McLoughlin.
I did think seriously about studying for a degree in Performing Arts, but even then I appreciated how hard the industry is to get into and the need for a back-up plan.
At the time, I was considering looking into teaching and journalism as alternatives. That was the way my life was going. Then, when I went into the lower sixth, I stopped enjoying school as much. By the end of that year I’d started going out with Wayne and things were changing for me. It’s not that I began to hate school, it’s just that I didn’t enjoy it like I used to, I was losing interest and my life outside was changing. By the upper sixth I’d started doing bits and bobs for magazines, and I just thought, ‘What’s the point in staying here if I’m not going to achieve the marks I’m capable of?’ When I told my mum and dad how I felt they understood and were totally supportive. Their main priority was for me to be happy, and they realized I wasn’t.
I wouldn’t say I’m particularly gifted academically. I had to work really hard to achieve the grades I did, so my parents understood my feelings, and that there was no point staying on if my heart wasn’t in it. Telling the teachers was really hard. They tried their best to persuade me to stay but I’d already made my mind up. I got on particularly well with one teacher, Miss Tremarco, who’d been my first-form teacher and took me for Performing Arts, and she sat me down and asked me whether I understood what I was doing. But deep down she knew I would have been miserable had I stayed on. My view then and now is that I can always go back to college one day and study, which is something I might well do, but at the time my life was changing and it made sense to leave. I have no regrets about that. I wouldn’t say Wayne was the reason I left school, but he obviously played a big part in my decision.
Wayne Rooney was part of a group of lads who used to hang around a row of shops near to where I lived. Sometimes I would wander past the local shops with my friend Claire, who’s Wayne’s cousin, and we used to see Wayne and his mates. I got on well with them all but Wayne was the cheeky one. He got it into his head that he wanted to go out with me, so whenever we saw each other he’d come out with one or two chat-up lines. ‘Can I have a date?’ he would say, or, ‘Am I gonna get a date tonight?’ My reaction was always the same. I’d never had a boyfriend before so I used to go all shy. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I’d say, then I’d head off home with Claire.
I get on with lads but I’ve never been very good at flirting
I knew Wayne was good at football, but so were a lot of the lads from where I come from, and they’d be picked for the Everton or Liverpool youth team. Not many of them got anywhere.
Wayne was in the local papers, but only if you followed football, which I didn’t, would you have known back then that he was really good. People think Wayne was loaded when I met him but it wasn’t like that.
When we first met we’d do the same things as other kids of our age. Like going round the chippy, hanging out at each other’s houses, and seeing our mates. Just normal stuff.
Wayne, however, was never going to give up that easily. He’d walk past my house and say, ‘I’ve been waiting for the phone call!’ I never had time for boys when I was doing my GCSEs as I was focused on getting good marks. Once they were finished, I finally said yes to Wayne. Well, actually, it wasn’t that clear cut. Beforehand I had chatted to my friend Amy-Louise, who used to live across the road from us, not knowing whether I wanted to go on a date with Wayne or not. He was someone I got on well with but he wasn’t someone who immediately made me think, ‘Yeah, I’d really love to go out with him.’
A couple of weeks later that all changed. One night, Claire and I were on her bike – she was riding it and I was sitting on the back – on our way home, as usual, cycling past the chippy, when the gear chain broke. There was Wayne and a few other lads, my brothers might even have been with him, standing outside the chippy, so we shouted over asking if anyone could fix our bike. I’ve since learned that Wayne’s not exactly Mr Handyman, but he volunteered that night and somehow managed to mend it. Once he’d