The time I nearly got into S Club 7

I reached for the stars but didn't manage to become one

Me, aged 18. I was wearing a boob tube but you can’t see it.

As a teenager, I was desperate to be a pop star. I couldn't sing very well back then, but that never stopped the Spice Girls, right? So I wrote songs, and practised singing them, and cringed at the sound of my own voice. These days it's a lot better and stronger though, so practice does pay off.

I spent my late teens scanning the 'Auditions' pages of the newspaper The Stage, hoping to spot the advert that would lead to my big break. A lot of the ads I circled were searching for singers for pop groups. And thanks to an ad placed in 1998 when I was 18, I almost succeeded in getting into a famous pop group: S Club 7.

The advert in question was for 'singers and presenters', and was an open casting call for boys and girls aged 15-19 at Pineapple Studios in Covent Garden, Central London. So I dolled myself up and turned up at Pineapple to find half the teenage world already there.

Me, aged 17. Nice teeth, shame about the earrings.

There were literally hundreds of equally glammed-up girls and spruced-up boys queuing in line. Eventually, a woman from the production company came out of the main hall.

'We're not going to be able to audition everyone, as there are so many of you,' she said, 'so if I point at you, you're to come into the hall, and if I don't, then apologies and thank you for your time.'

She started pointing at teenagers - and, to my delight, she pointed at me. I walked into the hall gleefully.

We all sat on the floor in a group in front of a tall blonde woman, who explained that her production company were putting together a TV show featuring a girl-and-boy pop group. She went round the hall and asked us each to sing something. My mind went blank, so I sang 'Happy Birthday'!

I've only just realised that my vest says 'Jesus'.

Then I remember being asked to interview a beautiful mixed race girl. I asked her a question about her love life, and she said, 'That'd be telling.’ I replied, 'Yes it would, so tell me!' The blonde woman seemed to like that, and smiled approvingly.