I absolutely loved Christmas growing up and still do. In 1992 my parents heard about a competition on Capital FM, sponsored by Sega. I was seven and obsessed with Sonic the Hedgehog. To enter, I had to write a story about finding Santa but my sister had just been born and my mum forgot to post the letter. We went to the postbox at the last minute and I drew loads of stuff on the envelope, like Sonic the Hedgehog with a Santa hat on, to get it to stand out.
I was incredibly excited when I found out I’d won a trip to Lapland the week before Christmas. I can’t believe that my parents let me go away on my own. I’ve got a seven-year-old and I can’t imagine letting him go off without me. I remember getting on the coach in London and waving goodbye to my mum and dad. I was there with five other kids, the Capital FM radio breakfast team and Chris Tarrant.
Getting on a plane to another country was really scary. It was my first experience of being in an incredibly cold, snowy place. I remember thinking: “Oh my God, this is where Santa lives” and realising it is real – this place that you’ve seen in music videos, postcards and Christmas films.
There were two log cabins. One for the radio crew and one for us. We must have had a chaperone to look after us. There were three boys and three girls so the boys had one room and the girls had the room next door. I was so excited. We were there for four nights and I hardly slept. When the grownups put us to bed, we would just stay up all night talking, getting up to mischief and jumping on the bed.
The premise of our trip was to search for Santa – every day we would go out and look for clues and then hopefully find him on the last day. Everything was being broadcast live. They did such an amazing job at creating this magical experience for us. We went ice fishing and found a rolled-up bit of parchment that was the clue that would lead us to the elf post office the next day, and we’d find a clue there. We got to each place on a sled pulled by huskies or reindeer, or on skidoos. It absolutely blew my mind.
We went to a Christmas tree forest and found clues in the trees. We went to a reindeer sanctuary. And then at the end of it was finding the big man himself. I mean, there’s no greater experience as a kid. It was overwhelming, incredible, bizarre.
He looked exactly how I imagined Santa would look but more authentic – not like a TV Santa. When you are smelling a real fire, you’ve just walked through snow and it’s -20C outside, that all adds to it. My previous experience would have been meeting him in Debenhams in Harrow. He knew everything about us: our names, where we lived and our families.
One night we were staying up late in our cabin when we should have been sleeping. I was singing, and someone had to come in and tell me it was time to go to bed. I was always singing. I must have been a really annoying kid. The next morning, a producer asked how I would feel about singing on the radio. They approached me really gently because I don’t think they wanted me to feel like there was any pressure. I just thought: “Yeah, that’s fine, that sounds fun.”
We were outside the cabin by the lake. They introduced me and I sang Silent Night. No one made a sound. As a seven-year-old, you just think: “I’m going to sing a nice little song now.” When I got back, my mum and dad made a big deal out of it, and I was like: “Oh, wow, people heard that on the radio.”
The trip gave me a taste of performing. That little insight into the entertainment world and getting a glimpse behind the scenes really fascinated me. It had a profound impact; I remember all of the details, like the microphone setup, the little red light they had when they were recording and all those things that maybe some of the other kids weren’t as aware of. I knew I wanted to sing and to perform. Quite soon after that I started stage school. I did my first West End production of Oliver! when I was nine, before forming the band McFly in my late teens.
