Coleen McLoughlin - Welcome to My World

Sometimes you go to these kinds of parties and everyone is on their best behaviour, but everyone was so relaxed, including Wayne. The next day the newspapers made a big fuss about Wayne dancing on his injured foot. Well, the truth is that I tried to stop him, but Wayne loves dancing and once he gets going there’s no holding him back!

Wayne’s quite proud of his fancy footwork on the dance floor. At every party we go to he makes a big thing of dancing, doing his thing, flips, the lot, you name it, until people form a circle and start cheering. He loves it! It’s his party piece. Actually, he’s not a bad dancer, but he’ll start doing this flipping and stuff, then the circle will form and all of a sudden he thinks he’s Michael Jackson! At Victoria and David’s he promised me he was going to behave himself. Then, later on in the night, he started dancing. I’m stood back and I can see this telltale little circle starting to form around him. As soon as I saw it I was over there, in the middle, dancing by his side and telling him, ‘C’mon, there’s a circle forming, you’ve got to come over here.’ Fortunately, I managed to get him out safely before the flips started.

For a lot of events I’ll take my best friend, Claire, with me. Over time, I’ve become a bit wiser to the way things work.

I can go out and enjoy myself, but I have forever got to be on my guard because there are always journalists hanging around trying to catch well-known people out, either doing something they’re not supposed to or even if they’re talking to someone that might make a story. It sounds paranoid, but I’m always aware that journalists might be ear-wigging my conversations, or they’ll try to take advantage of Claire if she’s standing on her own and start asking her questions. I’ve come to understand that it’s possible to be at a different party from the one that’s reported in the newspapers the next day.

I found that out very early on. I had my eighteenth birthday party at the Devonshire Hotel in Liverpool. It was quite hard arranging it because of the football fixtures and fitting dates around Wayne’s schedule. In the end, we sorted out a date and it was fantastic. I’d just left school and everyone was there, family and friends, the place was jam-packed. Everyone was up dancing from the beginning. I was given a three-tier cake, decorated with shopping bags from all my favourite stores made out of icing. However, in the end it was a fight that made the headlines the next day. They said there’d been a scrap between my family and Wayne’s. That wasn’t the truth at all. At the end of the night the bouncers were clearing the room and asked one of Wayne’s family to move to a different area. It wasn’t a big fight, it was a small argument which turned into a scuffle. Within minutes the police appeared and the whole thing was blown out of all proportion. It was like someone had been ready to call the police and the press, because no sooner had it started than everyone appeared and the story was in the newspapers the next day. I still can’t understand how the press and the police were so quick to arrive on the scene. It makes you wonder.

Whether you’re at a party or spending a night on the town, a girl never knows when she might have to pull in for a beauty pit-stop and make a few on-the-spot repairs. I’m not often this organized, but when I am this is my must-have first-aid beauty kit:

1. Dental floss

For after dinner when you need to service that great smile of yours.

2. Cotton buds

To tidy up mascara and blend creased eye-shadow.

3. A tiny bottle of your favourite perfume

Or a perfume atomizer. Don’t go mixing your scent with any freebies that might be on offer in the Ladies.

4. Oil blotters

I know none of us get sweaty – sorry, perspire. But just in case you do, these will make sure your face doesn’t resemble a big, shiny, round, sweaty thing!

5. Nail file

Just in case that pedicure doesn’t hold out.

6. Lip-gloss or Vaseline

One for the girls who, like me, don’t go for lipstick. Stops lips drying out and keeps them plump.

At the Beckhams’ party I think the main reason why people were so relaxed is because the press and TV cameras were so controlled. It just meant everyone didn’t have to worry so much about what they were or weren’t doing or saying. It’s not always that way but David and Victoria’s party was great in that respect.

One of the highlights was Graham Norton’s charity auction. There were all sorts of things to bid for, like a diamond-and-ruby encrusted Jacob watch that belonged to David, which Ashley Cole bought, and an Asprey necklace designed by Victoria. Ozzy Osbourne said he would cook dinner for ten and that was auctioned off, while other guests offered different on-the-spot lots.

Wayne loves his rap – Jay-Z, P. Diddy, Kanye West. So you should have seen his face when P. Diddy stood up and said he would auction off either a weekend in his house in The Hamptons or the chance to spend a day with him in his New York recording studio. I saw Wayne and Rio look at each other across the table and I just knew they were going to go for it. In the end Wayne was bidding against Sharon Osbourne, and managed to win when he shouted out £150,000. One reason I expected Wayne to go that little bit further was because he’s really good when it comes to charity. The other was that I knew there was no way he was going to lose the chance to hang out with P. Diddy and go and party with him at his house. The invitation was for two, so everyone assumed he’d be taking me with him. Quite a few people dropped by the table asking if I was made up at the thought of holidaying with P. Diddy. I looked across at Wayne and Rio and said, ‘I’m not even going, it’s them two!’ I didn’t mind at all. They’re both into their rap. But Wayne was always bidding for himself and Rio, not, like the newspapers reported the next day, as a present for me! There was also a story that me and Wayne were going to fly over to New York and P. Diddy was going to close the whole of Bloomingdale’s and let me have the run of the place to shop. Now, maybe that would have been a bit more interesting!

Of all the parties I’ve been to, Victoria and David’s ‘Full Length and Fabulous’ must rank as up there with the best. Me and Wayne were almost the last to leave and didn’t get back to our hotel until the early hours. Now, that is the sign of a good party!

I keep all the dresses I’ve worn to big events, parties and ceremonies – well, the dresses that I’ve really loved. I have big clear-outs of the rest of my clothes every now and again, and after friends and cousins have had a look at what they’d like, I take the rest to our local charity shop. My mum always goes for my shoes because she’s the same size as me. It’s good to have clear-outs, but I refuse to part with any of my handbags.

Since we moved house I have my own big walk-in wardrobe, so I’m lucky enough to have the space to store all the special dresses that have made it into the news. I’ll never throw them away. They are my collection of memories, and in years to come they’ll be the best reminder a girl can have of some great times.