When I was a teenager, about 16 I think, I managed to appear in the audience of a studio-based wildlife TV programme, aimed at young people. It was a fun show with lots of crazy stuff going on, but also informative. On this particular day, somebody had asked how the average animal stays so clean, without using soap or proper washing facilities. Strange question! The presenter decided to pluck two "volunteers" out of the audience to explore ways of getting clean, but this, of course, meant getting dirty first! In the middle of the studio was an enormous tank, full of mud. I'd noticed it, but hadn't really thought much about it, assuming it was part of an animal's habitat or something (they often had live animals in the studio as part of the show).

The first volunteer was a young boy, who wasn't a volunteer at all, he just got pulled out of the audience, but nonetheless, looked delighted about it and was clearly up for his five minutes of fame! The presenter then said about getting one more person, and started coming towards where I was sitting. I must admit, my heart was in my mouth as he approached, surely I wasn't going to be dragged out of the audience? He grabbed my arm and said something like "here's our second volunteer" and before I knew it I was standing next to the boy, at the front of the audience, feeling very nervous!

The presenter explained that in order to test out natural cleaning methods, we must get really dirty and the way we were going to achieve this was by using the massive tank of mud. To be more specific, we were actually going to get into it!

I couldn't believe what was about to happen to me! Because I had thought I might be glimpsed on TV, I'd worn a fairly conspicuous purple long-sleeved T-shirt, which I'd bought especially, and my favourite blue jeans. Was I really going to cover them in mud???

On the way to the tank, the presenter told us to take our shoes off. The boy excitedly ripped his trainers off, revealing navy blue socks, and simply ran and vaulted into the very middle of the mud! Within seconds, he was down and rolling in it, and was totally covered!

I slowly bent down and unlaced my shoes and slipped them off. I was wearing black socks with contrasting bright blue heels and toes. I remember thinking how pretty and smart they looked, and how vulnerable I felt as I padded over to the tank in them.

"OK, in you get Lauren!" boomed the presenter. "Get really filthy for us, go on, really muddy!"

I couldn't quite believe what I was doing as I sort of hopped over the side of the tank and watched my smart, sassy socks disappear into what was really quite thick, slurpy mud. It felt so gross and odd, imagine sinking into deep cow poo with just socks on! I reckon it was nearly a foot deep too. It was so cold! I just stood there, halfway to my knees, in mud, not sure what to do next. The boy was laying down by now, caked in the stuff, looking up at me and laughing.

"Down you get Lauren!" said the presenter. "You've got to lie down in it!"

I needed to get more to the middle of the tank to give myself room to roll about so that I'd be covered in mud. I found it hard to move, I was partially stuck in the mud. I pulled my right leg upwards really hard to release my foot. My very muddy sock appeared, accompanied by a loud sucking noise, that had people laughing, including myself! I also managed to splash my entire outfit with great globules of mud (this was about to become irrelevant though!) I think it would've been impossible to have kept my shoes on my feet, so great was the suction! I guess this is why they wanted us to go in the mud in our socks!

Once I had squelched to the centre, I plopped down onto my bum, then laid down and rolled over onto my front. I couldn't believe how it felt to be writhing around in this brown gunge, fully clothed. It was disgusting, but also quite nice in a weird way! I mean, we're always told not to get dirty, and here I was rolling in a massive heap of oozy mud, with nice clothes on! I couldn't help enjoying it. I got handfuls of mud and piled it up on the top of my head, and smeared it on my face, and basically just wallowed around until the presenter was satisfied that I was "filthy enough".

The pair of us actually found it quite hard to get out of the tank, we were so bogged and buried in the end! And I felt so heavy as I squelched across the studio to the "cleanup zone".

In the end, we were given bathrobes whilst our clothes were washed. When I got mine back they were pretty dull and stained, particularly my jeans and weirdly, the bright blue parts of my black socks! But the TV people were generous and gave us vouchers for replacement garments.

It was a very messy way to achieve five minutes of fame, my friends called me "MudGirl" for ages afterwards!