When I was a young adult (I think I was 19) 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 a "volunteer" 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 thick, scary looking brown stuff, that turned out to be 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). I quickly realised that they planned to make a member of the audience have a very muddy time! My mouth went dry as I imagined the humiliation that getting into that mud was going to bring for somebody!

The presenter started to prowl around the audience in a theatrical fashion. "Right! Who are we going to cover in mud!" He boomed. He started coming towards where I was sitting. I must admit, my heart was in my mouth as he approached, I didn't want to get dirty, I mean, I'd just had my nails and hair done! Surely I wasn't going to be dragged out of the audience? To my immense relief, he took the arm of the girl sitting next to me and said something like "here's our volunteer". The girl pointed down at her foot and said "sorry, I can't get this wet". She had a plaster cast on what turned out to be a broken ankle! The presenter laughed and shouted "Oh dear, never mind, your neighbour here will have to do instead!" Before I could compute what was happening, he'd grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the audience. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach as I stood next to the presenter in front of the assembled masses. I could feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment. I really didn't want to get dirty in the mud, especially not on TV.

The presenter explained that in order to test out natural cleaning methods, he wanted me to get really dirty and the way I was going to achieve this was by using the massive tank of mud. To be more specific, he was going to make me actually get into the tank and sink in the mud! I guessed they'd have stuff for me to change into, maybe a boiler suit and wellingtons? Or maybe just the boiler suit and I could take my shoes and socks off? But no. Amazingly, the presenter told me that I had to go in the mud in my own clothes! Literally, what I was wearing as I stood there. I was stunned. It's fair to say that I was nicely dressed. I had a shimmery green top on, with a smart little black cardigan over the top, some tight fitting, "indigo" blue jeans (basically drainpipes as was/is the fashion) and some black Dr Marten shoes. Like the boots, but the low-cut shoe version. I even had pretty socks on, they were stripy black and white ones.

"OK Lauren" said the presenter (he'd asked me my name as he'd dragged me out of the audience). "The stage is yours. You can see my mud bath, now you have to go and jump in it and get lots of mud all over your clothes! I couldn't believe this was happening to me. I slowly walked towards the mud. I thought about taking my shoes off but didn't really see the point. I didn't like the idea of sinking my socks into the mud and besides, what good were clean shoes if the rest of my clothes were muddy? I stood at the edge of the large expanse of mud and was quite taken aback by how thick and deep it looked. I reluctantly half stepped and half jumped over the side, thinking I may as well get on with it. Both Dr Martens hit the surface of the mud at the same time and plunged in immediately. In approximately one second I was in it half way to my knees! I could quickly feel the cold slime seeping into my shoes and soaking through my stripy socks. I found myself stressing about mud on my awesome socks, I was wishing I'd worn plain dark coloured ones so that they'd be a bit more mud resilient! But obviously I hadn't got dressed with a mud bath in mind.

The presenter sparked into life. "How's the mud feeling Lauren?" I looked at him in semi-disgust. "Cold, slimy and filthy" I replied, provoking a ripple of laughter from the audience. "But you're hardly in there!" he continued. "Go on, have a good squelch around, get really muddy for us!" I thought perhaps I'd have a walk around in the mud and maybe splash some up my jeans and that might be good enough. I could still feel it oozing into my shoes and making my socks all dirty. It was actually really difficult to pull my feet out to walk around. The mud was really thick and made a loud slurping sound each time I withdrew a shoe from it. "That's it Lauren, have a good splash around in there! Are you having fun?" I replied, sarcastically "Oh yes, it's lovely thanks" and again, the audience giggled. As I approached the middle of the tank, the mud seemed even gloopier and heavier to move in. And that's when the first major disaster occurred. I took a step with my left foot and the mud sucked my shoe clean off! I let out an involuntary squeal and shouted something like "I've lost my shoe!" The audience were properly laughing at me by now as I stood there with my left foot suspended in the air, with just a mud-splattered stripy black and white sock on it. Not for the first time I wondered why on earth I hadn't just worn black socks that day. These lovely stripy ones were getting destroyed in this heaving, oozy mess. I could see a neat hole in the surface of the mud that my foot had come out of, my shoe was in there. I carefully lowered my foot back into it, hoping I could get it back into the safety of my shoe. I had a feel around with my foot, but all I could feel was the cold sliminess of mud. My shoe was there, but it had filled up with mud! I pulled my still-shoeless foot back out in semi-disgust and looked in shock at how filthy my lovely sock was now. It wasn't worth trying to keep it clean anymore. I just put it down into the mud with a squelch and a gurgle, feeling mortified at the sensation of mud covering my sock. I'd put stripy socks on that morning because I thought they looked cute with my outfit. Again, I was really regretting not wearing ordinary black socks as I lowered the sassy stripes into the filthy mud.

I hoped I'd be allowed to get out of the mud soon. Surely I was muddy enough? My shoes (or "shoe" as it now was) socks and the bottom six inches of my jeans were filthy. I felt weirdly unbalanced because I'd lost one shoe. It became obvious that the presenter wanted a lot more commitment from me, this wasn't going to be anything like muddy enough for his weird experiment. "OK Lauren, don't worry about your shoe, you can find that later. Having a nice muddy sock is good for our experiment anyway!" He roared with laughter at the fact that I'd lost a shoe in the mud. "You need to get down in the mud now, get your jeans much dirtier and that nice cardigan and top you're wearing". I was dreading this. Getting covered in mud "for fun" was a long way outside my comfort zone. I felt the cold sliminess covering my left sock and imagined that feeling all over my whole outfit. I shuddered. He continued. "How lucky you are Lauren, people pay lots of money to wallow in mud, and here we are, giving you a free mud bath! And it's even more fun fully clothed, no?" Again, he roared with laughter.

As I wasn't going to get away without a full mud-covering, I thought I may as well get on with it. I pulled my shoeless left foot out of the mud with a loud slopping, sucking noise. I was shocked at the sight of my sock, it was just pure, wet, shiny brown. I stamped it back down, into a slightly wetter, deeper part of the mud bath. This fired a huge amount of wet sloppy ooze up my leg. Some splatters even got up as far as my cardigan. To be deliberately splattering my nice clothes with mud felt so crazy. I withdrew my right foot from the mud's grasp, trying desperately to retain my remaining shoe. I managed it, and what a sight it was as it emerged with a loud farting noise. It felt like a lot of mud had filled the shoe around my foot so I doubted that my right sock was going to be much cleaner than my left one that had been released into the mud to fend for itself. On this basis, I decided to not make too much effort to keep the shoe on, if it came off, so be it. I imagined that, gross as it may be, it would be easier to move around in the mud in just my socks. I forced the shoe down, at speed into the sloppier area of mud. This time a torrent shot up even higher, some of it hit me in the face, and there was a massive amount all over my top and the crotch area of my jeans. The audience appeared to enjoy this as a loud cheer went up. The presenter piped up again "Great work Lauren! Now, why don't you go further into the wetter area and lay down in it?" Every garment I was wearing now had some mud on it so there was literally no point in not doing this. I might as well go all out and do as I was told. I led with my right foot this time. This wetter mud was so gluey that I had zero chance of keeping my shoe on. As my foot popped out of the stricken Dr Marten shoe I could feel the cold oozy slop coating my exposed sock in a most shocking way. "Another shoe lost!" I squealed, as I revealed my muddy right sock to the masses. I did feel a bit silly for not taking my shoes off before getting into the mud but I really hadn't fancied sinking in with just socks on. I have to say, however, that it felt much better in there without shoes on. I felt freer and it was much easier to walk in it if you weren't trying not to lose your shoes. The mud did feel otherworldly through my thin, stripy socks though.

When I was right in the middle of the sloppier part of the mud I was pretty much up to my knees in it. The presenter shouted again. "Down you get Lauren, get really muddy now! Remember, it's a free mud bath, people pay for this!" I looked at him in mock-disgust and said "Not in their clothes they don't!" I couldn't help giggling a little as I said that. Whisper it, but I think I was actually having a little bit of fun by this point...

I carefully sat down in the mud. As the bum of my jeans sank in it felt so cold! I was still knee-deep in it, but also in a sitting position. It felt so weird. I pulled my lower legs out and put them out straight in front of me, and rolled over and over in the mud. The audience went absolutely crazy. So did I, a bit. I grabbed handfuls of it and smeared them all over any clean spots on my clothes so that I was totally muddy. I even pulled my skinny jeans up over my ankles a bit revealing my still-clean "upper" socks. The four inches of vibrant black and white stripes looked so incongruous next to the sea of mud that the rest of my outfit was. I pushed my feet into the mud and stirred them around to get every part of the socks muddy. Finally, and I did pause a bit before doing this, unsure if it was a bridge too far, I laid back and pushed my head into the mud, covering my hair, and splodged some more over my face. Then I just writhed around in it making loud squelchy noises knowing that I'd completely maxed out and couldn't possibly be any muddier. I then remembered that somewhere in this complete mess, were my shoes! So I struggled around on all-fours in the mud desperately hunting for them. A loud cheer went up as I pulled them one by one from the deep mud and held them up.

I struggled to my feet in the mud tank, still holding my mud-filled Doc Marten shoes in my hands. In a weird way, I felt like I'd won. The presenter couldn't ask me to get any muddier because I'd done it! It was impossible to be dirtier than I was. There no longer seemed to be any point in stressing about the state of my clothes, I was over it. I had to admit to myself that it had been really fun to wallow in the mud. I think the moment I went all in and lost my inhibitions was early on when both of my shoes were suctioned off my feet and I got my stripy socks completely muddy. That was the turning point. Kind of "Oh well, it can't get any worse than that". Is it weird that I enjoyed the feel of wearing socks in mud?