I'm there in Gary, and you're listening to the laughs of your life, the podcast where I talk to influential people about laughter from their first memories of laughter to feeling left out to the person they always laugh with, literally driving in the car.

This morning I was kicking myself because she was like, Mom, can I put pizza on your boobies? Now she's in the back of the car. We have not like I'm fully dressed. She's looking up. I believe we have a copy that she doesn't eat. Pizza should never have pizza. You're looking at the window. And she was like, can I put pizza on your boobies?

And I'm like, yes, of course. Of course. And it's like there's a truck here.

Like, you have no idea the conversations that we're having right now of TV and radio broadcaster Catherine Thomas, my guest this week, she talks to me about growing up in Karlo, how she nabbed the best TV job in her 20s and the light of her life. Her daughter, Edie, I hope you enjoy. Catherine Thomas, yes, you are you are extremely welcome to the last of your life. It is so good to be here. You know what?

It's actually good to be sitting and seeing a human being. Now, the last time we checked you was on Zoome. Yeah. And now I'm sitting here, like, across a two meter space looking at your fabulous face. Fabulous. My Arculus straight out of breakfast radio. I'm as pale as pasty.

Yeah, we had coffee and Shane. Shane. Yeah I know. It's great. It does feel a little bit normal. It does. It does happen.

I'm nervous. You know, you're going to interview remote.

You're not open. I'm keeping grace. OK, tell me. Right the last of your life.

I know you've listened before because you came in there and you said the Tricia episode you loved.

Listen and your little you have little story. Yes. Girl is a ticket like she is just and I was listening to it the other day. Laffan my bags off. Honestly, she is just brilliant. So I first met Trisha. She came to we were doing a wellness day, but then she came down to one of my boot camps in Seafield down in Wexford, and she was kind of nervous.

And she's like, oh, I don't know what to be first. And if she came to her course within seconds, everybody fell in love with her. She had that beautiful verbal diarrhea that she has. You know, she never stops. And so she gets into the car.

And I had to my best friend's dad with me, Antonia and Ruth, and they had just I just asked them to be my bridesmaids. Right. And like, route's now. I've been in business for five years. She'd never crossed the threshold of the bootcamp because she was like, forget about it. As soon as I asked her to be a bridesmaid, she'd like that. Jesus didn't come for the week to try to lose a few pounds. And she gets into the car.

We will go to the beach. I said I wanted to give you a lift home. And she starts talking about the Nine Sisters chat about. Yeah, and my my friend Antonia Transparence is just how do you manage, like with weddings and, you know, the bridesmaids and she's like, oh I don't know.

We made a pact that it would just be so tacky we'd never have nine bridesmaids like my big fat gypsy wedding. Horrific. Can you imagine the tackiness, the orphans of the whole thing? We were just it was just silence. We just broke our asses.

Laughing I Tony said, you know what happened? Ten. I thought I well, I swear to God it was never lost for words that ball. But she was like, I love her.

Like she was just she couldn't. She said, I know I didn't mean just our sisters. I was like, stop taking just those away.

We laughed ourselves silly.

But she's just one of those, you know, she had it all out. And I know I love her to bits. What you see is what you get.

She's just she's brilliant. But it's not about she's about you. Yes. So shall we start showing commence with our question. Let's do it. Let's do it. Captain Thomas, your first memory of laughter. OK, my first memory of laughter. I couldn't actually pinpoint a single memory because when, like, we had been talking about doing this podcast, by the way, I should say this for months, and it wasn't like you were desperate to know that you were kind of rigging me at the last minute or that I was too cool for school not to be in beforehand.

But it was literally trying to get a date, the two of us. So anyway, back.

Yeah, but I couldn't think of actually one moment like in our house growing up, there was just always carnage. So there's me. My brother David is a year older than me, my sister Linda, three years younger. And we were just always in trouble. Like we were always I idolized my brother, like I was a real tomboy. And when we were like we were just always beating the shit out of each other. And my poor mother, like at one stage, there were six students living in the house and we were all sleeping up in the attic, which stands a lot worse than it actually was, my God.

Because, like, my my dad's business had gotten into trouble. So there was a night in Kadal, so she load a load of students in the house and she was feeding them and, you know, looking after them and the whole thing. And so we just used to spend what seemed like weeks off in the attic like those, just like our beds up there. And we went through a stage of enjoying the WWF.

You remember the WTO? Yeah, Confederation. And my brother was always the ultimate warrior. And for some reason I was Jake the Snake Roberts. He was the one that I absolutely loved. And he went with like I used to go in, get the mother's dressing gown, like the floral dressing. And he wore he always wore this kind of cool cape. So I'd be in that. And then he had a bag with snakes. And so I go around the pillowcases and like a lot of all, pretend they were snakes.

My brother always called the ultimate warrior and we were just beat the shit out of each other morning, noon and night. And my sister, we had her going around. God love her as one of the girls with the great.

Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. How do you do. It's just endless.

Laughing Endless, as I said, like my mother was killed trying to kind of keep us apart. We had our cousins that lived across the road from us as well who all just happened to marry your son age, you know what I mean? So David and Susie better explain that David and Susan were the same age. Me and Alan were the same. So you married your calls?

I here you. It was a match. It was a match. Yeah.

Jennifer So was that an island where like we were the bodies like we were always together and Alan was a really quiet, shy, good child. I, on the other hand, was just everywhere, there was trouble everywhere that you could get into trouble. I was there and I drag them with me. So, I mean, like knickknacks, throwing stink bombs through people's letterbox and like that. I just remember hiding behind the wall of somebody like somebody.

Someone that you just threw a stink, bomb it on your wall and you are just toppled over like I mean, when I think back now, like just horrific knickknacks, then my grandparents lived and this was our fav like I actually I can still feel the laughter when I think about us doing this. They had this big high wall that looked out over the road and there was kind of a cot out in the walls. And Mr. Van Allen used to, you know, sit there for hours looking at who was going in and out of town.

And you throw like a concrete, throw an acorn on top his head, like you'd never do it to anyone, older children, people in their 20s, all, you know, and it started like that.

But then it developed over time, too, like like basins of water. And then it was basically water would cow shit in it. No. Yes. And like and because the land was so far like you'd throw it and then you just to the field and you'd never get caught.

So I mean, a bolt belt.

Yeah. And then but I can understand you being like property bull like I mean in school or anything. No, I was never mean, but it was always like pushing the boundaries of, you know, that sort of anything that was remotely like dangerous stuff that you shouldn't be doing, like what this was actually really mean. When I think about like, did you ever do prank calls? Yeah. Yeah. So the prank calls were a big kind of phase that we went through.

I was thinking about this only yesterday. What I actually was going through the questions again, I was like, I can't actually believe we did this.

So we go upstairs to my mom dad's room and they'd have the telephone beside the bed and the 050 three phone book. Right. And you know, when the phone books back in the day, it would always be Mr Thomas or Mrs Garrahy. Yes, Mr. and Mrs Gallahue or whatever. But then some people put it in their full name. So like Peter and Mary or Brian or Claire and Eugene Garity. Right. So you'd go through the phone book and you try and find a couple whose names were in the phone book and so you'd never do it.

And the five or three area because that's where we live. Did I have to look at the 059 or the five seven so they'd be far enough away that you never get caught? Right. So say, for example, you'd look up Claire and Eugene.

And so then if a man answers, I get Allen on the phone.

And if a woman answered, I could up the phone and she'd be like, Hello, I feel like, hello, is Eugene there? So you didn't. Sorry, can I be like, so who's this, this is Rebecca.

Like, at that point you would be like so they'd know, like, you know, that's disgraceful, the shit that we found.

So you really you planted affairs in people's houses. Yes.

I don't know what age I was maybe like 12, but I got God, I like it, though. I like that level.

I mean, I put when the phone hung up and you would just be creased on the floor like absolutely anything to the cricket of anything. Yeah. Yeah. So we were there were loads of laughs and. Yeah.

Very, very fond memories of childhood. I have to say, the first time you laughed at Katherine, the first time I felt laughed at. Well it probably happened before the first time I think that have properly affected me.

I, I had done first year in St. Leo's Convent and Carlo like my what my brother had gone to boarding school and my mom felt that I wasn't ready to go to boarding school.

Right. And I think like obviously I was a bit of a wild one, kind of hadn't really calmed down. You know, she felt that I was some sort of independent enough to go off. So anyway, I went in second year, so I was kind of like the new girl arriving in. OK, and that's not easy. No, it wasn't.

It wasn't. And I had been like I'd never been conscious about myself, never been conscious about my body or how I looked. I was always super confident and, you know, always, as I said, Oprah laugh and had a bit of devilment. You could get into it. But I remember that first day that I arrived in and had all my books and I didn't know anyone. And I cried my eyes to sleep the night before anyway.

And I walk down this big, long corridor and, you know, it was probably only four meters. But back then, when you're. That's all. Yes.

Everything seems so large and like I don't know whether the world's in fourth or fifth or sixth year, but like six or seven lads up the end of the corridor. And, you know, it was like that silence. They looked at me and I was like, oh, I just put the head down and just started walking. And I had to walk through them. I had had to walk through them and I just remember it. And I was puce by the time I got to them, even though at that stage, you know, nothing happened.

Said, Yeah, but I remember walking through them and the whispering and then I just remember them bursting their asses laughing.

So that was the first time I probably felt properly conscious that there was there was this kind of teenage thing happening. I was only probably 14 then at the time, so that there was a kind of an ulcer. And then when it came to boys and girls. Yeah, you know, that age, you have to kind of manage that whole piece.

Yeah. So and how did you find boarding school then. I loved it. Did you like. I loved it. I loved it. Now again, you know, the rules didn't suit me a lot of the time. I just about managed to get to me.

I looked at the other people. I got through by the skin.

My teeth have steak and good students love my teachers. But again, any bit of difference.

So I figured out how to escape at the window and spent about four months in Lisson Street on a Wednesday night having.

Casually said that, what do you mean? Well, I see I figured out how to to unscrew the break the glass ceiling without setting the fire alarm off to get the key right, to get out, to open a window.

And I would hitchhike into town, into Lisson Street, to legs.

I'm dance, joking and come back in time for roll calls. It was shocking when I think about it now. Like I know. I know.

So Wednesday nights you'd be in street. Yeah.

And the only reason I got caught was those Lutetia.

That's Orser Go. Yes.

So I know. I know. I know.

And tell me, OK, at what point. So what were your subjects in school that you liked. Like did you know that TV or radio or that kind of life. Do you want that. I wanted to be an actress. That was my thing. So yeah. Kind of performance. I always did acting when I was in school. I always was part of the fish or was the community games from like little one. Like I did speech and ran with a woman called Mary Doyle in.

And then, you know, as you went through school, I think you had a bit of this as well.

When I heard your interview with your podcast with Paul Mathkour, my dad was I was like, I want to do drama. I want to do theater. So his dad is like, no, no, no, no, no. You get your degree before you do anything. Yeah. So I wanted to do communications in in DCU, but missed it by five points, so ended up in UCD doing arts. So but anyway, to answer your question, yeah, I kind of always wanted to do some sort of performance.

Didn't know that it was going to be TV, but it was something I thought I was going to be acting. You know, I thought I was off to Hollywood. Yes. And yeah, that's for sure. Here we are. Here we are.

Here we are now on James Street. But I love I have to say, I did I loved school and I like the boarding school experience for me. Was that aside, you know, that little phase that I went through of of jumping out went that aside? It was a mixed boarding school. And it was it did it gave me a brilliant sense of independence, you know, and still, my best friends from my best friends today are still my best friends from school.

You know, it was a tight knit little group and was sport and fitness was that big then over that later? No, that was big in school because again, I was quite the little Jobster when I was growing up in in primary school, like probably not helped by the fact that that was another story that you made me think about. Actually, in the early days, we used to do this desales outside the outside the family home. Right.

We'd set up the ironing board and we'd sell all matter of shite that you have in the house like teddy bears. And we'd have Linda and Jennifer making dandelion perfume. And then we just go up to the shop there and, like, just devour whatever. Yeah, penny sweets.

But the thing was, my cousin thought was like the penny sweets I was going for, like the big giant baradaran making the snowballs and everything.

Probably didn't have the fact that I was quite overweight when I was going into what I was going into secondary school. And I hadn't really been playing a whole lot of sports, but when I was there was compulsory. So I got big into running and big into hockey. And that's kind of where it started for me and kind of healthy eating and and figuring out that I felt better when I was healthier, you know.

Got you. OK, we will come back to that. OK, the moment when if you didn't laugh, you cry. Catherine Oh, God.

Again, I couldn't think of just one of these, like it had to have been one of the years like so I spent ten years traveling with no frontiers and we had so many situations, like, I cannot even tell you that were so awful that we got ourselves into that. When I think about it like it's only now that the show was kind of been over as long as it has, that I think it's OK to talk about it from an insurance perspective or from like an art perspective.

Yes, but the moment probably the biggest one. I was chatting to Mark Boland, who was the cameraman with me for years and years on the road, and it's only happened yesterday.

And he was like, do you remember that time in Papua New Guinea?

And I went jog my memory there, you know, because, like, we all have sort of different memories of what happened.

Anyway, long story short, it's got to be a long shot anyway. Sorry. So I had wanted to go to Papua New Guinea for a thousand years and kept saying or to eat, we need to do a program in Papua New Guinea. They kept saying, no, no, no, absolutely not. Who in the hell wants to go to Papua New Guinea? Anyway, we finally got it over the line and off we went to Papua New Guinea.

So I had produced the story of what we were going to do and all of that obviously very well. And we got there. And like Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, we actually buy complete and utter random. Fluke met Dennis O'Brien in Port Moresby airport when we landed. Right. He was just setting up Digicel, which was a company all over the Caribbean. Yeah.

And he said to me, he kind of knew me from I was doing a bit of work with Special Olympics at the time, and he had kind of said, what are you to me? Jesus, Catherine, you're out here promoting holidays. I said, absolutely.

That is that's exactly why I'm here. And I was like, sure about the final frontier.

And he was like, OK, this is our security guard. We have fifteen Irish people out here and they have full security at all times. Have you got a satellite phone? I was. I don't want to say that I found at that stage, Mark and Ruth, who were the crew, they were like, yes, we'd like a satellite phone. Yes, yes. Sorry, who are you? We have your number. So at that point, I went, oh, OK, OK.

This could be tricky that I thought. And of course, we had gone up. We climbed Mount Wilhite highest mountain in Papua New Guinea, same height of Mont Blanc, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I had wanted to go to this Gulf Province because I had seen on the National Geographic that there was this old deserted gold mine. Right. So I had wanted to go and find and there were all these old relics of tanks, but left exactly how they were in World War Two.

So I had wanted to go. And so anyway, we were three days, we've hired this guide and then he hired five more fellows. And anyway, off we went. And we were heading up river, trekking through the jungle. We were three days of river. Right now there are no roads in Papua New Guinea. There are two roads, one that goes one side of the island and one that goes the other side of the island. There are eight hundred different tribes speaking.

Eight hundred different languages.

So you think like this one trade? Yes. So you think like it's the bull McCabe here who are territorial over their fields.

And there are land mines over there like the bull McCabe looks like, you know, that Snoopy like they are literally.

And so anyway, as we crossed over land land anyway, we got to this river, right. And we were having to, like, put a big rope across the river and we were like Lashan through all the gear over our head. It was kind of this height. The current was flowing. We were all holding onto this rope, trying to get across, trying to get across. Everybody got across the river except me. So because they wanted to get a shot of me coming across the river.

Right. So Barkett set up his camera.

He was like, actually, I'm like, woo, here we go. And the next thing, like, literally, I just hear this.

Coming out from like on my right hand side and I turn, I'm literally ready for my shot and this guy is running at me and he is just wearing this loincloth.

He has a three foot knife. No. Yet he his teeth are already there because they eat this beetle, not out there like it's kind of a hallucinogenic. So he's red eyes red and he is literally running at me and I'm just like, oh, to stab you.

And I was just like, oh my God, this is the moment that I die. Like, this is where it's going to happen.

And then. Yeah, but the thing was, I just at that moment, like, I really I reacted in a way that I didn't ever think that I would react, which I thought I would run or charge or scream.

But I literally just went I put my head down.

I just kind of I can't you know, I just thought this is the end of me.

Like, I just it was kind of a nervous laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing. I was so riddled with fear. I couldn't move. I couldn't scream. I couldn't I didn't jump into the river. I didn't I didn't do anything.

I didn't do anything except put my head down until he was literally at my face screaming under the spit was like on my face.

Oh, I was just like, oh, my God. Anyway, after about one of the guys, the bench came across like they didn't speak each other's language because they were from different tribe.

Yeah, it was mental. So three hours, a three hour standoff, all our money, our watches, everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything. Take a satellite phone, the whole kit and caboodle to allow.

Yeah, yeah.

To let us know. Didn't have our passport.

They were about hotel you know they were in our but it was no good to them but all they wanted was money, clothes, water, food.

And what age were you at this point.

I was, that was one of the last four so I'd say I was in twenty eight. Twenty nine. But it was still like when I think about it, like it was the same trip. Ruth got an abscess on her tooth and she was down for two days. Then our guides completely turned on us.

Right. So then one night we're sitting at this river and one of them pulls out this shotgun. I kid you not I'm not making this up. And he was like we were like, what does your man have a gun? And the guy's like, oh, no, it's fine. It's the wild pigs.

And I'm like, why is he pointing it at us the way. Yeah. So so anyway, then they took the rest of her water, they packed off back to where they were because they realized all our money was gone from your man. So we didn't have money to pay them.

You took your water. Yeah. So we had like, like we were like miles from anywhere. So water was the only thing like we had what you call them, tablets, sterilized tablets that you can actually sterilize the river water. This is a very sorry story.

Absolutely. Yeah. Like just bizarre.

And then we were kind of lost in the jump because they all fucked off. And then we were just with the one guy who we started out with and we he had no idea where he was. And then I got malaria. Oh perfect. Yeah.

So but I remember lying on the riverbank like I think we were kind of two days back into our journey back to civilization at that point. And the three of us were going back and I was like, that's this is really.

And were you were you scared? Like, no, I mean that's kind of that sort of I think sort of kind of in a way always explains to me who I am. Like that can be that sort of adventure that being lost. And if whatever shit was going to go down, it was going to go down. I mean, probably not what anybody wants to hear when they hire you to go and do it.

Right. Right. I think you need to be a bit daft. Yeah. I mean, Mark was just like every day he was like, we'll go back, we'll go back.

We're going back and I bike. We're going forward.

We can't have come this far. We're almost at the gold mine. Ruth is dying with an absence. But I've got malaria. We've barely been killed. And I like, come on, we can do it. Oh, I do remember laugh. I get on the riverbank. Yeah, I'd go and the three of us were in in floods and we were like, let's walk like this. Nobody in the planet knows exactly where we are right now.

And there's no Google Maps or maps. No. OK, so you were twenty eight or nine then. Yeah. What age were you when you started the show. Twenty one. Twenty five actually asked you this before. I just like, I just want to know.

I'm like do you know, did you know then how brilliant or how not lucky.

Because it's not like it's, it's talent and you get a job like that because you deserve it. Oh no. I absolutely got a job like that because I was lucky. I absolutely got I got a lucky break, but then I made that lucky break work from. Yes. You know, to me like in the first two years, I dropped out of college to do it.

And my grandma, my nana was like, you have got to do some sort of a TV show. And how did it come about so well? That was actually for a TV show called Rapert. So I was a new CD. Not really enjoying spending all your time in the bar because I was raised and I wasn't doing communications with you and just basically wrote to all the TV production companies, I'll do anything, I'll go anywhere. And so I just did voluntary work and my job was to hold an umbrella over Duncan's George Duncan Stuart from about the house.

So my job was to get sandwiches and hold the umbrella for him when he was practice's lines and he was rain and it was raining. And that was sort a company called Coco. And then I was in I got a job and tapes in Coco and just doing the. General dogsbody stuff, and they and they were looking for a female presenter, so I was putting all the tapes in and labeling them and then I said, I can do this, I can do this.

It's not acting, but I can do this. So, yeah, got a shot. Hilary O'Donovan, producer at the time, gave me a shot and I was auditioning. They had their lead. The other male presenter, the lead presenter, Jason Sherlock. And now I knew nothing about sport. This was for a kid sports show. Yeah. So I knew nothing about sport, but I was kind of sporty enough but didn't know the team. Yeah.

Yeah. So did an interview and did a horrific.

I had to interview the head of sport at ECD Schocken interview. I made an article and it was so bad that I didn't hear anything for a week, then booked my flight after Greece back to the Greek islands for the summer to work as a bartosz. And then within three weeks I got a phone call to say that I got the job. So that's how it started. So that's three years doing a TV show called Rapid Kids Sports Show. And then I jumped on to No Frontiers and did that for ten years.

Ten. So, yeah, I mean, it was still like the greatest job ever.

And do you ever get sick of it or do you ever go, Oh, I don't want to go here? Oh never, never, never, never. Like it was it was incredible. And it was just working with the same group of people, you know, the same. And you're such a close team because when you're on the road, you get to know something like we were on the road for six months of the year, you know, and then you become so comfortable.

So then the work is better. It's the crack. And we always knew and like we knew how to work hard when you had to play hard. So you always get your your your stuff done. And then on the last night, you'd have a rough night, whether it's in the jungles, whether it was not in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, but whether it was in New Mexico or whether it was in Venezuela. I mean, we we had some we had some great times, you know.

Do you know how many countries you've been in?

And I have added this up before, and I think it is ninety, actually. I don't know.

I can't remember. I have had a lot, but I can't actually remember around the hundred mark. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Your favorite Papua New Guinea.

How did you me I swear to God, because I never had a trip like that that was so kind of out there, you know what I mean? I look I love Africa. Probably Africa is my favorite continent because it's like every time you go there, you experience something new, you know, and it's like every every every country is so different to the to the neighboring one. And then, like, we did this incredible trip to the Antarctic, which was amazing, like a trip that I probably never, ever do again.

And it's just like a different planet, you know, when you see what's going on with the world now, it was like it's it's it was such a privilege, you know what I mean?

Like, it taught me a lot about different cultures. And it actually taught me to be really comfortable with myself as well, because I think I like I grew up on the road seeing different cultures and different women and different ideas, ideals of beauty.

And, you know, there was no one right way to be you know, there wasn't a right way. Like just because, you know, back in the day, like when I was in my twenties here, the ideal was skinny. You know, now we're all about big bombs, you know what I mean? But in like I was traveling around South America in my early twenties and it was just ass and boots, baby.

And they didn't look at you twice if you didn't, you know what I mean? Then in in Mongolia was like, if you didn't have, like, a really high color on your cheeks and that wasn't a sign of beauty.

And then in Ethiopia, it's like how long as your you know, they put these and so women with really long necks and so kind of like it was it was an amazing education, you know what I mean?

It really was amazing education to see how different people live. And again, yes, there's not one right way to to to live your life, you know what I mean? There's so many different ways out there, so.

OK, Catherine. Yes. You're no laughing matter moment in life. I know. Laughing Matter moment.

And it were definitely that brings me back to my very early days of pregnancy.

So I think a lot like I've talked a lot about this at this point, that myself and pork, we we struggled a lot to bring Ali into the world. And it was quite a long journey.

And, you know, and there were kind of ups and downs in the middle of like there was some mental times as well, you know, like and some funny times when you kind of had to try and find humor in the darkest of days. Do you know what I mean? But we had finding we've gone through a lot of treatments, gone through a lot of fertility treatments. We were with an amazing woman called Mary Winkfield in the Mary Fertility Clinic.

She is just unbelievable. And we had finally gotten pregnant and we had been I think we'd been for two weeks, three weeks, and everything was fine. Everything's fine. Then we come back in six weeks. And I remember going in for six weeks. We'd had two miscarriages at this point. So we were kind of both in and around that time, you know, so we were both kind of. But again, it was like this. I feel different, you know, it feels amazing.

It feels great. It feels right. And we went into Holosuite on that morning and this young nurse. There and she was doing and she was like, oh, I, I don't I'm not happy with the heartbeat.

So she said, you're going to have to come back in 10 days. And I just went like, what, 10 days? So I remember coming out and just going, oh, my God, like 10 days. And I would the next day I was doing the autumn launch for Auti.

I was hosting it and I just went and I was on radio at the time as well. And I just went, I cannot do this, I can't do it. So I just rang and I said, listen, I have to take a few days out. I just I was I was just not able to cope. Yeah. And I think it had just been years of kind of being OK and kind of getting everything and getting myself into a space where and the two of us getting into space and we were so positive and then our world just crashed, you know.

So it was the longest ten days in the world.

Can I tell you it was just even imagine it was horrific. Horrific. How do you even pass the time? Like, I don't even know. Like, I did a lot of walking. I did a lot of eating toast reporter. I did a lot of biology labs. And then I remember going in and this we were in like I was crying in the car on the way. And I kind of it was like for me it was almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And I'd held it together. And just on that day we went in and I could not stop crying. I could not stop crying out at this very sort of pragmatic Indian lady opened the door and she was like, Catherine. And you come and she was like, what's what's wrong, what's wrong?

And I was like. To do that, it's just not going to happen. And in the middle of it, she was like, your baby's doing great. And I said that I just read what?

So, yeah, that was probably the most kind of stress in what was kind of a very stressful time in our lives. But that moment was just it was like it was like time stood still, you know.

And how does it feel then from that day onwards, throughout the rest of the pregnancy? Like, is it is it a case of you just settle into it and it's you know, you're just like this is going to happen?

Or is every day a bit of like, oh, God, oh, God, I have to be honest, every day for me was a worry, you know what I mean? Like, I didn't enjoy I didn't enjoy towards the end. I think when I when I like I had, like, my bump took ages to come and I didn't feel a kick until I felt like she came out. It was like it was so I didn't and I wasn't sick.

Everyone was like talking about the the nausea and, you know, your boobs swelling and all this like nothing. I didn't feel in any way different until then. The bump started, you know, to to to pop out would probably divert to show that.

Yeah. Oh, listen, I was like, you know, like, you know, try to stick everything. I was, you know, trying to make it happen. But so but yeah. So no, I was nervous. Like, I was worried, like I kind of hit it well. But I was I have to say I was kind of until and I don't know. I think that's in one way why I went on The Late Late Show to talk about our experiences while I was still pregnant because I didn't want to.

I did for me, it was important to do it at that moment and not after I had had our baby. I don't know why. I was just it was like, you're never out of us and it's OK to kind of feel anxious and it's OK to feel worried if you've kind of been through a lot of difficulties and like, you know, you're never out of the woods, but it's still OK to kind of talk about it and make women and men feel that, you know, this isn't taboo.

Like, you can actually you can get past it and it's OK to kind of go through it and whichever way you do, as long as you've got support around it, you know, I mean, I always wonder if they, for example, like you going on to talk with that or say if someone goes on to talk about illness, if they're still going through it, I'm always like, if I were in that position, watch what I haven't been.

But if I was like, do you come out of do you walk off the set and feel like has it served you or do you feel like you've just helped a lot of other people? Because it's really selfless thing to do, because you're helping so many people who are going through the same thing. But did it help you? I think it did.

I think it did. But the reason I did it was because I had gotten so much help, because I had to go on an online forum. So I kind of went on as an anonymous person going right, because I kind of felt like I needed to do this anonymously. And even though my friends or family were all brilliant, I just had so many questions and I kind of had in my own had going on my mental that I'm this anxious and this worried.

And I constantly am writing this self-fulfilling prophecy that it's all going to end horribly and you know what I mean. Yeah. So I got so much help in that sense. And then I was like, why is nobody why is this such a taboo subject? Why is nobody talking about this happens to one like miscarriage happens to one in four couples. And so why you know, so obviously people who have gone through that are going to be living with this sort of anxiety.

And it's perfectly normal to feel like this and it's perfectly normal to be anxious, you know? So I felt that I had gotten a lot of help. And then I realized actually nobody is talking about this. And if I can even make one couple not like stay positive if they've gone through it, but then actually help them feel normal, that like nine months feels like a long time. If you're going to go through this in your head every single day, that it's actually OK.

And you just need to kind of try and work through it and whichever way you can.

You know, I think I can't remember the girl's name, but on Operation Transformation, the girl, you know. Gee, my God. Yeah, Jean, she's amazing. She's amazing that actually matter.

And so did you rape. Yeah. Yeah.

I guess that was another I think that just resonated with so many people at the time. Yeah. The fact that you were so candid, she was so kind and it was just fab. Oh thank you. She's a dose. She's a dose.

OK, Catherine, the person you always laugh with and I have to say like Ali right now, because like who does not laugh at a two and a half year old? They are gas like they're just it's just it's such a funny age, you know, and like, literally driving in the car.

This morning, I was captain myself because she was like, Mom, can I put pizza on your boobies? Now she's in the back of the car. We have not like I'm fully dressed. She's looking up. I believe we haven't had pizza. She doesn't eat pizza. Should never have pizza. You're looking at the window. And she was like, can I pour pizza, your boobies?

And I'm like, yes, of course. Of course. It's like there's a truck here. But I like you have no idea the conversations that we're having right now, you know? So she's definitely like they're just they're just such little energy givers, you know, like their gas, what they come out of. And it's their perception of the world, what they soak up. Yes. And it's just it's again, it's just an innocence and it's just that, like total reminder to to sort of revert back to that sort of childlike ness whenever you're feeling, you know what I mean, whether it's losing your self, if you want to throw on the music and have an album.

And so, Daphne, she's my husband as well. I have to say that although I laugh at him more often, I laugh with him. Right.

Mind you, his impersonations are great. His jokes are shite. His impersonations.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually, my brother is a very good mimic as well. Yeah. My little brother Stephen. Did I mention him. I don't think I mentioned at the top of the show.

Oh my God. Oh my God. I said, well yeah, there's a ten year age gap.

OK, so he's kind of just way down there was never around at the really great parts of our life, which were hilarious childhoods. But he kind of he came. Steven is ten years younger than us. Right. So but he is he's actually one of the funniest people I know. He's got us. He's yeah. He's hilarious. He's a very good mimic. And again, he just like our family. What's up? Probably a bit like yours.

Like they're always just cutting each other to. Yeah. You know, if I've just done some big, like, Instagram campaign or like a magazine cover, he'll pull out something that is so not me or so cheesy or, you know, Photoshopped here, you know, or he put up a photo of me like last Christmas with the photo, you know, with the, like, front cover. And he'd be like, well, you're leading people astray.

You know, to me, this is new.

So I want to say that I live there. Oh, my God. This was actually one of my if I didn't laugh, I cry. Moments of covid, her birthday party. Oh, my God.

I really do know that birthday party got more like my wedding.

So yes, it for anyone who doesn't, I've been a please what's her date of birth so we can scroll back into the twenty third of March 2013. Mine was the cutest thing. So just to describe it. So it was her second birthday. It was her second birthday and obviously lockdown had just happened on the 12th, 13th of March or whatever it was. And so we couldn't have a party for her. So I just got this idea to, you know, she had gone up for a nap and I just grabbed all the teddies down from her room and I set them all up and I put, like, the little teacups out in the hot zone.

I put the balloons up the whole thing. Now, in fairness, and it was quite sweet and everyone was like, oh, my child.

She came down and I think I freaked the shit out of her because she was just like like there was like just just her dad, like, caricatured the stairs and she's like, you just got see, she's kind of like this.

So it's that and they're all kind of like looking at her. So adorable. But when you think back. Jeez, man, what you mean think back. You know, got myself in any way in the world. Return to normal. OK, Catherine.

Catherine Thomas. Yes. A time where you had the last laugh. I know people find this difficult to answer.

And it's kind of it is a difficult one because I'm, you know, uh, the only thing that I could come up with for this was when I was auditioning for The Voice. Right. Right. And Bill Malone rang me. Brilliant. He's he's now in TV three years.

He rang me and he was like, would you go for an audition? And I was like, oh, sorry. What? Like, I've been on television for five hundred years.

You want me to go for auditioning for have competition? I was like, oh my God.

And he was like, just so you know, and we're going to be doing male and female combinations. Yeah. And I said, OK. I said, well, why is there is there like a you know, is there an opportunity to go for, you know, lead presenter, solo presenter like why? And he was like, well, the thing is right. There's never been a female host of the voice anywhere around the world like they've always been the co-host.

Right.

I went, wow, I, I went, sorry.

I was like, never anywhere in the world. There's never been a female host, like they've always been the kind of the sidekick. And he said, yeah, look, that's just the way it is anyway.

So I was like, oh is it so. And I knew so. And, uh, it was it was going to be like, Larry, obviously watching a whale and the whale with the company or we're going to be involved in the decision process. And Endemol, who were the company on the day of the auditions, that was like all the crowd were in and they were monitoring everything. And so I had gone on off with myself and I was like, OK, what did the doctor like?

And I had found this full length orange, like the color of the flag right at me.

So I had such Linda, the producer in well, can I change outfits in the middle of the audition? And she was like, no, ridiculous. Like what? You're just going to audition with this person and then audition with that person, then it's done. And I was like, no, I'd like to do one of my own and I would never do this.

Like, I would never, ever do this one. But I was like, just can I have, like, just give us a go with a different of. And so and so they did and I left and I kind of thought, well, I did a great audition with like like two different guys. I thought it went really well. And anyway, I happened to be in Greece at the time. A bell rings and he was like, you got the gig?

And I was like, oh, I said, OK, bruited.

Who am I do know with like and he said, no, like your your host. He's like, you're working with O1. Yeah. But you are the the lead host. And I went Oh yeah. Is who run the world Sybylla. So I love it. Oh thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I felt like I was going to go off and do it stage there. I'd like to say goodbye.

Ah. For like the dress. Oh I love that. And so you were just like I want to do it on my own. And so they did. So they let you like you just said, maybe they were maybe other maybe they were doing female auditions on their own as well.

But I just kind of wanted to do it and.

Yes, so that's how it happened.

And I was you know, his mindset was. Yeah, yeah. The British and the brilliant mean. We want our girls.

I know. I know. Did you hear. Congratulations. Thank you.

I'm so well-deserved. I have to say so.

OK, Catherine, if laughter wasn't the best medicine, what would be dancing.

Oh, has anyone that said sex. Oh has it had sex. Go on Catherine. Tell us. I'm not going to go because I have good stories. But that's all I got to go with dancing.

Oh I didn't actually get anything which I literally I like when I tell you like dancing makes me feel, you know, I go back to L.A., you know, it's like when you feel like free and you feel and it probably has a lot to do with the fact that you've probably had four or five gin and tonics when you're on the dance floor.

But like dropping it like taht, doing the Beyoncé. I mean, and the thing is, I actually think I am Beyonce or Jennifer Lopez, right? Yeah. I was convinced when I was 21 that I was a fabulous dancer.

And then iPhones with videos came out and it stopped me for a while. It stopped me in my tracks. I kind of went back into, you know, sort of side of the dance floor. And then I went, you know what? No, you just got to go with us. Go for it. Just go with a card. Dance like no one's watching that it literally. So for me, that is there's nothing like it and I miss it, you know what I mean?

Like the last time we had a proper full on bop. BOP was our wedding last August and I was up on the grand piano up on the tables. And that's my problem as well. For some reason, the dance floor like serves its purpose for the first half an hour after that, the ledge of that fireplace, Shane's desk, Shane's knee, your chair, table, whatever, anything that's kind of an elevated surface.

So I have a platform that is my spiritual home.

So we actually we didn't talk about the wedding at all. I remember I remember everyone's got really writing about the dress itself. But I remember one I remember hearing a day or two after it was like, oh my God, it was like kind of outdoors. Yeah. But it was like covered over. But just as Catherine was about to walk up the aisle, the heavens opened. Yeah. Was that a nightmare? It was. It was a nightmare.

The lead up to it. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. It was a nightmare in the lead up to it because we then had to just erect this kind of marquee, you know, and I was ringing and I was ringing Siobhan Ryan and Jean Byrne and met her and had them like live on the mobile ringing.

Gerry, what's the story? A five, part three tomorrow. Joe, you need to move Shivon. And then she phoned. No cloud cover coming in that have to.

And then I'm like, what do I need to move the wedding to direct line to. Yeah. Yeah.

And so anyway, Jerry was like, put up the tent, Catherine. So the night before and and I had planned so Pork and Annie were walking down one set of steps and it was a long walk down the garden. Yeah. And myself and my dad there was four of us coming and because I had so many fak and bridesmaids it took them an hour to get out and the beautiful glorious sunshine stuff. So they got they kept dry. Oh, for fuck's sake.

And then it came for time to enter. It became a week after the first set of steps that I was looking over the next day like it didn't just rain, it was like monsoon.

It was like monsoon sideways rain. Yeah. So we had to move on, but we were business outside.

We got like, oh, OK. It was brilliant. Like it was everyone was laughing and we were laughing like it was, it was Norma Jean.

Like she was literally cried the hairdresser in the back, like literally in a ball.

But you know what it was?

It was it was great. Like it was it kind of made.

And whenever anybody said that to me on the day, I was like, yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah.

But then afterwards when I watch back, it actually did because it's so funny for everyone to see like that. Yeah. Yeah. But it was pretty loved every minute of it.

OK, Katherine Thomas, are you ready for your quickfire. Yeah. The actor you always laugh at. Oh the actor. I was like. Robin Williams, lovely actress, you always laugh at Amy Schumer. Nice the comedian you always laugh at. Do you know what?

In the last few days, James Patris has been making me die laughing like the outfit he actually James and Karl Malone, I have to say as well.

Where does the life like James? Well, he knows I'm in love with his father, Jim Risch, who's from Colorado. But Jim and Fran and Vanessa and honestly, the costumes, costumes, like the facial expressions, when the slip disappears with big teeth, I cannot get enough of that. And then Carl Mullen, who I don't know that well and I've only recently started following you, of course, as well, Daryn. You as well. Star Bob Marley.

Carl's brilliant.

Yeah. Like the Reiner sketch. And then when he was talking about his trip to Bolivia and actually had to text him afterwards and I he was like, oh yeah, at that time when I went down to a dynamite mine in Bolivia. So after Carl was talking about the dynamite in Bolivia, he was online talking about visiting a dynamite mine. I text I was like, oh, did you visit that prison in Bolivia? Went in that was run by the inmates.

And that was then shut down after a drug bust.

And Kosaka, I spent a day there as well because it was perfectly casual travel, just their average sitesi.

Yeah, OK. And Joan Rivers as well. I love her. Oh yes. And finally got through. Yes. Your best or worst joke. Oh, uh, Joan Rivers, just as I mentioned her.

What's worse than getting drunk in a bar and going home, having sex with Willie Nelson was waking up and realizing it's not actually Willie Nelson.

Oh, yeah. I love her. I love her.

Oh, my God. Captain Thomas, thank you so, so much for sharing the last of your life. Thank you for having me. I enjoyed that. It was put it.

Thank you for listening to The Last of your life with Catherine Thomas. I hope you enjoyed it.

Catherine's Pure Results Boot Camp Retreat's Return this January. Twenty one. You can go to pure results. Boot camp dot com for more. If you're enjoying this season of the podcast, don't forget to like subscribe race review and all those other things. This podcast is brought to you by Collaborative Studio.