Daisy Leitch: How did you first find out about the show?

Henrietta Haynes: My mum found out about the show in the Radio Times and she really wanted me to do it. I was enthusiastic from the very start, as I’d never been that into normal school. Even though I had good grades, I hated it. I was sporty and creative and at my school it was all about exams, exams, exams. You just didn’t learn that much. When I did my application form for the show I did it by hand and made it all creative.

Were you at all apprehensive before the show?

The auditions were really scary, there were hundreds of sixteen year olds all staring at each other thinking ‘I want to be on telly.’ Most of the interviews lasted five minutes but I was in there for half an hour talking to the producer. They got us down to 30 girls and 30 boys and then they had to wangle it down to fifteen. When I got told that I had got through I was happy and scared. I was like, ‘what have I got myself into?’ They told us a list of what we could and couldn’t bring but there was not that much information about what it would be like.

What things couldn’t you have?

We weren’t allowed to dye our hair, we had to all look the same. You were allowed to take in one extra item. I took a teddy bear but later they took it away because they found out I had hidden things in the bear’s dress and knickers!