Vicky Pattison interview for All Star Driving School

18 September 2017

 

How do you get to 29 without learning to drive?

[Laughs] Do you know what? Because I’m a very wise woman, that’s why! Everyone’s there at 17, muttering about their independence and the wind in their hair, and going to shops when they want, etc, etc. When I was that age, all I ever saw driving as was a drink ban. If you were going to drive then you were automatically putting yourself into that pool of ‘don’t worry, you have a drink tonight, I’ll drive.’ I wanted to let my hair down and have a good time!

 

How do you tend to get about? Do you have an enormous taxi bill?

I do! I have a long-suffering mother, I have a fiancé who is at the end of his tether, and I have a massive mini-cab account which I have to keep working in order to pay.

 

Why have you decided you want to learn at this stage?

It was more my fiancé niggling at us than it was anything else. We live about half an hour apart in Newcastle, and about four hours apart when I’m in Essex. And he was always doing the drive, always doing the commute, and he said he was feeling a little bit like a taxi service. Which I understand, and I felt terrible about it, but what could I do? What do you want me to do? I haven’t got time to learn to drive! And then this opportunity came up, and he was like “You’ve got to do it. You’re gonna learn. You’ve at least got to try.” So I had no choice.

 

Had you ever had any lessons before? Or sat behind the wheel getting lessons from mates in a car park?

“I’d never even touched a steering wheel! My sister used to try, bless her little heart, to get me to do the gears when she drove. I think she thought that if I realised I could do the gears then I’d be inspired to do the rest of it – because she’s been another long-suffering chauffeur, as well, for many years – but no, I didn’t take to it at all. I don’t like being told what to do either, and driving instructors are normally a little bit boring. I just thought “This isn’t for me; I’ve got better things to be doing!”

 

You say some driving instructors can be a bit boring. Your instructor was Ricky – how did you guys get on?

“Me and Ricky went on a bit of a journey. I think he was a typical driving instructor, very much wanting to get the job done, very professional, very focussed, and he had a job to do. Whereas I wanted to get to know him, I wanted to chat while we were driving. Of course I wanted to learn, and I wanted to do well, but I wanted there to be more elements. I didn’t just want to sit behind the wheel of a car for eight-hours-a-day, that just didn’t appeal to us at all. So I think we struggled to find common ground. In the end, though, we did go on a bit of a journey, and we managed to compromise.”

 

How would you describe your driving style?

“Erratic, unfocused and disinterested. But I’m sassy with it.”

 

Did it make it more nerve-wracking, knowing that every mistake that you made was going to be scrutinised, and was likely to end up on YouTube?

“But that’s how I’ve lived my life, so it’s just felt like an extension of that. There’s nothing I could do in a car that I haven’t done worse in real life.”

 

Were you or Ricky ever scared when you were driving?

“The main problem with me is that I have no fear. Really! So at times, yeah, of course I realise “Wow, I’m in a situation here where I’m completely unqualified, and there are these huge metal structures crashing around with human beings inside. I could really hurt myself or someone else.” But another part of me is going “What’s the worst that could happen?” I’m just quite ignorant to the whole driving process. Whereas Ricky is aware of every single thing I should be doing, everything I’m not doing, the consequences of my actions if I don’t do them. He was petrified. He would have a seatbelt on, and he’d hold on to the door handle and the dashboards as we drove.”

 

Did he ever turn up in body armour and a helmet?

“No, but he’d quite often take the controls and pedals away from me. I wasn’t his favourite!”

 

What would you say your weaknesses are as a driver?

I wouldn’t say I had many strengths! Concentration probably being number one, and the fact that I only recently – well, I’m still struggling with it – I don’t know my right from my left.

 

Is concentrating something you struggle with in general, or just with driving?

“I’m a funny one. If I’m interested in something, and I really set my mind to it, there’s nothing I can’t do. I will focus, I will get my head down, and I will consider it a personal failure if I don’t achieve something I want. But with driving, I wasn’t sure how much I wanted it, and how much I was just doing it to please everybody. So I found it really difficult to concentrate. Plus I still quite like the fact that I was a princess passenger.”

 

Who were the other celebrities in your week? Were you guys supportive or competitive?

“I was with Nathan Henry from Geordie Shore, and Sketch from Tattoo Fixers – two lovely, lovely lads, but really competitive. I think they’ve both wanted to drive for a while and they felt like they had a lot to prove. I was the only girl, and I felt like I had a lot to prove as well. Driving, I was never going to be the best, but we had to do all these challenges and stuff, and it got pretty heated when we had to do them, because none of us wanted to lose.”

 

What sort of things did you do for the challenges?

“It ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. On my first afternoon, I had to try and park a double decker bus. Bearing in mind on the morning of that day I’d never even touched a steering wheel, and yet by evening I feel like I’m auditioning for a job with Stagecoach! It really was a big jump.”

 

And at one stage you have to bring along friends who will sit in the back of the car. Who did you have as your backseat drivers?

I brought my best friend Gav, and my very good friend Joe Swash.

 

Were they supportive?

“Well, Gav doesn’t drive either, so he was there purely for morale – he couldn’t really give me any constructive criticism. Joe has recently passed his test, so he had a really good knowledge of the test and the roads, and what an instructor would be looking for, so he was a great help. He was a little bit scared, though. And he’s won the jungle, he’s done ten years of trials for I’m a Celebrity… Extra Camp, and he was scared of being in a car with me. What does that tell you?”

 

What advice would you give someone who’s about to start learning to drive?

Don’t.

 

ALL STAR DRIVING SCHOOL STARTS ON MONDAY 18TH SEPTEMBER AT 7.30PM ON E4