Inspiring women from Dawn French to Dolly Parton reveal what they’d tell younger selves

What began as a section in The Big Issue magazine soon developed into a must-do for the biggest names around – giving advice to their younger selves.

Describing their struggles as teenagers and sharing insights they wished they’d known at the time, it became a highly successful book.

Here, in an exclusive extract from the second volume of Letter to My Younger Self, four famous women reveal all about what they’d like to say to themselves as youngsters…

Dawn French, comedian and writer – October 9 2017

At 16, I was virginal. I thought about sex almost every hour of every day. Imagining it, anticipating it, fearing it and longing for it.

I was at a girls’ school and my brother was at a boys’ school so I fell in love with each of his friends. Mostly misguided crushes. Always asking, when will the moment happen?

There were points when I didn’t have much confidence. My dad gave me a talking-to one night, when I was off to a party in my purple suede hot pants. He told me what I was to him. A beauty and a prize. He told me any boy would be lucky to have me. A dad’s boost of confidence to his daughter is a very potent thing. I was very lucky to have him.

I was 18 when my dad committed suicide. If I could put an arm round my teenage self I’d say, one day you will understand this. I was angry, confused, bewildered, sad, blaming all the wrong people, including myself.

But as time has gone on I’ve learned about mental health, and understood that if my dad had lived in a time when he didn’t feel so ashamed of his depression, it might have been very different. At that point, for him, life was a sort of hell.

It wasn’t until the middle part of my life that I began catastrophising. I longed for children and I was so happy when it happened, but the responsibility sometimes felt overpowering. Since then, I’ve made conscious decisions to live differently. There’s a Jane Hirshfield poem where she says: “I move my chair into the sun.” That has been the most useful thing. I’m starting to feel much more optimistic again.

If I could go back to any moment in my life, I’d be 18 again, in a tent, in the dunes on a Cornwall beach…the moment everything I’d been worrying about finally came to pass with a lovely boy.

It was a happy event. And then we went for a big swim in the sea. Bliss.

Shaparak Khorsandi, comedian and author – September 1 2021

At 16 I was extremely shy and quiet and had very long, thick curly hair that I hid behind.

I was very self-conscious about my weight and couldn’t talk to boys easily.

I just hung out with a few girlfriends and went to a lot of indie discos.

At school I only got four GCSEs because I had undiagnosed ADHD and dyslexia.

At that time racism was only talked about in the context of racial slurs. Or duffing people up in alleyways. We didn’t have the vocabulary we have now to describe the more subtle racism that even the people who were harming us weren’t aware they were doing.

We felt in literal danger as children. In 1984 terrorists were sent from Iran to shoot my dad (exiled Iranian poet Hadi Khorsandi).

The plot was foiled but it was a trauma. My dad was my absolute hero. I’d love to say to my anxious 16-year-old self: “You did it. It was really f***ing hard but you did it and it’s so much fun.”

I still meet people I can’t believe I’m meeting. At an awards party and I stood and stared at Billy Connolly because I think he and Richard Pryor are the greatest comics ever. He saw me staring and understood that giving a comic like me a moment of his time would provide me with a precious memory.

He came over with a chocolate-covered strawberry and said “I brought this for you” and we had a silly conversation about chocolate strawberries for about 20 seconds.

Then he kissed my hand and said “I’ve got to go now”. And off he went.

I thought that was the most humane, compassionate thing, to know how happy you can make someone by just saying hello.

If I could tell my 16-year-old self that one day Billy Connolly’s going to come over to you at a party and give you a chocolate-covered strawberry… that would be a very big deal for me.

Coleen Nolan, singer and TV personality – September 10, 2018

When I found out Shane [Richie to whom she was married from 1990 to 1999] had been unfaithful, I thought it was a blip and we’d have counselling and everything would be fine. If I could go back, I’d leave.

I stayed two years too long. But I was massively in love with him. To me, there was nothing missing in our relationship.

He’s said that too, he said he doesn’t really understand what happened. Well, he does… he wanted to have his cake and eat it.

I loved him but in the end I thought, I’m not one of those women who keeps turning a blind eye. In the end, I think we’ve done OK. We stayed really good friends and we still are.

My sisters find it hilarious that I do a chat show [Loose Women] when I wouldn’t say boo to a goose when we were younger.

It wasn’t a planned career move. I went on to a talk show to talk about my break-up with Shane, and it became a regular job.

I realised I did have things to say, I’d just never had a chance in that massive family.

For the last three years of my marriage with Ray [guitarist Ray Fensome to whom she was married from 2007 to 2018] we did everything we could to save it. We weren’t rowing. We were just leading separate lives.

I decided, I don’t want a lodger. So I’d rather you leave and we can be great friends. I don’t look back at the last 17 years as a failure.

I look at them as being great and giving us our fantastic daughter. If I could go back to any moment in my life it would be in my mid-30s. I’d broken up with Shane and I had thought I’d never be in love again [or] have more children. Then there I was, in love and pregnant.

I loved my 30s, and my 40s. I’m not really loving my 50s. I think partly because I lost my sister. And now there’s my second marriage gone.

And I’m thinking, oh Christ, here I go again.

Dolly Parton, singer-songwriter and philanthropist – October 19 2020

I was a pretty good girl at 16. I was in high school at the time, but I had been taking my music very seriously for several years. I didn’t have time to run around and mess with boys.

I was about 13 when I first met Johnny [Cash] and that’s when Johnny was strung out on drugs, but he was so sexy.

That’s when I realised what hormones do. I guess that’s when I realised I was becoming a little woman. We laughed about it through the years. I told him: “You were my first crush.” He always got a kick out of that.

I always knew my ambition was going to happen. I was going to be a star, I was going to sing my songs no matter what.

What I would say to my young self is: “All those dreams, they are going to come true. It’s not going to all be fun and games, you’re going to have to pay the price and do your sacrificing, but it’s going to be worth it.”

I’d tell her about [my song] I Will Always Love You. To me that is a classic love song.

If I could have one last conversation, I’d probably talk to Elvis. I’d probably talk about I Will Always Love You and say: “Hey, I still dream about you singing that song.”