The letters returned with Liam Payne
Earlier in lockdown, listeners had written letters to themselves at the age of ten.
The response had been so strong that Scott and Chris wanted to revisit the idea at the end of the year.
Before returning to listeners’ letters, they asked somebody whose life had changed on a scale almost nobody could imagine:
Liam Payne.
Liam admitted he had initially struggled with the exercise.
Once he started writing, though, it became unexpectedly therapeutic.
At ten he was sporty, a little geeky and more interested in running than becoming a global pop star.
He had competed seriously in cross-country and had been one of the strongest young 1,500-metre runners in the country.
Music was already there, but nothing about the next decade could have seemed realistic.
“Get ready — it’s about to get a little bumpy”
Liam’s letter told his younger self to cherish family holidays and ordinary time at home.
Life was about to turn surreal.
At 14 he would audition for one of the world’s biggest music programmes.
He would also meet the woman who would later become the mother of his child.
There was one piece of advice Liam clearly wished he had understood earlier:
slow down.
Fame arrived so quickly that it felt as though he had peaked before he had even begun.
He told himself it was a marathon, not a sprint.
One Direction would be chaos — and that was the point
The letter told young Liam he would meet four boys moving along the same path.
The beginning would be chaos.
He should enjoy it.
Stay young at heart.
Forgive more.
Listen more.
Travel the world.
Live a life far beyond anything the ten-year-old version could have imagined.
Then the group would stop.
For a while Liam would feel as though he had been left with nothing except the steering wheel and responsibility for choosing where to go next.
That stage frightened him more than he had expected.
Fatherhood became the new journey
The next adventure would be Bear.
Liam told himself not to doubt whether he could be a good dad.
He had already learned so much from everything that had happened.
Surely some of that could be given back to his son.
Liam later told Scott and Chris that parenthood had been another moment where self-doubt arrived despite all the extraordinary things he had already managed.
2020 forced him to look back properly
The final part of the letter reached the year they were living through.
Liam joked that his younger self should start buying masks and hand sanitiser.
More seriously, 2020 had made him stop and reflect.
He had spent years chasing the next thing.
Only later, including conversations with Louis Tomlinson, had he begun to understand just how enormous One Direction had actually been.
He said he had lived what felt like several lifetimes by the age of 27.
The letter left him feeling grateful rather than simply nostalgic.
M&S Craig’s fame continued
The other breakout star of the week was still Craig from M&S Longbridge.
Radio 1 had found him after his Scan & Shop explainer started spreading on TikTok and social media.
Scott kept insisting Craig’s natural delivery suggested a future far beyond supermarket information videos.
For a podcast containing one of the world’s most famous former boy-band members, it was entirely in keeping with the show that an M&S employee also received star treatment.
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