SWINDON’S star Billie Piper talked about growing up in the town and her career on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.

And she shared the eight tracks that she would take if she was stranded on an island, including Gene Wilder’s Pure Imagination, and The Streets’ Turn the Page.

The 38-year-old is known for her pop career before moving into acting with roles in Doctor Who as Rose Tyler and I Hate Suzie as Suzie Pickles.

On her song choices she said: “I am a massive Biggie Smalls fan.

“It reminds me of my life in Swindon. I absolutely love hip hop. It’s something that people don’t really know about me,but I always listen to Biggie before I go into any new experience, before I go on stage, or before I go and an audition for a new job.”

In 1998, Billie – then 15 – became the youngest artist ever to debut at number one in the UK singles chart with Because We Want To.

She grew up in Swindon and went to Bradon Forest School in Purton before leaving for London to go to Sylvia Young Theatre School, along with the likes of Amy Winehouse. She told Lauren Laverne: “I’d say it was really competitive in sort of an unnatural way for that age.

“I loved it but it definitely was a bit of a bloodsport, for sure, because you were competing for work as well. When you joined that school, you joined an agency, and you are very aware of children being cast in work, work that you maybe didn’t get from your casting, or you weren’t even put up for, and why weren’t you put up for it? It makes you super aware at an age that I’m not sure you should be.”

She also told of her times smoking while sat on a train from London back to Swindon to see her parents. And feeling lonely as she was on a ‘quest’ to become an adult.