NEW stage show Mum’s The Word 2 takes the mothers in the audience on a journey down memory lane.

But it’s a lane that’s sometimes dark, and more than likely a setting for some major embarrassment.

The show is a comedy which rewinds on the moments mothers have had to contend with, such as when their brains turn into rusks, thanks to living in their toddlers’ pretend world for longer than is healthy.

It recalls the angst kids can cause such as when every illness they pick up will surely mean they’re confined to an iron lung for life.

And that’s before it even gets to discussing teenagers.

But what of the actresses who star in the show such as Julie Wilson Nimmo?

Can the East Kilbride-born mum of two boys, Benny and Chevy, relate to the tales she will be relating to the King’s Theatre audience this week?

“Oh yes,” she says, laughing. “There is so much of this play I can identify with, as will the audience. It really brings home the confusion you feel as young mother.”

Julie recalls the confusion was there from before she gave birth.

"I once watched the breastfeeding video in Yorkhill Hospital when I was pregnant in which some wummin in Denmark was saying things like (Danish accent) ‘When you go on the bus you just take your boob out and feed the baby- and if you have twins you can feed two at the same time.’

“I thought ‘Where’s my jacket. Im out of here.’ I hadn’t even thought about feeding, never mind on a Number 26 bus. There was two months to go and this blast of reality hit me in the face and I totally freaked out."

The actress didn't have friends who could empathise.

“Well, I was the first of my acting pals to fall pregnant," she recalls. "I had only been married a year to Greg (Hemphill, the Still Game star) and so I was sort of on my own, twenty-eight and clueless.

“I read about fifty books on parenting. And Greg bought some too so we thought ‘Yip, we’ve got this. Bring it on.’ But you know we hadn’t a blinking (not word used) clue."

Julie's memory lane is littered with disasters.

“I remember when Benny was a baby we took off on a holiday to Ireland for a two month tour. The idea was we’d meander around the idyllic countryside, check out the lovely pubs, see friends.

“But the reality was it was an absolute nightmare. On one night, on our anniversary, we booked a gorgeous restaurant and Benny went insane-blinking mental. He was so bad they had to give us our dinner on a tray and we took it away.

“For me, that trip was all about trying to breastfeed in a car and it was horrendous." She adds, grinning; "Thankfully we laughed about it later and it bonded us.”

Julie did have help along the way however, for which she is eternally grateful.

"I was lucky being the youngest of four sisters so I was able to learn from them, and from my mum.

“My mum basically brought us up on her own because my dad was away on the rigs for so much of the time and she did a brilliant job.”

Yet, nothing prepares you for the reality.

By the time Chevy came along four years later, Julie was in a better position to cope. Sort of.

“I was still rotten (not actual word used) at it but you learn from the first experience. For example, when you take the kid to the doctors for the second time you’re able to say ‘No! I am not going to be fobbed off. I’m not leaving here until you give him an antibiotic!’"

Ah, baby sickness. Julie accepts she was just like every young mum, in that she became an international class panicker.

“Yes, one of them boys hurts their finger in the door frame and you automatically assume they will be paralysed for life.”

Being a working mum brings its own difficulties.

“For the first two years I was going to auditions with padding in my boobs. The leakage was disastrous.

“And then when I did land jobs the guilt kicked in. When Balamory came about (she played Miss Hoolie) Benny was seven months old I felt I couldn’t go off to filming.

"Thankfully Juliet Cadzow (who played Edie McCredie) was a great help, having been through all this with her own son, Shane.

"Yet, when I appeared in the Tron panto I felt guilty as hell, even though I love being there."

Julie muses; “Greg could do it okay, however, rehearsing at the Hydro or whatever. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love the boys, but men don't seem to feel the same guilt."

Julie loves her boys to bits. She's even wrestled with them during their WWF phase. (Still on-going).

But the confusion still reigns.

“I phoned my mum the other day to get advice on dealing with a teenage boy, because Benny is now fourteen and it can be tricky.

“But she said ‘I don’t know! I had four teenage girls. It’s not the same!”

“How do you know how to talk to fourteen year-old boys about girlfriends?

"Then you have to factor in the fact the boys are so different. In the morning, Benny will ask me when I’m coming hope. Chevy and Greg could care less. But Chevy still wants to cuddle me."

Clearly she loves being a mum.

“I do, but the guilt and the worry ruins women," she says.

But she's at the point she can now enjoy going out to work.

“I used to love acting, but now I really love it. I can go out and be me, and have fun./"

So life with her boys is calm, and ordered?

“Are you kidding?," she says, grinning. "The two of them are off school today, sick, and the big one is in his bed as well.

“You couldn’t write it.”

*Mum’s the Word: Toddlers to Teens, also stars Jane McCarry, Libby McArthur, Lorraine McIntosh and Suzie McGuire, the King’s Theatre, until Saturday.