“It won’t have legs for long, this,” she’d say to her fellow founding co-host Kaye Adams (as recalled for The Guardian). “What are we going to talk about?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Adams would reply. “Think of a friendship that lasts for decades. The conversation goes on and on.”

Adams’ answer was not only prophetic, it also gets to the genial heart of the show’s enduring success. The rotating panellists create the safe spaces and candid conversations that you usually find only in a long-lasting friendship. It has won them a loyal audience and multiple awards (including Best Daytime ­Programme at this year’s RTS Programme Awards).

If any TV format lends itself to such an intimate and freewheeling medium as the podcast, then it is surely Loose Women. And because it’s not tied to the strict segments and pre-watershed airtimes of the TV show, the podcast is even looser.

The panel is whittled down to a different pairing for each episode, and they move between the usual relatable subjects, from marriage to motherhood and everything in between, imparting wisdom, a lot of laughs­­ and plenty of “epi-fannies” (that’s epiphanies in Kaye-speak).

Sawalha opens a recent episode with a typically brazen admission. 

“I was just chatting to the producers, and apparently my 23rd wedding anniversary is on the 6th June. Thanks guys.” Her co-host, Frankie Bridge, rightly singles out the word “apparently”, before Sawalha adds that she even placed a crate in the garden with the date written on it, in an effort to etch it into her memory. 

“But unfortunately the date got rained away quite quickly.”

They may laugh at this accidental metaphor for the inevitable fading of romance, but it kicks off a genuinely insightful conversation about long-term relationships. When Bridge says that she and her husband, Wayne, didn’t follow through on their plans to renew their vows for their 10-year anniversary, Sawalha reflects that, although your natural response might be to lament the loss of a spark, actually: “There’s such a comfort in going, ‘Oh do we have to? Can’t we just stay in?’”

As a 28-year-old man, I am probably outside their target demographic, but I would be lying if I said I hadn’t experienced my own “epi-fannies” while listening, and I’m sure my partner will appreciate any emotional literacy that has rubbed off on me.

That said, I do catch my breath when, in that same episode, they start discussing vasectomies and Sawalha refers to them as “teeny-weeny little crushers”.

At the time of writing, the podcast has just been renewed for a second series, having reached “well over one million views”. To quote Adams: the friendship lasts, and the conversation goes on and on.