Tom Read Wilson: “My quirks are my superpower!” Be ok with people not liking you

We’ve all got quirks. Tom Read Wilson realised early on that no one else was going to celebrate his differences if he didn’t own them himself. In this chat with Fearne, live from the Happy Place Festival, Tom explains how he learnt to honour his eclectic personality. Fearne and Tom both have a history of extreme people pleasing, so they share what they’ve learnt about self-advocating and getting good at uncomfortable confrontation. Why does turning 40 seem to be when the real honesty kicks in? The I’m A Celeb jungle had a profound impact on Tom, particularly the digital detox part... he explores the huge physical and mental impact giving up his phone has had. Plus, Tom delights in finding the perfect whimsical words, and wonders that language is the key to unlocking better mental health. Tom’s new children’s book, Pricklepaper’s Letter Magic, is out on the 24th of September. If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like: Todd Rose https://pod.fo/e/442763 Joe Lycett https://pod.fo/e/56c77c Ruby Wax https://pod.fo/e/5290b1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Fearne Cotton?

  Hello there, a massive welcome to Happy Place with me Fern Cotton. Today, we're heading to the Happy Place Festival at Tatten Park. And I'm chatting to the utterly delightful Tom Reed Wilson.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I think the being very authentic, I discovered by necessity when I was very young. Because I just sort of realised slowly but surely that the difficulties I was having with people pointing out things that were curious about me was that I didn't have full ownership of them and I wasn't celebratory of them myself. And I thought, if I could just flick that switch, suddenly it would be a superpower. Because there are colours in my tapestry that I rather enjoy.

• 0:47Fearne Cotton?

  I'm really excited about this episode, guys, for so many reasons. I feel like me and Tom need to do some serious hanging out. Right, I am a keen bean, I'm not one of those mysterious cool people. And ever since I've met Tom, I've been working out like ways I can be his friend. One of them is, don't you think, right, this is my petition to start this. Don't you think me and Tom should make our own TV show, or like YouTube thing, whatever the fuck it is, where we just go looking at art together? And we just like hang out at art galleries. I don't know, I need a funny name for it, I haven't had time to think about it. But that is one way that I can solidify a friendship with Tom Reed Wilson. That's, that's my game plan.

• 1:32Fearne Cotton?

  He is the most joyful human being I've ever met. So I rolled up on the Saturday morning of the festival in Manchester. And I had all the feelings going on around me. Tom was my first podcast of the day, so I hadn't really like seen any humans apart from team Happy Place. So I was feeling, you know, you just feel a bit like unable to talk to humans. You sort of can't, you don't know how to say hello, how are you? Like, it just doesn't come out right. I felt like that. And I felt quite overwhelmed about the idea of the festival and meeting so many people that day and smiling all day. Like, all of it just seemed like a bit of a mountain to climb. And I don't want to sound ungrateful saying that, I'm not.

• 2:14Fearne Cotton?

  I'm so, so unbelievably grateful that people turn up to the festival. But simultaneously, I find it unbelievably overwhelming. So I stood in the tent, probably looking a bit shell shocked, and Tom walked in. Oh darling. We had this gorgeous hug. He smells exactly like you'd imagine. Like he's sort of walked out of a little enchanted woodland smelling like pixie dust. He, he's heaven, everything about him. His skin is flawless, his eyelashes are so long and curled. As I said, he smells delightful, every word he utters is pure poetry. And I instantly just sort of breathed a sigh of relief.

• 2:57Fearne Cotton?

  And we talked for about half an hour before we went on stage about Marilyn Monroe. And I was like, right, I feel better about life, I can do this, I can do this festival. This is just chatting to nice people all day. So thank you, Tom, for calming my nervous system and for quite frankly, getting me on that stage. And we had such a hoot during this chat. So let's talk about Tom. He is currently on tour with his show, The A to Z of Me, which is obviously the perfect name for his show because he is such a sublime wordsmith. And we talked loads about his love of language in this chat as well.

• 3:34Speaker 02

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• 4:16Speaker 02

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• 5:20Fearne Cotton?

  Right, let's do it, this is the show.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Isn't this lovely? Because everybody's dressed to be kind of riotous in colour, it's so perfect.

• 5:48Fearne Cotton?

  Look, look at them, Tom, are they gorgeous?

• 5:51Speaker 01

  It's really dazzling, you're all like great blooms.

• 5:54Fearne Cotton?

  Yes. We only let good looking people in.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Well, I can see, very prepossessing, I say as I bore into you.

• 6:05Fearne Cotton?

  Bit early for that?

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Yes, isn't it? What's a lady, isn't it?

• 6:10Fearne Cotton?

  We are so happy to have you here.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm happy to be here. I mean, it's such a dazzling spot, all these great broad canopied oaks everywhere.

• 6:19Fearne Cotton?

  I know, when you drive into Tatten Park, it is so beautiful, you instantly feel calm, the trees are ginormous, there's sheep, deer, deer.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Yes. I was reading about Tatten Park, that the reason that they're sort of fenced off, some of the very old ones, is because they're over 400 years old and the deer and the sheep like to have a nibble, you know?

• 6:42Fearne Cotton?

  I bet they do. Well, we, Tatten welcomes you, Tom Reed Wilson.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Oh, well, I'm delighted.

• 6:49Fearne Cotton?

  We're so thrilled. And you're really busy because you are off to start your tour tomorrow.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  In Colchester, yes. Oh, it's just been such a joy. I did two weeks at the Edinburgh Fringe and it was so special. And I haven't really been in front of a live audience for ages and ages. I did SpongeBob the Musical about two years ago and I played Squidward and I had two bonus tentacles that shot out of my bottom.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  And they had tap shoes on them because I did a big 11 o'clock number that was tapping. And they, I don't know how they did it to this day, they would tap when I would tap.

• 7:29Fearne Cotton?

  This is the strangest thing I've ever heard.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Very strange. Anyway, so I felt very protected by my tentacles and it was, it was strange to go out without them, but it was lovely to meet that, that sort of, it was just so warm. And also, I discovered, because I've not done anything ever where I haven't left the stage, and I get very, very nervous.

• 7:54Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, do you?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Oh gosh, like sometimes notoriously.

• 7:57Fearne Cotton?

  Really?

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Nervous. And, sorry, I just rammed in non sequitur, you discover backstage, it's terrible.

• 8:04Fearne Cotton?

  It's my favourite thing. We've already done, like, off mic prior to this, we've done a deep dive on Marilyn Monroe.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  We did. Did anyone see that exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery?

• 8:16Fearne Cotton?

  Best thing ever.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Phenomenal.

• 8:18Fearne Cotton?

  Best thing, like, I can't even breathe thinking about it.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:22Fearne Cotton?

  We, we did a good half an hour on that, didn't we?

• 8:23Speaker 01

  We did, yes.

• 8:24Fearne Cotton?

  It was so great. No, we, we want you to talk, that's why you're here. Very much why. So when you're on stage and you're doing your show, are you, are you just chatting? Is it storytelling? Is it singing? Is it everything?

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Oh, it's the whole kit and caboodle.

• 8:37Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  It's called The A to Z of Me. And it uses the alphabet really as the pegs on which to hang my bunting. And, and I use it as, I think the alphabet, I suppose if you're a logophile like me, it's the ultimate way to kind of disbosom and to share. And so I do a lot of disbosoming via the alphabet. And each letter inspires a word, which then sort of spins out into a personal anecdote or a song or a sonic, or even a tap dance at one stage.

• 9:10Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, I love it.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's very, it's very eclectic. I say it's a bit like a sort of a minestrone soup of a show. Because it's so, it's so chaotic, but, but hopefully the bits that you find in the minestrone are all toothsome.

• 9:24Fearne Cotton?

  Oh yeah, of course, absolutely, nourishing, quite frankly, very nourishing.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:29Fearne Cotton?

  Many of us will know you from Celebs Go Dating, but actually, your first big TV appearance was The Voice.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  It was The Voice. And actually, that spanned out of the theatre too, because I was in a very, very bad, I don't think anybody concerned would mind me saying, because we all knew it.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Murder mystery play called Sweet Revenge, which was a Francis D'Herbrides play and he used to write plays for radio. And I have to say, they were very good on the radio, but they should have stayed on the radio.

• 10:02Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Because it was sort of things like, you know, there was a character called Marion in that play. And she came on in one scene with suitcases and she said, goodness, these suitcases that I'm carrying are very, very heavy. And you're like, you couldn't have modified that from.

• 10:18Fearne Cotton?

  So good for radio.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  From the audio, yes.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  So it was a bit, it was a bit dicey and I was supposed to be a suspect in this murder mystery and I was very unlikely, I mean.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  He was meant to be unlikely, but I made him, I think, triply unlikely.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  But I had a thought while I was doing that play. I thought, I'm sort of bumbling along in my twenties. My dad used to be so tickled by my penury and he'd say, oh, my eldest's always lived off the smell of an oily rag. And I thought, well, this is unsustainable long term. So I secretly auditioned for The Voice and honestly, it was such a lovely television baptism because they couldn't have been kinder.

• 11:05Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, good, because that's not always the case on shows like that.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  No, no, I gather not. And they just, they ascribed a vocal coach according to your style of singing. Then they gave you a huge choice of repertoire. I mean, it was very easy for me because I only really knew three songs on the list.

• 11:30Fearne Cotton?

  For Any Toxic? No. Bewitched? No.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  So I did the oldest song of the series, which was from 1943, and it was Accentuate the Positive.

• 11:44Fearne Cotton?

  It's like the least surprising thing ever.

• 11:48Fearne Cotton?

  So great.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  But it's funny because it is one of my favorite songs. And there's another song that sort of celebrates optimism by Oscar Hammerstein that I love called Cockeyed Optimist. And I think that was sort of his spirit. When the skies are bright canary yellow, I forget every cloud I've ever seen.

• 12:09Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, that's lovely.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Isn't that the perfect description of a cockeyed optimist?

• 12:12Fearne Cotton?

  That's so gorgeous.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  It's like being a goldfish.

• 12:16Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Well, this lap's rather lovely. I'll forget all the previous one.

• 12:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. I like that. I'm gonna think like that for the rest of the year. When you were on The Voice, you said that you feel like you're from another era. Have you always felt like that? Was that like a childhood sense that like, I don't really belong in this era?

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Yes. And I think it, I mean, I think the thing that binds us is our passion for the arts. And with you, it's very much painting, not exclusively, but very much.

• 12:48Fearne Cotton?

  We love painting.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  And with me, it's always been the theatre, really. And my granny, when I was knee high to a grasshopper, gave me a stack of her original LPs. And it was the original cast of My Fair Lady and South Pacific and Oklahoma and Carousel and State Fair. I mean, it was just wonderful. And I lived on them. And it was sort of a strange dot to dot because I discovered that the man in My Fair Lady was in the most wonderful adaptation of Blythe Spirit, Rex Harrison, by Noel Coward.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Then I went from Blythe Spirit to Brief Encounter, which I must have seen 13 times by the time I was 12. So, but I, I mean, my, what I was ingesting, I mean, my background was pretty anachronistic anyway because I grew up on a college campus and it was all hugely protected and quite insular, very beautiful. And my dad had this amazing delicious turn of phrase. And then that coupled with this sort of great dollop, ladlefuls of Noel Coward and old musicals. I think it made for a slightly eccentric 12-year-old boy.

• 14:10Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I love it. And it shows how impactful and influential music especially can be when you're a kid. I think it does set the tone for a lot because my version of that was, my mum and dad had lots of vinyls lying around. And it would be Led Zeppelin or Queen or The Faces. So all of my musical sort of taste at that point was like, I don't know, 1970s rock and roll. So I now have the musical taste of a sort of 70-year-old man. Like, I love that era.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  And I have my granny.

• 14:44Fearne Cotton?

  And you have your, exactly. You're literally like an 80-year-old woman.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  I really am.

• 14:49Fearne Cotton?

  It's brilliant.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  I really am. And to most of the audio world, I am an 80-year-old.

• 14:56Fearne Cotton?

  It's the best. But I think it does set the tone for so much. Like, I've often thought I would love to have been around in like LA on the Sunset Strip in the 1970s. That's where I would belong. I would feel better in that era. Obviously, we don't know because there's probably equal amount of problems in that era and your preferred era. But that sort of rose-tinted look back, it does feel like, oh, I would have loved to have been around then.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Oh, I completely, do you ever have sort of fantasy opening nights that you would have attended outside your life?

• 15:26Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, like all the gigs in LA in the 70s, I would have been absolutely there with flares and platform boots.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 15:36Fearne Cotton?

  And not having a mobile phone. Like, I know that sounds like such a basic moan, but it would have been great, right?

• 15:42Speaker 01

  No, do you know, most interestingly, in the jungle, the thing that we all discovered, especially curiously, the people that were influencers, like Angry Ginger.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  We all said about two weeks in, isn't it just divine to be digitally liberated?

• 16:03Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  And we all felt it so intensely and so profoundly that we made a pact, which we all kept to, to have an extra 48 hours after we left off.

• 16:15Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, wow.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  And it's so true. You feel, slowly but surely, you feel your whole inner tempo slow. And it's the most extraordinary feeling. But the very interesting thing is that the body's resistant to it for quite a long time. And I kept bursting into tears because I could feel every cell saying, no, this, I don't know what it is, cortisol probably.

• 16:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, yeah.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  This sort of, this hit, I want. So it's very uncomfortable when it's melting away, but melt away it does. And then when you get through that sort of knotty woodland and come out the other side, you feel utterly free and about a stone lighter and with a much quieter inner voice.

• 17:06Fearne Cotton?

  Well, I think all of our nervous systems feel slightly electrocuted because we are so used to not only like getting the dopamine hit of looking at it, but also just like WhatsApp's pinging all day. Like, many of us here have kids who either have gone back to school last week or they're going back, mine go back Monday. It was a long summer. And it's the class WhatsApps. Like, sorry, why have I had 80 WhatsApps that I haven't looked at yet, which say nothing, by the way?

• 17:36Speaker 01

  I think it should be embargoed.

• 17:37Fearne Cotton?

  It's a nightmare. But we're all sort of slightly electrocuted from this pinging. And we're like, oh, this is just how it is. It's normal. We just have to cope with it. But actually, you having been in that situation where you're forced to have that removed and then feeling the benefits after, like, it's a withdrawal, isn't it? Where you have to like, get out of the habit of looking and having that dopamine hit. And then what? You feel stress-free completely?

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Yes, you do. And then your antennae shoot up and they're still up to a certain extent. I mean, we've probably all just had that little moment with the rain there.

• 18:10Fearne Cotton?

  I'm ignoring it. Didn't happen.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  It sort of sent a tingle to my home entertainment centre. I was like, ooh, I love that sound.

• 18:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I know what you mean.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  I suppose we're protected.

• 18:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, we're in a tent.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Do you know Hermione Gingold? I don't know if you know that wonderful dotty old actress, Hermione Gingold. And she moved to America and a member of the press said to her, I think in the 70s, Hermione, you're so quintessentially English. Why do you never come back? And she said, oh, my dear, England's a lovely country, but desperately in need of a roof.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  But we've got one.

• 18:49Fearne Cotton?

  We have. And actually, now we are moving, it's the 5th of September, I want to say today. And we are moving into that love, I actually love a bit of autumn and early winter. I'm not good with winter in January, February, March, April, sometimes May. We're still in winter. But the bit before Christmas where you can have those days where it's raining or like 4pm, it's dark. Love, put my pyjamas on. And it's raining, a few little candles, I've made a bit of soup, I'm watching Bake Off. And it's raining outside. Oh!

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Well, also, I have to say, I think you're the queen of layering.

• 19:28Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  You're always, she always looks delicious, doesn't she? But.

• 19:32Fearne Cotton?

  I'm always freezing, so I have to have a thermal vest, like my mum, and a t-shirt and a cardigan. I want all the layers.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Yes, and I get excited about your sartorial wizardry.

• 19:42Fearne Cotton?

  Thank you.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  From autumn onwards because it's layers upon layers.

• 19:45Fearne Cotton?

  That's when I know how to dress. I don't know how to dress in the summer. I don't know the rules. I don't understand how you're meant to dress. In the winter, it's easy. Chunky socks, a chunky knit, a jacket, some chunky boots. Everything's chunky and delightful.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  So many vigorous nods then. I think, I think.

• 20:03Fearne Cotton?

  We understand.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Concert with you.

• 20:04Fearne Cotton?

  We love it.

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• 20:21Speaker 01

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• 20:38Speaker 06

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• 21:00Speaker 02

  Hi, everyone. It's Katie Couric and on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households, yet many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long-term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected, whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years, so its customers can keep theirs.

• 21:42Speaker 02

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• 21:58Speaker 04

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• 22:31Fearne Cotton?

  I want to talk more about The Jungle, which we've touched on a little bit there. We had Ruby at our London Happy Place Fest.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Oh, my chum, yes.

• 22:38Fearne Cotton?

  Your chum. Your bond was so brilliant and made so much sense, although we didn't see it coming. But as soon as you had that little unity, it was like, you two are soulmates. You're meant to have a friendship.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. And it's funny because I really felt awful when I first met her because it was like, I thought, I'm terrible if I meet somebody that I'm a sincere fan of.

• 23:03Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, it's awful.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Oh, it's awful.

• 23:05Fearne Cotton?

  You can't be yourself.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  You can't be yourself and you're so desperate to... I mean, I had it with Philistine Kendall, actually, because she lives very near me and I love her oeuvre, especially in the theater. And the first time I met her, I said, oh, I saw you in Mrs. Warren's profession and I saw you four times in The Vortex and I saw you in The Last Cigarette. And I listed it and I thought, afterwards, I thought, you moron. She knows what she... She knows what her credits are. She did them.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  And she looked... Her eyes were on organ stops and luckily I had a sequel and she'd forgotten all about it and I learned my lesson. And then I just picked one and she did a deep curtsy on the steps of Gales.

• 23:51Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, on the steps of Gales?

• 23:53Speaker 01

  What?

• 23:54Fearne Cotton?

  With a cinnamon bun?

• 23:55Speaker 01

  With a cinnamon bun. I thought, what a delicious response.

• 23:58Fearne Cotton?

  That's so great.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  But I was a bit like that with Ruby.

• 24:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  The boy took the finger out of the dyke and outdushed all of this.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  I sort of said, I know all of your singers from ABFAB and I started quoting them at her and again, she was like, well, I wrote them. I do know.

• 24:17Fearne Cotton?

  That's so brilliant.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  But I mean, the joy of The Jungle, well, for me, was that you can't escape.

• 24:23Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  So she probably thought, I can't escape.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  But it means that you get that lovely word that you used backstage, parody, one of my favorite words. You get that parody much sooner.

• 24:37Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, you're all shitting in a hole.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  You're all shitting.

• 24:40Fearne Cotton?

  You're all eating rice, like it's, there is an even playing field.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 24:44Fearne Cotton?

  So yes, you can be a mega fan of someone, but you're all in it together and that's why the show works so well.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Yes, that's so true. And so that being on the wonk because you're a superfan and you're this sort of lofty, adored figure doesn't last for very long when you're all shitting in the same danny, as you say.

• 25:03Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  So that was lovely because as soon as that leveled off, she became a chum and we realized that our frame of reference was exactly the same. I mean, for example, I don't know, did any of you see Girls on Top, which was her first big, big thing in the 80s with Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders? And they were all flatmates, this sort of dottily eclectic group of flatmates and their landlady was the very diminutive, very brilliant Joan Greenwood, who actually was the matchmaker for Ruby and her husband, Ed.

• 25:46Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, wow.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Who I think directed that. But we chatted endlessly about Joan Greenwood because I fell in love with her in the original screen adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest. And I just loved her sort of cherries and molasses voice and I knew that she did the first really important revival of The Vortex, which is my favorite coward play. And so I was pumping her endlessly about Joan Greenwood and she said, oh, God, she was everything you wanted her to be. And she died very shortly after Girls on Top came out, very sadly. But it was wonderful to have that kind of ping pong with her.

• 26:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Because we, sort of strangely, again, anachronistically for me, knew all the same people.

• 26:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, and also there's nothing to do, apart from when you've got these ghastly challenges, but there's nothing to do. So the whole thing is about connection with humans. And again, I think that's why the show is so popular with all ages, because it is just people sat around getting to know each other, trying to find that common ground, trying to find those little moments where, you know, even Ruby and Ginge, you would on paper think they've got nothing in common, that they would not get on.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:04Fearne Cotton?

  And they had this brilliant little rapport going on.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  They did.

• 27:07Fearne Cotton?

  Because you are just sat around without distraction.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:10Fearne Cotton?

  Finding those lovely moments that we're sort of missing a lot today in terms of, you know, you don't sit on the train anymore without a phone in your hands. You're missing that moment to say a quick hello to the person next to you or to make eye contact. That show is the antithesis of what we're dealing with in modern day culture, which is we're just permanently distracted.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  I completely agree. And, you know, we talk about finding our tribe a lot, don't we, in modern life? And I think what The Jungle does is that it reveals, after a measure of time, that your tribe might be more to do with your essence than all the bells and whistles on top, you know? Because I think that's why those funny relationships that on the surface don't look very likely end up happening because you think, oh, well, actually, they might be superficially not very like me at all, but actually we have the same rhythm, we have the same kind of

• 28:14Speaker 01

  music, our souls align, something comes out of their solar plexus and pours its way into mine. It's much more, I don't know, almost sort of visceral what happens between people when you strip all of that.

• 28:29Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Nonsense away, really.

• 28:31Fearne Cotton?

  It is nonsense.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:32Fearne Cotton?

  And what was the integration back into reality like after? Because it is, you know, you're in there a long time in that really alien environment without your phone and without people that you normally hang out with and without... You've got a structure which is the rhythm of like keeping a fire going, cooking the food, but actually.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:49Fearne Cotton?

  Your usual rhythm is vastly different. Was it strange kind of re-entering the atmosphere?

• 28:54Speaker 01

  It was. It was... I cleaved to everybody in my orbit because you sort of come out and it's the immediate advent of Christmas. And then I had a very, just the most delicious family Christmas with my granny, who's this sort of great matriarch and is in her mid-80s and still insists on doing everything. And I muscle in to be a sous chef. And, but I mean, I'm so redundant.

• 29:23Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  I'd sort of hover there as this sort of phantom, culinary phantom.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  But it was magical to all be together. But then I think I had a delayed dip, actually, because I hate January. It's probably the only thing... January and peanut butter are probably the two things.

• 29:46Fearne Cotton?

  How can you not like peanut butter?

• 29:48Speaker 01

  I know, and everybody feels that way.

• 29:50Fearne Cotton?

  January, I'm on board. It's shit. But peanut butter is my greatest joy.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  I feel so bad.

• 29:57Fearne Cotton?

  Is it the texture, the clagginess? What is it?

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Well, it's the riddle of the Sphinx to me because I love peanuts and I love butter.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  But it's a mélange that my tongue doesn't want. I was, I was, um.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  I was traumatised when I was very little because I didn't like it when I, I can't believe I'm talking about this. I love it. But I didn't like it when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. And I went to a New Year's Eve party and they played an awful game called Guess the Condiment.

• 30:34Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, I used to love this. Yes, because it used to be on, what was Timmy Mallett's show called? Whackaday.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 30:42Fearne Cotton?

  And you, and so we used, my auntie Karen used to set this up for me and my cousin Bieber. This is what we would do. We would have all the things and you would have put a blindfold on and guess. Yes.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Yes, that's exactly what we did. And actually, the people before me all got things I adore. They had, I think they had raspberry jam, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco. I just love all of those things. But then I got peanut butter and because my body was already slightly resistant to it. I was sort of, sorry to be coarse in this illustrious group, but I was up-chuckingly ill. And it, it traumatised me. So I can't even be, I had a flatmate once who was addicted to peanut butter and would just walk around eating it out of the jar.

• 31:29Fearne Cotton?

  That's me, yeah.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Well, I tell you what isn't you is there would be little globules in the carpet.

• 31:35Fearne Cotton?

  No, no.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  And I would, I'd clean them and when you, when you clean them up, a little sort of puff would tickle your olfactory bulb. And I would retch and scrub and retch and scrub. It was awful.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Awful.

• 31:52Fearne Cotton?

  I'm sorry, but like globules of anything in a carpet is just, it's a no.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  It's not good on a tufted shag, is it?

• 32:02Fearne Cotton?

  It's really not.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Everything else is lovely.

• 32:10Fearne Cotton?

  It's the worst. But it's so funny, like, stuff like that you never, ever forget from childhood. I've got two of those. One, yeah, I mean, I'm vegetarian and have been for a long time. But prior to that, I used to hate chicken nuggets. And one time I went to a friend's house, I must have been about eight or nine, and it was chicken nuggets. And I was thinking, oh, and you're too young to go, oh, I'm sorry, blah, blah's mum, I don't like chicken nuggets. She's just like, I better eat them.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  I bet you were so polite.

• 32:39Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, I put one in my mouth and you know when it's more fat than chicken?

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 32:43Fearne Cotton?

  And I was like, I've got to get this out of my mouth. I was like, I'm going to the toilet. Span it out in a tissue. I'm hiding it behind the bin in the downstairs loo, like awful. I wouldn't, I can't even look at chicken nuggets. Like you don't forget that stuff.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  No, you didn't. What was the other one?

• 32:59Fearne Cotton?

  The other one was I went to a friend's house and the mum put raisins in a shepherd's pie.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 33:07Fearne Cotton?

  Raisins. And I was like, I don't understand. And I was looking at it like with horror. And I was trying to pick them out and then I was trying not to make it obvious I've made a pile of them. So raisins and shepherd's pie in the bin.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  I, I don't mind a raisin, but, but I don't think they belong in anything savoury ever.

• 33:27Fearne Cotton?

  I really do not. I can confirm that one for you.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Do you remember that, that, um, that curry sauce? I think it was Home Pride that used to have raisins in it. Absolutely ghastly. And for a while it was ubiquitous. I hope it's gone.

• 33:44Fearne Cotton?

  There's so many, I mean, I'm a little bit older than, you're about to turn 40, not, not long. But we're, we're off the.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  I'm going to be a quadrenarian.

• 33:52Fearne Cotton?

  You really are. We're of the same sort of era and our childhood featured some weird stuff. My mum, who was like a lot of 80s mums, really like she had four jobs, she's knackered, she could give a toss about what I'm eating at lunch. She used to put in my sandwich, that squeezy cheese that's not cheese. Like.

• 34:16Fearne Cotton?

  I'd be like, I'm not eating that. I'm not eating it. Or a sandwich spread.

• 34:22Fearne Cotton?

  Bits of not real vegetables. What is it? Chunks of coloured stuff in a jar, in a sandwich.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  You know what I do like though, that's endured from our era is Baby Bell.

• 34:33Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, Baby Bell, a hit stay.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Very keen on a Baby Bell.

• 34:38Fearne Cotton?

  Me too.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  But, but the other thing from our era, which is lost now, and I, I still, it sounds awful, but I mourn it every day. And I don't think, probably anybody will agree with me, which is why it's gone. But it's the dark chocolate bounty.

• 34:54Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, love.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Does anybody, do you like that?

• 34:56Fearne Cotton?

  You're with your people.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm with my people. Do you know, when I was at school, there was, there was nothing at the sweet shop that I liked. I'm not very big on sweets and I love dark choc, I love everything in high concentration. I like my curry as hot.

• 35:12Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  I like my coffee black. I mean, I really like things to pack a wallop. I think I've got a Teflon palate.

• 35:18Fearne Cotton?

  No, but I've read something about this, which is worrying because I'm the same. I like dark, dark chocolate. I like bitter coffee, grapefruit. Apparently the sign of a sociopath.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Oh, darling.

• 35:30Fearne Cotton?

  I read it somewhere and I was really worried because that's my palate.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh.

• 35:34Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  But does it modify with age? Because I, oh God, I'm so sorry. I'm hugely oversharing. You can, you can snip this if you like.

• 35:46Fearne Cotton?

  No, no, absolutely not. Nothing to be snipped.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  I find, I just did my show for the RNLI in Dorset. And my dad lived nearby and he said, oh, I'm going to take you out for a Nepalese curry. And I thought, oh, how wonderful. And we had the most toothsome monkfish curry, but it was very, very hot. And I was ingesting it with all the delight imaginable. But it's the other end now. And, and the thing is I don't, because my palate's so sort of Teflon-y, I don't compute. And then after the fact, I think, oh, but the body is a system.

• 36:32Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, there are repercussions.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Yes, and, and nerve endings, you know, in the rectal department are a little bit more sensitive. So I have to think ahead now. That news not to happen to me.

• 36:47Fearne Cotton?

  No, no, look, you are in a tent full of menopausal women. We get this. You're speaking our lingo. This is, this is what we've come here to do. To talk about this stuff in life. We don't want to do the surface chat. We've done all of that. We did it in our twenties and thirties. We're here to talk about assholes, okay?

• 37:10Fearne Cotton?

  Not specifically, but I'm just talking, like, we're here for the real chat. Oversharing is our language.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Yes, so contemporaneously we share our souls and share ourselves.

• 37:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yes. Exactly it.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  I think, I think that's the way forward.

• 37:26Fearne Cotton?

  It's perfect. It's perfect.

• 37:31Speaker 05

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• 38:02Speaker 02

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• 39:33Fearne Cotton?

  Let's talk about your dad, because I know that he has been the catalyst for you to go down this route of etymology and your deep passion and love for language. What's his background? Why is that his thing?

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I feel very similar to you in a way, because your dad was a painter, wasn't he?

• 39:49Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  And I know that that found its way into your very digits.

• 39:53Fearne Cotton?

  It does, yeah.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  I had to say, I don't know if you've seen it, but Fern's portrait of Vivienne Westwood, I think is the best portrait of her in existence.

• 40:04Fearne Cotton?

  Which is nuts. Thank you.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Because you can see her very soul, and I was a huge fan of hers. And I thought, you know, that face is a fascinating face, because it's such fine bones. And you can see it sort of suffused with that incandescent intellect.

• 40:23Fearne Cotton?

  She's so beautiful.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  And that's what you capture, because you see the sort of frontal lobe behind it. You know, it's extraordinary.

• 40:32Fearne Cotton?

  Thank you. That's so kind.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  But, yes, so I had a similar apples and trees scenario. And my dad was, he was amazing, because he would have what I would call dances of the synonyms, which he does to this day. I mean, if I meet him for lunch at the end, he always says something along the lines of, "Oh, Sonny Jim, that was lovely," but all too transient, fleeting, brief, short-lived, ephemeral. And he'll just go and go and go until he's found the perfect word. Or maybe somewhere in the middle of all of those words lies the meaning. But he also would do it with etymology, because I remember seeing the most beautiful

• 41:19Speaker 01

  window display in a department store around Christmas time. And I think I was, I think I was eight. And he said, "Look at that exquisite window display." And then he stopped in his tracks and he said, "Window, vanda auga," from the Dutch. Nothing to do with glass, all to do with the wind hopping in and out of the holes in buildings. And I was dazzled that that two-syllable word had a story buried in it. And we used to do that all the time. And I think my siblings were interested. I was fascinated.

• 41:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  And it became for me the kind of ultimate rabbit hole that I never wanted to climb out of.

• 42:05Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, I love it. I mean, you put a lot, I love your books where you've got the story behind words. Again, like window, you know, words that we think, we don't even think about. We're just using language, saying, we don't give it a thought. And there's so many interesting stories behind, literally every word that we use.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Well, that's actually, that's why I called that one, "Every word tells a story," because I thought, gosh, you just don't know.

• 42:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  You don't know. I mean, one of my other favorites is squirrel. And again, in that little two-syllable word, the Greek root is skia aura, of shadowy tail, because behind that little creature is this feather boa tail that makes the shadows dance behind it. And I think, isn't it wonderful? Suddenly, you're given these retinas that look at the world in a completely different way. I do it with my spragglits all the time, dandelion, don de lion, because those jaggedy leaves look like the whole set of lion's teeth. It's extraordinary, isn't it?

• 43:08Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, it's so wonderful. Language is, I mean, I find it so, so fascinating. And it's, there's probably no coincidence I've ended up in a job where most of it is talking. There's, something feels very important to me about communicating in the right way. And I don't always get it right, obviously. Like, I've done all sorts of faux pas, and I've said stupid, clumsy things to people, or I've said things that I regret later down the line. But most of the time, I'm really keen for people to understand me. And the best way I can get that across is with words. Do you feel, I don't know, for me, it feels sometimes like a bit of a desperation. I need people to get me. Does language lend itself to that for you?

• 43:53Speaker 01

  I feel exactly that. I feel so, it's a bit like you with painting, too. I mean, it's sort of, you've got the canvas air and you think, that's not quite right. I'm just going to add, or I'm just going to create some nuance or some additional color. Because you do want to convey exactly what you're feeling. And the thing is about language, it's ultimately always reductive. Because I always think, there's a thing with pre-verbal children and with animals, where you get a look, I'm sure you all know that look, that seems to bore into your very soul.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  It happens very often if you sort of fame crossness, or something to kind of indicate a boundary. And they look at you as if to say, in that single look, it sort of says, are you really cross? I'm going to look behind your countenance and into your very soul and see how cross you really are. And it's like, it's the ultimate intellect. But then, of course, in order to convey all of those thoughts and feelings, we need a color palette, and our color palette is words. And it's clumsy, and it's clunky, and it's not really fit for purpose. But the more colors that we have, the easier it becomes to convey what we're feeling. And I know you've got Susie Dent tomorrow, haven't you?

• 45:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, we have.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  She's a great chum of mine, and she wrote a wonderful book, which I highly recommend, called "An Emotional Dictionary." And at the beginning of it, she discusses something called Rumpelstiltskin Syndrome. And she explains that, you know, in that, in that story, he sort of says, "Oh, it's such a complicated name. You'll never guess it." And so you guess and you guess and you guess until you can name it. And there's a similar thing with emotions, where the more nuanced and the more complex and the more detailed your description of the emotion, the closer you are to understanding it. You sort of unlock it in a Rumpelstiltskin-esque way.

• 46:04Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, that's why I think therapy is so brilliant. Because you sometimes don't know why you're feeling an emotion, or you're stressed out, whatever it is, until you start putting words to it. And that's the little trail that leads you to, oh, like the epiphany, you get it.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Yes, and I think that's why it's nicknamed the talking cure. Because by talking and talking and talking, and, you know, good therapists don't say all that much.

• 46:32Fearne Cotton?

  No, they don't.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  And then you, as a consequence, talk and talk and talk and talk, and you get closer and closer and closer and closer. Because this funny old tool that we're given, from the brain to the tongue, can get us there retroactively. It's the most bizarre sort of two-pronged fork in existence, really.

• 46:57Fearne Cotton?

  Are there still things that you find hard to say? Are you good at confrontation, or?

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Terrible.

• 47:03Fearne Cotton?

  Terrible.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Terrible at confrontation. Are you?

• 47:06Fearne Cotton?

  I've got much better at it over the years. I think, I mean, I definitely was like a grade A people pleaser for a long time. Like, as long as everybody around me seemed to be okay with what I was saying, doing, how I was acting, I was like, I'm on the right path. Until I started to feel like deeply resentful about things, really pissed off about certain things, or just really tense about certain situations. So I think probably, actually, when I hit 40, very incrementally, I started to think, maybe I could play around with this and say a few things that I'm genuinely feeling, and see what happens. And what I realized, and still am, you know, sort of five years into this experiment, is when you start really saying what you mean, when it's needed,

• 47:51Fearne Cotton?

  I don't think you have to go around saying every single thought about everything, but when it counts, I think you do end up pissing people off.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:00Fearne Cotton?

  And that's the bit that you then have to sort of live with. Like, be okay in the discomfort of, not everyone is happy with me right now, or what I've said, or my decisions, or how I'm living my life. And That's the bit that you have to then practise. It's not actually the confrontation bit, it's the bit, it's the aftermath of it.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Yes, that's, I think that's fascinating. And it's so interesting how so many people say that forty is the beginning of that journey. My mum says it too.

• 48:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  I don't, do most of you feel that that way? I mean, lots of you aren't over forty, but would you say?

• 48:37Fearne Cotton?

  He knows all the right things to say.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  No, but would lots of people say that's the beginning of that candour?

• 48:45Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, clapping, yes. I mean, I've got friends in their sixties, seventies, eighties, and they're like, you wait, it only gets better. Like, you just don't, you do just naturally, in that cliche way, start to care less about what other people think. But the fascinating thing about you in that context is that the reason, or one of the many reasons why we love you, is that you are so authentically yourself. And the word authentic has been so overused, like, what does it even mean anymore? But you are you, truly you, without influence of what everyone else is doing and saying, or how they're acting. This is you.

• 49:28Fearne Cotton?

  So it's interesting then that that you still have that counter, which is, but I, but I am worried about confrontation or saying what I truly think to people.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes, it's a very interesting dichotomy. I think that the being very authentic, I discovered by necessity when I was very young, because I just sort of realised slowly but surely that the difficulties I was having with people pointing out things that were curious about me was that I didn't have full ownership of them, and I wasn't celebratory of them myself. And I thought, if I could just flick that switch, then suddenly it would be a superpower. Because if I'm celebratory of them, then people in my immediate orbit will be.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  And I will just be able to deflect any comments that aren't, because there are colours in my tapestry that I rather enjoy.

• 50:29Fearne Cotton?

  And at what age are you landing on that?

• 50:32Speaker 01

  I think the epiphany sort of happened in my mid-teens.

• 50:36Fearne Cotton?

  That's early.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  It was quite early, but then I think that that becoming an absolute sort of rooted reality took about another ten years after.

• 50:47Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  And it got a bit, bit like your journey from forty into kind of true candour. It was sort of, that was the beginning, that was the genesis. And then about four, five years in, it started to feel cemented, and then grew and grew and grew. But, um, yes, it's funny. I suppose that's my, that is my kind of next mountain to climb, that kind of candour. Interestingly, I do it on other people's behalf. I just don't do it for me. Because if it's a matter of principle, I can get very, very angry. I mean, I've hurled things at question time before.

• 51:24Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  You know, and.

• 51:27Fearne Cotton?

  I want to see that. I really want to see that.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  And I, I think there are, there are groups who are marginalised that aren't given enough of a voice. I mean, the one that immediately springs to mind is the trans community. And I will pin my colours to the mast whenever I can. But I, I think somehow, it's called self-advocacy, isn't it?

• 51:54Fearne Cotton?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  And I can do it, and I have done it, I think, twice in the professional arena. But I, the difficulty I have is that I have to kind of weigh it so hugely, because I feel physically ill for a good day afterwards.

• 52:12Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, yeah, I still do that.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  You still do?

• 52:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I, if I, like, even recently, I was in a, a meeting, and I was really honest about how I was feeling about certain things, that I'm doing at work, and, and how I'm feeling about it all, and blah, blah, blah. And I, and I felt really good in the moment of like, yeah, I'm being really honest about this. And I wasn't being mean or throwing my weight around. I was just saying what was on my mind. And then that night I got into bed and thought, you terrible person, what an awful person. They're all going to think this of you and that. And then it, you know, it starts spiralling because it's ten o'clock at night or whatever. But I think it's riding that bit out, and knowing that actually in the moment, it's exactly what I needed to say, and exactly how I needed to conduct myself. But it's the after bit, I think it's a bad habit that we have to

• 52:59Fearne Cotton?

  get rid of. And it's just, it's a habitual cycle that we're in that we can override with practice.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  And, and, yes, I was just going to come on to the practice part, because would you say that each subsequent occasion has been fractious?

• 53:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, definitely. If I look at myself in my career in my twenties, I wouldn't have said anything to anyone. I would have just thought, I'll lose my job, I don't want that, I'll just do as I'm told. Whereas I think that's not always factually correct. You know, you, you are allowed to, I mean, certainly back in TV in those days, many of us young women, you know, we were portraying the way we didn't want to be, and we'd have to wear clothes we didn't want to wear, whatever. And I would never do that these days, and I wouldn't think I'm going to lose my job because of it. But I think it's, there is still a discomfort that you've got to, and equally, it's probably actually harder outside of work. I think if it's with a friend or a family member, to really say how you feel about something often feels worse.

• 53:56Fearne Cotton?

  It's more complex emotionally, and the ties with that person. I don't think, I'm not sure many people ever feel completely comfortable with it.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Are you optimistic about the generations coming up being better? I mean, are your kids better at pinning their colours to the mast about?

• 54:12Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:14Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, yeah. I think, I think so. I don't know. I'm forever interested in, like, all the younger generations and how they're doing things differently.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:24Fearne Cotton?

  Um, I do think, when I look at younger women, I think, oh my god, you know yourself so much better than I did at that age, like.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:33Fearne Cotton?

  They just are holding themselves with a bit more clarity, and they're speaking their mind a bit more, and.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  And they're so informed, aren't they?

• 54:41Fearne Cotton?

  So informed. Completely.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  It's extraordinary. Their kind of socio-political knowledge, when, I mean, before they even sort of.

• 54:50Fearne Cotton?

  Completely.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Secondary school, it's quite staggering.

• 54:53Fearne Cotton?

  I think I am quite hopeful, actually, about that. I think you've got to be, haven't you?

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, I have to say that the sproglates in my life, I do sort of think I could pin a huge amount of societal hope on you, because I think that everything you're doing, and, and I think they're all empaths too.

• 55:12Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  It's amazing. They're all, they're all empaths.

• 55:16Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 01

  And I, I, you know, don't use that word lightly, but I, I see it. I really see it. And, and I think that, I mean, I, I really, I'm no expert on this door, but I think they say that empathy comes, typically comes a bit later, when you're sort of around ten. And I've seen acts of compassion in, in some of the kids in my life that can only be described as empathic.

• 55:45Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  Um, at five and six.

• 55:49Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  So I think maybe it's a, maybe that's a really heartening shift, because if our lenses are spun outwards, I think that can only be good for the world.

• 56:01Fearne Cotton?

  I agree, I agree. And let's face it, some of that is because we're parenting a bit differently to our parents.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  I think that's so true.

• 56:09Fearne Cotton?

  Uh, no shade, I'm not throwing any shade on our parents, because they were doing things differently to their parents. They were like, even living through the war, post-war, you know, it's a very different time. But I think each generation, we are kind of thinking, oh, I won't do it like that, or I'll do, I'll tweak it a little bit, do it a bit differently.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:28Fearne Cotton?

  Our kids will probably look at us and think, oh my god, they got it so wrong, and parent entirely differently again, you know. It's just a perpetual cycle of little tweaks, generationally, I guess.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 56:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I agree. I'm hopeful about, I think, the next generation, they, they're definitely going to advocate for themselves more than we have, without a doubt. There'll be no people-pleasers.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  No, it's, no, no.

• 56:49Fearne Cotton?

  None of them.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  And I, I, I think, I suppose the world is tricky, isn't it? And particularly at the moment. And we must cleave to those things where we do see hope, and I see it very much in children. And I see it in art, in the creation of art.

• 57:11Fearne Cotton?

  Mm, me too.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  And I, and I see it in the theatre. Do you know, this is the thing I love best about being on stage again, because I think, and it's a little bit true of here and now, because performers send a sort of laser beam across the footlights, and audiences send one back of matching intensity and investment. And somewhere over the lip of the stage, something is created that is utterly unique to that day and those people. And I think when the world outside is hell-bent on destruction, how wondrous to have a microcosm that's hell-bent on creation.

• 57:51Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  To me, that's the best exemplar of humanity.

• 57:54Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I love that. That's so beautifully put.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:59Fearne Cotton?

  That's definitely what I think me and team Happy Place, in our own little way, want these weekends to be here and in London, is that everything in the confines of this little section of Tatten Park, we just create lots of good vibes and happiness and joy. And, you know, we will each year see people walking around who have come completely on their own, and then they leave in a group, like, they'll make friends with someone in a book. Oh, it's so adorable. And that's definitely what we want to do. Like, we know there's all sorts of shit going on all over the shop.

• 58:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:28Fearne Cotton?

  But just for these two days, within the confines of here, we'll just make it as lovely as we can, come rain or shine, and just like, have a lovely time. And I do think there is a bit of a ripple effect with that in general.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  You can see it, Vern. You've achieved it, and it's palpable, because in the short walk from here to the tent behind, everybody, every countenance I locked eyes with was beaming.

• 58:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  You know, and it was sparrow's fur.

• 58:53Fearne Cotton?

  No knobs allowed. There are none.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Happy Place catch.

• 58:57Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  Oh, bruh, yes.

• 59:00Fearne Cotton?

  It's very much our manifesto around here.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Corporeal, corporeal knobs are allowed, though. Just not.

• 59:08Fearne Cotton?

  Knob knobs. Literal knobs.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  No.

• 59:11Fearne Cotton?

  Wait.

• 59:14Fearne Cotton?

  But no, we do have just a lovely bunch of people and I so agree. There is such a lovely, unique little magic created when you get a bunch of strangers in a room or a tent together and it's pure magic.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  Isn't it lovely?

• 59:25Fearne Cotton?

  It is.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  And whatever guff is spouted, you know, that's what we need that.

• 59:30Fearne Cotton?

  We do.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  We all need each other. It was Aristotle that said we are first and foremost social animals and it's true. I think it's what makes us unique. We need each other. We need this connection. We need to sustain one another.

• 59:44Fearne Cotton?

  We do. To round things off sadly, because I want this chat to never end.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  Me too, I don't want it to end.

• 59:51Fearne Cotton?

  Where is your happy place, Tom?

• 59:54Speaker 01

  I think it has to be the theatre and I don't mind. I don't mind if I'm treading the boards, being a thespian or being a punter. I just, I love it because I think it really is. It's the best exemplar of humanity being wondrous with a common goal. That and singing in a choir.

• 1:00:17Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, singing in a choir, heaven.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  If you sing in a choir, lots of choristers. I think if you sing in a choir, there's no, you're not thinking about your sound, your vocal sound. You're thinking about your contribution to the whole sound. And every voice is as important as every other voice. And I think that's a beautiful, a beautiful metaphor for humanity.

• 1:00:43Fearne Cotton?

  I see a choir in my future. Like I think when my kids go to uni, that's my time and we're joined some sort of local choir.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 1:00:52Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Well, I will be in the front row.

• 1:00:55Fearne Cotton?

  Yes. I want to do like modern pop songs choir style. That's, that's in my future.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:02Fearne Cotton?

  Like I know it.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  And these wonderful M Ds that do these four part arrangements. Who are just geniuses, I think.

• 1:01:09Fearne Cotton?

  It's happening, without a doubt.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Oh, bliss.

• 1:01:11Fearne Cotton?

  Tom, we, we have covered, I don't even know, Timmy Mallett, Sandwich Spreads.

• 1:01:17Speaker 01

  Chicken Nuggets.

• 1:01:18Fearne Cotton?

  Chicken, the repercussion of a hot curry. We've, we're done, we can go home. You are just the most beautiful person and that is why you have filled this tent, because we all adore you. What you stand for, what you say, how you move through the world. You are just a pure joy. So thank you so much. Please give it up for Tom Reed Wilson.

• 1:01:43Fearne Cotton?

  I am so here for the dark chocolate bounty, getting so much love in the room. Do you know that that is one of my favourite chocolate bars as well as Mick Cotton? My dad Mick absolutely loves a bounty and a dark chocolate one is his bounty of choice. And my daughter is such a sweetheart that every time we go to the newsagent, she buys my dad a bounty. I mean, he must have about 50 in the fridge at the moment. But that was a, that was a powerful reaction, guys. So here for it. And also, Tom Reed Wilson, I started this chat and I'm going to finish this chat in the same way. Can we hang out? Can I be your friend? I feel like we're meant to be together. I feel like we could be married. I feel like me and Tom could get married and we'd co have it so beautifully together.

• 1:02:27Fearne Cotton?

  Anyway, that will not happen, but I do think we should go to art galleries and film it. Tom's new children's book, Prickle Paper's Letter Magic, is out on the 24th of September. So if you've got a three to seven year old in your life, I'd highly recommend that. It's a lovely little gift. And we also talked there about his dear friend, Susie Dent. Her new novel is our book club pick for September. So you can hear that festival chat with her in a couple of weeks. And that was such a fun one. If you want to learn some cool new words, you need to tune into that chat. All right, I'll be back very soon, but in the meantime, a massive thanks again to Tom and to you. You are beautiful, gorgeous and glorious and magnificent and all the other superlatives. I love you.

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