Anton Du Beke: Escaping An Abusive Father, Changing My Name & The Agony of IVF!

How do you take control of your future when you can't change your past? In this uplifting episode of Begin Again, Strictly Come Dancing star and judge Anton Du Beke joins Davina McCall to share his extraordinary life story, and why he's always been determined to create a future on his own terms. Anton opens up about his difficult relationship with his father and growing up around violence. But he's clear that he doesn't want sympathy, and has never wanted those experiences to define him. He explains why never hitting back and avoiding confrontation was his way forward, and how he refused to let his childhood dictate the rest of his life. He reflects on leaving school at 15 to pursue ballroom dancing, working his way to Strictly Come Dancing and his wonderful friendship with Bruce Forsyth. Alongside a conversation about his wife Hannah's experience with endometriosis, their IVF journey, and the incredible joy of becoming a father to twins at 50. Full of warmth, humour and wisdom, this is a conversation about resilience, self-belief and why your past doesn't have to determine your future. 🌟Like, comment and subscribe for more honest conversations about purpose, resilience, love, loss and beginning again. Follow us here: 📸www.instagram.com/beginagain 🎥https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod ✨Sign up for the Begin Again newsletter for behind-the-scenes access, recommendations and much more: https://linkly.link/2g2xm Follow Anton Du Beke here: https://www.instagram.com/mrantondubeke/ Buy ‘Steps In Time’ by Anton Du Beke at: https://linkly.link/314Yk or buy the audio book at: https://linkly.link/314Yw (00:00) Intro (01:00) Writing His Memoir 'Steps In Time' (03:44) Leaving School At 15 (05:00) Growing Up With Immigrant Parents (09:25) Discovering His Passion for Dance (11:54) Working With Bruce Forsyth (21:21) Following In Bruce Forsyth's Footsteps (24:50) Where His Work Ethic Came From (26:16) Why Dancing Is His Escape (27:52) BHF Ad (29:03) Ancient + Brave Ad (30:42) Cutting Contact With His Abusive Father (42:54) Falling In Love With Hannah (47:03) Becoming A Dad Later In Life (56:36) A Special Message From Anton's Kids Sponsored by: British Heart Foundation: To help fund lifesaving research, visit https://bhf.org.uk/keepusbeating to donate now and keep us beating Ancient & Brave: https://ancientandbrave.earth/planet use code BEGINAGAIN for 20% off Sync ID: MB01FIT6I84BLZD Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• 1:28Speaker 05

  I never fought back physically because you don't lay hand on your parent. But you're around and you go, well, this can't be it. Surely, I thought I will be something, I will make something out of my life.

• 1:41Speaker 06

  Today, I am joined by Strictly Come Dancing legend, Anton Dubek. People could be forgiven for thinking that you have lived a life of privilege.

• 1:51Speaker 05

  No, it was, we got to survive.

• 1:52Speaker 06

  So you ended up taking care of your sister a bit?

• 1:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, my sister went to a dance school. I went to meet her. The teacher went, come on. I got dragged up and I suddenly went, oh, actually, I do know, I quite like this. But I left school when I was 15 and I went and got a job because the ethos in our house was nothing's ever given.

• 2:08Speaker 06

  That's tough.

• 2:08Speaker 05

  My father, we didn't have a relationship.

• 2:10Speaker 06

  He stabbed you in the leg and the stomach?

• 2:12Speaker 05

  And the stomach.

• 2:14Speaker 06

  You've been through all of that and look at you now.

• 2:17Speaker 05

  I didn't want you to find me. Just understand this, you are in control of your own destiny.

• 2:22Speaker 06

  Anton's story is proof that it's never, ever too late to begin again.

• 2:29Speaker 06

  This is an honor, I've just got to say. I knew a bit about you.

• 2:35Speaker 05

  For me?

• 2:35Speaker 06

  But learning more about you has made me love you even more, if that was even possible.

• 2:41Speaker 05

  You're amazing, thank you.

• 2:43Speaker 06

  You're an inspiration.

• 2:44Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 2:44Speaker 06

  And I'm going to tell everybody there why now.

• 2:48Speaker 05

  Okay, I won't interject until there's a bit I don't agree with.

• 2:52Speaker 06

  I'm going to tell everybody why by interviewing you.

• 2:55Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 2:56Speaker 06

  You're going to tell everybody why.

• 2:57Speaker 05

  Soliloquy.

• 2:58Speaker 06

  No, no, no, no.

• 2:58Speaker 05

  Anton Dubek.

• 2:59Speaker 06

  No, no, no, no. I mean, first off, actually, I am going to talk about this. Steps in Time.

• 3:05Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 3:06Speaker 06

  New book.

• 3:07Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 3:07Speaker 06

  And it's basically stories from your life to show why you are who you are, but also, I think, to inspire people. Because I think.

• 3:16Speaker 05

  Well, if it does, then I'm delighted.

• 3:18Speaker 06

  I think when you hear about where you come from as a person and where you are now, it is an amazing tale of reinvention.

• 3:28Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 3:29Speaker 06

  Time and time again, picking yourself up, dusting yourself off.

• 3:32Speaker 05

  Do you know, the funny thing about these sorts of things, like memoirs, I mean, I've written many novels in my time and I love doing it, I love creating the stories, love creating the characters. And the way I do it is that all the stories that I've done are familiar to me. So all the stories that I tell with the novels are just familiar stories to me. There are life I could have lived in, there are people I feel I know, you know, they're obviously, you know, they're all based on somebody you've probably met through your life in some way, shape, or heard lovely stories about. So doing a memoir was difficult in as much as that I've not made anything up.

• 4:11Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 4:12Speaker 05

  But everything that's gone before has not been that interesting to me because I lived it and it was just, for me, it was normal. It's not when you speak about your life, it's just normal. Other people go, it's extraordinary. And you go, was it? It just felt like Wednesday to me. So this was different, hugely different for me to be able to do this. And it sort of came out of the idea of having done lots of, over the years, of being on television and having done a thousand interviews, as you would have done. You always talk about bits.

• 4:47Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 4:48Speaker 05

  You know, you spent your life talking about your life in a sort of non-specific way. So I've decided to do the first part up until Strictly Come Dancing, really, which was because I've always felt that from that moment, everybody's known everything about me.

• 5:03Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 5:03Speaker 05

  It's been there. The bit that people don't know, or might be interesting to people, is the bit that preceded that. And this is what this is, really.

• 5:12Speaker 06

  I mean, I was fascinated, there's so much about you, because I think that people that haven't heard your whole story could be forgiven for thinking that you are from a middle-class family, that you have lived a life of privilege, that you were very well-educated.

• 5:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:37Speaker 06

  You're a clever man, clearly. No, but it's amazing because effectively, I now know that you are self-taught.

• 5:46Speaker 05

  Yes, well, yes.

• 5:47Speaker 06

  In life?

• 5:48Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 5:49Speaker 06

  You left school very young in order to go and work and pay for dance.

• 5:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, I left school, I mean, it sounds terrible and I can't tell, I'm going to say this out loud because my children might go, oh, did you? It just turned out all right then, didn't it? I left school when I was 15. I didn't even finish the year out, really. I went on, I'll see you all later. And I didn't, and I went and got a job.

• 6:08Speaker 06

  Can I quickly go back actually a little bit? Because I want to talk about where your parents.

• 6:14Speaker 05

  Right.

• 6:15Speaker 06

  From, because actually, you leaving school at 15 makes me want to ask you about your parents, but I need to go back and ask where they came from because your parents both came to the UK.

• 6:28Speaker 05

  My parents are foreign, they're both immigrant parents, if you like. So my mother's Spanish, my father's Hungarian. Now, if you think about the countries that they grew up in, you've got, and this is just sort of post-Serco World War, so you've still got Franco's Spain and you've got sort of a communist Hungary. And there was an uprising at the end of the 50s in Hungary, in Budapest, with the, you'll see the pictures and the famous newsreels of the tanks rolling through Budapest at that time. So you think about those sort of oppressive regimes. As far as my parents are concerned, they're just rural people living in these rural towns.

• 7:11Speaker 05

  And they got to a certain age and went, there is, there's sort of nothing for me here. We're gonna, we're gonna live for hugely different reasons. My father escaped because it wasn't a case of just being able to go, right, okay, I'll get on the train, I'm gonna go. No, no, you couldn't do that. You had, you had, it was very much more difficult than that. So he escaped through the dead of night in sort of a classic fashion. My mum came to the UK in the sort of late 50s, I think, around 1960, I think. It's really interesting, I say this, I think, because we didn't really talk about it very much growing up because although this, whenever I talk about this stuff, it's sort of extraordinary, but in our house, it was normal.

• 7:55Speaker 05

  This is an extraordinary life because this is normal. You know, you came to the UK and you formed communities, it's normal. So my mum came over, didn't speak a word of English, sort of came over with a promise of maybe sort of work as an au pair or something, or, anyway, it didn't, it didn't transpire. She got over, it was sort of a lumber, nothing to do. So I had to go and immediately find a job, do something. My father escaped through the dead of night, over the border, into Austria, through to Switzerland, blah, blah, blah, eventually made his way over to here and immediately started working. So they are, in that regard, extraordinary people.

• 8:37Speaker 05

  And then what they do is they arrive and they immediately sort of go, right, we got to, we got to.

• 8:45Speaker 06

  Survive.

• 8:46Speaker 05

  We got to survive.

• 8:47Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 8:49Speaker 05

  But they know immediately that this is a better situation than they were in before. Because I, we used a holiday at the grandparents when we were young, we used to go over in summer holidays and spend the whole summer holidays either in Spain one year, Hungary the next, and that's where we stayed, stayed with the grandparents. It's, there's nothing around, maize fields or farms and stuff, not, and the village and there's a bar there where the workmen go and there's the beach, you walk through the woods and you're onto the seaside and that's it. It's just a, it's not, this is rural, that's it.

• 9:24Speaker 06

  Did it help you understand your parents better?

• 9:26Speaker 05

  No, I didn't have to understand them at all, really, because they were my parents.

• 9:29Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 9:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, that was, for us growing up, this was normal. I had no idea of going, people talk about, oh, we're going to go and see Auntie Joan on Thursday down in Sittingbourne. Oh, that'd be nice for her. I don't have Auntie Jones. So there was us, there was my sister, she's about four years younger, well, about, she's four years younger than me. My brother is 14 years younger, he says, much younger. So when we were little, it was the four of us.

• 9:52Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 9:53Speaker 05

  And that was it, working parents, two jobs, you know, latchkey child is an expression that is often used, but I am, you know, I would go to school at the local primary school, lovely little primary school, actually, Lady Boswell's, walk up and my mum would be working at the bus canteen, the bus station canteen, go across there, meet her after school, might have some, some tea there or something, we get on the bus, go home. To me, growing up, none of this was extraordinary, it was normal. You know, and we, at the summer holidays, we get in the car and we drive two days to Spain or to Hungary. I didn't stay in a hotel until I was about 18.

• 10:33Speaker 06

  I mean, I think this is the interesting thing, because I think people, people would think you'd come from privilege, but actually, it's a very simple but happy childhood to the point. But what I, what I was quite interested in was because you were a latchkey kid.

• 10:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 06

  And you ended up taking care of your sister a bit for your mum.

• 10:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:54Speaker 06

  Was that how you went to a dance class?

• 10:56Speaker 05

  Well, that was much later, that was when I was about 13 or 14.

• 10:59Speaker 06

  12, 13.

• 11:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, so my sister went to a dance school.

• 11:02Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 11:02Speaker 05

  She would do dancing lessons on a Wednesday and then I went to meet her, but I'd got there like 15 minutes after they'd begun. I was in, sitting there like.

• 11:12Speaker 06

  Oh, watching the whole class?

• 11:13Speaker 05

  I was watching the whole class. Ridiculous. Anyway, the teacher came over and went. You can't sit there and watch. Come on. And I went, oh, no, no, I just, I just want to wait. She went, no, you must come on. So I got dragged up, uh, dragged up. I got.

• 11:27Speaker 06

  Dragged in.

• 11:28Speaker 05

  Dragged.

• 11:28Speaker 06

  For the class.

• 11:28Speaker 05

  And I started and I suddenly went, oh, actually, I do know what I quite like this. Don't mind this. Makes complete sense.

• 11:34Speaker 06

  What did you do? What was the first thing that she got you to do?

• 11:38Speaker 05

  We did some walks. We did four side together, back side together.

• 11:40Speaker 06

  Oh, wow.

• 11:41Speaker 05

  Back side together. And the thing about dancing is I've always maintained that for men is the name of it. They go, let's go dancing. And men instantly go, oh, no, I can't do that. I can't do that. Cause they don't know what to do. Girls are lovely. They can just go like that. Come on, girls. They stand there and they dance, don't they?

• 11:58Speaker 06

  It's really true.

• 11:59Speaker 05

  They dance around like that.

• 12:00Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 12:00Speaker 05

  Boys can't do that.

• 12:01Speaker 06

  No.

• 12:02Speaker 05

  Boys need some sort of form. Men need a sequence of steps and then they go every night. Cause you'll find that once men get a routine or a sequence of steps, they're in. I should try this again because they want to get better at it. Girls just want to have a lovely time. I'm having a lovely time. This is great.

• 12:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's okay. So you want to learn.

• 12:18Speaker 05

  So once I'd got the, uh, once I'd got the, uh, once I'd decided, and I thought, oh, I like this. Um, and I like the form of it. Oh, you've got to stand properly. You've got to do this. You've got to stand like that. Stand up properly. All right. Okay. Stand properly. Face to wall. I like the form of it. I like the fact I could understand it. There was a point to it. Then, you know, you go on, it becomes competitive. We were all very sporty growing up.

• 12:41Speaker 06

  I mean, that is an amazing way also, if anybody's watching that maybe has a son. Social skills.

• 12:49Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 12:49Speaker 06

  Dancing skills.

• 12:50Speaker 05

  The best thing.

• 12:51Speaker 06

  Um, freedom.

• 12:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:53Speaker 06

  Confidence.

• 12:54Speaker 05

  All of the above.

• 12:54Speaker 06

  A discipline.

• 12:56Speaker 05

  It will do you zero harm.

• 12:58Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 12:59Speaker 05

  To go and learn to dance in a sort of formal dance class.

• 13:04Speaker 06

  But.

• 13:05Speaker 05

  Or even if you just want to go there and do a sort of open dance class and do like commercial dance or jazz or.

• 13:10Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 13:10Speaker 05

  If you want to start doing, my advice to anybody is do it all. Try it all. Don't just go, I'm only gonna do cha-cha. No, do the whole thing. Learn how to tap. Do classical ballet.

• 13:20Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 13:20Speaker 05

  You know, don't worry about all that other stuff. Just do it.

• 13:23Speaker 06

  Can I ask you about, cause we, you and I grew up with Brucey.

• 13:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:27Speaker 06

  And all of a sudden, here you are, um, in your career.

• 13:34Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 13:35Speaker 06

  On a show.

• 13:36Speaker 05

  With Brucey.

• 13:37Speaker 06

  The man. What? Cause I loved, when I was younger, I loved Donny Osmond. I loved the Osmonds. They were my boy band. And I sat next to Donny Osmond on the mast. He was on the panel. They had like, he just wanted to lick his face. I was like, don't lick his face. Don't lick his face. And all the people.

• 13:57Speaker 05

  Sit still. I'm going to lick you. I don't want you to move or respond. Just be quiet. Allow me to do this for me.

• 14:02Speaker 06

  All the people that knew how much that would have meant to me are dead.

• 14:06Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 14:07Speaker 06

  But you.

• 14:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:08Speaker 06

  Get it.

• 14:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:10Speaker 06

  Because you lived that.

• 14:11Speaker 05

  Entirely.

• 14:12Speaker 06

  Tell me.

• 14:12Speaker 05

  I grew up, I grew up watching Brucey. I grew up watching Brucey, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly.

• 14:18Speaker 06

  Kelly, yeah.

• 14:18Speaker 05

  The Rat Pack.

• 14:21Speaker 05

  I loved that stuff.

• 14:22Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 14:22Speaker 05

  Love that stuff where there's the band or something and somebody's there at the back with the audience. Brucey going, how would you do? Love it.

• 14:32Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 14:33Speaker 05

  Love, love the, I loved that. I love, it's all right for you. Might be a day out for you. It's a living for me. Anyway, so I said to the Vic and everyone Thursday, I, I love that. So I love variety.

• 14:44Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 14:44Speaker 05

  Really. I love that variety.

• 14:46Speaker 06

  But you're very good at that.

• 14:47Speaker 05

  Immediate connection with the audience. That's why Brucey was the king.

• 14:52Speaker 06

  He was.

• 14:52Speaker 05

  Was the greatest, Jimmy Tarvett once described him as the greatest pusher and puller of people in the business.

• 14:58Speaker 06

  What a brilliant description.

• 15:00Speaker 05

  Pull him around, get him exactly where he wanted to be. Now that thing they used to do and Generation Game. Oh my god.

• 15:05Speaker 06

  The best.

• 15:06Speaker 05

  We used to watch it just for the end bit, the play at the end where he'd open the door, read a bit of script and it was wrong. It was all brilliantly done and he pulled some woman out of the thing, read this and she'd read it wrong. Brilliant. Brilliant. The greatest manipulator of people in, in the business. I, I, I loved all that and he was my hero really. So when they started Strictly Come Dancing and they said, uh, Bruce is the host. I said, sign me up. That was it really. That was the only reason. That was not the only reason. I wanted to do the show, but if there was any sort of moments hesitation, Brucey being involved was the nugget. Really, it was the cherry on top. And we become firm friends because of golf, both keen golfers. We became, uh, firm friends, uh, pretty quickly.

• 15:50Speaker 05

  I'm gonna tell you this, you can either use it or don't use it. I know we got all afternoon. We haven't got all afternoon, but I'm gonna tell you this. So I'm doing a show. I'm doing a little thing at the Cabaret Room, uh, the, um, the Hippodrome in Leicester Square, right?

• 16:02Speaker 06

  Love it.

• 16:02Speaker 05

  Now, I'm playing golf with Brucey. It's a, it's a, it's a magic mics up there now.

• 16:06Speaker 06

  Yes, yes.

• 16:07Speaker 05

  So anyway, they turned it into a casino. They've got the, the, the Cabaret Room, 200 people, yeah, 200 people in the room. Little stage, little round tables, balcony, classic, right? Like club, you think, but the flamingo, but smaller. And so I'm playing golf with Brucey on the Monday and he said, you've got a thing coming up. I said, you know, Brucey, I've got a thing on Friday. I'm doing it Friday at the, uh, at the Cabaret, uh, room, uh, you know, at Leicester Square. Uh, just me and the band. Um, I've got Lance is gonna be with me, like wonderful Lance. He's gonna be with me and we're gonna do some, I'm gonna do some songs, a bit chat and some with Lancey and all that. It'd be great fun. Oh, he goes like that.

• 16:46Speaker 05

  And I was like that. And I go, hmm, maybe I should have asked him. Maybe I should have mentioned it before and said, would you like to be involved? I thought, hmm.

• 16:57Speaker 05

  So I'm telling you, I've got a bit, sort of, I've got a bit like that. Oh my, I've got a bit of anxiety. And like that. So I got in the bag and I said, listen, Brucey, if you, I'd love you to be involved. If you'd like to be involved, if you're not doing it on Friday. And I'll get involved if you'd like to have a, come down to, I'd love you to get, be, be involved. He went, oh.

• 17:16Speaker 05

  That was it.

• 17:18Speaker 05

  And I went, oh no, I've overstepped now. I've gone too far.

• 17:22Speaker 06

  I've done it.

• 17:22Speaker 05

  I think I've overdone it now. I think I've, I've, I've pushed a friendship too far. We played golf for another two hours, barely spoke to him.

• 17:31Speaker 05

  I was, by the end of it, you know where you try to be overly, oh, Brucey, good shot. I'll go play. You're playing the best I've ever seen you play, Brucey. You're amazing. Oh my god, you're amazing. They can have that. Oh, amazing. Right. No, thanks. All right.

• 17:45Speaker 06

  Oh, no.

• 17:46Speaker 05

  Anyway, right. See you later. Thanks very much. Off we went. Oh, I was crestfallen. Anyway. Following day, he calls me. Oh, hi, Brucey. Didn't even say hello. He went, I've got an idea. Oh, yeah. That, that thing you're doing on Friday night, he said, if you've organised it, he said, tell me to fuck off. Mind me my business. I said, no, no, of course. He's got an idea. Bring your M D. Don't know why I'm mimicking being on the phone. Um, bring your M D. No one has a phone like this anymore, do they? Five, three, Mayfair, eight, four, six, hi. Um, so he said to me, he said, bring your M D and Lance and come to the house on Thursday. Okay. So I was phoning the guys up. I said, listen, we've been, we've been called.

• 18:27Speaker 06

  Summoned.

• 18:28Speaker 05

  But we've been summoned by Brucey. We've got to be at the house eight o'clock on Thursday. All right. So we went along, opened, uh, went through the gates. Gates opened. In we went. He went, right, you can't stay. So I've got people around. Come in. So we went into the, with the piano and he started knocking at this number. And we did this little three, we did, routine'd a couple of little bits. He said, right, now I've got people around. Off he go. I said, fine, okay. He said, what time are you there tomorrow? I said, we'll probably get there in the afternoon and then we'll do the show in the evening. Fine. But don't come, I said. Don't come until the evening. Fine. Got there, three o'clock and Bruce is out on a coffee. Brucey, you didn't have to be here this early. He says, I know the owner. I've been having a chat. Of course he did. It's Brucey. He's having a coffee.

• 19:09Speaker 05

  I said, well, Brucey, let's do your number and then you can go. He said, no, no, I'm gonna sit and have a coffee. You, you run the show.

• 19:15Speaker 06

  Oh, god. Terrifying.

• 19:18Speaker 05

  My god.

• 19:18Speaker 06

  And brilliant.

• 19:19Speaker 05

  So we did this number and one of the numbers is, uh, almost like being in love. What a day this has been. What a rare mood I'm in. Um, so we, and I did this sort of, and he, halfway through the show and he went, you need to open with that. And it's Bruce's number because he used to do it as a warm up for Strictly Come Dancing. So before the show starts, come out to his own room. Hello, my loves. Ba, ba, ba. Chat, chat, chat. Ba, ba, ba. Take it away, fellas. Ba da ba, ba ba da. It's almost like, and anyway, in the instrumental break, he would go down to the floor and he'd choose somebody. He said, come on, my love, do you dance? Do you dance? And he'd have a dance. Oh, we had 300 people in the room. I had to pick her. All of that.

• 19:59Speaker 05

  Gold. Off she'd go. Made her night. They've made her year. Happiest person in the world. Come up, finish the number. Thank you very much. Bye. Place would go mad. Off he'd go. Show would start. So he said, you must, I said, I can't do that number first. Bruce says, George number. He said, no, do it because it's a good number. You must start with it and you do it well, he said.

• 20:16Speaker 05

  So, fine, okay. Anyway, I said, listen, Brucey, uh, come on when you like tonight. He said, no, it's all right, I'll, I'll choose. So we did the first half. I didn't mention he was in the room. Didn't tell anybody he was coming on, because I thought if he doesn't come on, it'd be fine. I said, if you don't want to come on, and if it's terrible, go home.

• 20:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 05

  Now, we did the first act, he didn't show, and we tried to find him afterwards. Couldn't find him. I thought, he's gone home. It's fine, he's gone home, no worries. And I was having a bit of fun with the lady at the front row. She said, can I have a hug? I said, no, I can't touch you, I said. I said, you're a Christmas suit. So like, I'm doing all that silly stuff, I'm messing around. It's my birthday, can I have a hug? No, I can't be doing that, you're, you're. Phone change. I'm doing all that, right. So, um, and then about two thirds of the way through the second half, I turn around to Clive, my M D. To say something, and suddenly the place goes mad, and on he walks.

• 21:12Speaker 06

  Oh.

• 21:12Speaker 05

  Like that. With a, place goes mad. I turn around, like, hey, gentlemen, so Bruce was I. And he goes, the, the show is absolutely marvellous, he said. Uh, but I've decided what you need is a special guest star, and here I am. And he said, now, where's that lady who wants a hug? Come on, come and give it. He gives us one up. And we ended up doing a couple of numbers and a do, a, and a fit. And it, place went berserk. He ne, he didn't, and it was, the only people who knew about it were the people in the room. It was the best night.

• 21:44Speaker 06

  How brilliant.

• 21:45Speaker 05

  My life. It was extraordinary. And that was Brucey. He was generous and fun and brilliant. He didn't, it didn't need to be the Albert Hall. It was the cabaret room for a, for a pal. And he came and did a turn. That was Bruce, and my absolute hero. And, and literally, the thing that makes me go, yeah, I'd do that for anybody if they asked me. Because that's what it's all about. Just the best.

• 22:16Speaker 06

  But that's a proper pinch me moment, isn't it?

• 22:18Speaker 05

  Proper, proper, greatest moment ever.

• 22:20Speaker 06

  Where you think, look where I've come from, look where I started, at my, at my sister's dance classes. And here I am, and Bruce has come to be in my show.

• 22:32Speaker 05

  I'm here.

• 22:33Speaker 06

  I, I mean.

• 22:34Speaker 05

  Just a little show. A little Friday night thing at the cabaret rooms. Staggering, isn't it?

• 22:38Speaker 06

  Because he respects and loves you.

• 22:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, I hope so. Amazing.

• 22:42Speaker 06

  I mean, that's brilliant.

• 22:43Speaker 05

  There is literally nobody like him. The greatest. Do it all.

• 22:50Speaker 06

  Can I say, though, you are a brilliant showman in every respect.

• 22:57Speaker 05

  Oh, thank you.

• 22:57Speaker 06

  And you are his natural successor, I feel.

• 23:03Speaker 05

  Oh, I love that.

• 23:03Speaker 06

  There is so much of him in you, not to say that you are emulating him in any way.

• 23:10Speaker 05

  I don't mind trying.

• 23:11Speaker 06

  No, but there's bits of him in, you, you know what I mean, don't you? But you've got your own flavour, you're Anton.

• 23:18Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 23:19Speaker 06

  But you are the consummate showman. That's why you are so brilliant in every way. You can do everything. Funny, sing, dance, entertaining, panel, you know, show, it's, it's, um, you're a safe pair of hands. And for any kind of director or TV programme, that's such a godsend.

• 23:42Speaker 05

  Well, I, I, I love you for that, and I, and I, and I'm eternally grateful, because you've been in the business for a while now, and you know.

• 23:52Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 23:52Speaker 05

  What's what. I, I think the, the thing that, they use in inverted commas, the narrative between Brucey and I, I don't know, is that we both come from, we both sort of started as a dancer, really, was the mighty etum.

• 24:06Speaker 05

  Basically a hoofah, tap dancing, doing anything. And, and, and I think it's your, what's, what's at the base of what you do. I'm a dancer, Brucey was a dancer. Other people, they're comedians, they start off as a comedian.

• 24:19Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 24:19Speaker 05

  Or they're a singer, they do other things. So I think it's what your first thing is, and it, and from there, you add all the other layers.

• 24:28Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 24:28Speaker 05

  My thing has always been, as, as, uh, the same with Brucey, really, is that you've got to be able to do all of the other things as standalone things. So you've got to be able to say, if somebody describes you, you've got to be able to be described as everything in its own right. So he's a wonderful singer. He's a wonderful actor. He's a wonderful dancer. So you've got, they've got to be.

• 24:53Speaker 06

  Quite hard, that.

• 24:54Speaker 05

  It's very hard.

• 24:55Speaker 06

  People to be an all rounder.

• 24:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, because you've got to be, you, you don't want to be, you don't want them to go, he's, he's, he's a lovely singer, but I should sit to the duck.

• 25:01Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 25:02Speaker 05

  That's the bit that makes me go vomit. I can't, oh, I don't want to be accepted as, uh, for something because of something else. Or it's like the novels, they've got to be great stories, they've got to be great novels.

• 25:15Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 25:16Speaker 05

  Standalone, this, this guy can write novels, these are great stories, I love these stories. That's really important to me. So I work, and I've spent my life working at all the individual facets of the act, if you like, if you know what I mean. Because I want to be amazing at all of them. So I do things like, and practice makes perfect, I'm a, I'm a huge practiser. So, um, for example, that night at the, uh, the cabaret room in front of our hundred and fifty, two hundred people. It's huge, or if I'm doing Ronnie Scott's or something, it's hugely important to me, exactly as, uh, equally as important to me, as if I'm doing the Albert Hall.

• 25:54Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 25:54Speaker 05

  Because without that, there is no Albert Hall.

• 25:58Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 25:59Speaker 05

  So, well, there is no Palladium, because you haven't put the work in. You can't just go, right, here we go, Palladium, here we come. What a day, oh, good luck with that. You've got to do this in order to, and I've been a firm believer of it. You've got to do the church hall, hour and hour and hour, forward side together, back side together, before you can suddenly dance at Blackpool. I just bowl up at Blackpool and go, I'm going to be brilliant.

• 26:19Speaker 06

  Where is your work ethic from?

• 26:21Speaker 05

  Well, my, my parent, my mum, certainly, my father to a degree, I know, you know, we don't, we didn't have a relationship. But you are a sort of product of, is it nature or nurture?

• 26:33Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 26:34Speaker 05

  Classically. And, um, I never knew anything else. It's sort of the ethos in our house was nothing's ever given, no one's going to put a pigeon in your lap, that's all I say. No one's going to put a chicken on your plate, all these sorts of peculiar expressions that, you know, people get from far off places. But, um, and the stuff, and my children are very fortunate, they live a very, um, nice life. This, and, and I want them to, that's the point. Uh, you're supposed to, you know, leave things in a better way than you, they are than when you arrived. If that makes any sense. So you're, you're trying to upgrade all the time, but they understand the concept of nothing for nothing.

• 27:18Speaker 05

  They understand that you look after it, you work for it, you know, you can probably have it, but come on. What am I going to get for this? Yes, you can probably have this. Show me something.

• 27:30Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 27:31Speaker 05

  Otherwise, no, you're not going to have it. And, and that's it, really. That's all there, because that's all there is.

• 27:37Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 27:38Speaker 05

  That's, at the end of the day, that's all there is. You haven't, you, you have to work for it.

• 27:44Speaker 06

  I mean, what was interesting, you leaving school at fifteen, was very young, but you knew you wanted to dance. So you started at thirteen, fourteen.

• 27:51Speaker 05

  I'd only just begun, yeah, I'd only just begun, but I knew that this was the something I wanted to do.

• 27:57Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 27:57Speaker 05

  I didn't know what the, the, the career path was, I didn't know what the trajectory would be. I, you, who knows? I'm looking, I'm in a church hall in Seven Oaks, looking at record covers with these great champions on the front, thinking, I'd like to be there, I'd like to be Fred Astaire. How did I get from this church hall doing forward side together, back side together, to Fred Astaire? I've no idea what that trajectory is.

• 28:18Speaker 06

  So you didn't know that there was such a thing as.

• 28:20Speaker 05

  There wasn't, uh, but the whole world, no, the whole world of Bore and Dancing began and ended in this church hall in Seven Oaks in Kent.

• 28:27Speaker 06

  Wow.

• 28:27Speaker 05

  I had no idea about this place called Blackpool, or, well, I know what Blackpool was, but I didn't know this competition was.

• 28:31Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 28:32Speaker 05

  I had no idea of competition. My world was learning how to dance, doing some, uh, your bronze and silver medals, then I learning to do some competitions. But sort of stuff within your dance school, or stuff against other dance schools. And then you go out into the wider world. And I remember doing these competitions, and people were talking about these places that I'd never heard of, and these things that people were doing. And then you sort of, it just sort of.

• 28:54Speaker 06

  Grows, builds.

• 28:54Speaker 05

  Grows, because, you know, there isn't, there wasn't the internet in those days, and there wasn't, you know, three, there were three channels on the TV. No one ever talked about Bore and Dancing, it was like the poor relation. The only time anybody ever talked about it was when Torville and Dean came on the telly. And they went, oh, yeah, yeah, this is the foxtrot. I know about the foxtrot. Foxtrot are nice. So it's not really the foxtrot, but it's the sort of foxtrot. So, um, and then the, the Olympics were finished in four years, you wouldn't hear about Bore and Dancing.

• 29:19Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 29:21Speaker 06

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• 30:32Speaker 05

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• 30:38Speaker 06

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• 30:53Speaker 05

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• 30:59Speaker 06

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• 31:01Speaker 05

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• 33:10Speaker 06

  So can I, I read something very funny about you and Craig having a bit of a giggle about, um, you had similar upbringings and similar dads. And there was, um, you two having a bit of a giggle about your dads.

• 33:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:27Speaker 06

  And the dancing.

• 33:28Speaker 05

  I know, it's sort of hilarious.

• 33:30Speaker 06

  The dancing.

• 33:31Speaker 05

  Well, it wasn't discussed, really. But by the time I got to 13 or something, there's no, we're not having, we don't have a relationship. The reason I never discuss this in a part, let me just say this to you first of all, the only reason this ever came out was because I did Kate Garraway's show, and I think she asked me a question. I had no intention of talking about anything in this regard.

• 33:54Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 33:54Speaker 05

  Uh, because I don't think it's very interesting. Um, and you, you, and you'll feel the same about this. It's not something you want to be, uh, to be defined by.

• 34:06Speaker 06

  Now I get that.

• 34:07Speaker 05

  Because it's sort of irrelevance to you as an individual, as a person. Look at how brilliant you are.

• 34:15Speaker 06

  Well, do you know, what I think is interesting, and, and I think this is an interesting point of difference between the two of us, is that I am who I am because of what happened in the past, and I'm pleased about that. It was difficult.

• 34:33Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 34:33Speaker 06

  But I think my mum helped me be good at reading people.

• 34:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:38Speaker 06

  And I use that now.

• 34:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:40Speaker 06

  And I use that with, on Long Lost Family.

• 34:43Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 34:44Speaker 06

  And, um, I, so in a way, I wouldn't change.

• 34:48Speaker 05

  It's become a life skill.

• 34:50Speaker 06

  I wouldn't change my past. I wouldn't change my, my mother.

• 34:54Speaker 05

  No, I wouldn't change my past.

• 34:54Speaker 06

  It was, she was tricky.

• 34:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:56Speaker 06

  She was a difficult person. And, but I learnt so many life skills from having a tricky mother.

• 35:04Speaker 05

  Right.

• 35:05Speaker 06

  But I suppose, like, let's leave that bit of your dad, but can I, could I ask you about deciding to break contact?

• 35:16Speaker 05

  I never, yeah, you can do. I never really, I never really, um, had a contact. It was a.

• 35:24Speaker 06

  But you did live in the same house.

• 35:26Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah, but we were.

• 35:26Speaker 06

  That is contact.

• 35:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, the ships that passed in Night River, it's sort of a, I tried to avoid.

• 35:31Speaker 06

  And did he avoid you?

• 35:32Speaker 05

  No, no, no, he just carried on regardless. And I was always sort of, sort of avoiding and, um.

• 35:40Speaker 06

  The reason why I'm asking you this is for people who struggle.

• 35:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, oh, fine.

• 35:44Speaker 06

  That it is seen as a cardinal sin to estrange from a parent. When I say.

• 35:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:50Speaker 06

  I chose.

• 35:51Speaker 05

  That's why you never fight. But the reason I never fought back physically was because you, it was not something that you.

• 36:02Speaker 06

  Did.

• 36:02Speaker 05

  Did. You don't lay hand on your parents.

• 36:06Speaker 06

  No.

• 36:07Speaker 05

  That is odd. We, I have to be honest with you, growing up, we never even spoke back to our parents. If you, if you.

• 36:14Speaker 06

  I didn't either with my mum, ever.

• 36:16Speaker 05

  To your, Christy Moses.

• 36:18Speaker 06

  Hmm, I get that.

• 36:19Speaker 05

  I found that staggering, if I ever heard anybody do that. And, and also, why would you?

• 36:24Speaker 06

  But also, you would, I would get, um, like.

• 36:27Speaker 05

  Click right here.

• 36:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 36:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:29Speaker 06

  Like, I don't, you know, I wouldn't assume that.

• 36:30Speaker 05

  Hand was laid on one.

• 36:32Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 36:33Speaker 05

  Often, but one, it never went, it never went the other way. So that was very odd. So from my perspective, the best thing to do is not be in the same room.

• 36:43Speaker 06

  Avoid.

• 36:44Speaker 05

  So avoid it. So don't get involved in that. Good. Easy fix. Now, I understand for other people, they might be having a, a difficult time, and it, um, oh, and they, they find it difficult to, to do that. It's a hard thing to give advice to or say what the best thing would to do, because you don't know people's personal circumstance. You can only sort of describe your own world, and, and immediately yours and I's are different.

• 37:11Speaker 06

  Yes, exactly.

• 37:12Speaker 05

  My only thing is this, I've say to, what I want to say is this, you have to navigate it the best way you can.

• 37:18Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 37:19Speaker 05

  Confrontation is not the right way, for, I didn't think. It's of no consequence, because it doesn't, it doesn't make anything better. So my thing was to avoid, just, if you swerve it upstairs in your room, read a book, whatever it is. Um, but what you can't do is allow it to knock you off your path. You are in control of your own destiny. It's, you, you, this is the most important thing. You've got to, got to, even if you don't know what you want to do, know this, you will do something.

• 37:48Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 37:49Speaker 05

  You are a young person with the rest of your life ahead of you. Don't let it spoil that for you.

• 37:54Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 37:55Speaker 05

  Because it, it, because what'll happen is you'll be 85 years old and you, you'll be sitting in an armchair somewhere going, fucker, I wasted my life. And it's, and that's more tragic, that's more tragic than what's happened to you now. And, and, and again, I say that in the, in the context of I, I don't know what's going on with you, but from my perspective was, this, this won't last forever, and I will be something. I will make something out of my life. You have to, because you look around and you go, well, this can't be it. Surely.

• 38:33Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 38:33Speaker 05

  Can't be, I'm not gonna, because you look around, even if you look at your neighbour, look at your next door neighbour. I used to look at my next door neighbours and think, well, it's gotta be more. Do I look up and down the street and you, and you go, well, this can't be it. And I used to go, I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be the guy who's not moved out of this area in 45 years, married a girl from up the road, and now they got two, two children still, and everything has remained the same.

• 38:58Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 38:59Speaker 05

  Listen, don't get me wrong, this is perfectly lovely, if that's what you would like.

• 39:02Speaker 06

  Yes, if that's what you want.

• 39:02Speaker 05

  This is not a criticism. This is an observation.

• 39:04Speaker 06

  But if it's something that you feel that you've chosen, it's a, there's.

• 39:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, if you've made that choice, yes.

• 39:09Speaker 06

  By victimhood and self, um, motivation. So I think victims feel like everything is out of their control, but you.

• 39:19Speaker 05

  And it is.

• 39:20Speaker 06

  You see.

• 39:20Speaker 05

  But give it time.

• 39:21Speaker 06

  That everything is in your control, that you can choose how to view something.

• 39:27Speaker 05

  I think so.

• 39:27Speaker 06

  You choose how you look back at your life.

• 39:28Speaker 05

  Because I, I, I know that everything's got time, you know, you, because we think about everything in the immediate moment. This is the worst thing in the world. I'm never gonna get out of this situation. Think about this in a fortnight.

• 39:40Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 39:41Speaker 05

  What if we're in a situation in a fortnight? May, probably not, actually. I might feel a bit better about things. I might have met someone. I might have got a job. Uh, it's, anything can happen in a fortnight. So just, just look at everything with a slightly longer lens, I think. I mean, I don't want to sound like a, you know, a, a, and they say in America, a Monday morning quarterback, because, um, it's of no use to anybody.

• 40:08Speaker 06

  What's that mean?

• 40:09Speaker 05

  Well, you know, it, it, being like an armchair psychologist.

• 40:13Speaker 06

  Oh, I see, yeah.

• 40:14Speaker 05

  Or look at it from a sort of hindsight, it's a wonderful thing. But, um, I just think about from my own perspective, back in that day, I used to, I used to think this, this can't be it.

• 40:25Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 40:25Speaker 05

  This won't be it, and just give it a bit of time. Because also, I'm still young. What am I supposed to do? I can't go and get a job. I'm 14, 15. I can't, you know, I can't leave home, I've got no money.

• 40:38Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 40:38Speaker 05

  So I've got to, you know, maybe just stick this out for a bit longer, and then we'll work towards something. But it's all, you know, again, I just, it make, I just want everybody to go, just understand this. It's your life.

• 40:54Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 40:55Speaker 05

  It's your life.

• 40:56Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 40:56Speaker 05

  You are that person. This is so important. And you can make something. Please don't.

• 41:07Speaker 05

  Allow whatever's happening now to affect the next sixty years of your life. I that would be more tragic than the time that's horrendous for you now. You will, you and and and I don't know what's happened to the to people. Hideous things, I'm sure. I've heard people talks, tell stories at at charity dinners and for for different causes and stuff and horrendous things you sort of feel like you have to leave the room for, but um you have to move forward with yourself.

• 41:42Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 41:43Speaker 05

  Just the the idea that any moment now is going to destroy the rest of your life is more tragic than the moments.

• 41:48Speaker 06

  You can't change what's happened to you, but you can change how you look at it. You can and try and find a way through it.

• 41:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:57Speaker 06

  Um and navigate it. I mean, look, this is what is brilliant about this book, guys.

• 42:06Speaker 06

  If you are stuck and you want some inspiration, please get this book. Because it will help you navigate your way through something yourself. You can pick up hints, tips. Not there's no advice in here. It's experience. It's a lived experience.

• 42:22Speaker 05

  That's all it is. And also, I don't want to, I never wanted to be sorry to interrupt you.

• 42:25Speaker 06

  No, go on.

• 42:25Speaker 05

  Apologies, I'm gonna touch on it again.

• 42:27Speaker 06

  Yeah, touch on me, touch on me.

• 42:28Speaker 05

  Uh is that I never spoke about it because not like I'm ever I'm trying to talk about it now. It wasn't that at all. Two things. Firstly, I didn't want it to define me. So I don't want it to be the centre of everyone's conversation. And I don't want anybody to go, oh, no. And secondly, um.

• 42:46Speaker 06

  I know.

• 42:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, let's not do that. And secondly, it's it's it's and I use this literally, it's a bit boring, you know, because and also the other thing is everybody, it does appear that everybody's been famous, has suddenly got some sort of terrible

• 43:07Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 43:07Speaker 05

  Thing, story like this.

• 43:09Speaker 06

  It is how it is helpful.

• 43:10Speaker 05

  Which is really sort of goes and goes like, oh, Christ, not you as well. And would it be lovely if somebody just woke up one morning, had a I had a lovely life and suddenly I became famous? And that is also normal.

• 43:20Speaker 06

  I I mean, I think actually it is, no one has a lovely, just completely straightforward life. And hearing everybody's experiences, I choose to pick cherry pick bits out of their experiences. But did you talk about um what happened to you with your dad? I don't need you to talk about it now, but did you talk about it in the book? And why your mum and dad got divorced?

• 43:48Speaker 05

  Not in graphic detail.

• 43:49Speaker 06

  No, but did you mention what happened to you?

• 43:51Speaker 05

  I no, I didn't. Uh you can say it out loud.

• 43:54Speaker 06

  That he stabbed you in the leg and the stomach.

• 43:56Speaker 05

  And the stomach, um and the stomach. Uh and no, and that was only a an example of various other things that happened. And it wasn't until the life stories thing came out that I was sat in the studio and I said that this happened and the whole, you know, everyone went, well, you never mentioned that. Um because I didn't, because I because the immediate reaction was, and I didn't want that reaction.

• 44:16Speaker 06

  I've been through exactly the same thing, so I do get it.

• 44:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I never mentioned it because it's not that important. And also, it was then.

• 44:22Speaker 06

  And do you know what? I think it is. It's not that it's not that important. It's that what is so mad is that you've been through all of that. And look at you now. And I is what it is saying is that you can go through insane stuff and get through it and be

• 44:46Speaker 05

  You.

• 44:46Speaker 06

  Like me.

• 44:47Speaker 05

  You.

• 44:47Speaker 06

  Like you.

• 44:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 44:48Speaker 06

  Like.

• 44:49Speaker 05

  Because it shouldn't, don't let it define you. You're the same.

• 44:52Speaker 06

  This is what is so strong about that message, not what happened to you, but what it means.

• 44:59Speaker 05

  What happened to me is sort of in relevance in the grand scheme of things. It's just a moment in time. What you but you you can't be knocked off your path.

• 45:06Speaker 06

  No.

• 45:06Speaker 05

  You must have you you must have your vision, even if it is, I just want to get married, have two children and live in a house. That's all I really want to do and go and go to France every year for two weeks. Because that's really all I want to do and do gardening. Fabulous. That's you exactly your path.

• 45:24Speaker 06

  You know, you, I mean, you met Hannah quite later in life, didn't you?

• 45:27Speaker 05

  Much later in life. We met on the twentieth of April, two thousand and twelve.

• 45:32Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 45:33Speaker 05

  And uh so I was, you know, twenty four.

• 45:36Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 45:37Speaker 05

  And give it a try. And um I just have to talk about age. Uh it's more upsetting than everything. Um how did I get here so quick? So that's a bit I don't understand. I was only thirty five last Tuesday. What's happened? Why did it get so quick? For fuck's sake, could this have slowed down a bit?

• 45:54Speaker 06

  It is mad.

• 45:55Speaker 05

  So um uh we met in two thousand and twelve. I'm and we've barely been separate ever since.

• 46:03Speaker 06

  Can I just say, I.

• 46:05Speaker 05

  She's amazing.

• 46:06Speaker 06

  She you too.

• 46:07Speaker 05

  She's amazing.

• 46:08Speaker 06

  Look at each other.

• 46:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:11Speaker 06

  Makes my heart melt. I love it so much.

• 46:13Speaker 05

  She's so good. She's so clever and um so brilliant. She's amazing. We uh uh I'll tell you about the children thing very quickly. Uh we weren't uh I had no, I had no sort of idea, because I'm sure you can ask me about children. Uh we had no, I had no idea in my life. So I'm already, you know, whatever it was in two thousand and twelve. So I had no big idea about thinking I'm gonna have children. Oh, I must have children. I don't want to think of it any thought. Um but I did know this. If I did, if you sit me down like this and go, what about children? I said, well, I don't know about children, but the one thing I do know is this. If I am gonna have children, it would be with the person I'd want to spend the rest of my life with.

• 46:58Speaker 05

  That was the only sort of caveat, really.

• 47:03Speaker 05

  And then I met Hannah.

• 47:05Speaker 06

  And you knew.

• 47:06Speaker 05

  And and when the subject of children uh came up, uh I realised that that that was going, that was, yes, that was because you're the one I'd like to spend the rest of my life with, please. So, yes, children would be on this thing. Now, the the perverse irony of it all is that she's others from endometriosis and couldn't have children. So it's all if and all the problems that come with having, and I'll tell you another story about that. I know you we're short of time. But the thing about endometriosis is that it is it's it's a bit perverse, really. It makes you, it some of the side effects are, you get swelling.

• 47:43Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 47:43Speaker 05

  But in a sort of unique way that makes you look like you're pregnant.

• 47:48Speaker 06

  It's so cruel, isn't it?

• 47:49Speaker 05

  Isn't it? What's that? Mother Nature. Can we have a chat about this?

• 47:53Speaker 06

  My step mum had endometriosis. My sister's got endometriosis.

• 47:57Speaker 05

  Then you know.

• 47:58Speaker 06

  Daughter has adenomyosis, so I know quite a lot about it.

• 48:02Speaker 05

  And I find the whole thing staggering, and this is for a subject for another day because I can talk about this for an hour and a half. Um it's also a thing that I never even knew existed before I met Hannah. And I'm I'm not an unintelligent man. I do keep my ears open. I know lots about lots of things. Never under never even heard the word endometriosis, not because I wasn't listening, because nobody talked about it.

• 48:22Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 48:23Speaker 05

  This is something that affects half the population or can affect half the population of the world.

• 48:28Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 48:28Speaker 05

  Not of our street, of the world.

• 48:30Speaker 06

  Debilitating, it's so painful.

• 48:32Speaker 05

  It's debilitating. It is painful, huge swelling, infertility problems.

• 48:38Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 48:38Speaker 05

  The whole and what do we know about it? Not very much. This is something that needs to be addressed. So, long story short, we decided to go through IVF and we were hugely fortunate.

• 48:50Speaker 06

  But that's tough too, right?

• 48:52Speaker 05

  On uh any any man who goes, we are pregnant, is a kick in the shin. We aren't pregnant. She's pregnant. Uh you'll stand there watching.

• 49:01Speaker 06

  But it's tough for both of you.

• 49:02Speaker 05

  It is because that's what I can do.

• 49:03Speaker 06

  The person you love and you are powerless.

• 49:06Speaker 05

  Can't do anything.

• 49:07Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 49:07Speaker 05

  So the injections and that, oh, and the thing, and you're going, wish I could help. And um and we were fortunate because we we did it on the on the first go. And the result, of course, was, you know, the magic that is. I mean, they're just I know I say this because they're my children, but they are.

• 49:28Speaker 06

  And I mean.

• 49:29Speaker 05

  Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every possible way.

• 49:32Speaker 06

  I know we don't like talking about age, but you had children later in life.

• 49:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was fifty when I had the children, when I had the children. Let me go again.

• 49:43Speaker 06

  What was that like for you? Because I've got a friend of mine who's a man.

• 49:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:47Speaker 06

  And who's had kids at fifty. And it is the greatest, it's his first. Yeah, greatest blessing in the world.

• 49:54Speaker 05

  And I can't have imagine and, you know, it's a funny old thing. I don't know if it's fate. I don't do. Do we believe in fate? I don't know if we do, really.

• 50:00Speaker 06

  I do.

• 50:01Speaker 05

  Do you believe in fate?

• 50:02Speaker 06

  Synchronicity. I believe in synchronicity.

• 50:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I look, you know, would I have changed anything in my life growing up? Probably. Am I glad I didn't? Absolutely, because I wouldn't be interacting with you.

• 50:13Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 50:13Speaker 05

  So again, that's another thing of what we're talking about earlier, you know, about it might be difficult now, but look at the situation. Um um think of a, think of a great outcome in your future and then think, okay, maybe there's just a step along the way, as horrendous as it might be. I if I had the children younger, it would have still been amazing. I know that because I love it. Would it have been better than now? Probably not.

• 50:39Speaker 06

  No.

• 50:39Speaker 05

  It is s- sensational. The children are extraordinary.

• 50:46Speaker 06

  They teach you so much, right?

• 50:47Speaker 05

  Oh, and they're wonderful. And they keep me up. I look at other people at my age who don't have children and I go, hmm. Yeah, I feel I I feel different than than I think you are, if that makes sense. I look at you and we feel like we're in different stages of our life. I I literally feel like I'm thirty five again.

• 51:07Speaker 06

  Yes, it is amazing that.

• 51:08Speaker 05

  You know, the children come in and we're doing all this stuff and they come from school and and it's just magic. It's just, it's just magic. They are the most extraordinary, inspirational, incredible people I've ever met.

• 51:27Speaker 06

  When um you were growing up and, you know, your dad wasn't much of a role model for you.

• 51:35Speaker 05

  Well, it wasn't, it wasn't even that, it wasn't about much. It wasn't at all.

• 51:38Speaker 06

  Did you did you find a father figure that you could look to for?

• 51:42Speaker 05

  I was very fortunate. I had some great teachers. I did all my, as we say, all my sort of learning and schooling when I'd left school, really. Uh and through people I'd met, just people. And even if you just take inspiration from them, you go, oh. I worked with a gentleman once who was who was just a great inspiration for me. Who just said, well, if you're gonna do this, why don't you do that instead? And why don't you wear the thing and just that stand up and speak nicely and don't call people mate. I haven't spoke, I haven't called somebody mate. Since I was seventeen.

• 52:15Speaker 06

  So he was, he was kind of part of this reinvention.

• 52:19Speaker 05

  Well, just not reinvention, cause it sounds, cause it sounds a bit contrived. It's just a re, just a continual learning.

• 52:25Speaker 06

  But changing your name was big.

• 52:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a, you know, it's to, I suppose that's the moment where you go, okay, I'm now in control of, this is now me. This is now the beginning of my life.

• 52:37Speaker 06

  I had exactly the same thing. That is a brilliant begin again moment.

• 52:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:40Speaker 06

  Also, there is a great power in, it was your surname, but there was an addition to your surname, which made it your surname.

• 52:48Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 52:49Speaker 06

  A fresh start.

• 52:51Speaker 05

  It's a big, it's, that's right. Okay, there you are. That's all right. This is the, this is who I am now.

• 52:57Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 52:57Speaker 05

  That was, that's who, and this is, off we go. Continue on from here. Thank you very much. And that's where you begin. Funny, I was just thinking about this the other day, actually. The gentleman's name was Peter Land. Lovely man, gentleman of a certain age, drove a Jaguar or better, could have been the captain of the old golf club, if you like, but a sort of a Peter Alice of his, do you know what I mean? Do you remember Peter Alice, Troy, end of the golfing company?

• 53:22Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 53:22Speaker 05

  I, I, it sort of reminds me a little bit of him, but I remember saying, hello, mate. Yes, you do. I was about sixteen or something. I was about sixteen or seventeen. Hello, mate. He goes, what are you talking about, mate? What is that?

• 53:36Speaker 06

  But isn't it brilliant when somebody gifts you something like that, that you are so grateful for?

• 53:41Speaker 05

  People my love ever since.

• 53:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's brilliant.

• 53:44Speaker 05

  But it is, isn't it? But it's a, it's a.

• 53:47Speaker 06

  And do you do that for other people?

• 53:49Speaker 05

  Life is a teaching. I, I, uh, yeah, I tried, I don't, I don't try to, it sounds, again, I hate to think it sounds contrived. If, if anything I do or say, or whatever it is I do, make somebody go, oh, then great. That's, that's exactly what I'm after. You, you, one tries to do, you know, uh, plough their own furrow.

• 54:12Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 54:12Speaker 05

  And these are all very modern expressions and I'm, I'm not great fans of them, but it is, it is the old fashioned experience. Uh, uh, and I'm not sort of, I don't like them anymore, but you know, you be the best you you can be.

• 54:25Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 54:26Speaker 05

  I'm not sure what that means, but, um, you know, I had a conversation with my son the other day. He goes, you be you daddy and I'll be me or something like that. And I went, Georgie, let's, let's, let's try not to use that again. I said, because I don't think you fully understand what it means as a statement. Quite a sort of modern vernacular. And I said, it doesn't mean anything because that, that can't apply in this scenario. Because w- w- we are us.

• 54:53Speaker 06

  We are we, hmm.

• 54:54Speaker 05

  We are, we are family.

• 54:56Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 54:57Speaker 05

  It's about us.

• 54:58Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 54:59Speaker 05

  We, we do everything for each other.

• 55:02Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 55:02Speaker 05

  Everything I do, I do for you.

• 55:04Speaker 06

  Consideration other.

• 55:05Speaker 05

  So I can't be me, cause I do us.

• 55:08Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 55:08Speaker 05

  And what you do is you do the best you you can be for all of us, for you. All of these things make for more fulfilling existence.

• 55:18Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 55:19Speaker 05

  But, you know, I, I've always maintained that I didn't stop learning when I left school. I began. So from that point on, I've just tried to learn.

• 55:30Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 55:30Speaker 05

  I, I've take lessons all the time.

• 55:34Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 55:34Speaker 05

  Even now, um, whether it's singing, dancing, golfing, whatever it is, I'm always having lessons.

• 55:42Speaker 06

  Always learning.

• 55:43Speaker 05

  And I love it. I learn some new skill every year. And, uh, and that for me has been the sort of template of my life is learning from other people, seeing things, uh, associating yourself with brilliant people, having the best people around. People who are gonna help you, well, not help you, don't, I don't wanna leg up. What I wanna do is I want to be inspired by.

• 56:08Speaker 06

  Stick with the.

• 56:09Speaker 05

  I want to see something, I want to hear something and learn something and improve from it. That's the ideal life.

• 56:16Speaker 06

  Do you know what was lovely? When I said I was going to interview you, I was telling a few people this week and I saw my stepson and his girlfriend last night and I said, I'm interviewing Anton Dubak tomorrow. And they went, oh my God, we love him. They're like, they're twenty one. Or they're twenty, nearly twenty one. And I was like, how do you know Anton? Cause I know they don't watch Strictly. And they went, oh no, hole in the wall.

• 56:40Speaker 05

  Oh, so funny.

• 56:41Speaker 06

  How brilliant is that? An entirely new audience. And then the other person was this friend of mine, John. And I said, why do you love Anton? And he went, he's so genuine and authentic.

• 56:54Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 56:55Speaker 06

  And a couple of times today during the interview, you've gone, no, cause that's not real. You are that and I really appreciate that in you. And I want to, I want to finish by asking you about what you're doing next year. Cause you've got a couple of quite big things that you're doing. Not only have we got this out.

• 57:13Speaker 05

  The memoirs out.

• 57:14Speaker 06

  That's in November, right?

• 57:16Speaker 05

  Fifth of November. Remember, remember the fifth.

• 57:18Speaker 06

  Fifth of November. Okay, great. And then you've got some, uh, like, um, tours going on.

• 57:25Speaker 05

  I have. I'm very excited. Next year is terribly exciting. I, I've got, um, well, shall I give you a little rundown?

• 57:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, I want the rundown, rundown, rundown.

• 57:32Speaker 05

  We've got the new novel coming out.

• 57:34Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 57:34Speaker 05

  New Strand. So I'm excited about that.

• 57:36Speaker 06

  Oh, a new strand?

• 57:37Speaker 05

  A new strand.

• 57:38Speaker 06

  Oh, great. Okay, amazing.

• 57:39Speaker 05

  Very excited about that.

• 57:40Speaker 06

  Great.

• 57:41Speaker 05

  I've got a song and dance show going out.

• 57:44Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 57:44Speaker 05

  Again.

• 57:45Speaker 06

  Amazing.

• 57:45Speaker 05

  Another song and dance show. This is gonna be a bit bigger and, and different from my normal thing because we're gonna, it could be a little bit autobiographical. We're in the process of putting it together, but it's gonna be.

• 57:57Speaker 06

  Stories told by song and dance.

• 57:59Speaker 05

  Maybe, yeah. I, I was putting it together, but I, I can't wait. Getting the band on stage. Wonderful dancers. Lance will be joining me again.

• 58:08Speaker 06

  Good.

• 58:08Speaker 05

  Cause I can't do anything without him. And we're gonna have, it's gonna be a wonderful thing. But the other thing that I'm gonna do, which is gonna be new for me, is I'm, I'm doing a, playing a part in a, in a wonderful show called Ballet Shoes, which is a National Theatre production of, um, a book called Ballet Shoes. They, I, I went to sit with the children at the National Theatre. I thought it was absolutely charming. I thought it was the most wonderful thing. I'd seen it forever. The children loved it.

• 58:34Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 58:34Speaker 05

  And then they offered me a part. And it's the first time I've ever played a part. I've been doing theatre and stuff for ye, for more years now, I can remember.

• 58:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, but this is, this is quite a big deal, isn't it?

• 58:47Speaker 05

  This is huge. I've done panto and I enjoyed that, playing the part in a panto. So it's not, you know, you've got, it's ensemble. And this is gonna be really exciting. It's not a song and dance, it's a play.

• 58:59Speaker 06

  Quite challenging, really, isn't it?

• 59:00Speaker 05

  I'm really excited.

• 59:02Speaker 06

  But you love a challenge.

• 59:03Speaker 05

  I can't wait and I love a challenge.

• 59:05Speaker 06

  I've got a present for you.

• 59:06Speaker 05

  Oh, gifts? I had no idea.

• 59:08Speaker 06

  So before we end.

• 59:08Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 59:09Speaker 06

  I am gonna do this.

• 59:11Speaker 05

  I can't believe this has ended.

• 59:13Speaker 06

  I know.

• 59:13Speaker 05

  I could spend the afternoon doing this.

• 59:14Speaker 06

  Either. I'm gutted. Okay, are you ready?

• 59:17Speaker 05

  Hang on, if I've got to look at something.

• 59:19Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 59:19Speaker 05

  Hang on, I've got to be in some.

• 59:20Speaker 06

  You ready?

• 59:21Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 59:21Speaker 06

  Present?

• 59:22Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 59:23Speaker 07

  Hi Daddy. We're doing a video to tell you why you're the best daddy ever. My name is George and her name is Henrietta. We love, we absolutely adore our daddy. He is the best. He's very, very, very, very, very amazing. I could say that until the end of the time if I wanted to. He is the best. He sends us to brilliant schools and he just wants the best life for us. He always makes sure we're safe and he takes very good care of us and he's perfect. Me and Henrietta would like to say, we'd like to say daddy is perfect. He is the best. We love him so much. We love you. Peace out.

• 1:00:07Speaker 06

  Anton, we, we'll send that to you because is that not the sweetest thing you have ever seen? And can I just say, well done. Job done.

• 1:00:18Speaker 05

  Aren't they amazing?

• 1:00:19Speaker 06

  Right? Like what great kids.

• 1:00:21Speaker 05

  We call, uh, we, uh, I call her, so only she, uh, Henrietta is called Rara at home. Rara. Rara. And, which I shall call her until forever. Because when George was little, he couldn't say Henrietta.

• 1:00:35Speaker 06

  Oh, he'd get any corner, Rara.

• 1:00:37Speaker 05

  And that's.

• 1:00:38Speaker 06

  Oh, that's so sweet.

• 1:00:39Speaker 05

  Called Rara.

• 1:00:40Speaker 06

  Listen, I mean, they are testament to you and, uh, and will you please send my love to Hannah as well? And thank you for being on here. Love you.

• 1:00:51Speaker 05

  I love you, Ben. I love you. You're the best.

• 1:00:53Speaker 06

  So just in case you missed this episode here, if you loved today's episode, I know you're gonna love that one. That one. There. Yeah.

• 1:01:08Speaker 03

  Stonefire Knon is baked in blazing high heat to give you buttery charred flatbread for any meal.

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• 1:01:15Speaker 02

  Stonefire Knon is great when you're lost in the woods with your leg in a bear trap.

• 1:01:19Speaker 03

  I love making non-grilled cheese. Is, is that guy okay?

• 1:01:22Speaker 02

  I'm in shock by that buttermilk taste.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Works great for pizza. Can we get him some help?

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  You can share Stonefire Knon with your friends, like this friendly Wolverine.

• 1:01:33Speaker 03

  Doesn't sound friendly.

• 1:01:34Speaker 04

  From our tradition to yours, Stonefire, together we gnaw.

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