How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - TWIXMAS BONUS EPISODE! How To Fail: Clemency Burton-Hill

Episode Date: December 27, 2021

This one comes to you straight from my heart.Clemmie Burton-Hill is one of my closest friends. She is also one of the most accomplished and brilliant people I know - a gifted violinist, a wonderful author, a talented actor, a peerless broadcaster, a fantastic mother, a wildly loyal friend. But in January 2020, her life changed forever.Clemmie suffered a brain haemorrhage and a massive stroke. She underwent emergency surgery and spent 17 days in a coma. When she regained consciousness, it was to a radically different reality. Clemmie had to relearn how to walk, talk and write. She had to re-learn how to be.No-one was sure how much of her brain she would recover. And yet, Clemmie set about defying every single medical expectation made of her. Now, almost two years later, she is miraculously herself again. Her recovery is still ongoing, but in the midst of this personal trauma she has achieved the unimaginable and written a new book. Another Year of Wonder is a follow-up to her much-loved Year of Wonder, and offers up one extraordinary piece of music to listen to every day of the year.This interview will leave you changed. It will remind you of the beauty of life, even in the midst of extreme suffering. It will show you what it truly is to be human.--You can buy Another Year of Wonder by Clemency Burton-Hill here.--If you've been affected by any of the issues discussed in this episode, you can contact Headway, the brain injury charity, here.---How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod Clemency Burton-Hill @clemencybh  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Clemency Burton-Hill is an extraordinary woman, and I say that completely objectively, even though she is one of my closest friends. After graduating from Cambridge University with a double first in English, Clemmie worked as both a journalist and an actress. She became the youngest ever broadsheet newspaper columnist for the Daily Telegraph and starred in one of my favourite, if underrated, TV series of all time, the BBC's Party Animals. She later wrote two novels alongside becoming one of the UK's most

prominent arts and music broadcasters. She hosted BBC Radio 3's Breakfast Show, as well as presenting numerous documentaries and two highly acclaimed podcasts, Classical Fix and The Open Ears Project. An award-winning violinist herself, Clemmie has performed all over the world. In 2018, she was appointed creative director of music and arts for New York Public Radio and moved to America with her young family. This then was one of the most successful and brilliant women you could ever hope to meet. But in January 2020, her life changed forever. Clemmie suffered a massive brain haemorrhage,

underwent emergency surgery and spent 17 days in a coma. When she regained consciousness, it was to a radically different reality. Clemmie had to relearn how to walk, talk and write. She had to relearn how to be. No one was sure how much of her brain she would recover and yet Clemmie being Clemmie she set about defying every single medical expectation made of her. Now almost two years later she is miraculously herself again. she is miraculously herself again. The recovery is still ongoing, still arduous, still challenging, but her spirit is undimmed. Within this daily struggle, she has somehow managed to complete her second non-fiction book, Another Year of Wonder, which is a carefully curated collection of classical music, offering one piece to listen to every day of the

year. It is a thing of beauty, it comes out tomorrow, and it was my real honour to write the foreword for it. Clemmie's love of music is a living, breathing thing. Her surgeon said that the neuroplasticity that aided her recovery was probably partly as a result of her early years as a violinist. During her darkest days in hospital, surviving through a COVID lockdown that meant she was denied all visitors, she would turn to music to help her through. Sometimes it is the thing that gives me solace, she says, and sometimes it's the thing that helps me to get up and fight and to live. Clemency Burton-Hill, my soul sister, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you so much. I can't. Well, thank you so much. It's not even that I can't speak very well anymore, but I also wouldn't be able to speak anyway

because that's such an incredibly generous introduction. And thank you. If anything, I feel that I erred on the side of underwhelm with that introduction because it's very difficult to explain what an incredible person and a fiercely wonderful friend you are to me but I'm going to do my best during the course of this podcast and we've been talking about getting you on for a while and I'm just so happy that it's finally happening and I ended on that quote quite deliberately because I wanted to ask you whether you would say that you have a lot to be grateful to music for. I am so grateful to music. Even before this happened, I was sort of trying to explain to people what music could mean for human beings. There's never been a human

society that has not made music. So many people who know these kind of things, like anthropologically and that's how human beings have evolved we have evolved as a music making species yeah lots of people think that actually before there was verbal language there was music. So many people wrote to me last year and this year, often not even knowing what has happened to me, my own calamity of my brain exploding just before the pandemic. But people had found Year of Wonder and they were writing to me to say thank you because in this year of abject isolation and sorrow music has been a balm and a solace but beyond solace it's like I know it sounds ridiculous but I always think in my case I feel feel music is like, you got this. I'm with you. We can do this together. That's such a beautiful way of putting it. Yes. And you talk about a year of wonder there. So I should just make clear that you wrote a previous, like a companion piece,

a year of wonder, which was the same premise. And Another Year of Wonder is in its own way, a completely separate book, but you can also get so much from reading both of them side by side. And you have always been so clear that in writing these books and in all of the arts broadcasting that you do, that you want to break down the barriers that some of us might wrongly perceive surround particularly classical music because it is seen by some people as very exclusive and quite elite and you're someone who actively tries to contradict that in our head spaces aren't you? Yeah and I think that I really understand why people feel either daunted or like, what is this thing called classical music? Like, it's not for me. And that wouldn't surprise

me because the way that education now works and the cultural walls, all that stuff. It's somehow that classical music is for posh, white, lame, old people like classical music and then the rest of us, every other normal people. It's like a different planet of music. I'm sorry, that's just not right. And finally, we think a lot about technology has been obviously a incredible progress for society and life but also not so much but I think with classical music it's exactly the same but for me finally we have access really for the first time that any human being who has ears and curiosity to listen to this stuff with a good internet connection as well and I take that as a big

privilege but it's all there but how do you start if you're feeling oh I don't know how to do this classic music thing and I tell you where you start you start with Clemency Burton Hills Another Year of Wonder because you have personally taught me so much about classical music but not in a way that makes it feel like teaching it's been so beautiful sharing your passion and enthusiasm because I get the joy of that through our friendship but what you've done with A Year of Wonder and Another Year of Wonder is democratized access to classical music and introduced the reader to so many diverse composers and performers so that you are making the point that this isn't a stale white male art this is for everyone yes and I should

also just say that the audiobook is narrated by Eddie Redmayne the little known Eddie Redmayne but it is a real joy and I just can't rave about it enough I suppose I wanted to ask you before I get onto your failures about that moment in hospital in New York when the lockdown had hit and I know that you were the first patient in that hospital to contract COVID so you really had just multiple disadvantage on multiple disadvantage and that moment and those moments of being so cruelly isolated and lonely was there one particular piece of music that you would return to again and again to help you through I relied on this like my life depended on it and I think my life was depending on it. I listened fiercely some music by Max Richter, quite a lot of his beautiful music and that really was the only thing that I could hold on to. It's not only that Max Richter's music is my favorite. There's a few composers or pieces that are just my friends and my aloes and my life.

But in a way, it was so strange. I woke up in hospital, as you said, after 17 days of a coma. Before that happened, I was like in a meeting talking about a new concert series and podcast and discussion series in Dumbo, Brooklyn, that was going to start to happen the next month. And then that was the end of my former life. I suddenly realized that something was very catastrophically wrong suddenly. And then a few moments of like, what the fuck? Sorry, what the fuck is going on? I'm trying to speak and I can't get the words out.

And I thought I'm just speaking normally and suddenly I can hear it's gobbledygook. Nothing else feels weird. I'm still in this meeting with this beautiful blue sky, like crisp winter's day on January the 20th. But it wasn't painful. It was just like, what the fuck is going on? And then nothing. And as you say, when I came back around, I just thought it was a nightmare. I was like, oh, thank God.

That was a weird dream. And I still can't form a word. And oh, my God, where am I? I'm in a hospital. I can't move. And I say this. There was Eddie. Eddie Woodbane, which is a very, very, very old friend of mine. And there was Eddie, Eddie Wainwright, a very, very, very old friend of mine. And there was Eddie.

I was like, what the fuck is going on? And I'm still trying to process. And I guess that's a lifelong thing that I have to process. But for a moment, the only thing that I could sort of make sense was people who were there with me Eddie my mum then you and some other wonderful dear friends of mine who had crossed the Atlantic and then Covid and then everyone's that was. And I couldn't bear, and it sounds pathetic probably, but I couldn't bear to listen to music that I had had a connection to, like physically. I love the music of Bach, for example. And I have played millions of, obviously that's a bit of an exaggeration, but like I've played Bach and Mozart and Beethoven and many other things are kind of connected with me. And that was just too painful, given I couldn't move my right side of my body

and I didn't know if I would ever be able to play the violin anymore. I still don't know if I will ever be able to get back that because I can't do anything on my right side. But somehow Max Richter has it all he's such a capacious empath but also a genius I absolutely believe and for some reason that just worked if I listened to other things that was very important to me, like other different genres, soul or hip hop, or forgive me, like 90 underground garage, it was too painful because that was sort of somehow in my life, my cells. and it was just too painful to like this is now my molecular

reality so I could not listen to any other music now luckily I can I'm so amazingly grateful that Bach has come back to me and I have been able to go back to Bach but I think that Max was a sort of conduit to don't worry you will be fine you and Bach will be fine but you know this is the way so I'm so grateful to Max Richter for helping me on my way back to music and all sorts of different music that saved you for us and I already knew that you were an extraordinary individual but then seeing you go through what you did and seeing your utter strength and grace and not once did I ever hear you utter a word of complaint when you were going through something that hardly any of us can imagine, the horror of it and the loneliness of it. And it really taught me a lot about my darling friend. It really did. So I'm very grateful to Max Richter on multiple levels too. And I just want to explain a bit about what

happened to you specifically, which is that you had something called an AVM, which is a tangle of abnormal blood vessels connecting arteries and veins in the brain, and you are born with it. And sometimes it ruptures, but very, very rarely. So you were really unlucky. I think it's 2% or fewer actually rupture. And the random chaos of that is a very difficult thing to get one's head around, I imagine. And we will come on to that and how it has changed your view of life a bit later, because there must be part of you that feels, what can I have faith in? If something like this can happen on a blue sky January day, what can I trust? And that also, the fact that you live with that every day is just testament to

this extraordinary courage that you have but we will come on to that your failures are astonishing and you have written them so powerfully that I'm tempted with your permission to put the entirety of your writing into the show notes because they are just the most beautiful mini essays your first failure is a failure of your name so your full name is clemency burton hill tell us why you consider that name a failure oh where do we begin? Should we begin with your childhood and why you got that particular name? I am a product of an illicit love affair. I'm sure it was not nice for everyone involved, but it happens, right? Lots of people are born out of wedlock and people have affairs and children are born.

And I was born in 1981. My mum had been married and then divorced and she has two sons. I grew up my beloved brothers and then on my dad's side, it's small, complicated. I won't go into that, but I was born. And the reason I feel that my name is a catastrophic failure is that it just doesn't really mean anything. But going into the world, these collection of ridiculous syllables seem to actually denote things in the real world, which I feel is not me.

So can I just pause there? Because this is something that I only realized once I'd known you for a few years. That's the first time I heard you talk to me about it. So what happened was your mother, for completely understandable and noble reasons, gave you the name of both your father and herself. So that's why it's double barreled. That's why there's a Burton Hill there. So your point is, when people hear the name Clemency Burton Hill, they might assume a degree of privilege. And actually, how you came into the world and your upbringing doesn't quite reflect what some of their perceptions might be.

quite reflect what some of their perceptions might be. And listen, I know how unbelievably privileged I am. I'm white, I'm middle class. I was born in London for lots of reasons. I'm incredibly privileged, but I'm not what I look like with my name. And you were raised by a single mother. Yeah, that's not necessarily a point of not privilege. I've had the most incredible relationship with my mum, and she's a wonderful mum, and I adore my half-brothers. We grew up together. half-brothers, we grew up together. So it's just that I've always felt an imposter in my name and embarrassed. And I have to say, it's beyond embarrassing. It's actual shame. And then I feel that there's been lots of opportunities to rectify this. I'm not in my right name and I can do something about it.

And yet I'm even more embarrassed and ashamed to say that I didn't take those opportunities for pathetic reasons. Not pathetic. This is something you'll learn about Clemmie, by the way, if you're listening, is that you take self-deprecation to a whole other level where it actually becomes a sort of self-harm. Out of anyone I know, you are so aware and constantly acknowledge your privilege in every single setting and sometimes I think your internal narrative you just constantly do yourself down and I just wanted to point out that your reasons are not pathetic but I know that this is how you're going to express it so I just wanted to say that to the listeners that I know it's not pathetic you know it's not pathetic but this is how Clemmie talks about it but maybe this is something to do with the name that I think you're right

you have made me understand how harmful that is my self-deprecation and I'm like no it's just absolutely right and you will say things like uh stop being so hard on yourself this is not normal like stop and I think maybe the shame that clings to my name is part of that yeah and the way that you've used the word shame is so interesting here when did you first become aware of that sense of shame? Because I don't think we as children can feel shame unless someone else outside is making us feel that way. Yeah, I remember when I was very, very, very little, I heard something like illegitimate something like illegitimate and later a bastard and that wasn't my brothers watching football and saying the ref is a bastard it was something else I mean we probably do that we had a lot of that as well because we were big Arsenal football fans from when we were very little.

So maybe that was it. But I just know that wasn't that, obviously. I don't think I asked my mum, like, what is a bastard? Why am I illegitimate? My mum is such a champion of mine and always has been. So she would never have said it as like, let me tell you about, you know, it was like, you are wonderful. And I think there's a somehow, I was going to say, sort of discordant thing that was in my brain of like, there's something wrong with me and my name enshrines it but my mum loves me so much so it's

almost like you're wrong to have the feeling you feel the shame and then you feel wrong to have the feeling because your mother's telling you you're wonderful and then feeling doubly worse and feeling like you're betraying her and then on you, like the shame of like being so incredibly privileged in terms of my childhood were a one of such love, such love. to my mum and Robert who was my mum's ex-husband who was still on the scene because he was my half-brother's dad so he would come on the weekends and we would go and go to park I learned to ride a bike or he would always come to school plays or sports days or concerts. He was very much around in my life, but obviously they had divorced a long time before I was even born. So I, in a way, I'm very grateful to my experience for some reasons especially since this happened my brain exploded and I have been sort of in this sort of double lockdown situation I've had a lot of time to

really try to make sense of my former life and my history. And you, you've been so incredible as a friend to be like, why are you so horrible to yourself? Why? And I'm like, I don't know, but I just think maybe I thought I deserved that. And maybe you felt that you had to prove something from almost before you were conscious because you had to live up to or identify yourself in opposition to the name or there was a lot going on there wasn't there I really struggled writing the introduction to you to keep it brief because there's so much to say you have so many achievements to your name and that only comes about as a result of yes privilege and opportunity but also incredible drive and hard work do you think your drive comes from this too driven about things that I really love to do. I don't have

the drive to be good at other things. I mean, we talked a lot about like people pleasing. I was a really weirdly a bit of a rebel at school and university and I know that people be like hang on a minute that is like bullshit but I was and all my teachers would always my mum would have to be hauled back to like the school to be like why doesn't she do any work why won't she apply herself and then I'd be that annoying unbelievably annoying person who would then do really well in my good subjects like really well I mean terrible at like science or geography or whatever but a maths I'm so bad at maths I literally can't add up three and fourteen I'd have to like think about it like but things that I was very passionate about and really loved it and felt very like this is the thing this is the shit I can't say the idioms now I could have said idioms as one of the failures

yes because it's that interesting thing that we didn't realize until you'd gone through this horrible experience that one of the things that you found hardest to regain language wise was idioms it is still absolutely impossible like I've been trying to say like push the shove like what does it even mean I was talking to a friend of mine who's a brilliant linguist and she said like often when you are learning a different language idioms are really hard for them as you're trying to be multilingual and you'll still be like oh what is the weird idioms that you can't remember and it turns out it's really hard in English which is my mother tongue anyway we digress. So we were talking about your drive there and you, whatever prompted it, you did achieve and are achieving an enormous amount. But do you ever feel that your name

costs you certain opportunities, professionally speaking? I remember having a conversation with a big broadcaster with my early 20s. And he was like, you got to change your name. You're brilliant. You're doing so brilliantly. And we would love to do more stuff with you. But Clemency Burton Hill, it just can't be. And I was like, I know, but then what? Like, do I just drop one of them? And also because your double barrel represents your two parents, if you dropped one, then you might feel, knowing you as I do, you might feel you were sort of betraying the other one by just keeping one over the other. I mean, it's a minefield. It really is. Do you think that how you've felt about your name shaped how you named your children or your book characters in your novels? Oh, that's a good question. I'm absolutely certain that goes into

my decision, even if I wouldn't necessarily think about it like as a conscious thing. But my kids are called Tom and Joe. And my characters, sort of main characters, were called things like Lara and Rachel and Chash. I think a lot of that happened subconsciously but if pushed I would say like absolutely yes like I would never saddle one of my kids with a name like Clemency or Clemency Burton Hill I think what's so interesting about this is a failure and why I'm so glad we're talking about it because we've never had it before is how much of your identity, your pre-conscious identity almost, is formed by the name that you are given. Because it's not something that you have any say over and yet it's how everyone perceives you for the rest of your life unless you change it. So I think it's so profound and thank you so, so much for talking about it

with such eloquence. I would love to get you onto your second failure, which made me laugh when I saw it in your email to me, because pre-January 2020, you know, I was often telling you, I was so in awe of the pace at which you lived life which was very much you were a woman and still are guided by your passions and you wanted to experience everything life had to offer and we would sometimes go for dinner and I would go home wanting to get into bed by you know 10 30 and Clemmie would be like I'm off to a jazz concert in Soho. And then I'm going to get up early and go to an art exhibition because it's on. And there was so much enthusiasm for life. But you were very, very bad at resting, which is a particular skill of mine, as you know.

And your second failure is indeed your failure at rest. Tell us about why you fail at rest. Tell us about why you fail at rest. Oh, I failed at rest. And now I have to rest all the time. That's like my life now. And I can't, I mean, I have to do it even saying the thing of like rest is so difficult for me rest is so difficult for me and now I only can rest that's basically all my life now and my doctors have said so many times the only way you could possibly recover a bit hopefully more from this major brain injury is to just rest and sleep but particularly rest so there's no choice in the sense that I can't even defy them I can't't be like going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm resting, I'm resting, and then go to the club. No, I literally can't do it because I'm

exhausted all the time. And this is a thing that now the specter of this particular word, of this particular word fatigue fatigue it's even fatiguing to hear it isn't it it's just such an awful word it is clinically fatigue is a thing and therefore rest is a clinical necessity and I'm saying that to you I'm like yeah but like come on just the reason that I chose it as a failure and it's an abject failure is actually that as I know more about the brain brain's incredible ability to change even for a very healthy brain like yours neuroplasticity is a literal genius miracle that all of our brains do this all the time change course we have very plastic brains and thank god because now that is what I'm depending on that so much of my brain tissue is dead like re-routing the language centers in my brain were obviously very badly hit with the avm rupture just to go back to what we were saying at the beginning my brain surgeon and my neurological experts and neuro team can't obviously actually say definitively but because music comes from a different part of the brain on a different side

and so people have talked about this for a long time that music and musicians brains get almost like ambidextrous and thank god because that was probably a big part of the fact that I could recover a lot of language at this point given the severity of the injury there's I would say no muscle memory yeah of rest for you in your brain because you said in your email to me that previously pre-January 2020 you thought sleep was a colossal waste of time because you've got energy and you crucially renewed energy these are your words throughout the day and night by doing the things and seeing the humans and experiencing the emotions and all that good stuff on a loop and your brilliant point is therefore as you say you don't have muscle memory of rest so your brain it's not just

reforging a pathway that you had it's learning and acquiring an entirely new skill, which in and of itself probably makes you even more exhausted. Yes. And I find the whole thing exhausting and debilitating, which is obviously not the point of rest. The whole thing was trying to not feel exhausted. thing was trying to not feel exhausted and I get so angry with myself like just calm down love like like just calm calm and of course everyone has all the solutions people say oh there's a really good app on your phone you could have like meditation or have a candle that's nice and like... Have a chamomile tea, love. That'll sort you out and a lavender pillow. Exactly.

Listen, I don't have any judgment and there's nothing but love for people who are trying their best by saying like have you ever thought about mindfulness yes my love thank you very much I have thought of mindfulness I've got all the things all the apps all the everything and it just gets worse because it makes me like absolutely crazy that I couldn't do this before why didn't I nail rest before so that I had any muscle memory of resting before do you see what I mean this is another example of you turning against yourself because it upsets me for you that you have this but it's also a deeply lovable quality because instead of being angry at the thing that happened to you or angry at the world for allowing it to happen or angry at whatever deity or fate one might believe in you turn that anger against yourself and you think that it's you that's failing you and that's

a very difficult place to be and no wonder you don't like meditation because that just leaves you alone with those thoughts on that cycle and yet the flip side of that is that you don't have what would be perfectly understandable bitterness against where you find yourself and I find that one of the most shockingly admirable qualities I've ever seen in any human ever that you are not bitter about life far from it you are in love with life still and I think that that brings us on to your final failure which is in many ways the umbrella failure for everything we've been talking about today which is you describe it as how to fail at your brain and it takes us back to where we started with that brain hemorrhage

in January 2020. Why did you choose this as a failure? Why do you categorise it as such? Well, as I was hearing you say that, I was like, wow, that was a terrible failure, because it's not my brain's fault. Your beautiful, brilliant brain. Your absolutely stunningly amazing, Brain. Thank you. I feel so unbelievably lucky, really unbelievably lucky, that what happened to me was not really something that happened to me. It was just what it was. And it had been in my brain for my whole life.

And yes, it was very unlucky that it ruptures. It was very unlucky that it happened in the first place. But what are you going to do? No doctors, no parents, no one could have possibly know and I feel very lucky that I had 38 years of not knowing and living life to the max and also I have been so lucky. I happened to be in New York City on that Monday morning. Somebody called the ambulance. They went to this good Manhattan, to Mount Sinai West. It was a public holiday, so they paged a literally genius and life-saving brain surgeon who was with his kids, his family on holiday, and he immediately got to the hospital. His team were assembled from wherever they were, and by the time the ambulance came from Brooklyn to Mount Sinai West, they were ready for me, and that was my life being saved. In his hands, Dr. Chris

Kalner's beautiful, brilliant hands saved my life and my brain. No one was at fault. So everything was a bonus after that rupture happened that morning in Dumbo, Brooklyn. So I just know that in my bones or my brain or my soul or whatever, that where you are, where you hold that knowledge. hold that knowledge. And so when I'm saying as a failure, my brain, sure, my brain definitely was a failure. But what I really was trying to say that I failed to understand my brain, anyone's brain and life. I mean, there's beyond language. It's not even that I can't get the words out in terms of my aphasia or my apraxia as a speech problem now. I just didn't understand or appreciate how lucky it is to be alive before. And I really thought I was one of those people that sucked the marrow out of life. I really loved life, but I feel it as a colossal failure that I didn't understand how really that was such a stroke of luck to be alive. Now we go back to my first failure.

Two people who are madly in love. They shouldn't be, but they are. And they just happen to make another human being. Just being a human being is such a crazy chance. What is the chance that you are you? So much joy and love and wisdom to so many human beings who you will never see or never meet. And thank God, it was just an atom that just happened to meet. Sorry, I was terrible at science. I gave it up after GCSE. I could literally barely get through science

and maths but I understand it on a sort of human and I have been able to lean on most brilliant brains who could even try to explain how unlikely it is that you and me and anyone listening to this podcast is alive yeah um I'm in bits over here so forgive me I just feel so lucky that you are you and that you are here and hearing you talk is such a privilege. And I wanted to ask you whether you feel that you now need to think of your life in two ways. So the life that you had and the life that you now have or do you think of it as one continuum because I imagine that it's difficult to grieve something that also brings you such awareness of beauty and yet do you have to to continue the way that just instinctively it makes sense for me. Well, it doesn't make sense. I should say nothing of this experience makes sense. So I didn't mean to say anything that made it look like I've got this. I have got this.

I haven't. I really don't understand. Every day I wake up and I'm like what has happened and it's almost two years and it doesn't make sense for me and I'm not religious so not like oh dot sorry god not a dog well then we're right I quite like the idea of a dog deciding that this was the way things are going to be or a cat or hunkley stop now you're just flirting with me um I don't know all I know is that I shouldn't really be alive and I'm very fucking lucky to be here but that doesn't mean that I woke up I don't wake up thinking like oh I'm like so zen in this state of like maybe if I could nail the second failure about rest then I would be the sort of person that can feel zen about what happened to me I don't know watch this space except I'm completely sure that I probably won't be because that's just who I am and to your question in my head there is my former life and there's this shit show that is unfolding

happily in the sense that like I'm so happy to be alive but I don't know what's going to go down. The AVM is still in my brain. I got radiotherapy. I had a bout of radiotherapy last summer, and they will check to see if the AVM has shrunk and withered completely in a year and a half. And so all we've got to hope is that there won't be another bleed before that happens. But it's a chance. So I live with that sense of like, oh yes, this weird tangle of veins and arteries that has always been in my brain is still there almost hi but I sort of have to just deal with that but in my mind there's before 10 30 on on the morning of Monday 20th of January 2020 and then this and what this could possibly mean. I

hope it will be a future, I don't know, but I take great solace from this idea. All my failures, idea all my failures not just off this that we've been talking about but like all my failures in life for now 40 years are just part of me so when I get really annoyed with myself because I just will not do the rehab exercises because I've always been 100% lazy and like I haven't gone to a gym again there's no muscle memory of doing weights because that's not what I used to do like why do I think that now I can do it and so I get so annoyed myself like just do the things. Just do the rehab. Do the appointments. Like, do the work. And I get so angry with myself that I won't do it.

But then I try to reframe that of being like, hang on, I know this girl. She was me. And she would never have do the exercises because that wasn't her jam like that wasn't her thing and it's still you that's the beauty of it and I take a lot from that I get annoyed with myself then I'm like remember you would be in the pub with a pint talking until we're closing time and you were to go out into the world feeling like a wonderful conversation with a mate in London and you would get on the night bus home that was who you were and just hold on to her even though she's not going to do the fucking rehab exercises. Yeah, I think that's such a sophisticated and profound way of looking at it. And it's

completely right. Thank goodness you feel annoyed with yourself because it shows that you're still you yes exactly I want to draw this to a close because you need to get your rest no I was like please please can we just keep nattering then I feel then I feel human human. Oh my darling. Having a matter with my bestest friends, that's like, oh, it's going to be okay. I am going to be okay. You are going to be okay. You are a wonder to us all. You talk a lot about the power of this single phrase, I choose life. And I suppose I would love you to unpack that phrase a bit because it contains within it so many choices that you've been confronted with, as well as I imagine the daily choice to keep on going, even though sometimes on your tough days, it's really, really bleak. Talk to us about why I choose life is important for you as a phrase well first of all I'm a child of the 90s so I remember going to the cinema with my best

friend at that point tree and probably quite a few other friends to watch Train Spotting oh my god I loved that movie and I loved like to be 16 or however old we were going to the cinema and like the excitement of that film and so in my very dark dark and very silent days and months of my recovery or re-entry should we say I had this mantra I wasn't really thinking about train spotting necessarily, but I had the sense of like, I choose life. I choose life. I choose life. And it's going to sound absolutely crazy. And I don't have religion. I don't believe in God I definitely know that something is out there on a bigger level of human beings this preliminary intelligence can't be just chance but after that I don't really understand I don't have the answers but my sense of like there's something bigger and I feel it in connections with other

human beings friends my husband my kids my family my love for music and art and plays and films. And, you know, yes, beautiful nature sometimes. But I'm a London girl, like a beautiful arsenal goal. It's all bigger. It's just bigger and extra. Whatever millennials say, like there's something bigger. And this was borne out for me on a way that is forgiving me because it's going to sound like I'm crazy. But at some point, I was in this coma for 17 days. this coma for 17 days. And my beloved brothers had come from London and Melbourne. My mum had already come immediately. And then they've all gone. It was 17 days of blackness and nothing.

I was just not here, I guess. I just wasn't here. But at some point, I can only describe it as a visitation. I was totally fine. I was totally normal, like my former life, if you want. But I had been visited by these beings. I don't, like, how can I categorize what they are? Like angels? I don't, like, how can I categorise what they are? Like, angels? I don't know. Like, but just a sense of these guides. And these guides, I don't know why I'm there with these guides, but they said, down there, that is your life. That is James and the boys. There's Tom and Joe. And there is your mum,

beloved mum, and all your friends. And they are going to be absolutely fine, by the way. So you have this option where you can go this way and they're going to be absolutely fine this way. Or you could go this way, but we're just telling you that it's going to be really hard, really hard, really hard. But you can choose. Only you can choose. So what is it going to be? This way or this way? When they showed you James and the boys and they said they're going to be absolutely fine,

was the implication they're going to be fine and you can go this way and pass on and die? And beyond that, there will be comfort, or you can return to life on earth, and it will be really hard. Yeah, exactly what you just said. I'm not saying they were like, go on, go on, try it, try it, come this way. But my sense was that I was somehow rebelling against their suggestion because they were very, very much. No, they're going to be absolutely fine if you go this way. The boys are going to be fine. Dames are fine.

Everyone's fine. So you can pass with immunity. And then they're like, like you know you could go this way and it's going to be fucking hard and I was like I'm going that way that's fucking hard I didn't literally say that but you literally had not a moment's hesitation

you're like that's literally no hesitation and you know I feel so talking about fucking privileged I feel like that is the ultimate privilege that I got to choose life I'm not trying to say that everyone has this choice. If they are about to die and you can go either way, I'm sure most people, they're not afforded this choice. And that, I think, is the privilege of my life, is that I got to choose.

And so people say, oh my goodness, it must be so hard. You know, it must be so hard on so many levels. And, you know, we could not have even had this conversation probably three months ago. I can speak, I can't really write, walk, can't do anything with my kids. I can't cook the dinner. We can't, you know, can't even really play lego with them or anything like that if you know anything about little boys they're hectic and they they're not going to sit still with me trying to be like oh sure we'll do a little bit of lego no I hands and of course there are moments when I rail against this but then I get angry for myself of like I bet if you've done a bit more exercises this OT this PT then maybe you could do a bit more of that maybe next year I'll do a bit more of that I don't know but I absolutely know that I was in a position

of choice and that combination of like I decided to live and also that nobody was at fault. There's no one to blame. There's only many people to be thankful for. Like, I just think I'm the luckiest person in the world. My darling Clemmie, what an extraordinary point to end on. This has been beyond language. It's been beyond language, even though your language is so eloquent. And it has been one of the great honours of my life, witnessing your progress, your grace under unimaginable pressure. I'm so, so lucky to count you as a friend and so, so lucky that you came on How to Fail. And so so so lucky to have you still here on this earthly plane teaching me every single day and I just want to encourage everyone listening who wants to get any more of this clemmy level of wisdom to rush out and buy your book Another

Year of Wonder because it will bring you such joy every single day. It's the perfect way to start the new year. And I'm just so happy and so blessed that I get to start this new year with you, my love. Thank you so, so much for being you and for coming on How To Fail. Thank you for everything. Thank you for everything. Thank you.

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