Off Air... with Jane and Fi - I've got these huge knickers, do you want them? (with Gareth Thomas)

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

Jane and Fi are very excited because they've launched an instagram account! You can get involved by following @JaneandFi. Plus rugby legend Gareth Thomas joins them from the side of a mountain as he completes the 3 Peak Challenge for his charity TackleHIV. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are we recording? Recording, recording, recording. Yes. It was a big day for you, wasn't it? Why? Because didn't you announce the birth of Princess Eugenie's baby? Did I? I think you did. Or was it me?

I think you did. It's a big day for us both. So he was called George, George Ronald. Ronald, Ronald George. Well, I think the thing is with the royals, they can do what they like. Well, they have proved in previous times, certainly previous centuries, to do exactly that. But we're not going to be cynical about the birth of a baby because that's really lovely. Oh, no, it's lovely.

No, it is lovely. You look gorgeous as well as a nice pic, little hat on. They put babies in hats now, don't they? I never put my babies in hats. Were they newborn? Yeah. No, I don't think I did. I just flung mine straight into a duffel coat.

They look great. Well, I had one right at the end of a very, very long, hot summer. No, there was no need for a hat then. And then the other one in the midst of winter. But we were just permanently inside, you know, in very warm places. Because you get a bit paranoid, don't you, about drafts and changing temperature and sunlight. And actually, after a while, you do realise they're quite resilient babies. Yeah, I went out.

I think it was the first time I'd left my first child with my ex-mother-in-law, the outlaw, as I very fondly still call her. We were very, very close. And she, when I got back, she dressed the child not just in a bonnet, but in a bonnet with a peak and mittens. Mittens? She was in the house. But back in the days of yore. With the implication being that perhaps I hadn't kept her as cosy as she would like to be. She didn't look that pleased to be wearing the hat, it has to be said.

The baby sets were always mittens and... Yeah, I suppose that's true. Hats and little jackets, little woolen jackets that you put your babies in. A matinee set. Yeah. I genuinely, I don't think mine really had hats at all. Well, ask yourself, is that where you started to go wrong well you're always very mean and very horrible about the early joyful days of motherhood

which we've discussed at length yes oh anyway welcome to the world uh george george ronald ronald george george i had completely forgotten about Major Ronald Ferguson. And then this image just hoved into view at about 3.30 this afternoon. May he rest in peace. I don't think he's with us anymore. He isn't with us. No, he's gone to the Great Luncheon Club in the sky. But he is one to Google if you have a moment.

And this is the man, the gentleman, who was the Duchess of York's dad, Ronald. Major Ronald, the Galloping Major, they called him. Yeah. And much else besides. I think let's just say in a euphemistic way, he was a man with appetites. Well, he did done well here because he loved the canteen.

Oh, gosh, I was trying to explain the canteen, actually, to some friends of mine over the weekend. We were talking about how much I like work. And I think, do you know what? I'll just be honest about this. Basically 15 years of largely being at home, so either working part-time or suffering through a pandemic, I am so delighted to come to a place of work

that has three hot dinners on offer every day. And it's a genuine salad and a salad. And it's a genuine source of joy and comfort. I totally agree. And I think there's something about the clattering comfort of a busy canteen around lunchtime. Yeah, it's a kind of joy bringer. And I think like you, I'm not suited to being at home, working at home. I want to be somewhere else.

And I do think it's brilliant. So let's hear it for those people who work in canteens. Very much so. Very much so. And it does, I mean, this is a huge building, so the canteen isn't just for Times Radio. So you see all kinds of other people coming together at lunchtime, which I like very much.

Also, I found when I was working from home, Jane, or just working part-time and being at home a lot, I'd just always go too early on lunch. Sometimes I'd look at the clock and think, 11.45. Oh, God, I've never gone that early. It's almost midday. You've been up since six. Yeah, you've got to wait until...

Earliest I'd ever have lunch would be 20 past 12. Really? Yes. Oh, I go way before you. Do be 20 past 12. Really? Yes. 20 past. Way before you. Do you really? Yeah. Right, well. Do you have a sundowner time?

Will you not have a drink before the yard arms over the cannon or whatever the expression is? Well, it would probably be 5.30. 5.30? 5.30, see, I think that's the sign of an absolute dirty stop out. I'd say six. Oh, six. Six is civilised.

Full 30-minute difference. Right, OK. Anyway, I've got to the bit in The Archers where Ryland... Just look at my phone. No, you carry on. I'll just check my messages. Well, actually, can I just say... Yes.

..that there has been a very difficult history, I think, of celebrities popping up in The Archers. I never think it works. But Ryland, it turns out, is rather good at doing his lines. And what part is he? Is he playing Ryland? Yeah, he's playing Ryland Clark, which was the part he was made to play. Why does he come into the world of... Why does he go to Ambridge? Because, slightly oddly, and I'm going to say this isn't likely

to have happened in real life, he has agreed to judge the Ambridge Eurovision tribute show because obviously I'm loads of weeks behind so they're just getting to their Eurovision weekend in Ambridge and he's the judge and he's turned up and in the end he ends up staying at um I can't remember where he stays but he was meant to be at Ambridge Hall but then he goes to um oh what's his name's house and then he ends up somewhere else i'm gonna get her to engage in a conversation with me about the archers at some point who are the other celebrities who have suddenly popped up princess margaret she was bloody awful i'm just looking up Eugenie's baby, actually. Oh, are you?

What is the real name? Just so we don't want to, you know, get the poor mice. But you keep going. So it wasn't Camilla in Ambridge passing through? I think she's also been in it, yes. But it was Princess Margaret who I think was notable for being an especially wooden contributor. Oh.

But listen, who am I to cast dispersions on other people's acting ability? Right, have you got there? Yes. So, the full name of their baby is Ernest George Ronnie Brooksbank. Right.

Ernest. Ernest. The fastest milkman in the West. Well, I don't think that's the reference. If he ends up as a milkman, I'm a Dutchman. Born last Tuesday, weighing seven pounds, one ounce, his name pays tribute to his late grandfather, Jack's dad, George, who died aged 72 in 2021, and Sarah Ferguson's father Major Ronald Ferguson

so there we go lovely, Ernest stop it stop it Jane Susan no listen there's nothing great about my name or names let's be honest but I think Ernest is a bold choice in 2023 but

that's what your royals can do they can take a name and they can they can do what they like with it and who knows he could be the first of many earnests he could be who would you like to have been and did you ever go through that phase where you wanted to change your name um i think i'd like to have been just something a bit more i mean my mum tells the story that she wanted to call me catriona but my dad who I'm going to say is quite unadventurous wouldn't hear of it he thought it was rather pretentious oh okay so instead for some reason he got his way because it's not I have to say the dynamic of their relationship doesn't suggest that

he normally would but apparently on this occasion he did anyway who, who am I to... I'm stuck with it now. And do you sometimes just fancifully think of yourself as much more a Catriona? In my dreams I am Catriona. I have to say, I can't imagine you being anything other than Jane. No, that's just not great either, is it? So if you are Catriona and you're living my life, let me know how it's gone for you. Yeah, I'd like your life, please.

I'm trapped here with Fiona. OK, some really, really, really lovely emails. Thank you for all of them. Have you got the one from Denise? No, is that the creamery? Yes. Yeah, go on. So this comes from Highfield Farm Creamery in Wisconsin.

Come in, Wisconsin. Listening with interest to the off-air discussion of men having to live with their ill-fitting underwear purchases. At the first COVID lockdown, I apparently feared that I'd never be able to purchase undergarments again. I'd recently tried on and bought a few new bras, so before washing rendered the size tag unreadable, I went online and bought one of every colour, ending up with 17 bras. Why that many? I can only chalk it up to COVID panic. So you were buying toilet bras and Denise was buying bras. 17. Not so much luck with the bottom half, however. I

ordered online a few packages of panties using the barely legible size stamped inside a sad but still usable pair. When they arrived, I discovered that the manufacturer's sizing must have changed drastically as they seem to be for a 10-year-old girl. Smart me, I ordered two sizes up and they were enormous. I finally settled on the size in between and ended up throwing out the other open packages because it just didn't seem like I could take them to the thrift shop. And it seemed weird to even offer them to a friend who I deemed tiny or enormous compared to me. That is just such a loaded gift, isn't it? Yes, that's a dilemma and a half.

You'd have to know someone really well to say to them, have my enormous pants. I've got these huge knickers. Do you want... I think you could try it, but I think it would be quite a hard conversation. But 17 bras. I mean, I just wonder how often you wear.

There's probably a mauve one in there, isn't there, that you don't wear very often. Yeah, I just thought so. I only ever have a maximum of three or four bras on the go. I know, but you're weird about your underwear. I'm not. Because it doesn't match. And you wash these antiquated things you've had

since the 1830s by hand. You only dry them on a drying day. I mean, it's all very complicated. I'm just going to move on. This is from Anonymous. One Christmas, my daughter got a new Barbie and we bought her a Ken. My son had an Action Man.

After Christmas lunch, the children were playing in the lounge. My son said, would Ken like one of my Action Man guns? And my daughter replied, no, he is not that kind of guy. My husband and I laughed our heads off. The children just continued to play, not realising what they had said.

That's brilliant. Can I say, let's hear it for Ken, who isn't the kind of guy to be interested in military hardware. But I think very much had his own interests. And good luck to him. I think he was ahead of his time, Ken, wasn't he? He was a peaceful protester. He was probably lactose intolerant.

I would imagine so, yes. He'd have been an early adopter of lactose intolerance. Of many things. Gluten. Actually, we should make the point, we had a very interesting guest on the programme today talking about the number of people who believe themselves to be gluten intolerant. She herself was celiac, which, as you pointed out, is a very

serious condition and is absolutely no fun at all. But there are all these people who just want to think of themselves as gluten intolerant when they're not. And actually, they're just people who just don't need to eat quite so much bread as they're currently doing. Yeah, I think it is a modern malaise, isn't it? And also her point was it's really disguising people with proper illnesses, because you might do one of these home testing kits. And, you know, it comes back with all of these things that you definitely can't eat, things that you should just avoid and things that you should only have every other Wednesday. You know, it's complicated stuff. But actually, what you can be doing is so much more harm to yourself by not getting an early diagnosis of something really serious.

So don't do it, kids. Don't do it. Did you have a Barbie? I did have a Cindy. I had a Cindy. Yeah, never had a Barbie. No, I don't think you could get Barbies in Britain when we were little. I think it was Cindy or Bust. I remember that our Cindy,

and we did have to share a Cindy, me and my sister I think, she came in a kind of Cindy pack and you used to put her in the pack with all of her wardrobe next to her of an evening and she was there in a kind of a coffin, a pink coffin on one side of the kind of open-topped casket-type thing. All the clothes next to her. And she brought us hours of fun. It's that funny thing, Jane, I don't think playing with dolls and dressing her up... I mean, we used to laugh at all of her outfits. And after a while, she was quite graffitied, I think.

We added some bits and pieces to her. I'm not sure that playing with dolls, you know, that automatic assumption that you're immediately gender stereotyping, I think you can have quite a good kind of rebellious spirit with dolls as a young girl, which does completely the opposite thing. There is nothing to be fearful about that.

And I have to say, you know, there wasn't... We didn't really go down that road of, you know, encouraging a son to play with dolls and a daughter to play with toolkits. We just let them do whatever they wanted. Did you? Well, I must have mentioned, I was so determined that my kids would enjoy football

because I do genuinely love it that I bought them a goal. And I told them that I got a ball and said put one of them in the goal and then we took penalties at the person in the goal it was honestly minutes went by and it was total mad enjoyment everybody loved it and I popped the loo and when I came back down to the garden they just put a load of dolls in the goal and I, what's happening here? There's some kind of wall you've built here. No, it's just their house. I said,

don't be ridiculous. It's not a house. It's a football goal. Did they use that exact voice, Jane? Yes, that's how both of them speak. Fortunately, neither has an interest in broadcasting. It's a goal. No, it's a house. It's a dollhouse. Yeah, it was disappointing. You see, I did try to get them to do things,

and they had a train set, which they did play with, actually. And I was watching the kids at the weekend because my student is back for the summer with just the comedy mound of washing, which is going to take the best part of this week to work my way through. Just disgusting. Anyway, they just, that generation,

I don't think they played as much imaginary stuff as we had to because we didn't have the phones, we didn't have the gadgets. So we would take our Cindy's and our action. I had an action man as well and they got up to all sorts. Yes. And look what happened to all sorts. Yes. And look what happened to you.

No, I don't mean that at all, actually. And of course, it's different if you have same-sex siblings. Siblings, yeah. I think you do have to chuck in some of the other side, don't you? Yeah. I think it probably does help. I would love to have had brothers. And I think it would have been an interesting combination,

but it didn't happen. Nope. There's no one to blame for that. Tanya in Kentucky. Is anybody listening in this country? No, nobody in Britain is listening anymore. I find myself in England again, and I discovered that twirls are candy bars.

You talked about them several times, and I assumed they were some kind of pastry. I did a double take in Tesco when I happened to walk by them. I think you need to move to a video podcast so we Americans can see what you're eating and then there will be less confusion. I also discovered John Lewis thanks to your podcast. I remember walking by it when I was here in March, but I didn't know it was a shopping experience until you mentioned it one day.

You really are a help to outsiders visiting the UK. I'm coming again in the fall, so keep up the good work. I'll need new and brilliant things to discover then. I think Tanya from Kentucky was our listener who needed help in boots to know it was a chemist

and not a shoe shop. So we have alerted her to the fact that John Lewis does not sell Johns. Some big news is that our new American feature, Americorner, is coming to the programme tomorrow. Isn't it just? And that's on Times Radio, not on the podcast, but we might sometimes include it on the podcast as well. And it's just going to be a quirky look at some aspect of American life.

I did see a newsflash while we were doing the programme today that Mike Pence is going to announce that he's running for president as well. Do you think he'll finally give us that interview? We've been chasing him for years. He's the one who said he couldn't be in a room with a woman who wasn't his wife. He actually didn't say that. Anyway, that brings me the

opportunity to talk about our Instagram account, Jane and Fee on Insta. Please join. Louise has messaged us on Insta. Please join. Louise has messaged us on Insta to say decided not to pull over on the freeway to be among the first 100 followers but be sensible and wait until I got into

work. Please send lots of pictures so I can keep up with your shows. Good morning from Martinez in the San Francisco Bay. Another person, not in Britain, who's listening. Extraord extraordinary global listenership to this absolute pile of cat did louise make that item about the olive oil coffee anyway well she's american so she probably i've still got a horrible aftertaste from the olive oil coffee

i don't like it jane i don't like it maybe it's laxative impact is taking effect as well this one comes from another Fee, and Jane and I, I think we're both just like to say we really, really wish you well and hope you get better. You've been going through chemo and feeling hellish and very scared. Fee says, I haven't felt up to reading or watching anything much, but listening to you has been perfect. You would have heard this numerous times, but I love your rapport

and the fact that you are so like my friends, who I can't see just now, a mixture of irreverence, hilarity, vulgarity and compassion. I'll email something more amusing and interesting when I'm back to normal. Well, there's no need to do that for you. Just take your time. I'm gradually emerging from a state that basically made me feel like a Russian dissident who had been zapped with polonium. I'm a bit worried that I haven't had sex for six months, but husband seems to be managing and accepting my excuse. Oh, well.

Well, it sounds like you've got cancer, so I really, really hope that he has accepted that excuse. I'm sure he has. Wild swimming has also slipped, but hey, priorities can change temporarily. Well, we send you huge regards, Fi, and do you know what? I think there are quite often times in your life where your head's too busy to read books

or get involved in watching something. So if just the listening does for you right now, we're happy to be of help. Yeah, but if you do want something to watch, I think people are being very rude about £10 poms on BBC One. It's not people, it's just me. Well, you. Well, yeah, you're the only person I've ever speak to.

And I think it's all right. There are six episodes. It's on iPlayer. It's sunny because it's in Australia. Yes, there's trouble and strife, but isn't there always? My mum did complain. She said, oh, there's all sorts of trouble going on. I said, yes, but mum, they're moving to Australia.

You can't just expect them to arrive for everything to fit in, you know, just to be brilliant, and for a completely incident-free six hours of television to unfold. Life's not... Well, drama's not like that, is it? It's called drama. What's she watching for, if it's not for the drama? She messaged me last night and said, oh, another horrible, terrible episode of Ten Pound Pumps.

Because I'd recommended it. I can't do right for doing wrong. OK, we've got a lovely guest coming up, by the way, today, haven't we? Gareth Thomas. But can I just do one of many that we've had objecting to calling Switzerland boring? Yes, I feel really bad about this.

Can I just... It's happened a lot. Jane, not me. There'll be more tomorrow. We'll fit more in. But this is because my old French teacher, who was from Glasgow,

had a real thing about the Swiss. She just couldn't bear them. And I think it might partly now be because it came back to me in the middle of the night. There was another teacher who taught French who was Swiss. And I think that was one of the reasons she didn't like Switzerland. Anyway, plough on. Anyway, blow on.

Well, there are just lots of people saying it's just a really, really brilliant place to live. What's so good about it? OK, well, this one comes from Anna Walker, who says, You nearly made me swerve the car off a windy mountain road driving back up to the Swiss Alpine village where we live. Listening to you talk about it being a dull place to live,

how could you? We came here in 2005 with three kids under four to take a sabbatical year out from London before our son started school. As you'll have guessed, we didn't return, but the kids went to the local school, French speaking, thankfully, and we've set up a property business here. I used to be in broadcasting, met my husband on a skiing trip filming a Wish You Were Here travel show. Oh, yeah. So we're well-travelled and chose to live here as it's a country where everything works.

Education, transport, healthcare, throw in some stunning scenery, adventurous winter sports and a bucket load of fondue. And I promise you both, I've stayed for 18 years as well. The only thing missing is a British sense of humour, but that's OK now as I've got you and your potty mouths. Well, glad to be of assistance to you, Anna. And good luck

with that, with your precision watches and your fancy foods and your lovely hot cheese. Thank you, Anna. A country where everything works, what would you talk about there? They must just sit in silence. I think they do. Be the kind of downloading us. You should make a drama that my mother would enjoy

with absolutely nothing happening in it. One million pound Swiss's. Yes. I bet it doesn't cost a tenner to go and live in Switzerland. Before we get to our guest, I just wanted to mention another unfortunate logo on a T-shirt or a slogan on a T-shirt, really. This is from Rhoda.

Hello, Rhoda, and thank you very much for this. I had a little chuckle the other day, she says, when I was listening out for my walk when you read a listener's email about her Greengrocer's t-shirt that she had to wear with the unfortunate slogan, small ones are more juicy. I work in the IT division

of a large, much-loved British retailer and a few years ago there was a drive to get the rest of our business to more fully engage with all things IT. Yes you can imagine you can imagine that happening. There was an annual conference where the great and the good got to mingle with the shop managers and this one particular year I was asked to go and help run a tech roadshow stand. We got to take some of the new tech along and the idea was that we'd be there to be the face of IT, answer any questions and show that we are more than tech geeks.

It's worth saying at this point that as a woman I was in the minority, as was often the case in our department, which was very male-centric. A few days before the conference I was called into a meeting where one of the senior managers was so excited to show me the t-shirts designed for us to wear at the event. There was a great deal of guff about how they really embodied the ethos of the department, how the colours were on brand and the slogan said it all about how they wanted the shop teams to feel part of our technology and with a great flourish the garment was produced. It took a moment to check what I was reading was right and the look of disappointment on the faces around the table was unbelievable when I pointed out that they were mad if they thought I was going to wear that. Emblazoned across the front of the t-shirt was the phrase, touch it.

I was completely gobsmacked that nobody in the whole of the design process had spotted that touch IT reads touch it. and that it was totally inappropriate to put that across needless to say i had to wear the t-shirt but it was covered up with a beautiful scarf that had to be chosen to complement the on-brand colors well there we are right rhoda does go on to say that things have improved a bit in their department and it's less male-centric than it used to be. Oh, that's brilliant, though. Absolutely brilliant. Oh, dear. There was a friend of mine who

went to a very, very flash launch of a Japanese, I think it was a Japanese bullet train. Oh, gosh. They were all sitting in this massive conference centre or boardroom or whatever it was, a very, very serious occasion. Millions and millions had been spent.

The music starts jigging up. There's a sense of anticipation. And up on the screen comes this massive N15. What does that mean? Well, to the more European eye, it looked like the train was called Penis. A penis train. Yeah, OK.

All right. Gareth Thomas is a rugby legend, the fourth most capped player for Wales. He won 100 caps for his country and captained the British and Irish Lions. And you may well also know him for being one of the very few elite sportsmen to be openly gay. Now, he was diagnosed as HIV positive in 2012, something he viewed at the time as a death sentence. But since educating himself about HIV, he is a passionate campaigner for living with a diagnosis. And he was talking to us today because he had just scaled the summit of Snowdon

as part of a three peaks challenge he's doing to promote the HIV cause. Now, he also met his husband, Stephen, when he was up a ladder. And I told him I felt like that may need a supplementary question later in the interview. That's such a lovely introduction. Good start. Tell us about the three peaks. And we've been billing you as being possibly slightly out of breath because you've just come down.

Could you sound out of breath, please? Yes, I am out of breath. If I don't sound it, trust me, I am, because we're just near the bottom now. So I'm just sitting on the side of the mountain in the beautiful sunshine. But yeah, we've just come down the mountain. We're doing the three peaks. Today was Snowdon,

and we've got kind of a celebrity walker with each one. Today was Shane Williams, who is a legendary rugby player. And the reason I chose to do the three peaks is kind of the metaphor behind living with HIV, right, and how it associates with climbing the mountain, basically. And the fact that you have to put one foot in front of the other. Certain parts are trickier.

Certain parts you want to give up. Certain parts you feel like you're going backwards in life. And when you get to the top, being at the top of a mountain looks completely different when you're looking at a mountain from the bottom. You have a sense of kind of people can hear you. You have a voice. You feel like you have a stature.

You've achieved something. So tomorrow, now we go to Scarfield Pike, and the day after, we climb Ben Nevis. And we're doing it with, you know, the Tackle HIV campaign that I run is in association with Veef Healthcare and Terrence Higgins Trust as a charity partner. And also we've got association with Veef Healthcare and Terrence Higgins Trust as a charity partner. And also we've got people from Veef Healthcare, people who work for Terrence Higgins Trust,

people who are living with HIV, people who are allies, just so everybody kind of gets that feeling of togetherness, that feeling of doing something for a greater purpose and also the sense of achievement when you get to the top. And just every person I've ever spoken to who has lived with HIV has kind of described their journey of acceptance as their way to the top of a mountain. Can you tell us a little bit about your own journey?

I know that you've spoken about it many times before, Gareth, but I've heard you speak of how you felt when you first found out that you were HIV positive and it is just a completely different man to the man that we hear talking today. Oh, absolutely. You know, I've climbed my own mountain and it feels like, to be honest,

I've climbed a mountain like Everest to get to where I am today. It's been important for me that just because I've scaled my Everest, I've conquered my Everest, then I suppose really you could say if I wanted to, I could sit down and be content for the rest of my life and continue to have a normal, happy, healthy life, which, again, is something that people don't realise

that as a HIV-positive man on effective medication, I can live a normal, happy, healthy life. And HIV doesn't restrict me physically or mentally doing anything. But what I choose to do, rather than sit down and enjoy the life I've created for myself, is I feel everybody who is affected or infected with the HIV virus has the exact same opportunities to be able to have a happy, normal, healthy life. My journey with HIV started horribly because I was not

educated. I was taught nothing in school. We never spoke about it at home. We never spoke about it socially. So not only was I a version of self-stigma and that I thought HIV meant inevitable AIDS and inevitable death not only did I think that but also I assumed everybody around me thought it because I'd never been taught anything different and I'm just a product of my area and I'm a product of my schooling I'm a product of my parenting I'm a product of this where I socially live and hang around so So because nobody else spoke about it, I thought everybody else thought the same. So I feel it's really, really important for me to educate everybody else

because this isn't just about, again, this isn't just about me and also it's not just about the LGBT community. HIV is a virus that doesn't discriminate. You know, in England in 2020, there were more new cases of HIV among heterosexual people than there were amongst gay and bisexual men. So the reality is anyone can get the virus,

but stigma acts as a barrier to people getting tested or acts as a barrier to people talking about it. When would most people get an HIV test? I mean, is it actually there in any kind of normal path of healthcare in somebody's life? I think you do get tested when you're pregnant, don't you? Well, and again, this is only in certain countries. In certain countries, you wouldn't get tested if you're pregnant and and often it's in in certain in certain women they can opt not not to have the

test or just don't have a test because their assumption is because they feel well that they don't they don't have the test but again if people are on effective medication women who are hiv positive can have children who are HIV negative. So within the health system is very much something, again, that outside of HIV specialists, it's still stigmatized even within the health profession among certain categories. They don't assume it as something that they should test for when they're testing for certain ailments or certain illnesses.

I spoke to a woman a long while ago who heard about my story, and she said she only found out she was HIV positive because she'd seen a documentary that I'd made and thought, I've been feeling ill. I've been to the doctors for tests for everything I can think of and everything that the doctors recommended me for, yet never has once the doctor or I thought that I could be HIV positive because I'm a female and she went for a HIV test and she was HIV positive and luckily went on effective treatment.

So again, this is not something that I'm passionate about because it makes my life better or it makes the gay community life better. It makes everybody's life better to know and to understand. So let's bust some of those myths whilst we have you, Gareth. And also whilst we've got a clear line, we are having a couple of problems on the line. So wherever it was that you were sitting or standing about 20 seconds ago, don't move. Yeah, it was really good.

I'm froze. Stop, stop. Okay, let's talk about some of the statistics then. I mean, there's some alarming stuff that has come out of research that you've been part of with Tackle HIV. 60% of people said if a potential partner had HIV, they would consider ending the relationship. There is no need to do that, is there?

No, there's absolutely no need to do it. If you're on effective medication, you cannot transmit the virus through sexual contact. You know, that is scientifically and medically proven. They've done tests over thousands and thousands of couples, one being HIV positive, one being HIV negative, having unprotected sex in the relationship. And if one's on effective treatment, that virus was not transmitted. So, and again, it is the myth. You know, I often, very often, go to a restaurant and people, you know, don't want to sit at the same table with me. I often come out of a toilet cubicle and people don't want to go into the cubicle after me.

Often people don't want to shake my hands. Often people don't want to hug me. The myths that were created in the 80s still exist. It's very important that we start to re-educate society about HIV to create a better environment for everyone, not just for people living with HIV, but for everyone. Nearly 30% of people surveyed thought that having HIV restricts lifestyle, including diet, sport and career choice. With the medication that you have taken in the past or are still taking now, does it restrict you at all in anything that you do? Absolutely not.

I thrive. I thrive in life. And thanks to the medication, do you know how that means? That I walked up today with one of Wales' fittest and greatest ever rugby player, Shane Williams, right? And there was no difference. In fact, I beat him.

In fact, I beat him to the top. That's the difference is that I won. So the fact is that Shane's a HIV negative man. Same age as me, played the same sport as me. Lifestyle, very, very similar. The fact that I'm HIV positive and he's HIV negative meant that today we could both walk up the exact same mountain and be no different. Tomorrow, I will do Scarfell Pike with people who are HIV positive and HIV negative. As far as the exercise go, the physical ability,

it doesn't restrict us. We can do everything exactly the same physically and mentally as somebody who's not living with the virus. But Gareth, can I just ask, obviously most people listening are not super, super fit, elite sports people. Could it just be that you're better equipped to cope with having HIV? You're just a fit, your physiology is better, you're tougher.

Yeah, no, do you know what? Absolutely not. So there's people walking today with us who have, I don't know, for the want of a better word, normal everyday nine to five jobs who are, again, living with HIV. We have other people who, again, have normal nine to five jobs who are not HIV positive. And the difference between them physically is...

You can't recognise the difference. There is no obvious physical difference because that physical difference doesn't exist. Literally, if you're on effective medication, physically and mentally, you are not restricted in any way. And can I just ask another question? I mean, you talk about your effective medication. Can you just tell us, is it one tablet that you take every morning at 7.30 or

is it a succession? What is it? No, it's one tablet, literally one tablet I take every morning at the same time, six o'clock in the morning, one single tablet. And that is it. That is all I take. I go to the hospital once a year to have a checkup, to check my blood sugar. If I chose to, I could have injections where I go to the hospital for six times a year and I have one injection on every visit and then I don't need to take medication. I could just have one injection every two months. I choose for the way I live, my lifestyle, it's easier for me to have one tablet a day. So there's lots of different forms and science and medicine you know I'm lucky enough to be around an organization

like Veev whose sole focus is to eradicate HIV and AIDS fully from society and the work that they do and the science that goes into it is ever evolving and I'm telling you now if we were talking about another virus, another more commonly spoken about virus, we would be celebrating the science and the medicine that has been in the HIV sector way more than we would. But we just don't talk about it because it's a little bit of a taboo subject. Plenty more to talk about, including why Steve, your husband, was up a ladder when you met him. we will come to that uh gareth can i ask you though first about the uh personal injury case that was brought by a former partner of yours

who had accused you of passing on hiv without telling him uh ian boehm had spoken actually on this station on times radio to mariela uh just a month or so ago to give his side of the story and i know that you have settled with him out of court without accepting any responsibility for that. But can you just explain to our listeners what the legality is around a positive diagnosis of HIV when you meet a new partner? To disclose your status as I and most people I know, you know, obviously do before they start a relationship or have any form of sex. But actually the law is, if we're talking about the law, is that if you're undetectable, so if you're on effective treatment, If you're undetectable, so if you're on effective treatment, then you don't have to tell your partner because there is no risk of transmission. But obviously, it's just something you would tell somebody for the sake of the relationship. But there's no legal requirement to tell anybody. Do you think, just in terms of the law, that actually that needs a bit of

clarification? Do you think most people know that? I think the thing with the law is it's always very difficult. The thing with the law is science and medicine is vastly, vastly improving. Attitudes

are, I hope, changing. Stigma is being broken down, but nobody ever wins in this kind of version of the law. And I don't think the law is probably keeping up with the changes in science and medicine. The law was created a long, long time ago, or this version of being able to use the law against HIV was created a long, long time ago.

And as science has changed, as medicine has changed, I'd like to think that I suppose the law will change as well because nobody wins. Everything that happened in that case, whoever decides somebody won or somebody lost, nobody won. Nobody won in that case nobody won at all are you in touch at all with ian or is that just beyond the realms of possibility listen i think the thing with with that a great saying of v for healthcare right and the people

i work with on this is you leave no one behind. You leave absolutely no one behind. So as a campaign, I can't decide who we do or who we don't work with. If somebody is living with the virus and somebody is struggling, regardless of the past, regardless of any association,

I, as a very proud leader of Tackle HIV organisation, will be there for anyone and everyone who needs my help, whether that be an ex-partner or whether that be somebody I have never, ever met. I guarantee that I would not leave

anyone behind in this, you know, kind of metaphorical journey uphill. I'll be the first to set off and I'll be last to reach the peak I'll make sure everybody else will get there safe sound and mentally and physically in a good place so I think kind of my answer is in that I'd like to think anyway can we talk briefly if you don't mind Gareth and I know you've asked been asked this I'm sure before but what is it about premiership football, professional football in this country,

at the very highest level, does not have a single out gay player? And I'm not in any way suggesting that there are people who could come out but haven't, but it does speak volumes that rugby has been more accepting. Now, is it the supporters? Is it the sponsors? What's the problem with football? Well, first of all, I think it's kind of wrong to say that rugby is more accepting, right? Because I don't think rugby is as diverse as it should be.

Sport isn't as diverse. The fact that we don't have, you know, especially the premiership, any openly gay footballers doesn't mean that don't have you know especially the premiership any any openly gay gay football it doesn't mean that football is you know rugby's way better than football you know it had myself for almost 10 years ago we had nigel owens as a referee but since that there hasn't been really anything but i think when it comes to football you know i'm a big football fan i don't know have any of you girls been to a football match lately? And I think the realisation, right, that why would somebody put themselves in a position where to do the one thing they love, and sexuality doesn't define somebody's capabilities, to do the one thing they love,

potentially put themselves in front of a crowd of 90,000 for 90 minutes and get chanted or get pooed at or get discriminated for something that has nothing to do with their ability. And you really think that's what would happen? The thing is, there's homophobia in football now and there isn't any openly gay footballers. So I don't really know how it would change. And I think actually, I think it would happen

because you can't guarantee. Football Association and the FA, the PFA, they're not very proactive. They'll be reactive. So if somebody came out and there was a form of abuse or continued, they'd be reactive. But they're not proactive in creating. Like, I can't sit you now on the side of this beautiful mountain.

You can't sit there in the studio and say, we guarantee that if a premiership footballer came out tomorrow, a male premiership footballer came out tomorrow, that there would be no homophobic abuse directed at that person for the rest of the season. We can't guarantee it. We can't guarantee it at all. We've only got about a minute left.

Let's get on to the ladder. And we need to get on to the ladder because people have stuck with our conversation for half an hour and they want to know why was Steve up a ladder? Was it love at first sight? Did you help him down? What kind of a ladder was it?

So it was a big metal ladder. And if you can picture this, he had a white vest on, cut off denim shorts and a work vest he actually looked like the fifth member of the ymca when i first met him which was amazing um but he's up a ladder because he's a builder um and he was fixing um fixing guttering up a ladder so i knew i knew from the moment i met him that anybody who could fix Catherine is the man for me. And they say the age of romance is dead. I mean, my gut has done my soul.

Isn't it just? Isn't it? Gareth Thomas, and it was lovely to talk to him, actually. I think he's so enthusiastic and honest, isn't he, about the place that he was in and, you know, through education, the place that he now finds himself in. And I think if you were someone who has recently got a diagnosis of HIV positive, then you would just be so reassured by everything that he says and does.

Because it's one of those funny things, Jane, isn't it? I think the campaign of awareness around aids was so powerful particularly in our generation it's almost hard to row back from what we saw as being a a proper sentence of a short life if you were diagnosed with hiv and an assumption that it may well go on to become aids and what he's trying to do now i think is so valuable yeah well i wish him the very best and i mean i it was i think really important for people to hear that it's not the end of anything anymore that the med i mean thanks to the brilliant scientists who've come up with a solution uh you can just as he says i think he said he took one just one pill a day and that's

it he's he's he's all right right. So it reminded me of some, I did have a couple of trips to a township in South Africa, just outside Durban, actually, when AIDS was absolutely just, I mean, decimating communities. And I really grew up on those trips and saw some things and went to a hospital in a township. Unforgettable scenes, things I will never be able to get out of my head, actually. But the progress that's been made is truly remarkable.

So it's really, really good to hear him speak as positively as he did about life with HIV. Let's hope people do take strength from it. But also, you know, the whole business of homophobic abuse in football. I mean, I know you can't guarantee that, but the support that the player, or perhaps it would have to be players, actually, it would have to be more than one player who came out. I mean, by the way, no one should feel they have to. It's completely up to them. But isn't it just, it just says such a lot about all of us that nobody feels safe enough to do it. I mean, it's truly tragic.

I think some of the chanting that's going around football stadiums now sounds like it's just as bad as it was in what we might think of as the darker days of football. I don't know, because I just don't go anymore. So I think if you watch football, and I do, you get a very sanitised version of what's actually... Yeah, but, I mean, there was an arrest, wasn't there, last weekend for a guy who was wearing an offensive T-shirt saying something horrendous about Hillsborough.

That was about Hillsborough. I mean, that was just appalling. But the mentality of someone who puts that on in the morning travels to a game probably, you know, with mates and no one's calling them out until they get to the stadium and then, you know, presumably some good soul did. But that speaks volumes. Yeah, no, God, it really does. Let's end on a more positive note.

Yes, can we? Which is about, this is headlined, insanely long school trips. And if you can beat this one, I'll be well impressed. This is from Jane. I was intrigued by Jane's reference to her daughter's London school taking them to Calais for a day trip. I've escaped now, but I taught for many years in high schools in and around Edinburgh.

And a popular trip for 14-year-olds was to go to Alton Towers for the day. This involved leaving the school at... What time do you think they left? To get to Alton Towers from Edinburgh. Well, somewhere in the middle of the night. Yeah, 1am. Driving overnight until the theme park opened. Spending all day there,

with absolutely all that suggests about how the day might go. And then driving home again, getting back to the school at midnight. This was a mid-week outing, so the staff who did the trick would be back at work the next day, although many of the pupils were mysteriously unwell after the 23-hour expedition. Whenever I was asked if I'd like to join, I'd smile sweetly and say I couldn't do it, as I'd be in breach of my contract, which allowed me to be responsible for youngsters for no more than 22 and a half hours in any working week.

All teachers are superheroes, but there are so many ways in which far too much is expected of them, says Jane. I mean, that is a monumental undertaking. It makes me feel quite ill thinking about that trip, Jane. It's a 23-hour school trip starting at 1am. Go on all of those roller coasters. Exactly, disgusting. Right, it says goodbyes here. We love hearing from you all,

so please do continue to get in touch on email. That's janeandfee at times.radio slash or tweet us at times radio or you can use the new Insta, janeandfee. And we are going to try to respond to some of the messages we get on Insta. It's not really our department though, is it? No, I think that's Eve's department

because she talks in Insta because before we recorded this, she made a little film and she said, oh, no, don't worry, it won't be a post, it'll be a story. And I'm going to hold on to that phrase, take it home with me and ask the teenagers what it means. Yeah, do ask them. Eve, who is fuelled entirely by Diet Coke and doughnuts.

How does she do it? Marvellous. Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out

in the car on the school run or running a bank. Thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. Running a bank? I know ladies don't get behind us. Sorry. very soon. Don't be so silly. Money to the bank. I know, ladies. The lady listener. I'm sorry.