Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Love and loss - with Jason Watkins

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

Jane and Fi chat childbirth, royalty and the tennis champion that won £40…They're also joined by actor Jason Watkins, who speaks about losing his two year old daughter a decade ago to sepsis and why he's trying to raise awareness of the illness now through a documentary with his wife.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producer: Erin CarneyTimes Radio Producer: Kate LeePodcast Executive Producer: Ben Mitchell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Good evening, hello, good afternoon, good morning. Welcome to Off Air with Jane and Fi. It is currently Wednesday, it's in London town, that's where we are right now Freezing cold January day here in the Northern Hemisphere Just had to correct, we are in the Northern Hemisphere aren't we? Yeah we are I'm reading emails, carry on We are in the Northern Hemisphere Now we will do our usual leathering stuff

But I think we'll start on Off Air with our interview Which went out on the live radio show this afternoon on Times Radio Which was with Jason Watkins our usual leathering stuff. But I think we'll start on our fare with our interview, which went out on the live radio show this afternoon on Times Radio, which was with Jason Watkins. It was, yes. Sorry, I'm back in the room, back in the room, back in the room. So Jason Watkins is a highly regarded actor. You'd recognise him from many, many things. But he came in today primarily to talk about the death of his daughter, Maud, who died from sepsis when she was just two and a bit years old. It's such a difficult thing to talk about child bereavement and he wanted to do that

because he wants to raise awareness of the symptoms of sepsis and it's such a brave and kind thing to do, really, to try and stop other parents from going through what he and his family have gone through. So we started off by asking Jason if he'd like to tell us a little bit more about his daughter. Maud was, she was a very joyful child, a typical two and a half year old. She loved to sing, she loved to play hide and seek and she was a very sort of special girl, as everyone's child is special.

And she was wise as well. She has a kind of wisdom to her. She's quite centred, which I'm not. So they obviously get that from her mum. But she had a real joy and a sort of wiseness about it. And, yeah, she became ill towards the end of december 2010 she had a respiratory infection which i suppose there's a lot of that about in the moment i think our immune systems are not as they were perhaps before the pandemic but in 2010 yes i was worried that she had this viral

infection had gone to her chest and of course you think all sorts of things might happen as a result of that, and pneumonia, et cetera. So we took her to our local GP, and it was very good, but I was sort of concerned that, again, that it had gone to her chest. And I think she could see that I was worried, which is a sort of key thing. I mean, you know, sometimes it's difficult to... You can underestimate how important you are as a parent,

so you should always say if you're concerned. And so I think, although I didn't voice it, I think she could interpret from my face that I was concerned. So she said, well, go to the drop-in A&E, which I did, and then she was given some treatment and then just some antibiotics and told not to worry. But then the next day she was much, much worse, so we took her in and a kind of...

Well, she was displaying what I now know with the sort of typical signs of sepsis, which is, forgive me, it's not particularly pleasant, but there's this thing called a stridor where it's almost like a pronounced gasping. So she was displaying that and her eyes were rolling into her head a bit and was faint. So she was pale and weak, which is a classic sign of sepsis.

Had you known much about sepsis before all of this happened? No, no. No, I hadn't heard of it. I mean, like a lot of people who I'd met subsequently, they'd say, oh, is that sepsis before all of this happened no no i know i hadn't heard of it i mean i like a lot of people who i'd met subsequently so is that septicemia or is that like meningitis or is it it's kind of it isn't any of those things and so no i hadn't heard the word and um if if i continue that then um you then she was given... We rushed her through triage and into the treatment area and she was given...

She was diagnosed as having a typical case of croup. We said, oh, it's croup. OK, so I know what that is and I think most parents do. So she was given antibiotics and steroids and was uh her temperature was falling and i was i was trying to say you know well you know i was running in through the hospital with her in my arms and so i was trying to explain the narrative to each new member of staff which again is a sort of critical thing that can be improved upon about passing on the story of what has happened to a patient,

what they call the narrative of the symptoms. And so we said, oh, she can go home, you can go home. And there's an argument, you know, a child is more comfortable at home. So that's what I did, and she seemed to improve and recover, but that was New Year's Eve, so hence why the tweet happens. Clara and I share our thoughts on that day because she died in the morning, or at some point in the night,

so we discovered her on New Year's Day in the morning. She was dead. What are the things that you would like parents who are listening to this now to really know from your experience? I think, firstly, as I've sort of touched on, is that you should say if you feel concerned and worried about your child. And there's so much pressure on the NHS and on GPs that sometimes the tendency is to think,

well, I can't, you know, there's too much to, you know, I don't want to burden them further, but you really must. And you should say, you know, the trust, the UK Sepsis Trust, who I'm an ambassador for, you know, we recommend that when a child is presented an A&E after an infection, particularly an A&E, even in a GP, that sepsis should be ruled out first. And of course, in some NHS trusts, it is. And others, they don't prioritise sepsis. Some are

extraordinary. There's posters on their ambulances, there's all sorts of stuff. And others, they prioritise something else. So you should always ask, could it be sepsis? And I've had lots of correspondents sent my way from people who've asked that question because they've heard me or somebody else talk about it and and it was sepsis and so you have this kind of you know period critical period where if it's diagnosed you could you can treat it and because what happens is that what's known as the presenting symptoms in maude case most case that was um a croup or you know a heavy chest infection that everyone's treating the chest infection and the croup when sepsis is actually occurring at the same time so it's masked by

those presenting symptoms so you've got to dig in and test for sepsis uh and is there an easy test to do for sepsis uh yeah yeah there's the kind of there's various yeah there's various tests you can do and obviously it's it's the symptoms that you've got to be aware of so you know if you haven't light and floppy uh and pale skin or mottled skin uh not passing urine for 24 hours, cool to the touch. So those sort of symptoms, and they're all available on the UK Sepsis Trust website, so if I'm floundering, although I should know them,

like the back of my hand. And they're different for infants as well, for under five-year-olds. But they're the sort of symptoms. And so you should always pipe up, yeah. Yeah. You're making a documentary. You have made a documentary with your wife. Why have you done that now, if that's not a kind of impertinent question?

Well, I'd always... You know, it's both my wife, Clara, she's an actress, but she's got a fashion business now, which she started in the last three years during the lockdown. And I mention that not as a plug, but as a way, something that's given her focus and her energy is constantly amazing, is that...

Sorry, I've lost the thread of the question. Why now, the documentary? Well, what I was going to say was that... But it was a very good plug, and we'll give her another plug at the end as well. But I mean, what it is, is we're both creative people. So if something awful happens to you in your life, or something significant,

you almost want to have some form of expression. And I'd always thought you know whether i could act in a part playing a you know bereaved father i don't know whether i could do but i have lots of ideas and i kept logs and diaries and things of things that have to be people i met on the train and all these incredible things that happen to you when you're in a heightened state of grief that you remember all of those things you remember we remember things i'm sure everybody does on days of funerals things become rather macabre and or or strange or and it's because i think we're in this state of grief and so ours is sort of prolonged and so i'd always want to do something

creative about it even if it was about somebody else or a different type of grief so but i also you know there are there's the factual element and and and spreading the signs of sepsis and sharing that. And grief, you know, the loss of a child within a family has ripples across all generations of that family. And can I ask, do you and Clara approach it in the same way? I mean, bereavement is a very individual thing and you're operating as a couple to an extent, but you are still two separate people.

Yeah, and when we started this journey with the documentary, somebody, Andrea Byrne, who's a newsreader on ITV, her father sadly passed away with sepsis, and she sort of reached out to me and said, do you want to make anything? I thought, make anything? And I said, well, yeah, maybe this is the time you know so that's we started making it and i was it was really making about sepsis so and i'm answering your question is that i've in the last 10 years there's a lot of my focus has been on

sepsis and improving clinical care and awareness etc and lobbying and all sorts of things so that's been my thing so we started making like that i And I think as I was going, we were going through the process, Clara was feeling, I could sense she was really uncomfortable about it. And I was sort of protecting her because she doesn't like the medical stuff. She finds it distressing. So I was sort of protecting her, I thought. But, of course, we changed tact and we broadened it and made it about us as a family

and what happened to us and maude and our so it became about loss and of course about sepsis and my lovely friend uh roger michelle the film director sadly passed away last year he said you know whatever you do make make it, you make it. And I didn't really understand, but I do now. So what I'm saying is, in answering your question, is that it's kind of, we're all making, it's sharing our story of what happened. So we are, it's quite, you know, it's sort of revealing. It's not, you know, bits of it are amusing.

There's one or two, because I'm basically amusing. I'm a hoarder. But, I mean, apart from that, there's a few little gags. But, I mean, it's a heavy subject, obviously. You must know this so much better than many other people. We don't want to talk about child bereavement, do we? We want to shy away from it. It's just such a horrendous thing for anybody to

contemplate how do you think we could be tackling that a bit better yeah i suppose well we do grieve differently um and as a couple me and clara um we realized during the making of our documentary that i had sort of you, not really addressed my grief. Necessarily my way of going forward was to sort of solve the problem of sepsis, you know, like a sort of solving of the problem when actually you've got to have a different, sort of slightly different view.

So that was my revelation, and we both had different memories of the event. That was another thing that we found out while we were making the documentary. And sharing is the key word. It's difficult for... Everybody's different and they grieve slightly differently, but there are patterns.

And one certainly is that if you bottle it all up and don't share your feelings, it's a much more difficult journey than if you reach out and try and share your feelings and how you're feeling and talk about your child and talk about what happened and we're part of a group local group called slow surviving the loss of your world which is our world, which is about... And it's parents, basically, it's a parents group, bereaved parents talking to bereaved parents.

And that's a very good mechanism for being able to not only tell, shed, illuminate, you know, your feelings, your life, your child, the memory of your child, but it also enables you to hear other people telling their story. And then you go, hang on, that's what happened, that's how I feel. And then you're not alone. And a man's instinct is completely general, but they can go, right, no, I'm fine, I can deal with this,

I need to protect my family, I don't need to be breaking down all the time, you know, if that's the view that they have. And, of course, maybe you should be breaking down a bit and maybe your wife wants you to break down and your children and all that. So, you know, it's never... I'm very good at deflecting, you know, I think.

But, of course, when you go there, you feel better. For hearing other people's stories yeah and telling your own yes and having that space and knowing that they understand i guess yeah and that's in a way the mechanism of the whole documentary what was your attitude to work because i wonder whether there was an ambivalence about it in the sense that your your profession that gives you a platform doesn't it but there must have been times as well when you just thought oh you know pretending to be somebody else for a living, what a, it's rubbish.

It's rather trivial. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of stuck with it, though, because I can't do anything else. You're very good at it, Geoff. Yes. You're quite employed.

Yeah, yeah, reasonably employed. And so it was like, well, this is it. And, you know, since Maude died, I think it's become more important. And I don't mean to sound too precious about it, but, you know, if you're going to do it, it's got to have meaning to it. And so even if it's something that is, you know, if it's a commercial project or something that isn't, you know, an after-winning project or whatever, you know, it has a meaning,

it has a function because it provides money for our family and stuff, for example. But, you know, I also feel that I like to be part of things that have meaning. I mean, I've come from the theatre and that's more prevalent then. And, you know, television is not pure entertainment. It's about reflecting our lives and reflecting its art as well as entertainment. I very firmly believe that. that you know you are holding the

mirror up to nature and you can see that in all sorts of brilliant and it's always the character like happy valley for example just think about that at the moment why lotus it's about the characters and the people and connecting with their lives and their what's their stories that audiences really respond to the royal family or something that's coming in come to mind and so you as a performer have to i think offer yourself so mine and my wife's my wife's an actress as well you know we offer she was in uh clara francis my wife she was in um uh leopold's dad and you know she about jewish experience and that was her her life and there even you know, she, about Jewish experience, and that was her life. And there were even, you know, the photographs on stage were of her real family.

So it's, things become perhaps more important and less trivial then. And so therefore that can take you to places that are interesting. And hopefully the audiences do go with you and see and understand grief, for example, and empathy. You are playing the father of... Well, the father of somebody who's died in your new project. I think it's on Channel 5 relatively soon. Yeah, it's next week, yeah. This is a very successful adaptation of a thriller of a very...

I'll get this sentence out if it does put me completely beyond my peak. Do you want a hand? No, I don't. No, not from you. It's an adaptation of a very successful thriller by T.M. Logan called Catch. That's very good. Thank you very much for that. And you're in it, Jason. I'm in it, and it's... Oh, thank you.

Because if you hadn't been, that would have been awful. Yeah. I'm in it, and it's, yeah. Oh, thank you. Because if you hadn't been, that would have been awful. Yeah, yeah, it's, no, it's, yeah, it's about, it's a kind of fisherman who's a head of, he's sort of the,

he's a fisherman who's trying to keep his family together under extreme pressures, economic ones, and his older daughter is having a relationship, starting a relationship with a man who he doesn't trust. And he's overprotective, perhaps, of his 23, 24-year-old daughter because they, as a family, have lost a son in an accident ten years previously. So he's overprotective. So, you know, there were some scenes,

I can't say too much about it, but there were obviously some very harrowing scenes for me. And I knew I was walking into that I was going to be talking about the death of a child, and the death of a child is at the centre of everything and all the mistakes that my character tends to make because he's in such an emotional state and your judgement is not as good perhaps as it was

when you're bereaved or stressed or and i kind of wanted to sort of show that so he's trying to survive the slings and arrows and storms of what's happening to him but he's not a rock he's not a classic center of a thriller character someone who can deal with it all and handle it and go through it he's a mess that's what you do so well though Jason I think you just absolutely you always nail that slight kind of vulnerability that the person themselves is aware of

and I think that's a very hard thing to pull off well it's not again it's what I talked about before you know you're trying to touch people and you know and in this piece I always think well what would I do in this issue and I'd be a bit of a mess in the world why should I turn into Tom Cruise I'll just be a bit of a mess yeah and it's delightful to watch do you want we've we've almost run out of time and I'm sorry about that because

it's been an absolute pleasure to meet you and thank you for talking so openly and actually with just some you know proper emotion about something that is so difficult mary in exeter one of our listeners has just texted in to say i'd just like to give jason a very big hug and i think that's probably what a lot of people listening will think too we'll give out the website address for uk sepsis later in the program because those warning signs uh you know, they're just very, very well worth reading. They're very simple to understand as well, aren't they? Yeah, they're all listed.

And sadly, you can only give a yes or no answer to the final question, which is, you came close to breaking a world record for walking on your hands when you were 13. Can you still do that? I can't. It was running on my hands, but I can't now. It was running on your hands. OK. How do you ever discover that you can run on your hands?

Well, you sort of go and fall over and then you try and catch up and then you just keep going. How far could you go? I'm going to turn this into a separate interview. It was the length of the basketball court. Because it was an American record, that was the distance that was set. And I got pretty close. OK. Pretty close. Oh, that's savage. Within a second. Yeah, but that's extraordinary, isn't isn't it really can't do it at least we're gonna ask you but although yes i mean it

would make a good picture for twitter later that was jason watkins whose daughter maude died in 2011 she had sepsis and if you want to know more about spotting the signs of sepsis, there are lots of just really simple details which are available at sepsistrust.org. Yes, we can't really emphasise that enough, really, can we? Sepsistrust.org, all the information is there. And we're giving all this out, not in the spirit of making people or wanting to make people really, really worried and incredibly paranoid but just because everyone should know shouldn't they hugely jane because the numbers of people who die from sepsis are huge about 50 000 in the uk and so many of those deaths are preventable because if you spot the signs of sepsis early enough and treat it with antibiotics then that solves the problem so also

I thought one of the most you know brilliant things that Jason said with such meaning was just to trust your instinct as a parent and it is so difficult when you go to see the doctor or you end up in A&E with a sick child to know what it is that you know, because you're suddenly faced with medical professionals, you want to bow to their greater wisdom, you want to listen to what they've got to say. Sometimes when I've taken a child to A&E in particular, I felt a bit bad about being there, even though I know that I should be there. So his point about just if you know there's something just wrong with your child you know you really do have to make sure that everybody around you understands that you know your child best. I think

every parent and and or carer will understand the absolute terror of trying to navigate an illness in a person who can't speak for themselves it doesn't actually matter whether they are a small child who can't talk or an older person who can't communicate or somebody with disabilities. It must be extraordinarily hard to be... Well, I mean, I've only ever had the experience of caring for children who couldn't speak and not knowing what was wrong with them

and you're just absolutely at your wits' end. So I think Jason's doing a brilliant job and I hope it hasn't come at too great a cost to himself because it's clearly still, we were in the room with him, still really difficult for him to talk about it. Yeah, which is why I think he's just amazing to do it. Very courageous. But he is an actor and he admits himself that it sometimes feels just a bit sort of trivial and silly, but he is an incredibly good actor.

I have never forgotten his performances. Do you remember the, I think it's called The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffreys, playing the part of a man who'd been wrongly associated with a horrible murder. And I think the poor woman was called Joanna Yates. She'd been murdered in the West of England a couple of years ago. And Christopher Jeffreys was a man who I suppose you might attach the term eccentric to him. I'm not even sure that's really legitimate. He was just somebody who lived his own life in his own way, wrongly accused,

had a miserable time at the hands of some of the media. And Jason Watkins was absolutely brilliant playing that part. It was an ITV show and he was just superb in it. And he's played two prime Ministers Harold Wilson in The Crown and do you know what his most recent Prime Ministerial role was? No, I don't. Winston Churchill in SAS Rogue Heroes. I didn't stick with

SAS Rogue Heroes. It just felt like I was being sandblasted with masculinity and I can't remember what time it was on but it didn't suit me. Nine o'clock on a Sunday night. I can't be sandblasted with masculinity. Is it can't be too late i think by the end of the weekend i've really i'm very much i very much need my feminine self yeah well i was in the sas but i don't talk about it um very much uh so many emails and uh quite a few of them are

about the appearance uh on the program yesterday of the reverend Reverend Jamie, who we invited onto the programme to talk about the problem that some members of the Church of England have with conducting gay marriages. Yeah, they have decided today that they won't be conducting gay marriages or they've announced their decision. They'll do blessings. Yes, it's just a blessing, but you can't go the full... You still can't? No, you can't go the full hog. So this one comes from Jill, who says, I haven't the energy to bang on about that, Reverend Jamie. Thank you for doing it for me in your interview. As a 60-year-old gay woman, I'm really tired of that marriage debate.

The page can never be turned on that subject, as there are a few closed-minded and insecure twits in most congregations of the C of E that don't have anything better to do than blather on about that topic. I'm from Ottawa, Canada, so what do I know? I grew up in the Anglican church, Jill tells us. I don't go to church now and granting gay marriage wouldn't bring me back. Honestly, go for the music, stay for the coffee and ladies auxiliary sandwiches. That's an interesting flavour. The rest of it's a bit of a nod. I wish I lived in England so I could traipse around to all the cathedrals and churches. I love the oldiness of it all. Is oldiness a word? It is now. Should be. And love a good old-fashioned even song but a priest with Reverend Jamie's

mindset is just plain sad. What would Jesus think? And Jill goes on to say that she's coming to the coronation in May. I was on the long walk for the wedding in 2018. So was I. And how things have changed in a few short years. You're telling us, Jill. I hope there's no Windsor Peace Summit. I can't take much more of this coverage of spare. Me too.

Me thinks the couple doth protest too much. Thank you for the recommendation of Nadine Matheson. I'm reading The Jigsaw Man. No problem at all. Do you know what? We love emails like that. They cover an awful lot of things. And if you're over in May for the coronation,

Jane and I are hoping to do some commentary on the coronation. Not commentary necessarily, but we hope to be doing some sort of programme. Out and About. An outside broadcast, an OB, as it's known in the trade. We'll be out and about with the revellers ahead of the coronation. I do love,

I just love that sort of thing. I'm not exactly a royalist. I'm a, what am I? I'm keen. I've just got a keen interest in current affairs. I think you do like the royal family. I wax and wane. And you're very interested in what happens in the Royal Family. I certainly am.

Yes, I'm interested in all their houses. All their houses! Anyway, I still haven't finished Spare. I'll let you know. Tonight is going to be the night when I finally stagger to the end of Spare. But I've just got a bit stuck and I need to make more progress. From Mr Leon the Solent very good as a Church of England worshipper

I'm sure gay marriage will come liberals after all must have their way in these woke times but if I was in charge of anything I wouldn't allow any atheist to marry in church off to the register office with you and shame about the photos PS great show

more edgy stuff, please. We don't mind the odd ding dong, actually, Fee and I. We quite welcome it. So, yes, let's let's bring on a few more of those. And actually quite a good point from Mr. Leon the Solent about atheists marrying in church. Now, I did get married in church, as we all know. Well, it wasn't to be. Didn't last. Nice day, though. Was I a Christian? Well, it wasn't to be. Didn't last. Nice day, though. Was I a Christian?

Well, at the time of the wedding. Not as such. Okay, so? So should I? Did you feel bad about it? Have you not been married in church? No, I... Not yet. I just couldn't remember.

No. No, I haven't been married in church. I mean, sorry, the roller deck of matrimonial memories I just couldn't remember. No, I haven't been much. Sorry, the roller deck of matrimonial memories can sometimes be a little bit harsh. I wonder now why I did that. Anyway, never mind. But was your betrothed a believer? We haven't got...

That's another podcast. That really would take some time, Fiona. And I'm not prepared to hear that. OK, Jane, Susan. But I think Mr Leon the Solent, I agree, I think he's got a great point because I think some people pop into church, don't they, when they feel like it without believing at all. Yeah, but my point, our point is that gay people should be allowed

to pop into church to get married along with everybody else. Very much so. Yes. And I was just going to say it's the schools thing that really does it for me so I'm sure you will have known people not guilty in that department who have who took up religion in order to get into a school personally I've never understood the faith school thing if you live in a society which is trying to embrace all faiths I just don't really understand how you can have schools that only embrace one but also the thing that I've never understood about people who start to believe pretend to believe let's be honest about it in God in order to get

their kids into school because if it then did turn out that there was a God they'll be absolutely stuffed on entering the holy place wouldn't they what do you think there'll be somebody there at the gates yeah I think that's when they'll they'll get a little tick-off register. Ah, you, yeah. And they won't be... So they may well have got into the primary school, but they're not getting into heaven. Gosh, that's quite a thought, that.

Well, actually, if we're going to go philosophical, can I just bring this to you? It's from the letters page of the Times today. The headline's How to Avoid a Row. And there's a very short letter from a consultant psychotherapist called anne who says further to your article how not to row it may be sobering to reflect that although what you say about another person may or may not be true it is sure as eggs true about you say that again well exactly i've been looking at this since about half seven this morning and i still don't understand it it's about avoiding a row advice

from a psychotherapist she's a consultant psychotherapist it may be so bring to reflect that although what you say about another person may or may not be true it is sure as eggs true about you. So let's say I say to you, and I wouldn't say this, by the way, because it's not true, you're very tight-fisted. I would actually be acknowledging that I'm very mean, but I also want to tar you with the same brush. No, I don't think that makes sense at all.

So to use an example from this afternoon's programme, when we were talking about air stewardesses, you're just going to have to go back and listen to it. But one of the things that they needed to be was discreet. And I made a gag about you not being discreet, which isn't true. I think, considering what I know, I am quite discreet, but anyway. Yeah, but so if that isn't true, it doesn't mean that I'm not discreet. Well, you're not.

No. As it happens. Well, I'm more discreet than you. I don't know. We could argue about this all night. Yeah, we could be. Maybe we haven't picked the best examples. You told me some really good gossip earlier

and I haven't told a soul. Don't. I texted a few people, but I haven't told anyone. Don't. And feign surprise. When that comes out into public knowledge, feign surprise, OK? Is into public knowledge feign surprise okay is that today's times you've taken that letter from could you read the very very end one please

bottom right hand corner is it the one about snuff oh yeah oh it's brilliant okay headline special delivery further to letters on hospital births 50 years ago after a failed epidural because i was get this anatomically peculiar. And people wonder why feminism was invented. I was, sorry, the consultant anaesthetist from a pocket deep within his thorn-proof three-piece tweed suit offered me snuff to, as he put it, sneeze the dear child out. It's terrible that. That's from Vicky in Hampshire. the dear child out.

It's terrible that. It's from Vicky in Hampshire. On every single level. What's an anaesthetist doing in a presumably medical setting wearing a three-piece suit made of tweed? Why has he got snuff on him? Why has she had her anatomy described as peculiar? And who in their right mind thinks

you can sneeze a baby out? Who'd be surprised? This is the profession that came up with the expression incompetent cervix. Yep. Don't get me started. Well, I could pop a watermelon where the sun doesn't shine and ask him to have a poo and see if it works. Right, I don't think we can keep that in.

It's been lovely to hear from David, who is Ruthie. That's from last week. Ruthie, the showbiz starlet. It's only Ruthie's dad, David. I'm just keeping going. I listened in last week and was surprised that my daughter, Ruthie, over from NYC had met you.

She sent me a photograph. She said you thought she had an interesting life story. So I want to point you to a few clips from her on YouTube that you might enjoy. David, proud dad of Ruthie. Thank you very much. I'm sorry. There were four of us in the studio. Three of us have completely lost it.

I'm just not going there. Oh, it's lovely to meet Ruthie and now we've got Ruthie's dad on board, whole Ruthie family. Come on. I can feel a spin-off podcast coming on. Oof. What, called who?

It's been really lovely. It's Thursday tomorrow. That's the end of our week. Thank goodness for that, you might say. And what are we doing tomorrow? Well, we've got an interview with Brenda Edwards, actually, the mother of Jamal Edwards. That will be interesting.

And also we're talking to a comedian I think you like. Oh, Alex Edelman. Yeah. So he's got a new show, which is all about how he kind of accidentally came across some white nationalists and ended up spending some time with them. And he's Jewish and is very funny about that kind of interface with the world. So hopefully that'll be good. And if you didn't hear the live Times Radio show today we did have a really interesting chat to the tennis champion christine truman janes who is now in her 80s she looked fabulous uh still keeps fit she plays golf these days unlike me and she was talking about well the struggle that emma raducanu is having kind of trying to replicate her astonishing win in the u.s open but she was really. And she did tell us that when she won the French Open,

back in the day, her prize money was £40. £40. £40. And who did she get a telegram from? Winston Churchill. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. She still looked in such good shape.

She did. Yeah, she did. And I think you were admiring. She had an extraordinarily precise-looking kitchen. Very tidy. Very tidy indeed. I think she had her spices all arranged yeah just so but then you're talking to the woman who made cauliflower soup before nine o'clock this morning am I gosh you are right good evening good evening goodbye you have been listening to off air with jane garvey and fee glover our times radio producer

is rosie cutler and the podcast executive producer is ben mitchell now you can listen to us on the free times radio app or you can download every episode from wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget that if you like what you heard and thought, hey, I want to listen to this, but live, then you can. Monday to Thursday, three till five on Times Radio. Embrace the live radio jeopardy. Thank you for listening and hope you can join us off air very soon.

Goodbye.