Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Not everyone is a card carrying naturist

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

To be, or not to be...in the buff?Jane and Fi ask why almost 7 million Brits have claimed to be throwing out their wardrobe in favour of their birthday suit, if it's appropriate to microwave a jacket potato and reveal a top tip to dealing with a diary clash.They're also joined by the writer and campaigner Rachel Kelly to talk about her new book "You'll Never Walk Alone"; a collection of poems to help with life's upland downs.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Radio Producer: Rosie CutlerPodcast Executive Producer: Ben Mitchell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Good evening, no. Good evening. I don't know what you were trying to say. I tell you what, let's just do all of them. Good morning. Hello, good afternoon. Good mid-morning. Happy Christmas.

Right, it's Off Air with me, Jane Garvey. And me, Fee Glover. Me, Fee Glover. Yes. Now, Fee has had some ground to make up with me today. She did bring chocolates in for me. She owes me a little bit of a favour. We can't discuss what it is.

Of course we can discuss what it is. So, I bought you a little bit of a favour and we can't discuss what it is of course we can discuss what it is so I bought you a small packet of chocolates and I bought a dip the patim as well it was just to say thank you because you're going off to do a show tonight and usually we do a show together but I can't make it tonight

because it is a very long way away from where I live and also I've got a parents' evening on Zoom. So you are stepping up to the plate and you're doing it all on your own. And can I say that you've been absolutely thrilled ever since we decided that. I think you're going to expand onto the stage. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Plenty of value. Value, good value. You won't miss her for a single second. I think you'll probably make sure that that is the impression that the audience has. And sooner or later, this will be off air with me, Jane Garvey. You could stop that sentence earlier. Just say it's off air with me. And you'll be a thing of the past.

Oh, Ben, it's the sound of the sister cracking. Can you hear it? I tell you what, though. I was only fortunate enough to attend one parent's evening on Zoom because it didn't happen for me, the timing. So presumably they just don't occur. When it's Scouts, they don't occur in real life anymore. No, I think everybody decided that they were just a far,

far better way of doing things because nobody has to, you know, stay late after school in a drafty sports hall with just this, I mean, I don't know at what point parents and kids lose the ability to cue, but it doesn't ever happen, does it? It can be very tense, actually, can't it? Oh, I never enjoyed them.

There was some big banging music coming through, wasn't there? And some men shouting. I think the testosterone levels have gone up in this building since the World Cup started. Do you think that's what it is? I do think so. There's been a lot more shouting. Anyway, I always remember the worst cue would always be for the maths teacher

because there'd be an awful lot of tension in that cue as well because it's just a fact that, unfortunately, you probably do need to, well, do as well as you possibly can in maths, don you don't you think i guess i'm just trying to think actually i'm pretty sure that there were substantial cues around all sorts of subjects actually but but also there was just that terrible reticence that all kids have about having to overhear somebody else's parents talking to one of their friends and the teacher being involved. I always quite fancied hearing that. Just the whole thing was terrible.

But now it's bish, bash, bosh. And also, you know, the schools can choose the limit of their time. I have heard of one school that just allows three and a half minutes per session. We mustn't ever forget, of course, that if parents' evenings are a bit of a... Oh, for teachers. For teachers, it must be truly terrible. Yeah. It's the fag end of the day and they've got to make small talk with a bunch of dunderheads

and then try and think of something to say about their ghastly offspring. No, it's awful. And also, can I just say that I always used to really, really worry about this parents' evening in the winter term, just the amount of germs circulating around the sports hall. They were super spreaders and no mistake. So yes, that's where I'll be tonight. But you'll be on stage, darling, you'll be marvellous. Darling, darling, you will.

On stage. Yes, you will. Yeah. Hi both, says Victoria. In answer to your aversion to a microwave jacket potato, Jane, I'm sure someone else has sent this idea in, but baked potatoes in the microwave for a few minutes, then in the oven to crisp them up. Works a treat, says Victoria.

Nobody else did suggest that, Victoria, and I have never done that and I am going to do that next time. What I actually did yesterday was text my eldest child, who's quite an accomplished, reasonably adult person, and ask her to stick the oven on which she did and then she slightly haphazardly wedged a couple of spuds in the oven as well they were nowhere near done by the time i got home and actually we didn't eat till about half past seven i was done to a crisp potato myself by the time that rolled around i think there's there's nothing more disappointing in the kitchen than opening your oven door giving your your baked potatoes a squidge, and they're still really firm. Because you do know that you're an hour away from supper.

Well, absolutely, yes. Do you want to know what we accompanied them with? Go on. Fill my world with dreams, Joan. Vegan bolognese. Oh! OK. You know when you've got the Tupperware in the freezer,

and I tried to label everything, but I haven't labelled this. So it was just some sort of, it was sort of reddish. And I thought, well, probably it might be some sort of mince. I'll get it out. And it was. It was more or less edible. Yeah, I know. It wasn't, to be honest, if anybody had seen seen us last night it wasn't exactly the household of the stars

but anyway look two small women living together both working this is what you're going to do in the evening people can relate to that

by the way she means her and her daughter Jane and I don't live together well Jane and Fi we do not only last Friday during a leg wax

I asked my beauty therapist the very same question how to deal with HRT patch residue. Oh, this is a good one, isn't it? I think this is a huge feature now, Jane. Lorraine will be doing it within days. The top of my thighs look like a patchwork quilt of little grubby outlines. The lovely Amanda from And So Beautiful Salon in Peterborough, go there everyone,

confirms what Fee said, baby oil or similar such as olive oil or coconut oil and she demonstrated by way of wiping away the aforementioned grubby outlines. Can I also say how marvellous it is to be treated by therapists who are around the same age range as me rather than by newly qualified younger women. Not to disrespect such women, everybody starts somewhere, however the years of life experience make for very enjoyable chats during treatments alongside the years of professional experience I benefit from. Love the show, etc, etc. From Rebecca in brackets, age 53 and 11 twelfths,

which by my reckoning means you've got a birthday to look forward to over the festive period, Rebecca. Very many happy returns from us and i could not agree with you more i my heart sings with joy when i see a therapist my own age and we always have cracking chats about kids some of them have got grandchildren you know the question is asked what were you doing i don't know uh and it's just lovely actually i find it um i find it quite intimidating sometimes when i'm with a very young well that's what i mean it's the same as um my relationship with my hairdresser uh yes i i have one i knew that just to cut that comment off um debbie has had the good fortune to cut my hair

now for some decades and what do you mean and i i just i just find it a very, very comfortable, relaxing experience. What was her name? Debbie. Debbie. I'm going to get in touch with her, see how she feels. Right. I think I'm a reasonable... I'm a regular.

I've got a loyalty card. I tip. I turn up. And I'm full of chat. What's wrong with that? I think I tick every box. Nothing. It was just the phrase.

Debbie has had the good fortune to cut my hair. Well, she quite enjoys my hair because there's a lot of it. Right. Shall we talk about our big interview today, which I think we were both worried about might be a little on the doer side. But actually, I thought it wasn't. No, it wasn't. It was Rachel Kelly, who's a mental health campaigner and a writer. And she's written an excellent book, actually, that I read some years ago and interviewed her about called Black Rainbow from Memory. And that's, as she describes in the interview, she had a very, very bad spell of shockingly bad mental women, she crashed, I think, when she had two young children. Absolutely no shame in that. And of course, it can happen to any woman at any time,

any person at any time. But I think there is something around that time in your life, isn't there, where everything is... It's hard. It's really hard to get through those years. And Rachel had a period of very poor mental health at that time in her life but as she also described she did recover and one of the things that helped her recover was poetry now everybody's i mean not everybody some people are going to go what but listen to the interview because she describes the impact of poetry really well i think i think

so too and just to give you the gist of the book which is called You'll Never Walk Alone. Thank you. It takes you through the seasons so spring, summer, autumn, winter and poems that have something to do with all of those and explains how that takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of your life too. So she started by telling us a little bit more about her own journey coping with mental health. We got to rewind to my 30s when I suffered the first of two very severe depressive episodes. What happened was one night I couldn't get to sleep. And I don't know if any of your listeners have insomnia. I later learned it was a very characteristic of kind of anxiety-driven depression. But with this insomnia came some quite alarming physical symptoms.

I remember my heart rate speeded up. It felt a bit like I might have a sort of gym shoe, you know, like that sound of a gym shoe going around a washing machine, sort of thump, thump, thump. And my thoughts were racing. You know, if I didn't get up, if I didn't get to sleep, I wouldn't be able to get up. If I didn't get up, I wouldn't get to work. If I didn't get to work, I'd lose the house, lose the children. My whole life would collapse. I also remember feeling very, very nauseous and a very frightening feeling of falling. Anyway, being a sort of supposedly high functioning person, I kept going. And the next morning, I thought I'd sort of

refasten activity to its normal timetable. But unfortunately, I got iller and iller. And after sort of three days and three nights of this, I found myself in hospital. And when I got there, I thought that I must be having a heart attack because I felt so incredibly ill. And the doctor sat me down and he said, no, I'm not a cardiologist. I'm a psychiatrist. So that was the start of it, rather dramatic. I had a stressful life. I was a journalist in the newsroom, two small children,

life blew up, went to hospital, took about six months to sort of get back on track, took an awful lot of drugs through that period. And that would have been the end of the story. But unfortunately, I crashed again. A few years later years later had a second one of these huge depressive episodes and that time I was ill for the for the best part of a couple of years um and I knew it was a couple of years because um I couldn't pick up my children same children they were we bumped into you yeah when I bumped into you Jane but yeah so he was one of one of these children was given a prize for bravery for for the fact I was out of action for so long um so that yeah that that was really the the start of this journey into mental health and trying to understand you know what is good mental health how can we have it what can we do to look after ourselves and the conversation around mental

health has really changed um spectacularly in the last decade in the sense that, well, we're having one for a start, but we're having quite an explicit one. And I wonder whether you think you'd have coped better or worse before this new openness. What do you think? Well, I think actually it would have been really helpful if the openness that exists now had existed, especially after the first episode,

because even though my employers are very sympathetic, in a way, the stigma was my own stigma. And the felt that the shame sort of feeling that there was something wrong with me that it was really sort of internal. So what it meant was that I just shut the topic down. And I, I didn't get any help at all. And I didn't really, you know, after the initial help in hospital and things like that I then I then didn't seek to sort of uh find good tools to look after myself or even realize that there were good things that I could have done and I think if I had had a more open conversation if the conversation had been more open then you know maybe I would have got more

support and I wouldn't have been so ill uh the second time and you know I don't regret having been so ill because it's sort of led to an interesting life and and working with people like Zane but but but I wouldn't wish it on anyone no severe mental illness well no I think a lot of people are very grateful to you for your your honesty about what you went through and I hope we've established now in the minds of anybody listening who hasn't heard your story that you really do know what you're talking about here you You have absolutely been there. I'm just looking out of the window here across to the walkie-talkie on the other side of the Thames across London Bridge. It is a gorgeous late afternoon in winter, the sun just beginning to set. I mean, it's glinting off all the buildings. It looks wonderful. But we all know it'll be dark in about 40 minutes. And Rachel, your book is,

there's a connection between the poems you've chosen and the seasons. And this is a tough time of year for a lot of people, isn't it? Yes, I think it is. Sort of the lack of light and sort of going into winter. But I did want to establish this idea of sort of the seasons of our mind. It's actually something that poets themselves use a lot. And we can think of sort of Shakespeare in the sort of winter of our discontent. And Keats talk about, Keats also talks about the sort of different seasons of our mind and so I think one of the things I'm trying to do going back to poetry as a sort of therapeutic approach to to our emotional well-being is that you know we we do have different seasons we have a sort of

darker winter season we have a a more spring-like hopeful season, a summer season of joy, perhaps an autumn season of reflection. But they're all valid and important. And actually, I think one of the things I've learned is that if we want to sort of stay calm and well, we have to allow and accept, you know, dark times as well as sunnier times, that they're all part of the sort of rich tapestry. And that's why I like this idea of the different seasons of our of our kind of emotional well-being. Are these poems contained in your book, You'll Never Walk Alone, ones that you very much loved before you became ill or ones that kind of befriended you during and after your illness? Yes, I think my sort of my kind of strong connection with Perchin, I was that you called me an expert but I'm really more of an enthusiast I when I was really ill I really did look for poems for very difficult times and to find that solace and a feeling that others had been there

and that they'd found words for what was going through because I think one of the real characteristics of severe depression is this kind of incredible feeling of isolation and nowhere else no one else has been there but well it turns out poets poets have, and that's incredibly consoling. But I decided to go back to the topic of poetry. I did mention it quite a bit in my first book, as you say, Black Rainbow Poetry for Difficult Times, because my mum died nearly four years ago now. And I think what she taught me was that actually we need to sort of inhabit poems for sort of joyous times as well and and sort of and and sort of really go into those

feelings of of joy just as much as finding poetry for consolation so that's why this this new book is a sort of almost my second act in terms of my relationship with poetry. And that's what my mum's death gave me. I mean, she actually, she died in my arms actually. And she was that generation, you know, she had a head richly stocked with verse and she knew so much poetry off by heart, but a lot of it was really joyous. And that's something that I've been trying to focus on is, you know, lining up with the joy

as much as the consolation. Rachel Kelly is our guest this afternoon, and her book is called You'll Never Walk Alone, Poems for Life's Ups and Downs. Shall we start with the down, and then we might go to an up, and an all too familiar poem, I think, if you know a bit about poetry perhaps you wouldn't even need to know a bit about poetry it's Not Waving But Drowning by Stevie Smith one that you've chosen for the book Rachel why in particular? Yes well I've got this in my kind of winter section sort of time for sadness you might think I mean Stevie Smith herself suffered terrible depression was a huge

influence on all sorts of other poets who also wrote about dark times people like Sylvia Plath and to me it's just such a sort of extraordinary poem for sort of resonating with my own sort of inability really to be open initially about what was happening to me um i think the last two lines just just sort of punched me in the face really um i was much too far out all my life and not waving but drowning and and i think uh that feeling that um you know you you actually experience something but you're not able to to to about it, was very true for me. And that sense of, you know, maybe, you know, if the poem tells people anything that actually it is worth being open, it is worth being honest about what's going on. I think there's a phrase

of being a smiling depressive um the observers of this person who's having a laugh a hard time says um he always loved larking and now he's dead so he gives this impression he's okay and he's far from okay i think we've got time rachel and it's quite a short poem would you would you mind just reading it yes sure of course um not waving but drowning Of course, Not Waving But Drowning by Stevie Smith. Nobody heard him, the dead man, but still he laid moaning. I was much further out than you thought, and not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking, and now he's dead. It must have been too cold for him. His heart gave way, they said. Oh, no, no, no. It was too cold always. Still the dead one

lay moaning. I was much too far out all my life and not waving but drowning. Thank you for doing that, Rachel. I think the onus is on the rest of us, isn't it, to look at people in a more rounded way and not just to assume that the way they present themselves superficially is actually who they are. It's not easy to do though always, is it? Some people don't let you in. Yes, and I think the poem is interesting for the fact that it presents a sort of a physical explanation when in fact the problem was mental, you know, there's this idea that, you know, his heart gave way. And maybe that's an interesting idea that, as you say, if it is difficult for someone to be open, you might start with a physical symptom. I think, you know, when we started chatting, I was telling you about how dramatic those physical symptoms were.

And almost anybody who is suffering from anxiety or depression, they may have digestive problems. depression that they may have digestive problems they may not be sleeping and that can be a really good way in to opening up that discussion because there is still some stigma around stigma around even though as you say we've made huge progress and it is also really really good to remember how to embrace the joy isn't it and sometimes in the conversations about mental health I wonder whether we could do more to talk about recovery, to talk about finding that kind of place of contentment or where you are just feeling a bit more in control. I mean, certainly some of the poems, as you head in the book towards spring and summer, they do remind you of the joy of life, don't they? I think that's right. And actually, I think sometimes you're absolutely right.

The conversation can get a bit too gloomy. I mean, recovery rates are actually quite good. I mean, even serious depression, it's around sort of 70% people do recover. And even if people don't kind of, quote, recover, they often find good ways to manage it. I'd say that the sort of the poem Love by George Herbert, exactly, it kind of encapsulates a kind of a darkness. He's got an amazing expression in that poem of actually perfectly for me describes depression. He says,

he feels guilty of dust and sin. But yet, there's a different voice in the poem, which is the voice of hope and love and compassion. And I think we all have those different voices. And one of the ways to recover, and the one of the ways I've recovered is to line up, as you say, with that more hopeful, positive voice, which is within all of us. One poem I'd never come across before is A Blessing by James Wright. Can you just talk a little bit about that? It's very beautiful. I'll just read the first couple of verses just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota. Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass and the eyes of those two Indian ponies darken with kindness. They've come gladly out of the willows to welcome my

friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture where they've been grazing all day alone. They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. There is no loneliness like theirs. It's really beautiful. It's very evocative about animals and nature. Forgive my ignorance. Is it a very famous poem? I don't know, actually. As I say, I'm sort of an enthusiast. I mean, I do run poetry workshops and often people bring amazing poems that I didn't know about before. I think for me, that's such a wonderful poem because it's part of the theme of the book and the sort of using this device of the seasons is because there is such consolation to be found in nature. The whole, you know, it's called biophilia, the whole idea of natural beauty and this sense of connection. I mean, I think, again, a big part of my own recovery is, you know, partly reconnecting with myself, but connecting with others.

And here in this poem, there's a sense of this kind of connection with these two beautiful horses and this sort of stepping off the tarmac and into this extraordinary kind of natural beauty. And it actually ends with an amazing idea of a sort of communion, a kind of connection between the horses and him and the kind of a wider spirit, you might say. And maybe that sounds a bit woohoo, but maybe that's what poetry does. It allows us to kind of go deeper. My mum always used to say that. us it allows us to kind of go deeper um my mum always used to say that she used to say go deeper when things uh you know when you were trying to sort of navigate feelings and actually maybe this again is a huge thing for me why poetry is so important is i think a lot of us are in our heads

you know we think think think and that's all well and good there's a role for cognitive making sense but actually to be at one with our feelings and to allow and inhabit our feelings is is such an important part of good mental health and that's what these poems do they sort of take us deep into our feelings and all feelings are okay you know that's that's what poets poems do they kind of connect with a a sort of deeper uh sort of more primitive part of us, really. Yeah, I have to say, there was one poem, Rachel, by Anne Sexton, The Sickness Unto Death. I mean, oh, my goodness. I mean, the poor woman was obviously in absolute

turmoil. Yeah, no, that is a very, it is a very, very dark poem. It's got an extraordinary image, which actually spoke to me about having to have something to hold on to she she feels she's falling and and I'm I'm very you know she she did take her own life and I mean lots of people have said to me well why have you got you know these very very dark poems where's where's the consolation in that and I think for me there's something about the sheer creativity that even in the depths of that darkness you, someone like Anne Sexton chose to put words to what was happening. And there's something consoling in that, that a creativity is born even in this incredible darkness.

That was Rachel Kelly and her new book, if you fancy it, was called You'll Never Walk Alone. It's available now. It's one of those books that's rather lovely to keep by your bed or somewhere where you can just rest a bit with it and just maybe read, I don't know, one poem a day or something for a couple of months. It will see you right and actually be a nice companion. I'm not very bold about poetry, Jane, because it falls into that category where I think I don't know enough about it. So therefore, whatever I read, I might be missing something. Well, that's kind of what she said at the end there, because I wanted reassurance that you don't have to understand it, because maybe even the writer doesn't fully understand it,

and what might look one way on the page to one individual might read in a completely different way to somebody else. And if it gives you comfort, who's to say? Don't question it. Also on the live radio show today, we talked to a man from, was it the Naturist Society of Great Britain? British Naturists is just what it's called. Just called Mark Bass.

Mark Bass, yeah. Was it Bass or Bass? Well, I'm going to say Bass in the podcast. I said Bass on air. Right, okay. So you've got everything right at some point. Anyway, that's always good. And he was actually a rather

serious gentleman wasn't he and i think the problem with naturism is that to those of us who are not who don't embrace embrace it as a lifestyle it's a bit funny but for people who live it and do it there's nothing even remotely amusing about it why are you laughing because you were the one who cracked the when he said he gave me it was an open goal he said not everybody's a card-carrying naturist and you said there's nowhere to put your card but then no then i realized of course that in the 21st century everyone's a lanyard wearer. So you could be a naturist and just wear your lanyard. Yes, absolutely.

You'd get a funny suntan, wouldn't you? So now I do, I completely understand the point. And it must be, you know, bordering on offensive to hear people, you know, kind of tittering their way through a conversation about nakedness. If it carries no kind of embarrassment for you. But that's why we're laughing, isn't it? Because you and I would find, if we were doing this podcast naked together, we would find it embarrassing.

So the go-to place is to laugh and have a bit of a kind of fanar fanar about it. There's an assumption that it's sexual, and it's not, apparently. I mean, I say apparently, it's not. But there's sexual and it's not, apparently. I mean, I say apparently, it's not. But there's also, it's simply... And the journalist who wrote the original story in The Times, Valentine Lowe, knew exactly what he was doing

because he mentions things like badminton. Yeah, and tenpin bowling. Yeah, well, so immediately you think, well, there's going to be a certain amount of... There's going to be inevitable jiggling of things that you don't necessarily want to see bouncing about well yes there is that and that's the problem anyway last word on this podcast but you're very welcome to get in touch with us about it no i've got another email yeah no no i was just about the nature thing before the email um so i just i do

feel slightly sorry for people who object to naturists being in their neck of the woods because I wouldn't actually want to walk past a naturist event with my kids when they were younger and have to explain why it was that those people did something that I had really strongly told them never to do because of the unsafe nature of, unsafe nature of young kids running around naked.

And I wanted my kids to understand that if there was an adult, apart from me and their dad, asking them to be naked or being naked with them, that was wrong. So that's what the problem is. You're right, it's confusing. The messages are all very... So you're allowed to be annoyed by it you're allowed to object to it yeah no i honestly i think i made the point on the live show that if i were out for a ramble

yes let me finish this sentence it's not. If I were out for a country walk, I would need due warning that I was about to encounter... Some naked ramblings. Some rambling naked folk. Yeah. Right. This is from Lisa. Love the podcast.

Wanted to drop a line as Grace Dent. Are you ready for this? Is actually 49, not 43, as V stated, which makes her amazing. I mean, she looked incredible. Really incredible. One thing that I discovered, though I cannot believe it would be news to you,

was just looking for Fee on Instagram and putting in Fee Glover was disconcerted by the content that appeared. Then I looked closer and I realised that Fee Glover also reads as Fig Lover. I can't be the first person to notice this, surely, but it did make me giggle, says Lisa. That's okay.

Yeah, so it has, it has cropped up times before. But I do think that we need to do an item on the programme very soon about not drinking, just as we head towards Christmas. And Grace Dent was extolling the virtues of her teetotal lifestyle, which is relatively recent. And she just seemed. And it seemed to be really suiting her. Yes. She seemed to be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed. I mean, she's always on the money in terms of words and stuff. But how long had she stopped drinking for?

Can you remember? I think it was less than a year. Okay. Yeah. We can't, unfortunately, do this immediately because tomorrow's big guest is talking about cocktail. That's very true. We'll put that on the back burner put it in the idea of drawers or the drawer of ideas and return to it i like the idea of drawers let's keep it let's but let's make a label

and put it on something that's probably that's the anti-naturist slogan i like the idea of drawers very good thank you okay well think of me tonight anyway when I'm working and I'll be thinking of you enjoying yourself at the parents' evening on Zoom. Oh dear. Thanks, Miss. 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, 3 till 5, on Times Radio. Embrace the live radio jeopardy. Thank you for listening, and hope you can join us off air very soon.

Goodbye.