Off Air... with Jane and Fi - We're full of joie de vivre! - with Rev. Richard Coles and Charles Spencer

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

Jane and Fi are back and well rested from their week away.They're joined by Reverend Richard Coles, cosy crime King and Radio 4 jock, and his old neighbour Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer to discuss their new history podcast.The podcast 'The Rabbit Hole Detectives' is hosted by Dr. Cat Jarman, Rev. Richard Coles and Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer. It's out now.   If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producer: Kea BrowningTimes Radio Producer: Rosie CutlerPodcast Executive Producer: Ben Mitchell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵

🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵

🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵

🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵

🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵

🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵

🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵

🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵

🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵

🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵''🎵'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed'ed' old the best to keep the songs in the best to keep the best to keep the best to keep the best to keep the best to keep the best to keep the best to keep the best to keep the best to keep the best to keep the best to keep the we're full of beans I must stop saying hang on are we recording? nothing's wasted no let's keep the songs in because we're full of joie de vivre because we've just been on holiday for a week aren't you? it's lovely to be back does that make sense?

would you like to see some of my holiday photos? I'll see one, I've agreed to see one I've agreed to see one do I've agreed to see one. Do you remember, it was a long time ago, when people would have evenings, they'd invite their neighbours in and you'd look at their slides. Yes. And people really did do that, didn't they?

This isn't an invention. It happened. It's not an invention at all. I'm going to find one of the boys being really, really, really high up at the top of a mountain, because I have to confess, I didn't get right to the very top of the mountain. Do we need to say for new joiners that Fi went on a ski trip to Bulgaria last week? Yes, that's a good idea. You tell people that. And now I'm back.

With the Bulgarian State Tourist Board. Is that right? Well, it was the Bulgarian state ski tour operator. Yep. You said that beautifully. Yes, yeah. So we were on quite a kind of state-sponsored trajectory. But the hotel was lovely.

Everyone had a great time. I mean, really, really, really great time. I'm going to make you come skiing one year, Jane. No, I don't think that would work. I think it would work beautifully. I worked out. I haven't been skiing since 1992. There's a picture. I'm showing Jane a picture. That's absolutely lovely. And that's that does look like an absolutely gorgeous view. But it's quite green. Well, it was very green.

And one of the huge problems that all of the ski resorts have faced across the Alps and across Bulgaria is climate change because you, you know, you're not up one or two degrees and your slopes have gone. So there was snow right at the top and on the main slopes, but there were quite a lot of artificial snow machines going at very early hours of the morning. And Steve, our Balkan ski rep, said that January had been a write-off and there was genuine fear as to what happens to those communities if the tourism goes

because that is the industry now for thousands of people and you were saying they were doing a roaring trade in stag stag parties well yes so the resort we were staying in uh had uh they had a bar called peep show it was a peep show yeah they had quite a lot of erotic shops and um yeah my daughter spotted that at the counter in the supermarket they didn't sell chewing gum they sold condoms where we might expect to find the ringies yep yep and don't confuse one for the other in any which way so yeah do you feel a bit ashamed of the largely British contingents of youth who are spreading their love all over Bansko and beyond? But we had a lovely week, Jane.

So obviously, you know, we were high-minded and a little bit disapproving of that activity. Of course. Of course. And just a brief word on the cuisine. What would an evening meal be in Bulgaria? Well, I can show you my arch of meat, if you'd like to see that picture. Well, you said you were only going to show me one picture.

You only wanted to see one picture. It's been a while since anybody offered to show me an arch of meat, so come on then. OK, well, can you just chat about what's coming up on the podcast and then I'll find my arch of meat. We have some high-minded... Do you think if I put arch of meat into the search facility... Please, just literally, I beg you not to do that.

Our intellectual company on Off Air today is provided by no lesser duo than the Reverend, and he is still Reverend, Richard Coles, who's now a very successful novelist. He is, isn't he? He's a number one best-selling novelist. He's a raconteur, still a man of the cloth, and he has done a new podcast with Charles Spencer, Earl Spencer, Princess Diana's younger brother,

as most of us, I suppose. He's always going to be known to most of us as that. So they've got together and done a podcast, and you'll hear them talking about it and a few other things besides in a moment or two. Fee is still scrolling. She's not a digital native, so it does take a little time. But she's going to introduce me very soon to an arch of meat.

Here comes the arch of meat. Look, look at that. Oh, my God. Exactly. That is. It looks like sort of one of my Girl Guide campfires. And then so lots of sticks in a pyramid fire style. And it's surrounded by a triangle of bits of meat.

Yep. So it's four ginormous skewers of solid meat with knives just thrown into the chopping board around those. So you can just hack everything off. And can you see they've got some thoughtfully put some tongs in just at the top so you can aid and abet your meat foraging activities and it's quite a thing jane isn't it it is quite a thing it's quite a substantial creation and are there chipped potatoes provided well there are and then the flames are being provided by what can only be described as powdered accelerant on the chopping board. So little piles of firelighters, which were lit to give extra effect.

But I don't want to laugh at that meal, actually, because it was fantastic. What kind of meat was it? Meat. Meat, meat. Meat? Meat. Oh, I'm afraid that's where I become all vegan, because I don't fancy that. No, there was some wild boar and there was a thing called Monastery Venison. So blessed by the monks.

But honestly, I couldn't recommend a Bulgarian ski holiday more. Well, I think that's absolutely brilliant. You've nailed your colours to the Bulgarian ski mask. Mask. Mask. What do you nail it to? Mask. Mask.

Yes. Not a mask. I've gone all pandemic. Right. Well, thanks for asking. I had quite a dull week. I was just about to. I was just about to. How was your week? It was alright, thank you.

And I did pay a visit to student, student resident residence. Not good. They haven't improved since the last time I went to a student residence. Have they cleaned out the sink yet? Well, it's a different student in a different city in a different house, but the vibe is very, very similar.

What did make me laugh is that I'd been out for lunch with my daughter and then we went back to her house. It was about half past four, and the other residents all gradually got up. It's half past four in the afternoon. And they came... I mean, because the lecturers were on strike last week. So I actually, my daughter simply couldn't think of a reason

why I couldn't come to take her out for lunch. She had no work to do. There's nothing in her diary, nothing. So I think it was quite a strain for her to get herself up and meet me at the station at half past 11 in the morning. Could you ever do that when you're a student? Just lays in bed all day I think I don't think I actually did I think student life has changed in any number of

ways since we went to uni and I think is it because they're paying for it I don't know that so they I do think they work I'm not saying they don't work but they're they have quite uh yeah there's a lot of lifestyle choices made at university that I don't think were available to me. So it's different, isn't it? Because they are paying and they have the debt, which is a difficult question, the student debt thing, because it's a loan and you're only asked to pay it back when you're earning over a certain amount. And you're only asked to pay it back when you're earning over a certain amount. And is that any less fair than the situation where in my day, when I went to university, when very few people did go to university, taxpayers were paying for me to go to university and not attend lectures on the mill on the floss because I couldn't be bothered going. So no, that's not good.

That's not fair either, is it? So I think it's a really, really difficult one. I don't know what the right answer to student funding is. I really don't. Yeah, but I still think it is off-putting, isn't it? It is so off-putting to families of very, very, very low income to take on that, ask their kids to take on that level of debt which would just be regarded in a completely different way to how uh how our families might

have regarded that level of debt that's the problem i'm not actually sure that i would have been so eager or my parents would have been that eager for me to go to university if i had to have a student loan to go. What do you think university gave you? Gave me? Yeah. Oh, I suppose a modicum of independence. A glimpse of a Birmingham.

Birmingham's come out very well of today's news because they are powering forward zero emissions aircraft a story which we might cover later on yes well i know you're very interested in this so what tell me more about this well so they've um they are they've got their own decarbonizing program in the city which i'd like to know more about anyway they've got much firmer aims to decarbonize quicker than the rest of the country and one of the country. And one of the ways that they're doing that is this really clever research into basically battery-operated planes, which in our lifetime will become a thing. But at the moment, you know, all the jokes are there, aren't they?

You plugged it in. You've got enough charge. I didn't think we could make batteries. Hasn't our battery manufacturing company just gone bust? No, I think... Well, I think the problem is that you can't, we're going to have to import a lot of batteries, aren't we? I don't think we'll be starved of batteries. It's just they're going to be more expensive because we can't make them here.

Because, yes, that big place up north is not quite such a starter. But I'm interested by the zero emissions planes because if you want to do a little bit of travelling it is covered in guilt at the moment. And so it should be because it's one of the biggest ways that you and I might contribute to

global warming. Well, yes, it is, isn't it? Although I'm not a big traveller. I don't think anyone can really accuse me of being the Judith Chalmers of my generation. I do fly once a year, twice if you include the trip back. Don't bother with that, darling. You just stay. Oh, thanks. It's OK.

Do you want to do an email before we have our guest? Oh, I'd absolutely love to, but I haven't read through any of them because I was so busy trying to find you a photograph of my arch of meat. Well, this is from Paul Wilkinson, who says, Fee, hope you had a great skiing holiday in Bulgaria. Well, I met him in the gondola. Well, pick it up. Go on. We met on the gondola on Monday, discussing, amongst other things, gentrification in Hackney, gangs in London and Chelmsford, legislation on ski helmets in Europe.

But I owe you a massive apology for confusing your excellent podcast and shows with Jane Garvey with a podcast on the archers obviously not as good it's one of those slightly embarrassing conversations where Paul did mention something about the Archers and I now feel so bad because I think there's probably some kind of a voodoo doll that is being passed around Archers fans and people stick pins into it because you're so frequently saying just switch it off because I'm always really late, I only got to Jennifer's demise today coming into work. And when did she demise? Well, she demised shortly after Christmas

and I can honestly say I nearly cried when Brian played wonderfully by Charles Collingwood, the man in a cravat, just said he didn't know whether he could go on or not. Honestly, you have to be there and you have to be a fan of The Archers, but it's moving.

So, Paul, I'm very sorry. Just to carry on, Paul says, my wife, Catherine, who also loves your broadcast, was mortified that I'd made such a stupid mistake, school by error. Even so, great to meet you. Humble apologies. Happy skiing and broadcasting. We had such a nice chat on the enclosed chairlift

going up the mountain. And it was quite funny because we did, we covered a lot of conversations in 2,000 metres. So it's a pleasure to meet you, Paul. I hope you had a lovely week too. Yeah, well, it does sound as though Bulgaria is the ski destination du jour, de nos jours. So come along next year.

Anonymous writes I hope you enjoyed your break I am currently on holiday myself a trip that has been six years in the making Six years ago I left my abusive marriage and made a promise to myself that I would take my children away on holiday A child-centred trip we would never forget

and free from the stresses that being away with my ex would impose What better place could an autistic single parent go than to the centre of culture and corporate behemoth, is that how you say it? Yes, well done. That is the European base of the animated mouse and his friends. Our first attempt was supposed to be in April 2020 and you don't need me to tell you why that was cancelled. A few more years on of trying to navigate restrictions, vaccine status requirements and having to save up again, we finally made it here yesterday.

You may wonder, therefore, why I'm sending this email to you at 4.30 in the morning on the first day of our holiday of a lifetime. Well, around an hour and a half ago, my nine-year-old threw up all over the hotel room. One phone call to housekeeping, who swiftly provided clean bedding later. Naturally, I was terribly British and insisted on changing them myself. I am now tucked up, unable to sleep, for wondering what is the appropriate amount to tip the housekeeping staff for the slightly messy room with the lingering smell of vomit. I apologise in advance for not being able to listen to you this week, but at this stage I can't say whether that will be due to vomit, tending duties or fun being had indulging in all the consumer excess our rodent host has to offer.

Well, thus far, it has not been stress free. It is fair to say that memories have been made and it is certainly a trip we will never forget. We have two more days and we will prevail, says Anonymous. You will prevail. I know you'll end up having a fantastic time. And thank you. That is an unfortunate start to what was obviously a much anticipated trip. So I hope things get better for you. So do I. They will.

Do you know what, lovely Anonymous? I mean, the propensity for children to vomit on holiday is just so high. And in the moment, it is just one of the most disturbing things isn't it because you it's actually the only time that I've just felt unable to comfort my children just because you're so disgusted yes yeah I'm just being honest you know there's just kind of like do I pick them up and it's just going to carry on all over me it's a very very difficult one and if you're on your own oh it's awful i really feel for you i think single parenting with with sickness is literally one of those things that i

i did dread it and when it happened i was all right i managed it but it isn't great no it really isn't great and actually it was one of the things i thought about before i had children was what would i because i don't like vomit i'm quite of it, what would I do when a child was sick? Because I wasn't sure I'd be able to cope. And I don't think, it's only then that you properly grow up, actually. If it's 10 to 3 in the morning and you're dealing with vomiting, oh yes, it's horrendous. You have to search for the hero inside yourself. I absolutely did. Thank you, Anonymous, and have a really good time. if everything has got better and i'm sure it has have one of those mickey mouse shaped pizzas that i think they do in that place of entertainment they're absolutely going to taste better being mickey mouse shaped aren't they and they really

did they tasted lovely so we're sending you metaphorical antibacterial wet wipes and i hope you've got a room where the windows actually open because that's the other problem. Please, I hadn't thought about that. But it is one of the huge problems of Mondo Tells. Yes, it is. Right, let's go to our guests because they were very entertaining, weren't

they? Charles and Richard, Richard and Charles, Dick and Charlie, Dick and Charles. We were talking to the Reverend Richard Coles and his old neighbour, Earl Spencer. Let's just call him Charles. I'm fascinated by this idea of the aristocracy all having these historic roles in a coronation.

You just wonder what the Garvey's traditional cleaning the portaloos outside. It's been passed down a long line of irish peasantry and the current incumbent is dj jane got also come with a mop to westminster do you think they've got a digitized address book somewhere at the palace you know where they just they have all of the great big oh they don't they've been asked to apply there was a big thing about it if you think your ancestors have done this in the past at other coronations get in touch well do you think that's because they haven't got a digitized it doesn't sound to me as though they've kept their filing system up to date since 1953 well that's embarrassing isn't it it's only what is it 70

years ago i suppose people will have passed on so we don't want to ruin the surprise at the end of the interview but you did ask him about the part that he might or might not play in the coronation. But they were in to talk about the rabbit hole detectives, which is a new history podcast that they are doing with the bioarchaeologist Dr. Kat Jarman. And we started off by asking if they're showbiz friends or real, genuine mates in proper life. I was so relieved to meet Richard. It was at a really grim drinks party in Northamptonshire, which is our patch, both of us. And I saw a vicar hove into view and I thought, oh, here we go. And he turned out to be very entertaining and told me a bit about his past. He's very shy, Richard. You had to push things out of him.

You have to prize him. Like a clam. Such an edit of the conversation we had there. We have to prize him. Like a clam. Such an edit of the conversation we had there. Can I say, it was a hugely inappropriate conversation to have with the vicar, but I knew we'd be friends after that. Can you give us a hint as to what the subject matter was? Maybe just in mime, if you need to. Yes, no, he mentioned that he had a male partner

and I said, are you celibate? And he gave me a very direct answer, so I thought we get on quite well and we always have ever since This was an event organised by the High Sheriff of Northamptonshire, I've done my research I was chaplain to the High Sheriff. So that gives you licence to

be really, really rude Really inappropriate. You're in a situation I mean it's a fact, we should do a podcast about it but it's a sort of county thing so if you're involved in the life of the county, high sheriffs and lord lieutenant, that kind of thing, there's always a knees-up, and you can always set your knees up because everyone brings a sword.

But I didn't get a sword because... I was sword-light that day as well. But I did. I got a tricorn hat, though. I know, but you weren't asked to, you just put it on. Well, and also try and get a tricorn hat, and then I borrowed one from the panto, but I had to get David to unpick the skull and crossbones

because it was long John Silvers. But in the photographs of the procession, you can quite clearly see the outline of the skull and crossbones. I was just in a suit, rather understated. I just love the fact that the detail is everyone has a sword. I mean, have you got a sword that you can just pick up before you leave the house? The Garvey family don't carry swords on a Monday.

I thought you'd know that for you. I am determined to get to the meat of today's conversation, which is theory, a talk about your podcast, which we are going to do at the start. So this is The Rabbit Hole Detectives. How did it come about, Charles? Well, Richard and Kat, the third presenter, Kat Jarman, we're all quite good friends.

And I don't know who suggested it, and it just sort of happened. But it is a problem because we, well, luckily it's in the title about rabbit holes, we do tend to wander off. So we do attack, we each present a subject, each podcast, which is set by one of the others the previous week and we have to be, I think, meant to be sort of vaguely entertaining and interesting, I think that's the idea, which is seldom reached. But we tend to go down all sorts of strange areas of knowledge

while discussing that. And then at the end, there's a sort of... There's a disembodied voice who declares who's been the most interesting or whatever. But we're not competitive people, are we, Richard? No, but I've heard there's some issues over the marking, which I think for season two need to be addressed, possibly with the Hague European Court or something.

Well, all I can say is when you get to the final episode, the way you pander and beg to win is not very seemly. That's humiliating. Oh, this is golden. They're going to fall out in a big way, Jane. Brilliant. We don't know anything about that. But he won. That's what's really... You shouldn't

reward bad behaviour, but the producer did. Some would say if they've read any of Richard's work, that some of his bad behaviour has been very richly rewarded. Well, thank you for that. I would say it sort of began because Charles, on the estate at Autrep in Northamptonshire, they found a Saxon village. So Kat was digging it up.

So she came to be an archaeologist. And then it was sort of after-dig conversations that sort of led to this thing, because we're just all interested in lots of different things, and we have different but kind of... Interlocking. ..slightly overlapping areas of... I have no expertise at all, but Charles is a historian,

Kat's an archaeologist, I just... You did history at university, didn't you? I did, but you see, Richard has that extraordinary knowledge. My children, one Christmas, tested him on, you know, who wants to be a millionaire. He knew every... There wasn't a theme that he didn't nail. So annoying.

And then he also knows every obscure flag, you know. He's just that person. He's pub quiz material. A lonely child. A lonely, weird child. You know all the saints as well, don't you? I'm good on saints. You're very good on saints.

Yes, the Wolfric of Hazelbury today, patron saint of pattern cutters. A patron? Does every single job have a patron saint? Yeah, and you can, there's no rule to stop you giving a patron saint to somebody. So, I mean, there's patron saints of the internet, there's patron saints of Tinder, there's patron saints of all sorts of things.

There isn't a patron saint of Tinder. Yeah. Well, who decides who that is? Is it you? Well, anyone can, I mean, there are formal ways of doing it. This is subject to my potter. Can I say it's exactly how it goes? It just goes on and he's mad.

So the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox churches of the East would have methods of doing that. But saints were often made saints by acclamation, just by making a big splash in the local there. Charles has got an ancestor who's nearly a saint. He is. What is he? Aloysius.

Blessed, is he? He's blessed. Ignatius. They're trying to find a second miracle, which would be a miracle in itself. What was the first miracle? Well, I think he helped somebody who had a tied tongue, but he didn't...

Well, I don't think he did, but they wanted to make him saintly, I think. He died in a ditch, didn't he? Yeah, he fell off a log and died in a ditch. But before that, he had a very distinguished religious career like Richard. In Northamptonshire. Well, actually, he took his message... He became Catholic and then joined the...

Loyalists. Passionists, sorry. Passionists, which is the sort of extreme wing of Jesuitism, and prayed for the reconversion of England to Catholicism. And anyway, they thought that was good. And then fell off a log. And then that was it. Right.

Can we just get to the Tower of London? Because I'm pointing, as though this helps anybody listening. It doesn't. But the Tower of London isn't that far from where we're sitting right now, the other side of the Thames. I think it's the most frightening place I've ever been to. Well, for good reason. I went there at night once and I couldn't get out of the place quick enough.

You've got a good fact, Richard, so just bring it to life for us. So here's a typical thing. We were talking about execution methods. Charles' expert, Charles wrote about the regicides, the people who were responsible for the death of Charles I, who later met sticky ends themselves. I think the subject of Robert Harris' new book. Oh, I think so, yeah.

He's taken two of the ones I've dealt with and turned them into fictionalised characters. Right, yeah. Sorry, carry on, Richard. Well, my friend Christian plays the organ at St Peter Ad Vincula, which is the parish church for the Tower of London, and the bloke who looks after the vicar there has a kitchen, and on the kitchen there's a table, and that was the table on which they used to take the just beheaded and sew their heads back on.

Not all of them, not everyone got that privilege, but Charles I, although that was in Whitehall, they had their heads sewn back on for burial. So you could sit there having, I don't know, a pot noodle or something round the table or a slice of Battenberg and actually thinking, well, on this table, the severed heads of beheaded grandees were reattached to their bodies.

That's the sort of thing we talk about. And also, what's so strange, and this is actually not in the podcast, but being executed with a with an axe is incredibly painful i heard that bit yes so it was thought of as this great compliment to highborn people are going to be executed but the rope if you got it right was a much quicker exit really and one of the things that i learned from that podcast was the fact that the guillotined heads do still move, show emotion, because for a couple of... For a few seconds.

I got a doctor friend who said that you would, your brain would still be functioning, feeling pain, etc., for a few seconds after the blade had done its work. Yeah, Lavoisier, the chemist who was guillotined in the terror, arranged with an assistant to count the number of times he blinked after the blade fell. So it was an experiment to see how long he could operate the apparatus of his face so when jane and i get together outside of work sometimes we talk about tv usually we just read about people who work at radio 4 is

this the kind of chat that you two have together when it is actually it is um we've done paper clips yes we've done dachshunds we we've done neckties. Pub names. Pub names. Yeah. So we start with a vaguely interesting theme and then broaden it out. I think that's really what we're trying to do. And as Richard said, we're very complimentary. So Kat Jarman is a proper academic,

particularly in the Viking Age, and Richard's got this general knowledge, and I have quite specific areas. But between the three of us, it's quite good. And also the good thing about Kat is that she stops us just being, like, two ridiculous friends chatting. And she's Norwegian, so there's a whole new thing that she brings to it with her Norwegian-ness.

So she told us, we did one on paperclips, and we learned about Operation Paperclip, which was a resistance movement in Norway, which we didn't know about at all. Which her grandfather was involved in, I think. We also found out, do you know what the French for a paperclip is? Go on. Trombone.

Trombone. Trombone. Of course. Because what does a paperclip look like? It looks a bit like a trombone. Gosh, I don't know about you, listener. I'm learning such a lot. I was a bit rude earlier and suggested that perhaps

they were convenient showbiz pals. But actually, Richard, you've written, I know, about your grief after the loss of your partner. Yeah. And actually, Charles and his wife, Karen, were hugely supportive. So what is it that makes a good friend at a time like that? Well, specifically in the case of Charles and Karen was having a house with security and a high walled gate

because after David's death, there was a lot of interest and some of it was very intrusive and I was a bit of a mess actually. So they very kindly took me in and they gave me, not only took me in but also I had some privacy which was really good. But actually they were just good friends. They just understood, said come and go as you please. I was so proud of my children actually at the time, the younger children, because they've known Richard,

they know Richard incredibly well. And it was over Christmas and they just treated him as part of the family. And it was just, it was just nice to be able to do that for Richard. Richard's one of these people who does so much for everyone else that it's just nice occasionally to be able to do something back. What do you think intrusion, that public intrusion does to grief? I mean, you are a man who really understands that. Well, it makes it hard to process, actually, because you become part of a wider story rather than dealing with your own grief, I think. I think that's part of it.

And I think if I look at Richard in those circumstances, the absolutely disgraceful things that people were up to to try and profit from his loss was so shocking. And, yeah, it rang a few bells. And, you know, everyone, regardless of their circumstances, goes a bit bananas in grief. I think it is a form of madness, actually. And, well, you understood that, of course. And then you give people enough room to do their crazy thing. But it must be so difficult to process anger at the same time as grief

because there's a part of grief where you are livid to have lost somebody. Well, I had an incident with a bloke on a moped, actually. So I was turning right onto the A510. It was a tricky turn in finding. And I'd misjudged it and a bloke on a moped came by and I pulled out front and he had to brake and then he did a very rude gesture at me and I was actually wearing a dog collar

and when he got close to see my dog collar he pretended he was just kind of not doing a rude gesture because the dog collar freaked him out but then I did a rude gesture back to him because I lost it actually but rude gestures from people in dog collars is not a great look but it just you know there are things in life which just shock you out of the

everyday and the familiar and you behave in peculiar ways and well it just, you know, there are things in life which just shock you out of the everyday, the familiar, and you behave in peculiar ways. And, well, it just happens, doesn't it? Charles is looking contemplative. Yeah, grief is such... Everyone listening to this has had grief on some level, probably many times. I'm amazed by the mechanics of grief, actually,

and what it does to you. So it speeds up your day it stops you sleeping your brain becomes uh it goes into overdrive in different directions and you're dealing with the the change forever i think and and and that's probably the well that's common to all of us i think the only thing that happens is that everyone around you wants you to be better as if you've had a cold or something but it's not that sort of a a thing. You don't get better, you just learn to live with it. So sometimes they're a bit disappointed and a bit frustrated with you because it would suit them if you were just better, right?

And that is a bit interesting and that needs a bit of managing. Yes, and I remember you saying at the time that somebody advised you that nobody will ever be as nice to you as now when you've just been widowed. The best advice I got was from a widow on the day David died, and she said exactly that. Just, everyone will be really nice, she has to make the most of it. It's a bit of practical help.

Yeah, I think I just want to be really... Because I thought your book, The Madness of Grief, was really brilliant. It's a sensational book. Yeah, really good, and beautifully written. I actually listened to it rather than reading it, and I thought it was brilliant. So if anybody is in that sort of...

going through that experience at the moment, I can honestly say that I'd recommend your book. I thought it was really compelling So if anybody is in that sort of going through that experience at the moment, I can honestly say that I'd recommend your book. I thought it was really compelling. I was telling him that literally an hour ago, saying how good it was. That's both you and I who've been nice to him. That's ridiculous. Let's stop. I had just bought him lunch. I thought it was completely average.

I'm only joking. I'm only joking. I've always thought you're average too. Thank you. Well, there we are. It's been said before. You don't have to take that for you. Gay marriage. Where are you with the Church of England now?

Because this blessing marriage fandango is just, it's such, I mean, I can say this in this space on this radio station, it's such a classic Church of England fudge that's got nobody anywhere. Yeah, Anglican fudge should be sold at every fete, I think. It's a tentative move in a direction that those of us who want more inclusion welcome, but it doesn't actually change anything at all. It's just that classical angle of giving the appearance of a movement of change,

but actually nothing has really changed. So it remains to be seen where it'll go, and it's all about the direction of travel. But don't expect anything decisive soon, because we just don't work out. And isn't it extraordinary? I mean, I've never met as many gay people in an organisation as in the Anglican Church,

and I say that absolutely openly and thrilled that that's the case. So why do they lacerate themselves with this on top of it? It's so strange. Well, I mean, it's complicated, and it's about... The argument is not really about sexuality. The argument is about authority. Who gets to decide what's in and what's out? That's what it's really about.

That argument has happened in one form or another since the very beginning of things. But can you explain to people listening how it must have felt to you to not be able to celebrate your love for David within the place that you had chosen to spend so much of your life and dedicate your life to well we did celebrate our love in that place but mostly through being in the pantomime which is a rather different thing anyway that's what it is but uh in church it's

just not I mean it was necessary for us to maintain the discipline or sometimes the appearance of the discipline in order for me to do my job which was to be the vicar of finding and I love being the vicar of finding it's a great job it's a lovely community and I just had to find a way of doing that, it's funny only when I retired did I realise quite what it does to you to have to somehow put a face on something which is unconscionable

and I'm not prepared to do it anymore But you're still a member of the church? I'm still a priest yeah and I'm still I'm still a priest yeah and I'm still I'm still able to serve in that capacity. It's just, I don't know where, de-vickering is weird. It's one of those

roles that defines you and you only realise when you stop doing it how much it has defined you so I'm trying to work out what it's like to not be a vicar anymore. Don't smile at strangers in your own village in the way you would as a vicar. It just looks sinister. You'll find yourself arrested. Can we talk coronation?

Do you, the Spencers, do they have a sort of, I've been reading about this bizarre thing where apparently aristocratic folk can apply for a role occupied by one of their ancestors at the coronation. Well, do the Spencers not have? I mean, you've been highly successful sheep farmers since the 16th century.

Yes, we did our bit with the sheep. I think we'd never had an official role in it. It just turned out like everyone else used to when it was the hereditary piers in the House of Lords. So obviously that's no longer the case. So there is some old coronet knocking around somewhere, but I won't be wearing it soon, I don't think. Will you not be going?

I wouldn't have thought so. I think there's only about 2,000 people going. Because the last coronation, there were 8,000 prayers or something. 8,000 guests or witnesses or whatever it is. Do you know the Dimmicks of Scribblesby? No. Do you know anything? Yes, I do. They come over most weekends, Jane. It's a family and they're in Lincolnshire, in the walls of Lincolnshire,

where I used to be a vicar years ago. And they are the hereditary kings or queens champion. And their hereditary job is to ride a horse into the banqueting hall and throw a gauntlet down. And they've done it since, I think, the 12th century. So I don't know if there'll be much of that going on at the coronation banquet of King Charles. Can I just ask you, Charles,

I imagine your feelings on that day might be quite mixed. I mean, I'll be totally honest with you, those of us with memories of your sister Diana, I think many of us, my generation, Fee's generation, we will be thinking of her. And I hope that is not offensive, but I think she'll be in our minds. I think it's very complimentary, actually. But, obviously i think of diana every day but in different contexts and the whole actually the whole royal thing doesn't really it's not i don't find it as

interesting as a lot of people do you know what i mean i just get on with my life and um i look after what i have to look after and the estate and I have a career and write books, etc. So I don't really... People obviously assume that I care a lot about that side of things, but it's just a side part of my life. Would you like to ride your horse into the banquet and throw a golf club down? Only if you were there to look really jealous, Richard, because I know you would prefer to do it.

I could wear a tay bar. That was going to be my next question. Surely there's a role for Richard, the coronation. If there isn't, he'll be doing his own little ceremony at home, I think. I'm going to get nowhere. There's a ring of steel I'd never get through. Are you going to be like Boris Johnson at a photo shoot, just make sure that you're in the line of the camera all the way down?

I wouldn't get that near. I'd be taken out by security long before then. Well, I'm glad to see you both. I thought it was a very interesting listen. And it's the old... I've just completely lost the title. The rabbit hole detectives. The old rabbits, I was going to call it,

which would be highly offensive. The rabbit hole detectives. And it's out now. It drops every week, doesn't it? For the next eight weeks. It drops like men are from above. And there's all kinds of stuff in there. It is full of really, really useful stuff.

At one point, Richard, you say, I wonder if literacy has eroded glory. And I actually had to press pause and give that one a little bit of a think. Blimey. I know. I think I was going to say literacy has eroded glory again. That was what I was going to say.

But anyway, I'm glad that's what you heard. That's an interesting quote, isn't it, that you picked up on there, Fi? I wonder if literacy has eroded glory. Yeah. Did he actually say that? Yes, he did. Yeah, he was talking about diaries and about war diaries

and the fact that now more people are recording their experiences and it's not just the great and the good that history keeps. So, you know, the war diaries that are venerated now tend to be from people who are in charge of armies. You know, they are not of the everyman soldier. So that was his point that actually now everybody can read and write and record. Oh, I see. So that is an interesting point.

It's a different type of war that is being talked about. To be the truth. Yeah, which is a very helpful thing. But it was just a beautiful phrase. And I know that we're slightly kind of taking the mickey out of our friend Dickie. But sometimes he comes out with stuff like that, doesn't he? He does.

He's a very clever man. He is a clever man, yeah. And yes, it was good to see him and and charles spencer and um it's interesting i get charles's obvious reluctance to engage in questions about the royals but um i kind of believe him when he says he's not as interested in them as people seem to think he would be i think in many ways the spencers are just as grand as the mountbatten windsors so they probably don't have all that much time to spare to ponder on the comings and goings. Well, it's probably like Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman.

They probably don't care very much about each other's families because they're both on an enormous A-less path. Maybe it's the same kind of thing. I wouldn't have made that comparison, but I tell you what, I think it's an interesting one. Yes, absolutely. OK, so it's the Rabbit Hole Detectives is their rambly but very companionable and properly interesting history podcast.

It's dropped, one episode's dropped already, and then I think there are seven more coming your way every week. But it did get us thinking, didn't it, about Princess Diana and how she would be now had she lived. She would be 61 years old and I think and maybe this is the difference between us

you know I err on the side of rainbows and unicorns. I like to think that she would have had a much happier later life than the life she was living at the time she died. I think she would have adored her grandchildren. Maybe she would have really got on, you know, with her son's wives and her dotage could be incredibly different.

You're not so sure. I'm not so sure. Oh dear, this is such a difficult one, isn't it? We'll never know the answer to any of these. I do think that, I wonder how her life would have played out. I think, well, would the events of May the 6th be allowed to happen had she lived? I don't think every aspect of what's going to happen on May the 6th would have been as easy to cope with had she lived. No, not at all.

And there are a thousand different kind of imaginings and endings, aren't there? Yeah. But, yeah, I just would have obviously hoped that happier times lay ahead for me. Oh, I definitely would have hoped that. And who knows, she actually may have gone on to meet the love of her life, because I don't think she had by the time she... I don't think Dodie was that person. Good Lord.

No. Let's ponder. The Glovers have an official role at the coronation. I shouldn't have assumed that you haven't got one. No. Sadly, we've been left off that roller deck. Are you not purveyors of gloves to the royal family? No, we have no kind of aristocratic lineage going back down the years at all.

Are you sure? Yeah. Okay. Well, it doesn't entirely surprise me, but it's just good to be reassured. It doesn't entirely surprise me. We're still hoping to do that programme on the coronation, aren't we? I'm not sure we're going to. Well, we've been putting in requests.

Yeah, many applications have been made. So far. Nothing forthcoming at all. And also, I think probably by now we would have had a permit slapped on us. Or at least somebody would have asked to see some ID. Yeah, that's not happened.

Oh well, everything's still crossed. I'm sure we have a certain amount of time. Well, it's good to be back and I'm glad you had a good time. And let's reconvene tomorrow. Well, let's do that because that's our job. Yes, that's true. And it's rather good to be back and I'm glad you had a good time and let's reconvene tomorrow. Well, let's do that because that's our job. Yes, that's true. And it's rather good to be back doing it. Good evening. A very good evening to you.

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.