Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 30: Tina Crawford

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

It’s the final episode in this series of Spinning Plates! Wow what a lovely group of guests and my 30th is no exception. Meet Tina Crawford, who is an artist who I got to know through her embroidery. She used the Kitchen Disco as a subject for part of a huge piece she started working on as lockdown began. Its an incredible piece and talks about how we are all connected - hasn’t so much about this last year been about the importance of connection? The work is about to start life in its new home at the Science Museum. Tina has a 13-year-old son and she claims to have the besthusband in the world. We talked about having a child through IVF,being a disabled parent and how people lie about being happy inpostnatal classes. Turns out we met once when I was a teenager and Tina found me aloof, but hopefully my superb tea making skills have changed her mind now. 😊We also had the additional excitement of my cat Titus that kept jumping on thetable where we were talking! He’s a bit annoying that way, but I love him none the less. 🐈Xxxxxxx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hey. I'm going to start with an apology because Richard asked me,

when you record your intro, make sure you're somewhere where it's not windy and it's quiet. I'm pretty sure it's quite windy and I'm also out by a road. So I think I failed on both instructions, which leads me in turn to an apology to you because maybe this sounds really horrible in your ears. I'm sorry about that. But oh my goodness i'm having one of those days i'm just running around like an absolute lunatic all day um i don't know what it is about i've got birthdays this weekend right they're not surprises a birthday comes around on the same day every year and yet i find myself always never really any more prepared each year.

I always get the basics sorted, but I leave a lot of things to the last minute and it's exhausting. I don't recommend it. So I'm walking home back to my house. I've already been out today to get extra helium. It's Sunny's 17th birthday today. When I did the helium, the canister only had a tiny amount in it and i didn't know that so the one was really brilliant and significant and the seven just looked very sad so it was like 17 so i went to the party shop and then i'm now walking back

to the house with two cakes in a spinner bag. I used to bake cakes in the olden days, but quite frankly, I don't have enough time right now. So I've got some cakes and then I just remembered that Ray, who is nine on Sunday, so that's only a day off. They have one day off and then it's back into another birthday. He said, oh, can I have a how to train your dragon and Harry Potter cake? So of course I, I was like, yeah. I think I pictured myself making some sort of fondant Harry Potter riding a dragon or something. But I'm not really going to do that. I'm not really that person.

So now I've just seen what I can order on Prime. Oh, Richard is going to kill me. It is so noisy and so windy. It's a beautiful day. Oh, my God god it's so busy anyway this is the last episode in this series pop some virtual champagne why don't you i think i think this is actually really quite good i've done 30 of these bad boys now and i've loved it oh my goodness i've loved it and check me out I've even recorded the first one of the series four.

Because I'm that sort of podcast expert now. Anyway, this week's guest. Oh, what a lovely woman, Tina Crawford. One of only two people thus far to nominate themselves. And ordinarily you might think well you know what's interesting about you per se but except that both people i'm going through lots of noise now all the schools are chucked out anyway uh she she nominated herself and she's one of two and the other person to nominate herself was also an artist and t Tina is an artist so I think maybe when you're an artist there's part of you that just has to put yourself out there even though afterwards she sort of said oh I actually ramble a lot but she doesn't

she speaks a lot of sense and I was really intrigued in talking to Tina I just knew she'd be interesting we first came to know about each other well i first came to know about her in the here and now because she's been making free embroidery pieces in sort of a reaction to lockdown but actually that is not the first time we met we first met when i was 18 and she worked as a researcher on this morning you will hear more about this later oh i'm walking past some beautiful blossom wow that is gorgeous anyway tina had so much to talk about she's a disabled mother and spoke about her disability and how her baby boy instinctively knew how to cling on to her in a way that he didn't cling on to his dad because he could sort of sense the limitations or the i suppose the adaptations that were necessary for how they interacted in that way.

We talked about art. We talked about overcoming challenges. We spoke about what it's like to raise a precociously bright child. Her boy has a very high IQ. I spoke about loads of stuff. I really enjoyed her company and she brought over a birthday present of an embroidered vision of me i have to say she's rather wonderful she looks better in her uh leotard than i do i really like her i'll have to show you a picture of her anyway we had a lovely chat and it was a really lovely way to finish this series so thank you tina thank you to you about the noise. Sorry about the wind. But, you know, it's just been one of those days. So thank you for walking me home with my two cakes

on the actual birthday. I mean, am I ever going to get this stuff right? There are people out there so organized. They've booked restaurants in pubs like in the middle of may who are these people i don't know them i'm not that woman but if you are well done you're you're nailing it quite frankly i'm the sort of person who buys birthday cake on the birthday yeah i'm the sort of person who doesn't make a fondant how to train your dragon riding a harry potter other way around now that would be a birthday present anyway thank you for lending me your scene. It's really nice to meet you. We haven't actually met in person before,

although it might sound a little sinister. You have already dropped things off at my house. I have. I have met you. I have met you a very long time ago when you think you were doing your first performance with the audience for this morning what oh my goodness so i'd met you then my first performance with the audience so i must have been like was like 18 golly that's crazy i don't know it was this it was this morning um i don't even remember doing this morning with a long time ago.

I remember it vividly because I can remember the production notes. I think I put something and I got told off by Richard Mangle. One of many times I got told off. Okay, there's a lot to unpick here. Why did you get told off by Richard Mangle? Oh, no, that's just it. No, don't worry, we don't have to go into that. So I came in, what was it to do?

Pessimist is Never Disappointed yeah that was it the production notes because i'd written i've already forgotten it the wrong way around did i write uh or the oh he said which is it and i think i because i got yeah i don't know oh well we have i'm dyslexic yeah yeah get yeah, yeah. Get off my case, maybe. Just leave me alone. Well, we did have a lot of very idiosyncratic song titles and everything. So I think you wouldn't be the most annoying thing, probably, for most people with my band, my first band, was the fact that the audience was spelt as all one word. Oh, yeah, that was another one. Yeah.

Because I'd missed the spacing. No, I hadn't missed the spacing. Yeah, you'd written it like a normal person. And then I think I got a, you've written, I hadn't missed, I missed the space yeah you'd written like a normal person you haven't you you've written i hadn't i've written it how you'd written it without the space yeah and i think i got this what have you done this and it was probably within the first month of working there so it was just like literally everything was just like yeah well it was a silly way to spell the band name so um slightly but then if you spell it correctly how it's meant to if you spell it

like that and then you get in trouble for it and then you're just like that's how it's don't blame me that's how they spell it so anyway yes so did we did we speak then um i was a researcher so i'd sort of come you seem quite scary and scary really quite tall well i was to be honest i was just anybody over five foot five scares the life out of me that's interesting I I think I was probably scared rather than scary I came across as quite I think oh I used to get that a lot around those days but I think I think that era is interesting um because I was looking back at all that time in my life um recently because I've been writing a book so I've been looking back and I think that time for women in music was really quite it was quite hardcore yeah yeah so you had to kind of keep your guard up quite a lot I'm not saying you know there's never anything I hope I wasn't rude or

anything no I think I just was quite guarded really because um I reread some of the interviews and things like that and the way that I was written about, women are written about, it's just pretty shocking, really. It's definitely something I don't think people would do now. Yeah, things have definitely changed quite a bit. But also I think from things that I've worked in, it's almost like the younger ones that come in. It's always, there is a different attitude

when somebody's, you know, just at the start of it. Oh, God, yeah. That's the worst. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. It's true. That's always the ones where it's the biggest problems because you're so, you know, you're thinking, you're thinking that there's a way you're supposed to act

to make it all happen. Yeah. And being sort of like friendly, smiley, like high-fiving people makes you feel like they'll probably just be like, why are you doing this? It's a bit like being invited being invited to the grown-ups table, isn't it? Exactly. It's just that while you're acting how you think it's supposed to be, not actually how you are.

But yeah, it was interesting. I mean, it's a lifetime ago. It's just an absolute... I know. Working for me was just, all of that was just, that's a different person. Yeah, yeah. And I'm trying to get that back.

Oh, that's interesting. I'm trying to get that me back because I'm thinking it's there isn't it okay so you felt like that was there's a difference in how you felt then well I mean I feel different about how I was then too but I don't really want that version of the only one well there's a lot and it's taller by all counts as well one one thing that I've kind of noticed and for me it's it's not just it's not having a child that's done it because for 21 years now I've basically been ill so I was kind of like disabled basically for this time and I had to give up work suddenly so I was working on something at BBC and collapsed they sent me home in a cab that was that was it there wasn't a kind of gradual and it was I was still getting phone calls whilst it was still going on because obviously um and um it's taken it took me a long

time to come to terms with the fact that that's gone I mean like over 10 years it took me a long long I still kept thinking that I've got that life yeah and it's such a change it's it's such a change to kind of like go from this which I loved I'd wanted to work in TV since I was 15 and I was so lucky to work on the programs I wanted to work on I was just so so so lucky and then to suddenly have everything kind of taken away basically kind of it It's a similar what we've had in lockdown. It's a similar thing that everybody's just suddenly had that ripped away. But for me, it just took a long time. Because I think when you do something, especially when you work in the media,

you also have that feeling that sometimes your friends are kind kind of there's a lot of superficialness around it there's a lot of people that are only a kind of interest in that in that side of it so you kind of lose that well I'm not interesting now am I I've got nothing got absolutely nothing what have I got now I literally just lie on the sofa watching programs I used to work on and you, where's the old me gone? Are they still there? I don't know. Then you become a parent, then you become somebody else. Well, I think as well, if you're doing something you're passionate about and you enjoy, then I think no matter what forum you're in,

if you're suddenly not doing that thing anymore, especially at that time in your life, so presumably this is in your 20s is it yeah I think I had just yeah late 20s so late 20 I just got married and then maybe I'm we always joked and said am I allergic to marriage because about six months in got married in February and then they did the June. It kind of like, something happened. And yeah, yeah, it took, but it's made me a better person. Without a doubt, all of that has made me, you know, a better person. I think the old me was really confident in my work. The old me, I knew I was good at it.

I was good at what I did and I enjoyed it. But I wasn't confident in myself whereas now I'm better with myself not so much confident in my work but I'm more confident with just being me so it's just a which is better I'd rather be confident with me I suppose do you think and did any of it prepare you better do you think for that you said your life changes again when you become a parent do you think that did it Did it give you any help with that transition? It kind of did and it didn't because I think what then happened was you've got a baby and then you suddenly turn.

I hope I wasn't too bad at this. Suddenly it's all consuming and then you become that mum. You become the one that all you've got is your child and nothing else you've got none of yourself and I was trying to avoid that but you don't you can do your best can't you to try and avoid it you just don't know and friends will probably say yeah you were really boring you just and now you're sure they wouldn't and Toby's 13 and you're still no I don't think it's boring i think i think it's just i think that feeling of like feeling a bit homogenized like all your your individuality is

a bit knocked off because you're sort of suddenly responsible for this other person you feel like that you're just so defined by that small person it's very hard to it's like it's really easy to feel like you've just lost yourself in it it is but then what the one thing that i do think about having a child is you learn from them who you are and that's the part that i find the bad bits and the good bits he i've learned so much from him just by being him kind of like it's such a mirror when you see them do something that you think when something happens and he just goes oh i'm sorry i'm sorry and then i just think oh god that's my it's me isn't it and then you have to rein that in but equally when you see a sort of lack of cotton you think okay you've got that from me but then there are good bits as well but it teaches you more so than any other friendship

or partnership or any other relationship i think a child really does teach you who you are. So I value that. So when he was born, just so I get a bit of a chronology, so you'd done art when you were young, is that right? Yeah, so I did an art degree, so I went to art college. But the short version is when I was 14, 15, I really wanted to work in TV. so I did used to lie about my age I did used to get running jobs I was obsessed with network 7 which was on channel 4 and I used to go up there every Sunday and I thought this is what I want to do I used to watch this is exactly

what I want to do this is it got running jobs kind of like part-time and then I came from a family that was you kind of left school and you were meant to get a job it wasn't a degree was a real luxury so I had to really fight for doing a degree my parents didn't want me to do it there was a big argument about it um and they got to do it but I was had no idea what I was going to do after I just thought I'm just thinking about these three years yeah so in St Martins yeah so I did um I did jewellery there I hate jewellery but um it was I wasn't expecting that I love jewellery I really hate jewellery but it was to me it was just like mini sculptures so I thought I mean my jewellery jewelry was just mini sculptures and toys um and then yeah so that that kind of like was how it went like that it's literally just how my mind works that's how my life is like stick a pin in something stand it in jewelry I'm gonna do that now but

yeah I I think I must have been really feisty to have done it because I think I look back and I just think I don't know how I fought to get that that didn't come whereas my husband obviously came from a background that that was the dumb thing so he in art as well no no no no but just kind of like going to university it's quite interesting having that you've got some families that just expect it of you yeah and some families that just think why are you wasting your life? So, yeah, it's just, I can't imagine what it's like to have had that encouragement to go. But some people might think it's a force.

I know some friends of my son's and I just look at their families and I just think, you know, if you didn't want to go to university, I don't know what that's going to be like. You're probably going to have the same aggro that I had for going. Yeah. I suppose. Sorry. No, no, it's all right I think sometimes as well if you come from a family that are thinking why are you doing that there's there's a kind of nice feeling of sometimes rebellion feels quite good doesn't it just to go and do something and be a bit selfish and be like actually no I really want to go to art school

where presumably there are a lot of similar characters there are people going I'm just going to do my own thing yeah I think so it makes you really sure of if you have to fight for something it's it's very different to just waltzing into it that kind of fight for it has um it kind of is made it has made me the way that i am and it makes the art that i make i think um and i find it kind of weird when i see some the trouble with the trouble with um artists i'm getting trouble now the trouble with a lot of artists is a lot of them come from really really really wealthy backgrounds and you know pulps common um pulps you know common people basically was written because that's that's what it's like yeah there's an awful lot of people like that and um I find that quite hard because I

you know even now kind of struggling in and I see the ones that yeah that's great you've got all that but and you've got the contacts and you can do that and art isn't about getting being successful in art depending on what you define success. If you define success as getting somewhere with it and having your name known, that doesn't have anything to do with talent. It's got a tiny bit to do with talent, but I still think you could be pretty useless and have the right contacts and you will get somewhere.

Yeah, well, I think any aspect of art and commerce has got grey areas. It's a bit like those, what are those, what are they called, those diagrams where you've got the two circles and across a... Venn diagram. Venn diagram, yeah. So, you know, you've got the bit in the middle

where you've got the talented people and then you've got bits on either side where there's a bit of smoke and mirrors, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and it's like that Empress New Cl's new clothes then you know if everybody's looking at something and art is subjective and people don't always feel that they have been taught how to feel good about the their natural response to something you're sometimes true you've got a learned response to it too and look at something and think well i i think this but then someone can go well actually

if you look here and there's this context you think you think, oh, okay, that's quite highbrow, and I didn't get that, so I'm a bit daft, so I'll say now, oh, I can see that, and I can comprehend that this is a good piece of art. Plus, I guess, a little bit like music, you know, sometimes people say, oh, when you look back at the, you know, the old days, there's so many great songs that come out of it,

and look at the charts now, and I'm like, like yeah but history's done us the benefit of sifting through yeah it'll go right here's the 60s yeah sift through everything there would have been reams of rubbish too and then you get just get left with the good stuff at the end and it's similar thing with art isn't it where you get anything kind of sort of with some sort of creativity isn't it i mean like yeah with music i mean you get so much that was just manufactured and at the time you can criticize it but actually you can look back and go yeah you can have a lot of guilty pleasures yeah i'm stocking them all so after you've done your has art been something that because i suppose we should talk about how i do know you now which is through these amazing creations you do

with um how would you call it sort of free free stitching free embroidery it's free motion embroidery okay free free embroidery i'd say free embroidery and people think i'm actually just giving away a lot of work which sometimes i do but but it's yes free motion but it's basically it's drawing with the sewing machine okay so it's not all that I do but it's the main kind of um it's an easy tool I guess for social media in a way because you have to have your social media artist side and then you have to oh that's interesting so it's not that you have lots of different because that's the thing I know yeah it's well it's mainly because that translates so well for social media isn't it so it's just kind of like that that works I do do things that don't involve any stitching at all um but drawing with the sewing machine is something I love and writing with sewing machines are just kind of like my thoughts I'm dyslexic and it's

almost just kind of like I feel like my thoughts can come out a lot better from my head to my hands there's something that it's a little bit more connected so I don't have it's like it's not really happening I can say it and it's a bit like being possessed yeah I can understand that I don't know I'm assuming that's what I don't know so when when you did but I know you're saying about the social media aspect but it seemed from my point of view that for the last year it became a really good way of getting out some of the feelings and thoughts of what's been going on yeah so for me the beginning of lockdown I knew I wanted to make a piece of art I thought I knew I wanted to make a big piece of art

and for me and I wanted to do something that was obviously based around what we were going through and I think because I had the benefit of um being almost like my my own personal lockdown which was when I became disabled and I kind of thought everybody's going to have this everybody's going to have a feeling of hang on a minute I've been robbed of something and sorry you thought that at the beginning of the lockdown yeah and I kind of thought this will be interesting this will be really interesting so I acted really really quickly and I put out a call on social media mainly on Twitter and just said can you send me a photo of your lockdown moment and I thought there was going to be a lot of quite miserable stuff because a lot of people are going to be moaning about this and actually what I got

was just lovely I had you know cooking with your children I had you know just gardening really really basic stuff that was lovely and I started stitching them and then I just decided hang on a minute we've all been it was it's really corny but we've all been connected because of this so it's like connected by a thread brilliant so I kind of drew each image that came to me and then I kept the thread going and then did the next one so literally every picture was connected because I thought we've all been connected and I just I I found it real privileged to have this little window into everybody's little moments and some were just I mean my favorite one which you couldn't make this up was somebody that

basically said that they were divorced and in lockdown there and similar to me so late 40s their boyfriend from when they were 16 got in touch and they've been zooming and they've been together oh wow and he'd he'd made her a necklace and the picture was like the necklace. But I just thought, would that have happened without that kind of focus? Would that have, probably not. And I just thought it was just lovely.

So these little moments are brilliant. And obviously there was so many people that had put Kitchen Disco in. So then that's how I reached, kind of um kitchen disco in so then that's how i reached kind of like we said you know that's how you saw it because it was yeah um you did one of ray my eight year old just as spider-man with horse's head yeah half up the window yeah um yeah and that was obviously quite early into the discos as well because it would have been um you know because some people when i was saying it whereas now i think a lot of people would probably sort of maybe know know a bit more

describing it so yes that was the first yes that's how we sort of came to know each other in this part of our lives anyway yeah um and um no i was really struck by it and i think i think there's so much i mean obviously there's loads of talent and i can really see the way you can see the images sort of emerge out of this scribble of threads is extraordinary and there's so much detail um so the one you delivered here yeah is um it's not ray the horse's head one because that's part of your big piece yeah so you did another one from the sort of last disco of the first 10 yeah yeah yeah which i kind of was what it was really lovely because i was watching it and whilst i was watching i didn't necessarily i didn't know what i was going to do but i just thought i wanted to i wanted to kind of

make a piece that was a bit of a reminder of it so I kind of not just stitched you and however many heads there was and it's some of it you can make out some of it you can't but also like the numbers going up yeah you know which I thought was lovely in little quotes and bits and pieces because um it really was something that I it you know it did touch an awful lot of people it really did I think it was a little bit of something that we all look forward to certain things in lockdown that everyone a lot of people look forward to say kitchen disco and grayson's art club yeah you know the little touches that we thought they were made something because it was you couldn't have had those things without lockdown so it suddenly made lockdown really positive and i think we need

that we need to we need to kind of like um separate covid from lockdown you can i mean i i love lockdown i i can say it but i think there's a point where people think you can't like that because it's been so tragic and it's like you can like that time yeah and separate it from you know covid i think oh yeah you can definitely say the things about it that have worked for you i think that's yeah that's fine i know what you mean yeah it's it's definitely um i think people do need to let themselves off the hook a bit with making it sound like they're thinking pandemics are brilliant you know it's like it's definitely not yeah not that at all it's just that if you're going to find yourself in an unexpected tilted

place um it's quite good if you can draw out a few things that have brought you joy and a lot of them as you know as you say little things really little things yeah so when you started with this lockdown piece so this is all while you're living at home with your husband yeah yeah yeah and what does your son think of what you've created how involved is he with what he loved it and he he's kind of like my biggest he is my biggest cheerleader but he's all I mean he's pretty much he's kind of like my biggest muse really because he just comes out with stuff and it just makes me feel proud of myself but a that produced that but also just he does help with ideas so he was really positive so when I had moments where I just thought I didn't think I was doing it for me so I

was just doing it um but then when it came to the end of it I like to then just hide in the corner and not do very much whether it's a piece that you think you want exhibited or you want sold I just want to make the work I don't really want to do anything with it but i had interest quite early on from museums about it and i partly kind of like just wanted to hide and think i can't do this side of it i can't do the promotional side at all and that's my past work that is all like that's pretty much what i was doing so it's just like try and grab a bit of it and um uh it's finally it has been bought it's gone to the science museum so it's in their permanent collection amazing so um which is lovely and it's really lovely that everybody took part to say you're there's a little part of you that's in there which is really nice

um that's incredible yeah institution as well the the Science Museum. Yeah. So, I mean, that's great because my commercial side of the business, of my work, which is Toby Boo, which is I do, that's when I do mainly the drawings because then they get put onto giftware for museum and heritage shops pretty much. That obviously came to a standstill. So no money from that. So it was just kind of like, okay, my business has suddenly gone and I don't know when that's going to come back up so to actually be able to concentrate solely on my art and make

money from my art has just been like this is exactly what I want to do this is exactly what I want to do well that's amazing I mean I was wondering when you said at the beginning that lockdown happened and it gave you this almost instinctive thing of ah this is familiar to me I had this when I had this what sounds pretty cataclysmic time when you became disabled lost your work and again with becoming a mum so do you think part of you as well has sort of taken something from all these stories and the simplicity of what people have actually chosen to celebrate and a way to kind of be a bit has it sort of helped you at all do you think with looking back to those times and yeah I think I felt it I had enough time kind of to go through it to think

I can see the positives I can completely I'm I feel really lucky that I actually became ill because I'm a better person for it and I can see life completely I wouldn't I probably wouldn't have my family if I didn't get ill because if I'm really honest if I stayed in my old career which was television the likelihood is that I would have just got so sucked in probably wouldn't been around very much probably getting Toby was a seven-year struggle with IVF wouldn't have done any of that that wouldn't have happened so I can see lots of sliding door moments and I think it has made me I can get very miserable but in general trying to look at positives every little moment that's what being ill taught me i think um because you you kind of have to to be from i mean you know i've i've suffered with depression and i know the signs so i don't really i kind of

dig myself out before i've managed so far touchwood and managed to do that so i just think these little things that you need to sort of the little things you need to kind of like look at and go that's brilliant that's wonderful and concentrate on that yeah and i guess for um for toby he didn't really know that that version of you he's only known you since yeah yeah yeah i mean that's what's weird is now now when he sort of hears about things it's just kind of like really wow that's amazing that's amazing you did that that's amazing um and it's really lovely because it makes me look back and think god actually what i did was actually really good and i was good at my job and i was part in that program and that was really good

um and i'd forgotten about it because then you turn into a zombie when you're a mum and i had really bad postnatal depression, so I really was like, eh. And my husband had postnatal depression as well. I'm off on tangents again, aren't I? And now he is seeing... He is now seeing little bits of me come back, I think. But it's, like, filtered through to something better yeah and i think that's

that's the thing isn't it it's just i want to grasp that but i don't want the really bad parts of that i want you know i want some of my own life just not the shit parts well it sounds as well like you and your husband amazingly resilient to have been through so many different yeah different things together like that i'm i am really my i'm unbelievably lucky to have um the husband that i have he is just he couldn't be more amazing i mean there's that he's he there isn't anything and it sounds awful it doesn't i don't like it because it sounds like i'm really guilty i've got the best husband i've got it i've got the best husband um but he he is he's just been absolutely amazing throughout i mean how we got through all the stuff we got through and still you know adore each other basically is and enjoy each other's time and you know it's amazing because

we've been married for 21 years we've been together for i don't know 24 25 or something anyway long time no yeah it feels like a long time isn't it yeah yeah yeah so i i say thank you dave for putting up with me although i probably won't let me listen to this i think if richard my, didn't edit my podcast, he wouldn't make it through any of it either. And I once put a message in at the end of one of my podcasts from my manager, just in case he ever heard it, to say that if he does hear it,

I'll buy him whatever he wants from Amazon. He's literally, I'm still waiting, Derek. once from amazon he's literally i'm still waiting derrick um but uh maybe maybe dave will listen then um what so you i didn't realize you had seven years waiting to have your baby that's a long time yeah so yeah that was hard that was i've kind of erased quite a lot I've actually erased the first year of his existence anyway because the first year was awful postnatal depression was horrible Dave and I had it he had it actually for longer um and it was yeah it was I just don't even like think about it there was one of the things that um when he come along, tangent again, when he did come along, he cried a lot. And obviously we didn't know the reason. So we one of us would have Toby, the other one would have the cat because the cat would be crying quite a lot.

So we'd literally be like this, both of us. And there were two there were two CDs that we'd have on. And one of them was the Feeling album. Oh, really? And he calmed down to it. And I hadn't listened to it since because I found it really hard. And I was explaining to him the other day about it. And I put it on and I instantly just started crying. Instantly, I put on, you know, it just the the emotion that was still there he's 13 and it's

still it just completely pulled and um it was it was a horrible time and we were warned about it because he was ivf because it was seven years they said they did warn us and say you are likely to have um a low because you've been wanting this for so long okay and the one thing that we found we couldn't tell people was when we found it hell it was really hard because everybody around us was saying your life must be perfect and over the moon because you've wanted this for seven years and then it comes along you can't moan about it you can't then say this is just awful please i can't deal because everyone around you is so pleased for you it's like a happy ending isn't it yeah your life this is it this is what you've wanted so you really can't you know it's like a kid isn't it getting a toy and then well i used to do that a lot quite as a kid anyway but say, I don't want it.

But it was like that. And then I did find that every six months it got better. But that seven-year struggle, which was, we were really lucky. It was third go of IVF. We were really, really, really, really lucky. Really lucky. But anybody, I just feel for them. Absolutely just feel for them because it's just

it's a horrendous time that when I look back kind of like the sort of I'd lost friendships through it because I couldn't be friends with people that had kids I had a lot of friends at the time that had kids Well this is before you had a baby or just even

Yeah so when we in the seven years of trying I just couldn't be around people that had kids. And I can remember, this sounds awful, but I've spoken to some women that were in the same position and they said exactly the same thing. want you're almost thinking please just let me have a miscarriage because you know then that your body can get pregnant and that sounds awful because you just think nobody in their right mind but at the time when you think this is never happening you think just give me a glimmer of something just give me a glimmer i suppose so when yeah exactly so when you've got nothing you just think this is never going to happen and then and you know the odds of something happening was so slim because i then found out that my body was riddled with endometriosis and i was incredibly lucky that we had him he was emergency c-section that's

another story because we nearly lost him um uh and then had to have operations afterwards to kind of sort me out. That's all right, darling. It's honestly not that scattergun. I think that's just what happened. I warned you. But you know what? These things are really complicated. And when you start to go back to those things,

especially things you don't normally think about or talk about for a really long time, and you think, oh, golly. And what I'm hearing as well is that you've had huge amounts of medical support, conversations, interventions to try and assist you to becoming parents. Yeah. And then there's that bit where you bring that baby home

and you're saying like, oh, now what? And it's like someone's just pulled away that safety net. And you look at other people and they're sitting there smiling with their babies you think how are they feeling like that I don't think I'm in that position I don't think I'm going to get to that place I just feel really isolated I think it's just it's just a shock it's like such a massive shock it also doesn't help that so many mums more so so than dads, so many mums, there's so much lying. I mean, I went to like, I went to a post-NAPL NHS group. I did, you know, there was like an NCT one and there was an NHS one.

And the NHS one, we literally, we sat around and everybody was saying it was he was 13 12 or 13 weeks everybody was saying oh it's just amazing it's just and but you could see in their faces they weren't thinking that but because one person starts saying it and it got to me i must be near the end and i just said these are the worst weeks i've ever had this is the worst time of my life and the sigh from so many women was just and then afterwards they said god you said it it's just like but why we why is nobody saying it why does nobody say i'm sure that there must be some people that think it's amazing but those first six months i i can't for the life of me see how they could frame i also think maybe just because it is

so significantly hard for so many people if you are one of the ones that feel lucky enough to feel like that it's probably probably quite tactful to dial it down a little actually if you are fine some people i'm sure there are people out there that just go this is all good but because it can knock some people sideways in such a huge way yeah maybe just it's not always helpful to hear that no i mean it's like i mean a lot of people talk about obviously breastfeeding anguish which was just i didn't have much of a choice because i could do a couple of weeks and then i had to go back on my meds i was in a really bad way I had to go back on my meds um and I had a letter from my my professor at the hospital to say under those circumstances should you be breastfeeding and yet there were still people around me that were saying

that's nonsense you should still it was just I mean luckily so odd luckily I was strong enough to just kind of like think i don't have a choice i'm not bothered i don't have an issue some people really feel like it's and i just kind of think i had to go a bit it's fine got the general dress um but you know what i loved i really i really loved that you know remember feeding him with the bottle and you could just really look at his face and I just thought, that's just, yeah, I love that. That's really, that's lovely.

I didn't have any, I didn't have any, what's this? But I've got a lot of friends that they had problems with breastfeeding or they really felt awful because they couldn't. And I just think I really wish that we could just take that away. Oh, so do I. Nobody should have any, if you want to do it, do it fine.

If you don't want to do it, don't do it. I do it i agree well you're not you cannot go walk into a room full of adults and be like i can tell from here which ones are breastfed it's just it's just it just doesn't sustain as a bonus does it for life no and funnily enough actually out of all my friends toby's the only one that wasn't uh and he's the only one that out of a lot of them when they were babies didn't have any allergies there you go make of that what you will so were you using your art at any point to get through these these events when you're yeah all the time all the time it was just different kind of way so just before he was born i was kind of i when did i before he was born, I was kind of,

I, when did I do the course? So what happened was I, when I first got ill, that's when I did an adult education course in free embroidery or embroidery. That's when I learned it. Amazing women that were just incredible. I learned loads of, well, no, they tried to teach me loads of techniques, which I couldn't do.

So I had to make up my own. That was the only trouble. I tried to do what they did. They did really neat, amazing work, and I was thinking, I can't do that. So where does free embroidery come from, and what were they doing with it then? Just making...

I don't know whether it was... I think it might have been a part of it, or whether it was just an embroidery course, because there was hand embroidery, which I can't do. But is free embroidery sometimes used? I'm not quite sure. I mean, it's been, it's probably been going as long as you could do,

you could take the thing off a sewing machine and you could do it. I don't think there's definitely nothing new about it. There has been a surge now where there's an awful lot of people doing it, but it's a little bit like saying, when people say, oh, they do the same as you, it's like saying to a painter, oh, that's, you know, it's just... I've saying when people say oh they do the same as you it's like saying to a painter oh that's you know it's just someone else using brushes by the way

the other person they they sing it's yeah it's kind of a weird one I think yeah it was probably a bit less used but now it's just used quite a lot and it just happens to be the medium that I like because of the speed of it it can kind of keep up with my brain and do you find that better than just doing it like if you were doing like yeah i don't with the pencil yeah yeah because um i'm thinking if i've got a pen or a pencil it's almost like i'm thinking with the machine i feel like it's just coming straight out so there's a lot more interesting text that I there's a lot more kind of interesting stuff that comes when I stitch rather than I think so when I've got anything why it's different for you with the pencil because you'd think that would be a similar extension yeah I suppose so

but there's something that I'm actually conscious of it so you're editing it and you're thinking I can't say that whereas I've got a lot of pictures with text and the text really does come from here, it really does come from my heart because it literally just spills out but I couldn't do that with a pen or a pencil Do you think as well it's a bit more adrenalised because you've got the actual sort of sensation

Yeah you can't think, you can't think, you have to keep moving the machine you have to keep moving so maybe it's that maybe it's you don't have time to think whereas when you've got a pencil in your hand you're thinking exactly the pace is different yeah yeah well you have to move and it's quiet with a pencil as well so it's a bit more maybe a bit more sort of reflective yeah introspective whereas with the machine it's like it sort of feels like a real forward motion it is it's kind of like you're in a car you have to go or something i don't know i don't drive so i don't know that's how cars go

that's what they get that's what they do isn't it i don't know no you can stay still with the car it doesn't make any sense it's like a wind-up car that when you wind it up you can kind of hold it back but it does need to go off yeah that makes a lot more sense okay yeah i know that feeling that tension it's gonna go it's gonna go yeah yeah those ones pull back ones yeah them i don't know pull back cars um so it's kind of weird um it's yeah it i mean i do i've kind of gone back to painting i haven't painted for years and then dave bought me some oil i think he bought me oil paints for Christmas. And I was thinking, I really don't want to use oil paints.

But I've actually really enjoyed painting. And then now I'm combining, you know, more combining the two and just experimenting and stuff. So, yeah. And when, just to go back to the sort of motherhood bit, when you've spent that long just wanting to have a baby yeah did you have has it surprised you what kind of mother you turned out to be or do you think that it kind of is pretty much what you imagine on the other side i did you know what it's really weird i didn't

i'm not sure i did i'm not sure i did imagine what i'd be like my biggest thing was i don't want to be like my mum and sometimes when you've got a really awful relationship with your parent, especially your mother, I think it actually helps probably more so than having a really good one because I haven't got that feeling of I want to be like them, which I've got a lot of friends that they love their mum so much and they just really want to be like that whereas

to me I just think I just need to be the complete opposite and hopefully that will hopefully that will that will help so I just want to I just as far as I'm concerned I just really want to be there for him my sister said one thing I mean when he when he was really little and she said you've got four years you've got four years and once they go off to school that's it you've got those four years and I kind of didn't really get it and I as well in terms of just that that's the time in terms of having that time with them, in terms of really having something. It is, but I kind of get it. I do get what she means. I wasn't in a position to go back to work anyway.

My mum went back to work when I was three months, because she had to. We've never... Did your mum have quite a traditional job? She was a secretary, and that was everything to her. was the secretary so and that was kind of everything that was everything to her and i've i'm i'm not saying oh if you if you're if you're work if you're working you you can't i know plenty of friends that work and have a have a bond with their um children but it's not

automatic you have to work at it it you don't automatically have something with your child you do have to work for it and um i learned a lot from having a mum that wasn't what anybody should have i suppose and she didn't have a great time of it either so it kind of like goes on i had a fantastic relationship with my dad but he passed away four years ago and I would like to pick up traits from him um but yeah I knew how not to do it I can remember back and I think the thing is that sometimes when you become a parent and everybody's there to give you advice you don't need advice because you don't need to have had a child to be a parent you need to remember what it was like for you and that's what people don't do they're so busy thinking about this one's doing it this way they're not thinking hang on a minute I was a child

what was it like yeah I mean I find the schools thing is ridiculous when people kind of go a bit bonkers about schools and you just think can you not look back at your life and realize was school the be all and end all does it really matter yeah I think yeah I just think people are a bit nuts for not looking back at their own life no that's actually a really really good point I think it sort of probably goes back to that feeling in the NCT group of the sort of comparison thing i'm just thinking what stage should i be up to what my peers doing how am i doing this and oh i've screwed that up and i'm gonna do that and also i suppose parenting where the emphasis is and how we talk about it and what's discussed that that shifts over the

years as well generationally yeah the things we're being encouraged to think about and how we're encouraged to raise our kids and the generation gap is different to how it was with our parents, very different to how it was with theirs. It's got smaller over the years. So I think you're right there. We've all been the small person working out what was really good for us and what wasn't. And actually, I think that what you said

is really, really special when you're saying about if you have a parent that doesn't leave you that map of like oh I want to be just like my mum um I really like the way you flipped it and said it actually was made it so that all I had to do was be different and I was doing what I what felt right um and actually there is a pressure isn't there if you've got parents you think have done a brilliant job and you think okay all I need to do is get that right and obviously you've blocked out loads of bits where you probably you know didn't get on with your mum or didn't get on with your dad or this went wrong or they it's just roasting i can see

that there's i've got quite a few friends i can sort of see that almost like rose tinted glasses and they're not just you know they're trying to do that whereas yeah i do i do it's again it's that whole thing of trying to see a benefit to something that wasn't that great um you know i mean the whole yeah the whole thing of kind of parenting is just it's not parent motherhood is just it is it is grim the whole it drives me nuts parents um you know kind of doing that comparison thing and having a child that was from very early on we knew Toby's got a very high IQ and a very high EQ which is emotion intelligence so and that's actually kind of it's kind of worse in a way because they're really aware of stuff and so he did his GCSE maths when he was eight I think the first time he really wanted to do it he really wanted to do it and we that is amazing when he was six he

really wanted to do it and we said don't be so ridiculous don't be so ridiculous and then we got help for him and they said just let him do it and I kind of wasn't sure but afterwards seeing seeing his face when he came out, his smile, he was just, and he hugged me and just said, thank you for letting me do it. I just,

oh, it was just worth everything. And then he wanted to do his A-level maths. He asked for it for his birthday and Christmas present. Because it's not through school. This is amazing. Because it's not through school. Yeah.

Because it's, it's kind of like you obviously have to pay for it. And so I said, it's 300 quid. And he and he's well can I have it for my birthday and Christmas and I said if you choose it there's not going to be something else you should because I just thought are you really sure you want to do it because I don't think school are going to be overly happy with it blah blah blah um and then we did it we thought okay this is what he wants this is what so he wanted it he did it and he got an a and that was when he was like 12 that was yeah yeah that is amazing yeah so for me i always find it really weird thinking no no two kids are the same and to every every child has got something they're passionate every child has got their own interests so why parents have this thing of trying to compare academics i find is ridiculous i just

find it absolute nonsense concentrate on your kids yeah you know i mean i find the idea of tutoring a bit mad but toby does tutor can i, though, if you're in a conversation with other parents and they're comparing and you casually mention, yes, I have a child with high IQ, and then you drop in that they've just got an A and their math's A level 12, I think they will probably shut up after that. It's like it's a pretty big thing.

But what kind of bugs me is that with academics, they put this thing on, but I just think there is so much stuff that kids do that is amazing that, oh, you know, we probably wouldn't have done. You know, like yours making filmmaking and stuff like that, that's incredible. You know, that's, you know, they're tiny. 12, 13 is tiny.

So all of those things, I just think is just like wow you can do that there's nothing that's better than whatever i would not wish a high iq child on anyone yeah i can see that i really wouldn't and i think probably if he could have it taken away he probably would because it's caused him an awful lot does he find it quite isolating at school sometimes yeah um he does he's got a really lovely group of friends oh that's great which is really which is very sweet um and i'm really that never take for granted because kids don't automatically have yeah it doesn't necessarily always happen no um so i'm really grateful for that but it just means that um he just gets things a lot quicker so in school there's an awful lot of repetitiveness and stuff

and i think he finds that quite frustrating and i think also because people don't understand this is just him yeah you know um there is an awful lot of brand branding of well you must be a pushy mum and because i'm brown there's a kind of stereotype of well it must be you because it's never dave it's always me um and it's just i think because people are thinking about well we haven't met a child like this therefore they can't exist and it's just like kids are just individuals just accept you just have to accept what they say and what they're like because you can't just accept it i mean this goes along with anything with so many things i just find it really funny that adults sometimes pick and choose what when they decide to listen to kids

you know you you have to just listen to them You can't just listen to them over certain things and then just ignore them for the rest of it. Yeah. So, yeah, his passion is crazy maths. Yeah, and I think also, anyone would only speak to you for a few minutes to understand that it completely can come from him and I don't get the impression you're there going,

come on, let's do this maths thing. And I think it's interesting because, funnily enough, i was talking about this with my eight-year-old on the way in today because he was saying oh i'm not really enjoying school at the moment and i was saying well the thing is that it's all just sort of set up for like the the 70 percent or whatever who learn in quite that conventional way and then you've got 30 probably maybe more actually that don't feel like that and they've never felt like that and they never really will. And for them, you've just got to kind of keep them going. Obviously, you've got the more typical ways that might happen, like if they struggle, like if they are dyslexic

or if they have issues with math or something. But then the other side of the coin, kids actually are sort of feeling things. They're here. Yeah, exactly. You're just dealing with the middle. You're not dealing with here and here. And you're so encouraged when you're at school.

Do you remember what it was like oh my goodness that feeling of just just not wanting anything to stick out nothing to be different nothing to give you that any sort of unwanted notoriety of anything really it's um it's you never really have another experience like that in life in that way where you just have to get on with it and every day go back in see those same people do that same stuff i mean how why anybody would ever want to repeat that i know i don't know i mean i've erased quite a bit of it because i just didn't have an awful time at school i just found it it was just it was just a means to an end wasn't it you just did it um and i was useless at school i was absolutely useless at school i literally just kind of thought i really like art

i'll do art. What do I need? Oh, okay, so I do a foundation. What do I need to do a foundation? You have to have an A-level. All right then, so I'll do an A-level. But you had to do two A-levels, so I did A-level art. And then I just kept swapping about when I was in the sixth form

and obviously failed the other A-level because it was useless. But I'm grateful. I didn't see it at the time. I just felt completely thick. I look back and I just think, I should have been grateful for the fact that I had a passion for art. I should have just been,

if I could tell myself anything, it's just, just enjoy that. You've got a passion for that. Brilliant. Yeah. Well, that's kind of what you're doing with Toby, isn't it? Yeah. That's the thing you care about.

Everyone, not just, everyone has got a passion for something. Some people, it just takes them a little bit longer to find but what parents shouldn't do is prioritize and think academics is above anything no because and so many of them do yeah but also we've got hoops that they're supposed to jump through before they can leave school like my my oldest struggles with maths and did you want to tutor oh well um so he has something called dyscalculia which is a bit like dyslexia but with numbers so he has he has a special tutor called adrian who's been amazing and sometimes it's about getting that little team of

people around them but i think i if i could have put as many hours and conversations into the thing sunny adores it would have been lovely but because he has to leave you have to do that the gcse maths and gcse english spent you know so many hours extra time on something he doesn't really enjoy and doesn't come naturally it's a it's an awkward system and i i would like if i could shift one thing it'd be not having to have that dictative that people having to have the maths and the english when they leave well i'm yeah i don't i really don't understand that and i'm hoping that maybe what lockdown's done is maybe that we might have a shift and not have gcses which would make oh wouldn't that be great i mean no gc i mean that you know i mean i've got a child that loves exams all around but i just i don't think i think gcses are really quite pointless i think if you

have some sort of monitoring to say you've done this you've done this great and then anything you're passionate with you do a levels but i just think this kind of force the whole gcse thing i think is just crazy it's just it doesn't make any sense i can say this because i did so badly in my gcse um it's a lot easier but again that's the thing about parenting is you've got to just look back at your life and you've got to think how are you and did that affect but i think i hear now that if you want to do an art foundation i think somebody said you had to have you know maths and english gcc and it's just like why yeah why why yeah i mean i would be really surprised when it comes to art if you show me an a non-dyslexic artist i would be i'd be quite amazed to be honest i don't think that they if you're any good i don't think they exist because i just think there

is always something i just think maybe it's just undiscovered but and also i think people don't understand what dyslexia is they think but i can read and write and isn't it about that and then they don't realize yeah it's processing yeah yeah yeah i think that's the other thing is that they don't get that so yeah i'm i'm with you let's drop gcses yeah and just to touch it so we talked about dyslexia which obviously um sort of unseen uh different way of learning but you've also talked about um disability and how how does that affect things when you're a parent is that something that you feel is um yeah well it's interesting my sister um uh is uh she's disabled she was got ill when she was 16 17 and she was bed bound um and again i learned an awful lot of her she had her first when she was 21 she was told she couldn't have kids um she had her first when she was 21 she was told she

couldn't have kids um she had her first when she was 21 and i watched her and she was she was amazing and actually the hormones in pregnancy kind of helped her and um i could see how different her kids were with her and then i saw so with Toby he was really different with me than he was with um get off with with with with Dave so he used to things like um when I carried him he kind of did monkey grip which was he knew that he had to cling on to me rather than me um you know my arms were quite bad so he he did monkey grip on me never did it with dave when he was out with me he would i never had a child that would just wander off or did whatever when i see kids that just go off and play i just think i don't know what that feels

like because he nearly would always stay near me unless there were others he'd always kind of stay with me and i was on a med um for my fibromyalgia that i'm not on anymore but one of the side effects is narcolepsy which is randomly falling asleep yeah and when he was little and he was in the pram i had that and there were times when i would be pushing the buggy and I'd fall asleep oh wow there were times when I can remember being in one park and I kind of like just woke up and I'd obviously just it was really dangerous and so I'm quite grateful that he learned to stay with me um but he wasn't like that he wasn't like that so he did know from an early age but my sister's kids were the same they just acted differently with her because they knew from an early age that they

kind of had to so it's it's fascinating seeing just how much they take to situations yeah that is amazing just completely yeah it's amazing how much they just know from really early because that was obviously before he was one. And I suppose you just know the things you know if he hasn't got anything to compare it to. No, that's it. There must be something. So it's like you're communicating. Yeah, yeah, so it has been.

It was just quite difficult because mobility and stuff was quite tricky. I had access to this sort of system dialer ride which was accessibility which is brilliant because it meant that I could do the embroidery course and stuff like that which is great so there was some bits around but I think when I was with other people you kind of try and pretend that everything's alright

and because you look fine I think people don't obviously even now i think i've got friends that probably think if i haven't got my walking stick they probably think i'm fine it's just like no i just don't want to use the walking stick but the pain's there this is all to do with the fibromyalgia yeah so it was that and it was the endometriosis the endometriosis even though i had a hysterectomy and everything out three years ago, still seems to be affecting me. Oh, blimey. So even though everything's been taken out, it's just like, why are you still affecting me?

Which is a bit weird, yeah. Tangents again, too many. No, no, you've got a lot of things to talk about. I mean, it's funny because you're one of only two people who've said to me, you should interview me. And both of you are artists, which I think right okay um but you weren't lying i mean there's lots of things you've experienced and without being too corny i think the uh the machine and the free embroidery is quite a good metaphor for how you've had to react and keep going in with lots and lots of different things happening.

Yeah. So it does kind of suit you that that's something that you're up to. No, you're absolutely right. It's just kind of, yeah, it is weird. I never sort of like really kind of thought about it, but the machine is pretty much, you just have to keep going. But it's going this way and this way. That's my life. Because I know as well, you messaged me saying that you were listening to the

podcast and it made you quite sad about the job you used to have yeah but do you think that there's elements of what you used to do that you can still incorporate in what you do now i'm getting there lockdown has i think this is one thing that i've got from lockdown, actually, is remembering that person and trying to take... I never would have just kind of, like, said, when you put out a thing, saying, what guess? I never would have said, yeah, go on, they're me. I like it. If it wasn't... I don't know.

I mean, if you asked me now, I probably wouldn't do it. It just so happened to be I was reflecting quite a lot and I was thinking well hang on a minute no just put yourself forward just just just try this just try this um and I'm trying to do more of that rather than hide under the duvet well it's quite like hiding under the duvet yes but is there something specific you think that would be important to you to to put down on record I mean is there something specific you think that would be important to you to put down on record? I mean, is there someone you're sort of imagining the other end listening? No, I think what I like about the podcast that I've been listening to, I just think yours in particular, is when you listen to something

and you can kind of, it does go, oh, God, yes, that's how I felt. That's kind of, you go oh god yes that's how i felt that that's kind of you know that there's somebody out there that it just when something just kind of hits the feeling it's interesting to hear about other people i just think it's when you've got it's the connection and this sounds really corny but it's just pretty much through lockdown, that's what I have felt everybody's had is connections and realising that connections are everything. Yes. You can be in isolation, but you have those. And for me, it's almost like a visual, I see threads everywhere.

And I think it's that. I think it's kind of... I've gone off on a tangent i don't know what i'm talking about no the connection i think you're well i think what what i'm getting from what you're saying is that the the lockdown has you're right completely um what's that exaggerated how vital it is for us to feel those connections with people but also to sort of look at the simplicity of things. And certainly from my point of view, over the last year, I feel like I've made so many more friends and there are people that I've made little connections with.

And a lot of that sort of pretense has just sort of dropped down. Oh my goodness, this cat. This is Titus. He's very annoying. And I think, you know, I was it to um a friend the other day i feel like so many of those little roles we normally play in society about you know if you go into a shop and okay i'm playing the customer and you are the person the shop assistant and now if you go in people chat they'll be like oh the weather's nice or they'll be like oh um yeah how is your lockdown we've suddenly got this huge icebreaker yeah and then you're just two people doing what they do yeah and having those

exchanges and i think it's really nice it is really nice and i think the old me which is the part of me that i don't want is i was because i was great at my job but i wasn't very good at myself and i can remember having those connections, and, you know, you kind of, you're really friendly with presenters and stuff, you really kind of, like, have that, they're work friends. But I almost felt like when I wasn't working, I just thought, well, they don't want to know me now

because I'm not working, and I just thought, well, you know, not going to keep in touch. And that feeling of, why would they want to know me? I felt completely worthless. felt completely okay i'm only worth something if i'm working on that we've got a link and now i just kind of like think it's ridiculous that i thought like that so i do feel a bit about myself definitely but i kind of there's a lot of things that i just think not everything is sort of superficial i guess but i felt that i really felt oh i can't you know i wish i kept in touch there's a lot of things that I just think not everything is sort of superficial, I guess. But I felt that I really felt, oh,

I can't, you know, I wish I kept in touch. There's a lot of people I wish I kept in touch with, but I just thought, well, they're not going to want to know me now, especially as I'm not like,

oh, they don't want to know me now. I'm working TV. Nobody's going to want to know who I am. And then friends find you really boring because you don't have interesting stories. That sort of comes from that feeling of that. That's basically sort of describing kind of insecurity as well as yeah completely yeah i felt like i was defined by what i did yeah i felt like that was me but it took a good 10 years yeah to get out of that

that's a long time yeah to kind of like realize hang on a minute that it shouldn't have taken that long yeah yeah but you also had to deal with an unwanted change in circumstance and that's yeah that's a pretty big deal but but i like what you said about when you get to know yourself better than ever when you become a parent even though you had that bit at the beginning where you felt completely blank again yeah but now through all of that i'm just hearing lots of really nice things about where you're at now in terms of yeah your husband and your son and the work you're doing and how much you're getting from that again and I'm unbelievably lucky but there's a there is an element of imposter syndrome there because I'm just thinking this can't this what's

the catch what's the catch what's the catch and um I think I do feel lucky and I shouldn't say lucky I should think we work for this and there's a lot of things that as a family we don't have but it's really lovely to look at um you know we don't have a you know a huge house in an amazing area and the rest of it blah blah blah um but we're lucky we're near lots of green spaces and we can get out really easily and our neighbours are amazing I mean our neighbours are just I mean through lockdown to have those friendships with neighbours was just that's priceless to me that's just priceless and I feel so I feel so so blessed to have what I have um and things aren't you know my son's gone he he's going through an awful lot and you know it's hard to watch him go through that and it's hard that's the only thing is it's hard

when you know that there's nothing you can do I think as a parent or as an adult when you watch a kid that's going through something you think I want to be able to help and i can't and in terms of like adolescence lots of lots of things lots of kind of like different things and um it's yeah it's tough because you do just want to you just want to do everything don't you just kind of yeah i think i think that's the whole thing about the teenage thing isn't it you've just got to kind of leave the door open so they chat to you but yeah and i'm that's the other thing i'm incredibly lucky that mine chats to me a lot probably because he's he's an only child maybe i don't know so i get i kind of get the lowdown on something you know at that age so many parents just have no clue what's going on it's just like well i can tell you because i don't know if it's i've had the lowdown on everything probably not only child i think it's probably just a testament to

how your relationship is really i think that's really really nice maybe yeah super lucky so i'm i'm really i'm really really yeah i'm really lucky i'm really grateful for all of it um when is your piece going to be in the science museum and can we see it they've got it i don't know when it's going to be up so people kind of like it's just like well i think it's going to be a good few years i think with the museums now they're all working on covid stuff but it's like anything it's just they were also working on a lot of other stuff okay so we don't know when that you have to let me know when we don't yeah yeah we don't we don't know when that's going to be up but it's exciting that it's in their permanent collection i never thought that would happen when I first made it.

I thought, yes, I want to get this exhibited. And it made me, when I was working on it, it made me realise why I make the art I make. And it's very different to how I was making it before. I'm genuinely making it for those connections. I want people to see it. I want their reaction, whatever it is. It's not, I want to just make this and I want to sell it and I want to have it in somebody's home I want I want that

something back and I don't think I really realized that before so I've yeah it's it's amazing having that sudden oh my god I see the light now that's lovely that's a good point to end on and now i'm gonna make another cup of tea so you don't think i'm a leaf anymore well i'm in now in a slightly less windy spot i'm in my own garden richard's got the radio on so if there's anyone to blame for the noise quite frankly it's him not me. Do you know it's funny ages ago I did a radio show maybe I told you this already I can't remember and the radio presenter said that she thought I had what was it called she basically said oh hyper oh golly that's annoying basically she said I

don't really say I'm an er and I do do. I say it all the time. And now I'm really aware of it. I'm aware of every time I say I'm to you. What was the word she said? Hyper... It was not hyperfrequency. I can't be right. What does that even mean? Oh, I'm going to shut up now.

This is what happens when you get to the end of 30. 30 episodes of amazing women to talk to. You run out of words yourself what a what a pathetic end to the podcast series I'm not really going to end that way am I I'm not I'm feeling really good about life I'm very excited I feel like this third series has been glorious I've been incredibly privileged and excited by all the people who've said yes to me and every time I think well you know is there more are there more conversations out there the answer is yes of course there blimmin is there's hundreds of people to talk to I'm so excited I've got an amazing one under my belt already for next series

and an amazing list of women who've said yes and I think you're gonna love it uh what a lovely adventure so I'll see you in about well I say it's basically a month, but it might be a bit longer depending on how long it takes me to get my eggs in a line or whatever the ducklings in order, whatever the phrase is. Wow, I am really firing on all cylinders today. But mainly thank you. Thank you to Richard Jones, my lovely husband, for editing all the podcasts. Thank you to Claire Jones, not related, but I wish she was. She's gorgeous. My lovely producer and friend who has been my companion throughout all of this. And it wouldn't happen without either of those two. Thank you to ACAST for supporting me with all the things I'm doing. What a jammy job, eh?

And thank you mainly to you for your suggestions, but mainly your ears. I'll see you in a little bit. Have a lovely May. See you in June. Lots and lots of love. Thank you.