Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 83: Philippa Perry

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Philippa Perry is a psychotherapist, artist and writer who has a weekly agony aunt column in the Observer. She has written the only book on parenting that I feel speaks to me, and that I recommend to other people. It's called: 'The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will be Glad That You Did)'. Her big messages are that talking to your children about feelings is key, and that all feelings are acceptable, so don't shut them down. I agreed with her when she said: how well you get on with people is more important than how well you do in your GCSEs.I met up with Philippa (and her mischievous cat Kevin) in mid December at the beautiful Georgian house she shares with her husband, the recently knighted artist, Sir Grayson Perry. We sat in their living room with the fire going, and part way through the conversation she pointed out that the fireplace is a stucco art piece about fertility, made by Philippa herself, when she was trying to get pregnant. 31 years on their daughter Flo, also an artist, has recently illustrated Philippa's graphic novel 'Couch Fiction', about the world of psychotherapy.Philippa shared how, as a child, her nanny had been her most signifiant other, but when she was sent to boarding school aged 4 she never saw her again, which deeply upset her. This experience impacted Philippa's style of parenting, and she didn't want any outside help, retraining as a psychotherapist when her daughter was 18 months old, and only working while her daughter was at school.Today she divides her time between writing and art. She talked about how exciting it is to have, as Virginia Woolf described, a room of one's own, dedicated to creating art. We talked about teaching children to communicate, and when we touched on the subject of sibling rivalry, Philippa got me to do some role-play with her. She showed me how getting the children to brainstorm, to solve a dispute, is so much better than a parent taking what they think is a short cut, and deciding how a quarrel should be resolved. I learned a lot. And at the end of our incredibly informative and helpful chat, I had a proposition for her: "How do you feel about moving into our house for a while...just for a few years...to observe and help us sort everything out...?! Kevin can come too!"Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones 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. Hi, how are you? How's everything in your world? I am feeling pretty good today. I just overcame a very personal thing, but basically about 10 years ago, I was asked if I would like to donate blood, but as part of a press drive to get more people donating blood. And I'd always thought, oh yeah,

I should do that at some point. So I said, yeah, absolutely, count me in. And I'd always thought, oh, yeah, I should do that at some point. So I said, yeah, absolutely, count me in. And I turned up, and I think my appointment was at about 11, and there was a little bit of faffing about with the paperwork. And so by the time I actually gave blood, it was closer to 2 p.m. And I hadn't eaten since breakfast. And this is significant, I think, because after I did my donation, I then went and sat down. So after you you donate blood I'm sure if you do it you'll know all this obviously you get

a little biscuit and some sugary squash to kind of get your blood sugar levels up but also rehydrate you anyway I drank that but as I was drinking I started to feel incredibly faint and then I realized I was going to pass out and I passed out in that really heavy complete way like in the movies where people wake up and they're like where am I I was literally like that I was out gone and actually it was really traumatic because when I came around obviously I was in an NHS center so I came around to see all these people peering over me and I could see like blue NHS you know curtains around me and I thought maybe I'd been in an awful accident. Anyway, it turned out I just fainted after donating some blood.

So no big shakes. But anyway, it was enough of a... Oh, noisy motorbike. It was enough of a thing to really scare me and freak me out a little bit. And over the years, I kept thinking I must go and have a better experience. Anyway, finally, today was the day. I put myself in for a place not far from me, actually in Westfield Shopping Centre of all places,

first thing this morning. And everybody there was so lovely. And there was one called Deborah who looked after me and it was already smooth. I think the moral of this story is if you want to do something, but the first time you do it, you maybe don't do it exactly right. And it ends up with you feeling like you haven't had the best experience

it's probably worth having you another go because actually now that I've had a positive experience my plan is to try and do that every six months or so because I think that's a good thing to do not saying you have to I'm one of those people that's not squeamish and I also don't really mind needles and all that I know for some people that's like nightmare idea anyways that's that's the start of my day and now I'm also prepping because the next week I'm doing my album some album photos and all the artworks coming together in the video and I'm feeling really excited about all of that so I've been pulling out clothes and looking through my wardrobe for things that might work for the shoot, and yeah, this week's been quite good actually, I've had some slightly quirky

things happen, on Tuesday it was a day where I thought I was going to be mostly at home, and you know when you're, it's been pretty cold isn't it, so this day, that day I was like, oh I know, I'm going to sort through things in my house I'm going to organize some bits and bobs it was 11 o'clock in the morning I got a phone call to say that they urgently needed someone to see if they could get to Pinewood because someone had to drop out as a guest judge on RuPaul and could I do it so I went and did RuPaul's drag race on Tuesday which was really good fun and I hope I'm allowed to say they didn't tell me I wasn't so anyway we can keep between ourselves right anyway and I've also been booking some really cool guests for you oh my goodness some really really cool women coming your way and that

includes today's guest the magnificent Philippa Perry who I've wanted to speak to for a long time and sometimes you know I'm sure I've told you before but I book all my guests myself so that means sending out a lot of emails and messaging people some people I've met some people I've never met and let me tell you nearly two years down the line it doesn't really get less cringy for me so you know when it's a woman I really you know respect and admire like Philippa you know she's obviously very sensible very smart I'm like oh my god here we go so I sent her a little message and she immediately said yes she'd love to do a pod so that was amazing and I landed back from Australia the day before I went to her

house so I'd got back home I don't know let's say three o'clock or four o'clock the day before back into the UK and then was up bright and early did the school run got to uh near Philippa's house with my producer friend Claire we're grabbing coffee and I'm like pow pow I can do this but uh you know sometimes the old brain cells take a little while to uh catch up anyway let alone if you also think it's like two in the morning or whatever time it would have been in Australia when I spoke to her but that being said Philippa was brilliant so much wisdom so much good advice uh very lovely and open about her own life her own um the way she got into being a psychotherapist her experience of that and of course motherhood and appropriately enough while

we were chatting we were um next to an amazing mantelpiece that Philippa herself had made and it's basically a sort of tribute to fertility and it's an extraordinary very beautiful piece with right in the center of it the core of the mantelpiece is a fertilized egg so an egg with wings and there's a mother and child and then all around it as symbolism of things that she wanted to bring to her child's life and wanted to keep away from her child's life. The good, the bad. It's an extraordinary thing. And she made it when she was hoping to get pregnant, which she, of course, did with her daughter, Flo, who is now 31 and an illustrator. And so, yeah, it was a really lovely chat we were also joined by kevin the cat and appropriately enough excuse me as i talked to you my cat titus is very nearby

he's looking remarkably calm for a cat who not that long ago just broke a plate my lunch plate as it happens isn't he titus that wasn't very nice oh i'm gonna cough sorry that's annoying isn't it um anyway it's a lovely lovely chat and it's just so nice you know she's one of those people where you can't go into the room and you you're trying to turn yourself into sort of audio sponge trying to soak up all the knowledge that you can while you're there but i did my best for you and here i now release the sponge it's a great metaphor isn't it really carries well have a good listen thank you so much first of all for the time I've been so looking forward to speaking to you and actually on the way here I'm normally pretty chill before I come and speak to people but I was feeling

a little bit of nerves because there's been so many things I want to chat about with you but also I realized that as a psychotherapist if we do have a long silence you're totally cool with that so I'm so cool with that you just have to check whether I'm awake that's all we'll do it got the fire burning we might just and we're on a really comfy sofa as well so we might just sort of we might just fall asleep um the other way i thought the podcast could work for me it wouldn't sound very good for anyone listening but for me it'd be great is if we put a sort of confessional screen and i just tell you all the times i think i've screwed up with my parenting and then you just say i forgive you at the end of it and then okay whatever you want whatever helps thank you um so where do we start with the here and now

what are you up to at the moment what's going on in your world mostly I am trying to do as many observer agony art columns as I can before Christmas so I can have a Christmas break that's what I'm working to at the moment I've also recently in the last year got my own painting studio oh wow so when I'm not doing my typing as I call my day job I'm in there painting whereabouts is that that's here it's um about half a mile away from the house oh amazing yeah it's really great I really love it it's really like you know the Virginia Woolf thing a room of one's own great. I really love it. It's really like, you know, the Virginia Woolf thing, a room of one's own. I've never really had. I've always shared a house.

I've never really had my own place. And it's one room, a garage and a kitchen and a loo. That's it. That sounds like heaven. And it's sort of double height. So it's got good light coming in from the roof it's proper studio and how does it feel to have a room of your own it's just amazing sometimes I just go and sit in there that does sound do you want to say that I had to tell myself off because

in the first I don't know maybe 10 or 20 episodes of the podcast I kept mentioning how much I wanted a room of my own oh really yeah just I think um I think that thing especially because we ended up just by um the way that you know the things turned out doing the all the original podcast recordings were all during lockdown yeah so it was when that sense of any headspace was really had a bit of a premium yeah you never got time on your own no yeah no so the idea of having somewhere to go and I mean and you can make a mess that's the great thing I can make a filthy mess I can leave it in a mess I don't have to think about anyone else you know sometimes it's like got an inch of paint on the floor and I'm just skidding about and it doesn't matter

it's you know it's just great but art's always been part of your life right yeah I went to art school uh as a mature student when I was 27 and I did a two-year foundation and then I did a three-year degree so I've had five years of art training um but it's never been a job I mean I do make a little bit of money by selling paintings but um it's never been my main job until now well it's not my main job I'm just saying that as a sort of like what I want well I did wonder actually if with your day job if the art is a good place to channel things I did wonder when you're talking about being an agony aunt yeah where do you put all of that all the woes that are put with placed onto you where do you where does it all go well um of course I've spent about 25 years of my life being

a psychotherapist and I've never been very good at switching off at the end of the day and I would wake up in the middle of the night and worry about a particular client or I would feel the weight of several clients on me and other psychotherapists were very very good and about going oh I know I never take it home and thinking oh I wasn't very good at it and I think that's probably why I retired from being an active psychotherapist it's because I loved my job I loved being with my clients but on Sunday night I did have such a dread of having to start work again on Monday because I didn't know what would come I didn't know what people would bring yeah and people do go through absolutely horrendous traumas and I want to feel with them everything they went through so it's quite it's quite exhausting yeah that feeling

with and I wouldn't want to do it any other way no I guess you have to be almost quite porous don't you when you're yeah giving it to you because otherwise how can you really listen if you're not actually yeah you take porous is a good word you don't want to bat it back to them you want to you want you know a trouble shared is a troubled half you do want to have it you do want to hold it for them and presumably as well if that's the muscle you keep flexing that emotional muscle you can't really switch it off even when you're talking to other people as well it doesn't have to be on when I found um before I retired I sometimes had to change seats on the bus because I thought I'm sitting next to someone who's so depressed.

I could just sort of tell you could just sort of pick it. You become like a transmitter. You sort of pick it up with your body after a while. And you think, mate, I'm not being paid. I'm not going to soak up your depression. So, you know, quite hard like that. Sort of not thinking, oh, here's a poor person. I didn't think like that.

I got quite hard, which was a bad thing. That thing you can hear in the background is Kevin the cat, who is attacking Claire's chair. Claire is the engineer. And now Kevin is biting Claire's wires. This is how hard it is working from home everyone i know it's tough this is still a lot less uh my cat who has now um sadly died cover your ears kevin uh knicky uh one of the final acts he did is while i was recording um a chat at home he came

in and did a poo on the floor oh great that's nice sort of like okay breathe through it so kevin you're all right by me kevin's predecessor used to leave them in the fireplace oh really which i wasn't that keen on kevin's incredibly house trained he's very doesn't hasn't had an accident i'm very pleased with him I'm getting a good feel from Kevin uh where were we um talking about having to move on the bus with people oh yeah have you always had that do you think that ability to sort of pick up on people not really I think I've got it with practice really that's interesting because I thought maybe it might be something you're sort of predisposed to no I wasn't even very good at finding my own feelings. Oh, that's interesting. I think you don't become a psychotherapist if you are perfectly well-balanced

and naturally good at relationships, particularly. Really? So becoming... Sorry, it sounds like a surprise, but I just thought it might have come from the opposite. Some people might, but I don't think untroubled people make the best psychotherapist uh not saying i make the best psychotherapist but and then um you learn how

relationships are made or how relationships go wrong so you sort of you kind of need that yeah and then you get so used to being a sort of radio receiver yeah for people that that is difficult to switch off but that is something that comes with practice becoming using your body yeah as a radio receiver i'm sure some people can do it naturally like i mean anyone can pick up on the vibe in the room but imagine that sort of times 10 yeah and that's what it's like being a psychotherapist so being an agony aunt do I get overladen with people that write to me no because compared to sitting with someone who's say suicidal or something it's um it's easier that's interesting I didn't really because I don't get the body to body. Yes. I get the words, but I'm not picking it up on a bodily level when I'm just dealing with emails.

And actually, that's so heartbreaking to think that sadness has that physicality to it. Yeah. That's actually quite a heartbreaking idea. Sadness, despair, anger, all have massive physicalities that you pick up on, yeah. And so was this what you were doing when you had your baby is this what was going on I uh I was a artist uh when I had my baby and then when I'm making art I just had to be completely absorbed with it that's

the last thing I made actually that fireplace oh wow um that's incredible and you can see it's all about babies really because I was pregnant and so that um I'm just explaining there's in the middle of the fireplace there's a little fetus with wings in a temple yeah and that is the fertilized egg that's what that's supposed to represent and that little temple and with that pot in it is my is my womb supposedly so that was the last thing I made but when I'm making something like that I'm so obsessed I haven't I can't I'm not very good at doing more than one thing at once so I couldn't be an artist because that is all consuming so um I was a I couldn't do anything other than be a mother for the first 18 months and then when she started going to nursery I'd always been interested in psychology so I thought I would go back part-time to school to learn more about counselling and psychotherapy.

And I started practising when she was about four. I started practising as a trainee after about two years. And I just became a psychotherapist and I did it when she was at school and I could work around her because I wasn't very good at not working around her. I was very much brought up by a nanny so that my nanny became my most significant other when I was a child. became my most significant other when I was a child. And I didn't, I mean, I'm sure people can manage it really well so the nanny doesn't become the child's most significant other, but I didn't know whether I could manage that

because that's not how, that wasn't my precedent. So I was too scared to get a nanny in case what happened to me happened to her. So I never had a nanny or any childcare or anything. Wow, yeah. So it was very tricky, though, when, say, she was off school and she was ill, something like that, because I used to work from home. And so when she was about eight if she was little I'd have to get a friend can you sit with her well I have my clients because I can't cancel

six clients because it's too much work so I'd get a friend to help me or something I've got no parents or anything around here so we're very much on our own and um when she was a bit older she didn't need that and confidentiality you, you see, people coming to the house. And then I'd be downstairs in the front room, and suddenly she'd start feeling better. And on the ceiling above, you'd hear ballet dancing going on. It's like, oh, my God. Or she'd be looking out of the window and she'd say,

Mummy, I didn't know you saw two ladies at once I think will you stop looking you know it's sort of like you know this sort of thing but that's listening to you say that you've had made such a conscious decision to not have any child care puts a lot of pressure on you to be all things all the time I mean I understand where that's coming from because um if you felt that your nanny became your significant yeah other than that's obviously something you don't want and then that's a terrible wrench when they go and I'm not sure if I've got over it right she says to you at age 65 wow that's interesting because I have had nannies in my kids lives and I I do wonder about that

relationship it's such a fine line isn't it between getting someone where you feel they're completely your right hand person and they're lovely and they're lovely and loving yes fun and um you can if someone's like that you kind of want them to stay in the kid's life. So it's all very difficult. I went to school when I was four. And when I came back, no nanny. And no goodbyes or anything because they thought it would upset me. Oh, yes, it did.

To have no goodbye. So sometimes I'd come home from school age seven and start playing hide and seek by myself looking in all the cupboards looking for her you know quite old oh that's so sad yeah it was a bit sad yeah and then when I was 10 and I was sent to boarding school I had a sort of I was crying because I was homesick and then I can remember saying I can't remember what she looks like I can't remember what she looks like you said what your mother and they kept showing me pictures of my mother's and that's not right and I've actually got face blindness now

which I'm sure isn't anything to do with that I'm sure it's a um it's a neurological kind of form of dyslexia but um I don't think it helped that I couldn't remember what she looked like. Yeah, so you never saw her again? No. Why do you think that there was no sort of open door policy with her coming to say hello and dropping in? I've no idea. You see, I've no idea.

I don't know. I'm 65. Everybody's dead. I don't know. So, but I do think other people and my friends I see managing these relationships perfectly well and the children manage them really well so I'm not saying don't get a nanny I'm I'm just saying the nanny shouldn't be the significant other the parents should always be the most significant people in the child's life.

Yeah, yeah. And I know that you've also said that even if the parent's not around, they're still, that relationship is so huge. It's so defining. It's not necessarily about proximity. It's just the significance of it because it's a big deal. Proximity helps. Yes, it does help.

Yeah. deal proximity helps yes it does help yeah but um so because it's funny because when obviously you've you've written a book about the significance of that relationship yeah and I think it's resonated so much and I must say as well your book is the only book on parenting I've read it's the only book on parenting that I've recommended a lot of books on parenting have felt like they're not really speaking to me yeah and I love the fact that I mean obviously it's called the book you wish your parents had read but I literally do think it does sit on top of sort of anything that's of the moment it is a book that my parents could have read in the 70s yeah and got the same amount of yeah comfort support common sense all those things from it and I was thinking I was saying

it to Claire actually before we came over that it resonated so hugely because if I was if I was on my deathbed and someone said what do you want is legacy? I think being a good mum is literally it. I think if everything else fell away, if I felt like I'd been good at that, if I'd raised people who have a good relationship with me, I'd feel like I've done it. Good relationship with you so that they can have good relationships with other people.

Because I think relationships are so important in life. I don't think it matters how many GCSEs you get. I think it matters how well you get on with people, how well you get on with your peers, how well you get on with authority, how well you get on with people who may be weaker than you. I think relationship, being able to do relationships means that you can get on. I mean, I know some of my friends' kids who weren't particularly academic,

really good at relationships. They've got really good jobs because they get on with people and they can get other people to get on with people. You know, there's a friend of mine's kid is now um he's sort of selling what he calls products in the city and all he has to do is take people out to lunch as far as I can work out he's just good at relationships and he you know sells a lot of what they call products I don't know what they are I can't understand what he does but I just think well how great yes you know that's true but the only thing I was thinking about is when you're an artist sometimes the bits of you that are rebelling and subverting are really crucial as well so sometimes when you've got those people

in your life you kick against they end up being quite defining and give you a bit of like firing do you think you get enough of that outside of yeah I don't think we need to fabricate that thanks very much um there'll always be a Donald Trump don't worry there'll always be something to kick against there'll always be if we're going to have an enemy let's make it climate change and not our next door neighbor yeah yeah and so when you became a mum was there any books that were given to you that you remember trying to make sense of? Yes, they weren't given to me. I went and sought them out. There was one called Compassionate Child-Rearing, which sounds a little bit like, you know, planting seeds in the nursery,

by Robert Fairstone. And the most marvellous thing about that book was an introduction by R.D. Lange, where he talks about this thing called diaphobia. OK. And diaphobia means fear of dialogue, which is a fear of being impacted and influenced by the other. And a lot of us have it. And it's quite harmful when you're a parent, if you don't let your child

influence you with their view of the world, with their view of looking at things, even when they're teeny, teeny, tiny, and they've got a story about ants or something, you know, don't dismiss it. It's interesting. You know, it it's their viewpoint let it impact you and I think that just made such a deep impression on me yeah because I just thought anything I ever said to my parents never made any difference so I thought I couldn't make any difference and it made me somehow feel like unless I'm like them, I can't be acceptable. And so this, you know, bells went off when I read R.D. Lang talking about diaphobia, which is in the introduction to this book by Robert Fasten,

which is quite a depressing book about where parents go wrong all the time. So from that point of view, don't read it because it's sort of like I always say to people when they go oh i'm worried i'm going to go wrong i say focus on where you want to go you know don't look at the ditch what you might fall into because if you concentrate on the ditch you might fall into it so just look where you want to go but this book is all about looking at the ditch as far as i can see it's like you finish it you're terrified but it is a good book but you have you have to um be quite strong to read it well yeah it sounds like quite a radical thing to put in the foreword but that's but this influence of like fear of just something simple like that interaction dialogue yeah because it's not something you'd necessarily think of as the first place to start

with parenting but obviously communication is actually everything what it all comes down to and the baby is trying to communicate with you and and you must let them communicate with you because it's so tempting to just get oh they're just crying babies cry rather than thinking you know what are they trying to say? And so were these things that came quite naturally, do you think, then, when you had your daughter? I don't think anything came particularly naturally to me. Another book I read was How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. Oh, I think I've heard of that. It's brilliant. It's American. It's written in in American but don't let that put you off um it's it's a great book and it's it's more about when children start talking so it starts at about two that book

but again it's that book was about and there's a lot of this in my book too is about your kid is having a tantrum because uh you can't take an airplane to the moon okay or can't swing swim with the penguins something like that don't just say don't be silly what that book taught me is like you get you empathize oh you can't have an ice cream before lunch i'm so sorry i'm just too worried about nutrition to let you do that or whatever it is you don't say no you can't you go you empathize with them because they can't i'm not saying you should you know give them a plane ticket to the moon or anything i'm saying although of course that is a good pretend game what I'm saying is it it showed me the importance of empathizing with the feeling

and I think it was a good thing I read that book before I had my child yeah it's amazing the bits of advice that do kind of catch you and you think oh actually I'm really glad that came along yeah when it did I mean there was never any books about how to bath or how to change a nappy that were remotely useful or interesting or or or even made an impression on me yeah and I guess a lot of that as well it's it's like um that's the idea of problem solving as if your kid is a sort of rubik's cube or something. Yeah. That if you just get the combination right,

then you can be having pretty much the best bits of the life you had before, and then they'll be just doing the sleeping thing and the eating thing. And I think I probably would have got a bit caught in that if it weren't for the fact that my first baby was born early, when I didn't have anything. I wasn't prepared. It was two months early um I got unwell which wasn't supposed wasn't in any of the textbooks I'd seen as being something I was particularly predisposed to and I think it set me up really well to

understand that there was so much out of my control and actually you just have to react to where you find yourself and and the baby you have as well because they they come with it different yeah they are and I don't feel like I'm the same. I'm not exactly the same mother to each of my kids. No, of course you're not. You're not exactly the same friend to each of your friends. You're not the same with your husband as you are with your mother. You know, we are different with different people.

I'm not saying we're completely chameleon. I'm saying we are a unique recipe when you and me are together we are different than when I mean I'm talking about teeny teeny differences but we adapt to each other yeah otherwise we're brick walls that aren't being affected by each other which isn't really interaction yeah yeah it's I mean with the motivation of writing the book what was it was it your the things people were talking to you about was it your own relationship with your parents was it your relationship with your daughter what was the what were the things all of the above yeah I'd always wanted to write the book, I think, because I knew my parents were very good people. But they just got some crazy ideas such as, you know, spare the rod and spoil the child or children should be seen and not heard or don't give them any comfort.

Otherwise, they'll hurt themselves all the time. When my daughter was about two years old, she stood up underneath the piano. And of course, at 18 months old, she could stand up underneath the piano with impunity, but she'd grown an inch. And so she hit her head really hard. And I was going, oh, baby, that does hurt. Come and sit on my knee. I'll give you a cut like that.

And my father was going, don't do that. She'll hurt herself all the time. I thought, crikey, no wonder I needed 20 years of psychotherapy. So, you know, they're well-meaning, well-meaning people. And most of my clients who came to see me, well, many of them, didn't have monsters for parents, but they had parents that didn't know it was important to accept a child's feelings. They had parents who loved their kids very, very much, but couldn't cope if they were angry or rejected them when they were angry. So they thought they were not a very nice person because they had an angry part and they didn't know how to process anger to make it acceptable. You know, it's sort of like, if I'm angry, I'm obviously going to smash all the windows and

ruin the world. I go, no, if you're angry, what you're going to do is go, I'm angry about that. So could we do this? You know, calm, calm, calm. But we can still have the anger if we know how to work with it to make it work for us and not against us. So when all feelings aren't accepted by parents, the child tends to think that that part of them, those feelings that weren't acceptable, are horrible. So boys and men were usually allowed to be a bit angry about something. Women weren't. Boys weren't allowed to be sad or cry. Women were. So this leads to all sorts of terrible problems when you get older. So I thought I needed to write a book about how all feelings are acceptable and what we need is socialized ways

of expressing them and all all behavior is communication so what we need are better ways of communicating so that behavior becomes more convenient and the most important thing about parents and children is the relationship between them. Because if children have a safe place to go that is a relationship with the parent, they've got a good firm anchor that they internalize that becomes confidence. You can take that with you wherever you go. You can take that with you even after mummy and daddy have sadly departed this earth, which is why we must make our children feel like they're acceptable. Some of their behaviour might be inconvenient,

but we'll find another way of expressing what they need to express, but they are always acceptable. I think I just wanted to make a book about... I think I just wanted to make a book about, I just got so sad that some teenagers couldn't confide in their parents because they were told, oh, don't be silly when they tried it when they were five or six or seven. Why would they suddenly think, oh, this isn't silly? Yeah. think oh this isn't silly yeah so I wanted parents to be a safe place where any child teenager young adult adult could say whatever they wanted to their parents why do people have to come to psychotherapy because they don't think they're acceptable to say these things yeah in in other milieus so um yeah i would love to put us

all out of jobs as psychotherapists that's what that's what the book's about it's so it's to make psychotherapists redundant because it makes all relationships functional that's what i want um and i guess as well there's a bit sometimes of a, it's a bit distracting, I think. I have to really choose my words carefully here about when people get very concerned about when teenagers are now, we have things like social media and the internet. step with your child and keeping the communication open then really getting into a sort of blind panic about what that represents is a bit like I don't know parents in the 60s getting worried about rock and roll music yes it's exactly the same but if um you get interested in rock and roll music um you can find out what's frightening about it and what isn't frightening about it so if you see social media if you're interested in your child's viewpoint and your child's world you'll be kept

up to date with what's happening rather than being left behind and frightened because you don't know what it's about which is the worst feeling actually and sometimes i've also said to my my oldest is 18 now and i said to him look these are the things i'm being told i should worry about can you please tell me why can you reassure me about these things so that i i know that we've is 18 now and I said to him look these are the things I'm being told I should worry about can you please tell me why can you reassure me about these things so that I I know that we've you know these are the things that I'm being told I should be panicking that's great talk me through why why it's okay yeah because you're talking in I statements and being completely upfront and honest about it yeah because it is quite quite a wild west moment actually when they start to pull i

know it's completely normal yeah pulling away and actually i was thinking about the bit where my eldest got into double figures and suddenly all my positivity and reassurance didn't hit the same spot because he said well you're gonna say all that you're my mum and that's quite hard isn't it when they pull away a little bit like your your words and how amazing you think your kid is doesn't doesn't have so you just have to get a bit more real okay you know and say well I do think it's amazing because a b and c you know a bit more convincing I think a great thing is is to describe not judge so rather than saying, you're great, it's sort of like, my God,

the way you handled that difficult situation in the kitchen back there and the way you put your friends at ease, I'm in awe of that. You did that so well, or whatever it is they did. So if you're more specific, it can go in. If you describe what you see, rather than go, you're more specific it can go in if you describe what you see rather than go you're great because where's the evidence for great or you're terrible where's the evidence for that you know you have to describe not judge and with a book that's

entitled about the book you wish your parents read how does your child feel about that book it feels like a natural person to ask for you know I don't think I've asked her so I don't know you'll have to ask her she's a great person to interview well I love the book you did together how was that working on a book together how illustrations are fantastic um well I've written that book before with an uh and with another illustrator. Oh, okay. I didn't realise that. This is the book called Couch Fiction

that is a case study of a bit of psychotherapy, really. Yeah. And I did it like a graphic novel, but even though I can draw and paint, I'm so slow. So I wanted someone else to do the pictures. And when they wanted to re-issue the book in a new edition I couldn't think of anyone better to do the illustrations because she knows me so well and she's heard me talk about psychotherapy such a lot yeah you know under the ironing board to her place at the table

when she gets a bit older. So I knew she'd get it. So working with her was as smooth and as easy as possible. How lovely is that? I hardly changed anything. She said, let me do it how I want to do it. I'll do a first draft and rough out the illustrations. First of all, agree on what these people are going to look like.

So I did that. And then she did the first draft. And I said, that's got to flow into that a bit more. And that is brilliant. I never thought of that. Oh, my God, you've interpreted that better than I would myself, that sort of thing. And then she only made about,

we only had to redraw about three or four panels out of a whole book wow and so it was very smooth and very easy and what's it like when you get to the point where your child is an adult as grown up and isn't in that stage of this sort of very intense bit of mothering there is an adjustment you have to make in that you aren't in parent child anymore you're in adult adult and that means that um now their point of view their point of view has always been valid but now you really have to drop the idea that you know best. And the other thing is, I think because they're so close to you, if they're, say, wearing a skirt you don't like or something,

if you wouldn't criticise your friend for wearing such a skirt, don't criticise them. Sort of treat them more like you would a friend in some aspects. you don't say oh you're getting a bit skinny or you don't say oh you're putting on too much weight you don't say those things you don't say um oh that doesn't suit you dear yeah because it's amazing how much you remember every time a parent has said that to you, it stays, doesn't it? Yeah. Unless they ask. If they say, you know, which one should I wear? If you're asked for your opinion, give it. If you're not asked, stay shtum.

Nobody likes unasked for advice. Yeah, very true. I know, I dish it out the whole time. Well, not on this instance. I'm asking for all of it, for sure and i i'm actually really looking forward to the bit where the kids are adult because i think it's going to be quite nice to have that shift oh i know what i did want to ask you when you're because i read quite a lot about parenting i'm i feel like such a work in progress with it but what do you do obviously

you're only one one significant person in your kid life. So what's the best way to approach it if you feel someone else that is a big significance is maybe handling things, I don't know, it might be your other half, it might be a grandparent or someone else that you feel is skewing their own relationship with the child a bit? That's their relationship. Okay, she's got to butt out. I don't say you're going to butt you're but you've got your relationship and you know hopefully your child feels seen and accepted and acceptable by you feels that they can confide in you feels like you're a good encouraging person to to be around and if they've got someone else who is like very judgmental or very sharp with them then they'll have a different relationship to

that person and um that's their relationship if they've got one good relationship they've got the relationship with you they have got a significant witness i mean i think if grandma wants to overfeed them sugar i think we should really chill chill out a bit oh yeah no i'm cool with that my mom never gave me like advent calendars with chocolates in and all the kids get advent calendars chocolates in i can see the wheel has turned it's okay i kind of want her to be that i think it's nice i never got an advent calendar with chocolate in because i don't think they had them when i was a child we got little pictures of the baby jesus yeah i had that or i get like my mum likes those um german ones you know with like a little bit of glitter on them very nice all in the ocean now that glitter mum what have you done

okay i'll take that later please don't i'll say if it was chocolate i could have eaten it yeah fine glitter it's poisoning the world actually i shouldn't enter into conversation with anyone about glitter i'll make sure it's all eco and sustainable i've definitely got a bit of glitter at home but i will be edible. Edible glitter's good. Yep, yep. That's what I'll put on my face. Then people can lick it off. Lovely. So I think,

I know you've done lots of podcasts, but you must be one of the few people you've spoken to who's also done a duet with your husband. Because I sang with him during your art club. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did My Way. We did a cover of My Way. Oh, you did it beautiful. And you did it my way we did a cover of my way oh you did it

beautiful and you did it your way it was fantastic yeah yeah I do think your art club was so brilliant I really really loved it it was probably one of my top three things that came out of lockdown that era and just that community and the real lack of snobbery about art I think is so important I mean I quite like the lack of snobbery about art anyway because I think art is for the people that make it mostly that's a very good point and it's not about is it good or not it's not it's neither here nor there it's like how did it feel to make that you know what if you learned by making it and what I like doing when I make art is like I've got a problem like I want to make something that looks quite good already let's say a square meter of white canvas looks great how can I make it look even better you know that is

my problem but better for me not better for anyone else um so I like I like it as a sort of problem solving thing and I just get absorbed in it yes and I just so enjoy that absorption I want other people to enjoy the absorption in their work yeah it's lovely to have that space for yourself isn't that yeah just that place just yeah you get into what I call flow yes right it's a very important state actually and it helps with thinking about other things you sort of tend to yeah problem solve when you're in that state I think that's really that's actually something I found in in short supply as well when we're in lockdown but when I do my chats with people I don't normally talk to people about fame because I think I think it can be the stuff that actually all brings us together

but given that I'm the daughter of someone who was on tv when I was a kid yeah and you have raised someone who's also got famous parents in public eye I did wonder what the best way to handle it is if you're raising a kid where a parent or both parents have also got a sort of public i've never really i never really thought about it very much um that's probably the key a journalist once asked flo when no other adult was present uh what's it like having a dad as a transvestite and she said I don't know I've never had any other sort of dad should you be speaking to me well done her I don't think she said the last bit I made that up for a fabulous fantasy but um she did say I've never had any other sort of dad so um I think that was around when he won the turner prize and she was about 10 at that point i'm sorry

about all noises off it's the cat it's sort of like sort of like don't mind me he rips up the carpet flies around the room my favorite is when he sat in between the two microphones yeah that's sort of like i'll get the most attention here it worked with me i'm happy i'm happy having a feline present it's fine this is what he wants he wants that for you to brush him yeah oh wow my cat has never had such luxury no wonder he looks so sleek great there might be a mouse behind the sofa of course that no he's a happy cat um that's very cheeky of the journalist to ask that yeah so how do we handle fame I don't know because I actually never feel famous because it's something it's in the beholder isn't it I yeah I'm just myself how do you handle it um I think actually for me um having

for the moment I became a mum it was a really good antidote to the silliness. I love my job. I love singing. I love making music. But the peripheral stuff, I've taken it all with a pinch of salt, really. And I just love the fact that when I get home, it's all about the kids' day, what they're up to. I don't really talk to them about my work unless they're interested in it. Most of it, I don't think they're that aware of. And as they've got older, the fact that I sometimes have to go away for work is something I've had to work on feeling less guilty about

because mother guilt is great. And I realised that I've worked really hard to get the opportunities where people book me and I get to do things. So I've tried to reframe it a little bit, really. But in terms of actual, like, fame and all that, I don't think they think about it at all because it doesn't really it's not in our house it's not within our it's really

not something that the famous person in my experience is particularly aware of no um you might be aware of it sometimes when you're you're you're out with your family and somebody wants to come over and talk to you and you feel kind of a bit jarred because it kind of interrupts your family or friend's time and it feels like, oh, what was that? That's a bit weird. But if you're on your own and somebody comes up to you, I don't mind. But if I'm with people, I feel, oh, please don't.

Yeah, it can be just a bit kind of, yeah, just, okay, that's a moment and then. But most people are quite. I mean, people are lovely and people are really nice. And, you know, I'm very lucky that I've had the opportunities I've had. And on the whole, it doesn't really bother me that much. And do people come up to you with things they want you to help them solve? No, they usually say, say oh thank you so much for your book which I love when they say that I absolutely love that you can come up to me

anytime no matter who I'm with to say oh I love your book you can't come up to me to say oh I love your husband because I find that annoying because I'm a bit jealous so just saying noted well I do love your book I think it's brilliant and I think it's it's actually really fascinating that for all the complexities of people so much of it comes down to that very pure exchange of wanting your significant person in your life just to say you're okay as you are it's amazing what power that has and how it can take a long time for that penny to drop even though it's yeah sort of staring us in the face quite often. You're acceptable exactly as you are.

Yes. And I guess when you're a parent, you don't know quite what a mirror is going to hold up to you, actually. You're not quite ready. I don't think anyone could really quite explain it to you, how you're going to have to confront so much of yourself, aren't you? Like the way you handle things, the way you are under stress, the way you feel when someone else

is really pushing your buttons, the things about your kid that you recognize, the things you really don't recognize, all of that stuff. It's a pretty wild journey, I think. It is, isn't it? It's so interesting. I wouldn't be without it, would you?

No, I find it endlessly fascinating. And the only thing I did wonder is when I've been reading your book, I thought, oh, having a few kids because I have five that's wow well done that's is it well done yeah because you're giving them siblings there's bound to be one of the five that one of them gets on with that'd be nice I'd go for that I'd settle for those odds now I think it's fantastic if you only have one you can pour masses of attention into them and uh you know two you can still pour one each masses of attention three how fantastic you've all got some siblings yes you know i think people seem to have good memories of it when they look

back the being in it seems to be the tricky bit i mean um there's a lovely book what's it called siblings without rivalry by the same people that that that wrote um how to talk so kids will listen and listen to kids will talk mash leash and faber i think they're called um fantastic uh exercises in there about how to slow it all down when it's kicking off. That sounds good. I could do with a bit of that. To find out what's happening. If you've got the paperback version of my book, I've got a siblings chapter in the back that talks about how to deal with disputes between siblings, which is basically make sure they don't kill each other and don't take sides.

Just basically make sure they don't kill each other and don't take sides. Right. Yeah, because I suppose if you're busy trying to promote kindness and communication, sometimes siblings are not the best source of those. The great thing is, is if you get them to brainstorm to solve the problem themselves. So you go, OK, so we've got two kids and one bicycle. And so this family is richer to the tune of one bicycle and yet it appears to be a problem so how can we solve this he says it was my turn i said it was your turn okay okay so you both seem to need a turn on the bicycle what should we do about that

and if you keep asking them to solve it they come up with a solution and they will stick to a solution that they have come up with and agreed together whereas it seems so much quicker to go you have it first and then you have it like top down that won't solve it because they haven't been involved in solving of it yeah so you brainstorm with them sort of like you know first of all you say Houston we've got a problem and then you go then you describe what's happening in a no-blame way and then you ask everyone to brainstorm for solutions yeah that sounds smart I will take that on board and it will take forever but what you're teaching you know you don't really care who has the bicycle but what you're teaching them is sort of like how to solve a dispute and how you dissolve a dispute is to listen to the

feelings rather than get caught up in this thing called fairness which is kind of a little red herring that won't get you anywhere because they'll never feel it's fair it's true and fairness I think like even with adult children um say you've got four adult children and one of them you know has a lot of bad luck and suddenly is sort of nearly bankrupt or something you might want to bail that child out but the other three go that's not fair you haven't given us £25,000. But the thing is, you don't need it. They do. You know, they've been through a terrible divorce that didn't go their way or whatever it is.

And so I think we need it from the beginning. This thing, it's not about making it fair. It's who's got the greatest need and whose feelings are the most, you know, ouchy or happy or, you know, you weigh it up differently. I think somebody once said, and I think it's a wonderful thing, if you want to teach children the value of money,

you teach them the value of human beings. And I think that we don't want the value of money. We want the value of human beings. So think that we don't want the value of money we want the value of human beings so yeah that's what it's about i think when we're we're talking about sibling relationships that they are each valuable and so are their brothers and sisters and there are as many worms as there are for distribution in the nest. Yeah. And what do you think the best thing will be?

I mean, a lot of the time, a big brother will say, can you take her back to the hospital now? You know, go. Yeah. Yeah. But if, you know, if a big brother does say, can we take the baby back to the hospital now? Don't go, oh, you're a nasty boy for not liking your sister what you

say is it's so hard having to share me now isn't it it's such a big change for you you acknowledge the feelings you're scared of because that's a really big feeling for a big brother or a big sister to be usurped by a new one absolutely and just fobbing them off with a toy is not going to cut it yeah in fact I wouldn't bother with the toy at all I would just give them lots of extra attention sort of like even sort of the extent like oh the baby's crying what should we do sort of uh well I suppose I could go and see if she's all right yeah you do that you know you can always brainstorm rather than tell and when they come up with their solutions a lot of the the solutions seem to be based in having patience and time yeah yeah sometimes

that's quite tricky isn't it the thing is it will always take you time it will always take you patience it's just that are you going to use that time telling somebody off yeah that's true are you going to use that time to prepare the ground for everyone to feel more secure yep that's a very good point because actually the amount of energy and the time probably is about the same i mean if you think about it it takes two seconds for saying you have the bicycle in the morning you have the bicycle in the afternoon that's that i'm not going to um have any more about it and if there's any more shouting about it nobody gets any supper okay that will take no time at all what you'll get is resentment feelings of un unheard, feelings of it's unfair,

and built-up anger that will then explode in the next one. Yeah. But if you take a whole half hour to get them to brainstorm solutions to the two children, one bicycle problem, next time there's one PlayStation, four children or whatever they'll know how to do it or they'll learn how to do it because you probably have to do it again brilliant i'm gonna just remember this stuff you you will they will learn how to do it and so it will save time in the long run yes in the short run you're going to go i'm sorry wembley you're going to have to wait there's a little bicycle

problem here that I have to sort out can you put on another act before I get there thanks so much don't worry I don't really have the problem with Wembley right now that's fine I have more time for the bike um I think that's so I mean when you say it like that everything sounds very sort of logical really it's just sometimes in the moment isn't it i think yeah it's very difficult when you're in the thick of it thinking i don't want my two children kill each other to step back and see what's happening and see what would be the best way through this but get them to help you know go whoa time out everyone okay what's the best to help okay you're

very angry do you want to just kick off over there for a bit you're very angry you kick off over there then come back when we've got dispersed the anger or whatever it is yeah yeah no that's very true and I think actually that thing of giving them a bit of space just to calm down is always really yeah that's very valuable I think um I think that makes a lot of sense and I definitely will try I mean I don't they have kind of grown out of a lot of their like it's just sometimes when there's you know you have those days where it just feels like everybody's a bit more on edge and I suppose that leads me to the next bit it's is it ever too late to go back and say I'm sorry about something no no brilliant and great um also everybody's going

to have a different interpretation of the same event so that is accepting too so uh as far as you were concerned um you solved the bicycle dispute perfectly but as far as they were concerned it didn't solve it mum because I couldn't be there in the afternoon because I had to go and do my maths tutoring or whatever it was so actually that was a terrible solution and I felt really hard done by I mean we know it from your point of view you had to get to Wembley but from their point of view yeah you can see it was very unfair. So you go, I am so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't realise it was like that for you.

And I'll take that on board. Can I ask something a bit controversial? What about if you have a child where you feel like they wouldn't be that kind and they just go, I'm having the bike. You haven't got one now to get the kid. Sometimes your kid doesn't do. So I'm having the bike. You can't have it. Uncle Godfrey gave it to me, not you. Like sometimes your kid doesn't do. So I'm having the bike. You can't have it.

Uncle Godfrey gave it to me, not you. Yeah, it's always Uncle Godfrey giving the nice presents to that kid. I said, well, if you don't want to share your bike, I suppose that is your prerogative. Or you can say, oh, well, I'm having the bite this afternoon how does that feel i think we need to encourage people to see things from another point of view how would you feel if steve had a bite and you hadn't got one how would that feel for you yeah i'd be jealous of steve would you yeah yeah i expect steve feels pretty jealous of you right now having that bike okay i'll share my bike well it's up to you no i've decided i will

i i don't i want steve to feel all right and i want to feel better about his bike okay yeah good and we're all going to bank maintenance course on saturday morning and anyway all of all of us are going to see my headline gig at Wembley tonight. Oh, yeah. It's going to be great. You won't be thinking about bikes by the end of today. No, you won't. You'll be in the VIP room.

Yeah. Bikes are plenty. Yeah. It's full of bikes. Yeah. And no Steve. Yeah. I mean, sometimes I think it's really useful not to go, oh, I'll buy another bike, actually.

Oh, yeah. That's a that's a trap isn't it oh god you can get so much stuff in a house that you can't walk through it yes once I realized that the toys had become a bit of a problem with my my daughter and I said to her like what don't you use anymore what can we throw away you're not throwing away any of my toys I thought I'm going to break my neck unless i get some of this so i um when she was at school i tidied up and what i thought she used a lot i put on the shelves and what she didn't use a black bin bagged and put them in the loft so i didn't chuck them out

but they were as good as chucked out she came back to the room said oh mummy you found all my toys i'd lost that one oh thank you so much it's great so i just waited a week and then they all went to the charity shop you know the ones in the loft yeah it's sort of it's easier with less it's true i did have a very similar experience except one of the things i'd put in the loft and then gave charity my eldest suddenly remembered about it and said, oh, where's Crocky, which was this huge... Six foot long. Yeah, this little crocodile thing.

And I said, I sat him down. And this was like three months later. And I said, oh, I actually gave it to charity because it wasn't being played with. And he went into sort of Italian widow levels of grief over this toy. And then I saw it in the window of the charity shop. They kept it in storage and then put it in the window of the charity shop they kept it in storage and then put it in the window he saw it I said it's not the same one it just looks like it he

went home I ran back to the charity shop I said I've made a mistake I need to buy that crocodile in the window yeah they said it's on a waiting list they'd to phone someone I then got the crocodile back took it home there was about 10 minutes of celebration yeah then it didn't get played with it's back in the attic yeah but what happened was you took his feeling seriously so it's like oh god you really wanted that crocodile and i got rid of it hey guess what i got it back so he feels seen and heard in that so although it's cost you one crocodile one crocodile twice actually and six foot of space in the house you've actually made him feel important okay that's nice it's actually

um it's currently in the charity pile again rocky but maybe maybe discuss it this time yeah he's 18 now he's probably i mean that's that that crocodile's made so much money for charity you keep buying it back. I did think that. I was like, there's actually some good bits coming out of this. I did that to myself, actually. I put masses of books in the charity shop. Then I felt like, I can't exist without my Jane Austens,

even though I'll never read them again. So I had to go and buy them back the next day. I always say you don't win any prizes for getting rid of something that you later wish you still had, which is why I have so much stuff. Yeah, I'm not sure that's not that's not a good one that no no i think stuff is actually the enemy of um of a good life i think we have too much stuff i think you're probably right and sometimes i feel a bit disgusted with how many things i own i mean i'm falling feeling quite smug at the moment because i had a refurb about three years ago.

So this is only three years worth of stuff you see here. It's actually really beautiful in here. But before the refurb, you couldn't see the skirting boards because there'd be sort of piles of books and unwanted gifts, you know, that were encroaching in on them. Well, you've done very well to keep it tidy for three years. I think you've broken the cycle. I'm not having to get to the stage where I have to order a couple of skips again um I did wonder if you'd thought about writing a book on marriage because you've been married a

very long time and I thought that's probably the next thing isn't it with people with relationships I am writing a book at the moment I I think I might call it Some Advice on Life, Volume One. Ah, there you go. It might be in there. Okay. I don't know what I'm calling it yet. My editor wakes up in the middle of the night and sends me suggestions at three o'clock in the morning. Luckily, I have my phone off. but I quite like um some advice on life volume one that sounds good to me yeah yeah I can picture that's gonna have lots of stuff whether I'll ever do volume two I don't know well you can decide can't you it's I mean in my when I do my uh column in the observer magazine I have 950 words and sometimes I need 1500 so in the book I can just pull out all these things give more examples give more theory go in greater depth

yeah and it will be based on what I'm asked because I don't know what to say about what I know about psychotherapy to people or what I know about psychology because I don't know what they want to know so the great thing about having the agony arm gig is that I've got an idea of what people do want to know and usually how do I have a relationship with myself my work my mother my wife my son my grandmother my friend why haven't I got any friends why have I got too many friends and I can't remember their names it's you know I'm getting a picture of what people want to know so I can write about that. So that's what I'm doing. And are you in love with your job now as you've ever been, do you think? I love my agony aunt job. Yeah, I love it.

Really love it. And I love, I do love writing about psychology in a way that, you know, in bite-sized chunks so people can get it. Psychologists and psychotherapists have very many clever wonderful brilliant ideas and observations and research and they write it up in such a way that only somebody else versed in academic speak can read it and I see it's my job to translate all this cleverness and it makes me look very clever but in fact I'm just the translator usually of other people's research but it's endlessly fascinating isn't it I mean I think people

are fascinating and because we're not robots because we are all different we've got different genes we've all had unique experiences growing up that um it's always there's always something new to learn that's what I like about it. Yeah, me too. I think that must be like an end as well, really, of just richness. Plus people evolve. New things happen, new challenges, unexpected turns in the road. Yeah.

Nobody stays the same. No, exactly. We all move all the time. We all have different know different encounters different relationships read different things hear different things and these things you know change us and we change and grow and what I like about a long relationship is that you're married to the same person but you're not married to the same person because you each change and grow so it became becomes exciting we sort of like you're in the, then you go out into the world,

you meet people, you learn things, you see things, you come back in the marriage, you share what you've each learned and you each grow richer with each other's observations. And if you keep changing, keep a little bit different, it doesn't get too samey. I'm not saying we should all have complete changes all the time, but what I mean is

like you know I can tell my husband tonight oh I had a lovely chat with Sophie today and we talked about you know I can bring something in because of what I've done in the day and he'll tell me who he's met who he's chatted to. Exactly. And so it keeps it going. Absolutely. No, that's the best kind of relationship, isn't it? Where I think that's probably a mistake people make with lots of things, like friendships as well, that you have to keep it nourished. Yeah.

A friend of mine used to have a column for the Times Literary Supplement, Hugo Williams. And he wrote a column for it. And he said for the first year it was great it was easy i could just write about stuff i'd done things i knew and they said after a while i thought oh i've got to take my column out for a walk and i think you have to take yourself out for a walk to see new things to bring them back to make to keep things interesting for yourself and your friends and your partner. Absolutely.

I think that's really, especially as well with the creativity as well, when you've got that blank canvas, you need the things to kind of... You need something to fill it. Yeah. So you have to go out in the world and see what you can see. Exactly. And it might be what two colours look like in the sunset, or it might be a volcano or an interesting person or whatever

exactly well I feel like I've taken lots of your time and my only other thing to ask you is how you'd feel about maybe just moving into my house just for a few years just to sit in a corner observe help us sort things out um and then I then i will release you back to your home i absolutely love being around people and the idea of being in a house with five children would be my idea of bliss this is gonna work well brilliant yes okay i'll just bring a small bag because you know how i feel about stuff yeah and kevin is Okay, great. We're on our way. See, how much did you learn there? I learned a ton.

And actually, interestingly, I was actually going to ask Philip to help me solve a problem that I had with one of my enfants. But as I was walking to Philip's, a lot of times when I'm doing research I read stuff but I also like to download interviews that my guests might have done so I was listening to a podcast that Philippa had recorded with Frankie Bridge and in it Frankie whose son at the time was seven says my seven-year-old has got very obsessed with the idea of death and me dying and how do I soothe his fears and that was exactly what I was going to ask Philippa because I was going through

the same thing with Jessie at the time Jessie from sort of summer all the way through to the beginning of winter was really every night I could just keep imagining you dying and Philippa said I'm sharing this with you in case it's happened to you with one of your smalls or someone else you know um she she got to put them to put a little bit of distance between the child and that event by saying um well look you're now seven and I'm well I'm now 43 you can use me as a real example um and I don't plan on dying till I am let's say 100 by which time you will be 70 and when you're 70 your life will be in a really different place and of course it'd be sad but you won't need me in the way that you do now and between now and then we're gonna have lots of fun and actually it really blooming worked I only had to say that to Jesse for you know a few times and then it

started sinking and now he doesn't ask anymore so thank you to philippa for that as well it's a very wise woman and if you haven't read her book the book you wish your parents have read and your children will be glad you did then i very much recommend it and i also really hope uh i can't wait to read philippa's book about did she say it's going to be called life volume one i will read that for sure um, thank you so much to you for lending me your ears again. And what a nice way we're easing ourselves into this new year. And don't worry. There's lots more good stuff where that came from. I really think it's just I think I've mentioned it to you before, but I always think of all the guests for the podcast as like populating an island. We've got a really cool island going on now, haven't we?

We've got all sorts of people, all sorts of skill sets, some really good chats, some good giggles. It's a good island. It's a good island and you're on there too. We're all there together and we're having a lot of fun. And I'll keep adding people with new skills and new bits of wisdom to keep that island exactly where you want to be all right have an amazing week stay warm stay safe stay happy and I'll see you soon Thank you.