Strangers on a Bench - EPISODE 32: Becoming a Superhero

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Tom Rosenthal approaches a stranger on a park bench and asks if he can sit down next to them and record their conversation.This is what happened! Produced by Tom RosenthalEdited and mixed by Eloise WhitmoreTheme tune by Tom Rosenthal & Lucy Railton Incidental music by Maddie AshmanEnd song: 'There Are Many Ways To Say I Love You' by Edgar HurleyStream it here: https://ffm.to/therearemanywaystosayiloveyou————————————————————————————Instagram: @strangersonabench Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello. Sorry to bother you. Can I ask you a slightly odd question? I'm making a podcast called Strangers on a Bench, where essentially I talk to people I don't know on benches for you up for that? Do you want to give it a go? Is there a day of the week that you favour? I would have to say a Monday. Today? Yeah, because there's a classic song, I Don't Like Mondays. By Bob Geldof's band. That's the one I believe. Do you know what that's about?

It's about, was it about a shooting or stabbing in America where there was an incident and the song was inspired by that because he turned around and said the reason why he committed the offence was because he don't like Mondays. That was it. So I asked myself the question, well why don't you like Mondays? It's just another day. But I think it all stems from stress, Monday work. So Monday is always a fearful thing because people are just recovering from the weekend,

Saturday and Sunday, then you have to return to work and life returns to normal. So why Mondays for you? What's the joy in them? Well, the joy for me is that it's the start of a new week, a fresh start. Yes. People always think that New Year's a fresh start, don't they? But I think you can adjust yourself and kind of think, well, whatever's happened the last week, you can then reset. So if you set yourself a certain day to reset, it could be any day, it doesn't have to be a Monday, it could be a Friday, but you've got to have a day where

you assess the week and then you can kind of reflect on the past but don't dwell on it and then think well, it's a new week new start. I love that. Yeah So take me through in as much detail as you can. What would be your ideal Monday? Okay, so waking up. I think it's important to let light in your life So open up the curtains because there's so many mental health issues these days and sometimes people need to have that motivation to do things. So I try and motivate myself which is why I'm sitting in the park today talking to you with the sun shining because I've come out and just want to enjoy the weather.

Okay so you let light in, keep going. That's right, right, let light in. You've opened the curtains. Yeah, opened the curtains. There's still quite a lot of day to go. There's still quite a lot of day to go. That's the first step. The second step is just taking time to plan the day.

Plan the day, plan what you're gonna do. I like it. Plan what you're gonna eat. Make a meal plan, try and eat healthy. Mix the good with the bad. I mean, people think, oh, I can't have burgers, can't have chips. But you can. But why not mix it with some veg? Put a bit of salad on it. Put a bit of salad on it. The good with the bad. To get a fine balance in your life.

Yeah, okay. So what's your bad then? Right, my bad is burgers. I eat too many burgers. How many are we talking? We're talking a huge amount. We're talking like... What, like, at a time? Well, I have the triple burger.

Wow. It's a really large, yeah. Does that mean three patties? That means three patties layered with gherkin? How'd you get it in your mouth? Well, you have to remove one burger and then put the bum back on And then but doesn't that defeat the purpose you would go remove a bit from the meal I think it does. Yeah, why do you get the two of them? I had four once and what happened then? You obviously didn't go back. Was it a disaster? It was

a bit of a disaster. I felt a bit unwell actually. A bit full, shall we say. A bit too full. A bit of an excess. One has to push it to know, I suppose. Yeah, of course. To know what you're dealing with. Yeah, what your limits are. And you know it's four now. So you're not going to be one of those people that's doing like a burger eating competition like as many as you can in a row? No, no. I don't think I'll push it that far. Okay, so we've got to about, you've opened your curtains.

Yeah. Then what are we doing? Okay, then... We may to about you've opened your curtains. Yeah, then what we're doing, okay Then we may be having a burger or not for me Because I'm an LGBT IQ human rights campaigner. Yeah, I spend a lot of my time online Being a campaigner does that mean you naturally spend more time online? Yeah, naturally. Yeah because because That's the way I find to get my message across these days. It's very, there's a dark side to social media,

as everybody knows. But there's also a positive side to it, if it's used correctly, and you've just got to be mindful when you're on there, when you're reading stuff, and it can take its toll. And I think that's where people can get really stressed out by it

and you've got to work out a mechanism to deal with that. Do you get stressed out by it? I do. But you still do it? I still do it. Why is that? I still do it because I suppose it's kind of a passion because there's that cliche of being an armchair activist so I think it think it's important to use social media productively to get your message across and to gain access to people and people's minds as well. Yeah, interesting. Like what's the first thing you think,

like I'm gonna post this, I'm gonna read this, I'm gonna say this. The first thing I do is I take time to read people's views on there and take it in. Because when I post something on social media I'd like to think that people read mine. Everyone disagrees with things sometimes, not everyone has the same point of view. So it's very important, if somebody says to me something like I don't agree with homosexuality, that's fine. I don't agree with homosexuality, that's fine. I don't then attack them for it.

I will put my view across and I'll say, well, I personally don't believe that's correct, but if you have that view, then that's your view. As long as you don't go to the extreme of being hateful towards it, you can disagree with it, that's fine. That's what a democracy is about, agree can disagree with it, that's fine. That's what democracy is about, agree or disagree. Sure, okay. If I say to you, if you think back to kind of your most euphoric online

moment on social media. Gay marriage. You invented it? No, no, I didn't invent it, but I campaigned for it. I campaigned for it with someone called Peter Tatchell who is a gay rights campaigner. Very famous campaigner. Very famous. I felt that I was a part of it because I was campaigning for it. It was very euphoric to read the statement from the government that you know gay people had the same rights as heterosexual people.

It's very important. That was a very euphoric day for me. Oh, wonderful. How did you celebrate? I celebrated by having a nice bottle of wine, a nice bottle of red wine. I'm not playing my own trumpet in saying that I, like you said, I didn't invent gay marriage.

I would love to have done that, but I was... Next best thing. Yeah. You know, you held it out. Everyone counts. Yeah. Everyone counts. Exactly.

It's very important. You did your bit. Yeah. And that's all you can do, isn't it? That's all you can do in life. I think everyone aspires to be that hero, don't they? To change the world. Like it. Yeah. Have you got a cape? Have you got a cape? I'm going to get a cape. I'm going to buy a cape.

What colour would it be? It's going to be a rainbow cape. Nice. It's going to be a rainbow cape and I'm going to single-handedly change the world through love and peace. I like that. There is a famous Dalai Lama. Yes.

Okay, I have to mention him. Great guy. I have to get him in. Great guy. I saw a Netflix documentary of him. The Dalai Lama, he met Desmond Tutu. Yes. And it's just amazing.

The two of them were so cheeky together. They're joking. And the Dalai Lama is supposed to be very spiritual and not supposed to give many political opinions on stuff, you know, very genteel, soft. And Desmond Tutu tried to get the Dalai Lama to dance. Now I didn't know this but Buddhists, they don't dance. What, not at all? Not at all. As a part of their, as part of the set up? Yeah, as part of their, yeah. Really? I suppose they're kind of stillness, right? They're stillness, the serenity, the peace. I feel like you could probably be both, no? Well, possibly, yeah. Like we could be still, we could dance. Let's not attack Buddhism, sorry

Cass, don't care. Yeah, but trying to get the Dalai Lama to dance in front of cameras is a funny thing. So he's doing a little bit of a jig, a little bit of a slow jig with his hands up and down. Quite funny. So you want to change the world via dance? I want to change the world via dance. Was this always in your life? Can you trace it back to childhood? I think personally for me with my sexuality I struggled with it.

Why did you struggle with it? I struggled with it because school and not being able to fit in. Were you out in school? I was. I was out in school. I went to an all-boys school. Didn't get no support from teachers, social workers so it was a very difficult journey for me because I knew I was different. How did you manage at that time and what did you do to work through that? I suppose that was when the fire ignited within me. And I said to myself, well I'm different, there's probably other people that are different, let's join that group.

And that then became the pretext for me fighting and campaigning because speaking to other people in my position they were saying well I'm not accepted, I can't do this, I can't do that, I don't have rights that my friend has. So you wanted to be the support that you didn't get essentially at school. Of course, yeah, it's a great way of putting it. Which makes a lot so much sense. Do you remember a moment at school that kind of lit that fire? Sometimes it takes a moment doesn't it? Like you know someone's been particularly mean to your particular event. I think at school it was very multicultural which was a good

thing and I realised that everyone's different okay and to have a group of children in a classroom all learning together with the same ethos it was like very important so I think that spurred me on to progressively think that you know we can all come together and learn in the same way we can all be different can all have different views of course. Were you the only openly gay person at your school? I believe I was. I believe I was because it's very difficult to come out in that environment especially as a young person because you're still discovering yourself. I took the brave step to come out.

How did you do that by the way, like in a school environment? I don't think I actually did in a way. I think it was the way I, it was my persona. It was my persona that gave off the aura. And so people just picked up on it? People just picked up on it. I'm not saying that because you could be effeminate or you could be slightly camp if we say, that doesn't mean that you're gay. But I think they picked up on that and they saw these little things and you were happy with it. Yeah, I was happy with it and so I let my behaviour speak for for itself. At home, how are your parents? I'm guessing you came after them at some point?

Because I was in foster care. I was in foster care from a very early age, so I went through the care system. So I think I had a lot of support from my foster carers. They were very understanding and accommodating towards me. It made me a better person because I had to go from foster carer to foster carer and there's different house rules. One foster carer would have a certain set of rules. Bedtime would be 10 o'clock, another foster carer went to, she'd let me stay up to 2am in the morning. So there's pros and cons. But you actually learn from them as individuals.

You know, they have different set of rules, different ethoses, and you can see their different views on things, you know? Amazing. How often did you move around? Oh, about six times. So, six different families. And when you moved, were you always going to move

or was that a decision of the foster carers? Is it like you do move every two years or is it like we can't keep you? Because with the foster care system, how it worked back then is that they're called short term placements because you do get moved about in the care system. And I think it's not particularly any fault of a young person

or the actual foster carers. It's just that placements change, situations change. It's very complex, the care system. What do you think people don't know about being in foster care? What do you think is invisible about it that you'd like don't know about being in foster care? What do you think is invisible about it that you'd like people to know about? Or me? Okay.

Let's just say me. I would like to know. With the care system, let's focus on the positives a minute, where you have some great foster carers who do a fantastic job to support young people. Young people have very complex needs and it can be very difficult to to deal with those those issues and I think the care system can be a good thing but it can also be a negative thing because there's that lack of support, unfortunately. And I think you've just got to go on that journey

to continue, as I did, in foster care, and rely on the care and support that you get from foster carers, it's really important. It's made me into the person that I am today. There is a stigma with people in foster care. I think there was a survey that came out from the National Statistics Office that if you're in foster care you're more likely to go to prison. I'm not sure how they come up with those figures.

I mean I suppose it's just on average that's what happens. But that then gets into people's psyche and that makes people believe, oh you're in foster care and that means you're a wrong person or you're going to end up in prison soon. Not now, but you're going to be in prison. But that's not true. I think there's a lot of stigma attached to it. Six different households. That's correct, yeah.

I mean, when you look back at all of them, do you think fondly of all of them? I do. I do. What does it take to be a foster parent? I mean, when you look back at all of them, do you think fondly of all of them? I do. Yeah. I do. What does it take to be a foster parent? Yeah.

These people who looked after you, kind of, what did they do well? What was in them that made them do that? I think it's the care and compassion that you get from them. That they invite a young person into their family environment, support, nurture them, take the placement of your original family, try and understand that individual person's needs, and I really do admire people who do that and take on that responsibility.

Was there any particular one that really made a huge difference to you? Yeah, I was placed with an Afro-Caribbean family. Best foster care I've ever had out of all of them, actually. But I was placed with, it was a multiracial family. Again, there's stigma with that in the foster care system. How old were you when that was happening? I was about 10, just in primary school. Tell me what are the core things you learnt from being in that family? Cool things I learnt from that was going to the Notting Hill Carnival, very first time

in my life. Yeah. Going with them, embracing their culture, embracing the food, the carnival kind of spirit of it and I kind of think that it made me kind of learn about their culture so it educated me on how their structure works, how their ethos works if you like. But again I go back to the stigma of it it's like should you put young people with different background foster cares but I think everyone's the same. Yeah.

As I've learned. What's it like to say goodbye? Oh I don't like goodbyes. I hate goodbyes. Do you remember saying goodbye to them? I do. I was with them for three and a half years. When it was time to go, obviously you have your social worker there and you have to pack up your stuff and you have to leave them and say goodbye. It's like saying goodbye to your parents because that's what they are.

And it is a very emotional thing, not just for me, but for them as well because they're seeing their child essentially fly the nest. And I think that's a good point actually, fly the nest, because that's what it is. You're in the nest, you're being nurtured, eventually you have to fly that nest and go on to be doing better things.

And I think that's what was very important. Do you remember what any of them said to you as you went? I can't really, I can remember the kind of atmosphere, shall we say, the atmosphere that I'm just about to leave, just about to go to another placement, the kind of, the demeanor and the emotion kind of really, really of really hit home. When you left this particular family,

did you have any power to say, look, I really like being here? Is it completely out of your hands? I think sometimes it is completely out of your hands. I mean, they say that the young people have a voice in the care system, but I don't think that's really true really because, you know, when the placement ends or breaks down, you have very little choice in where you go.

They just put you where they feel you'll be safe. So it is very, very difficult and cruel. But I think if you're in a good placement and it works out well, you have to be thankful for that and everyone has to move on. Even at an early age, I knew that I'd have to move on eventually and fly the nest. Do you find it then hard to settle anywhere?

Do you have that now in your system or is it the opposite? Having grown up moving around, do you now feel like you still have to move around? That's an interesting question because I was going to buy a caravan, right, and I was going to travel the whole country. I thought to myself, you know, buy a caravan because I could go anywhere I want and it's very difficult for me to stay in one place at one time so that's very interesting that you picked up on that because it's inspired me to see something new every day. Whereas if you have the same routine and you have the same house for 20 years you're not gonna open your horizons more. So my horizons are open and I just want to be like a yeti

and just travel the world. Ha ha ha ha. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Can I ask you a difficult question? Of course. About your biological parents. Okay, yeah. What do you know about them?

Okay, well, they were kind of very abusive towards me. And I've only read this in documents from social workers. So you don't remember anything yourself? No, there's no actual memories in my head of it. But from what is documented, there was a lot of different issues. Mental health was one of them. Financial difficulties as well. But that does not excuse the abuse that happened.

So you can have financial difficulties, you can have mental health issues, but it's when you actually intentionally harm somebody, which is not a very nice thing to do. And I'm kind of thankful to the authorities for helping me and getting me out of that bad situation. How old were you when you were taking the... I was taking the risk at seven.

Age seven. So quite an early age. But you don't remember anything before seven? No. Nothing at all. No memory at all. And I think it could be that I've locked it out. It could be that it was a traumatic thing. It could be the trauma. It could be that it was a traumatic thing. It could be the trauma. It could be not wanting to remember. So you don't remember anything of,

what do you remember of them as people? Do you remember like who they are? No, no. Nothing? Nothing at all. I don't have a face. I don't have any particular memories, nice or bad. Wow.

So it's all blocked out. It's something I've been thinking about for a long time. There are organisations like the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army offer services where they can track family down and it's something that I've been looking into because people change. You know, with time things change, people change and maybe they're different people, maybe they've changed their lives, maybe, who knows, maybe they've been looking for me, I don't know.

Will you do that do you think? I think so. I mean, I'm 40 in May, so I'm getting kind of to that stage where I think that life begins at 40. So that may be a goal for me this year to kind of try and track them down. And I think that might actually give me some kind of closure. Or instead of closure, it might open some doors to build that relationship again, you know, with them. That'd be nice. I think that makes a lot of sense. It does.

And also I think this feeling that, you know, you have kind of seven years of your life there that in the moment is it doesn't exist. And to kind of get an explanation because like I pointed out, mental health, where you're not aware of your actions. So that could be a reason. Do you know if they were,

like did they accept you being taken away from them? I believe that they tried to go to the courts to try and resist the care order. So it means that you know they're not like abandoning me. They wanted to fight still to have me back so I think maybe there was issues surrounding why they, why what happened happened and this is the thing because when you research these things it can open up a can of worms and those worms can be healthy or those worms can be unhealthy. And I'm hoping that they're healthy worms. Yeah, wow, what a very interesting start of life you had. Did you have siblings? No, no, it was just me.

Just me and only child. Could you find out where they lived? No, because that is not in any of my records. Not in any of my records at all. So when the care order was placed, there was some information that was omitted. Yeah. Oh, OK. So it's difficult, but who knows?

Who knows? Maybe one day I will find them and make peace. Obviously without telling me your name, how are you named? That's a weird question. So whose surname do you take? I took what I believe to be my father's name. You had your father's name, you kept it on. That's correct. So you've got a surname to go on.

I've got a surname to go on. I've got a surname to go on. Is it a kind of unusual surname? Is it a normal one? It's an Irish one. So it might involve me getting the caravan and going over to Ireland to find them. Amazing. That could be a real double whammy. That could be a real double whammy. That could be an adventure of a lifetime.

It really could, couldn't it? I think you should get this caravan. I think I should. What's stopping you? Yeah. I think you should get this caravan. I think I should. What's stopping you really? I think you should do it. Yeah, I would love to. I would love to. Do you have any dependents now that you would juggle to leave?

No, no. Animals or children or anything? None at all, none at all. It's just me. It's just lonely old me. Well, I think you should, yeah. I mean, I'll tell you something, there will be people who would hear this and go,

God that sounds amazing. You could tomorrow go on adventures and nothing's really stopping you, you know? That's right, yeah. Go on an adventure, travel the country, travel the world even. I don't know how far you could get on a caravan around the world, but.

Probably quite far. Probably quite far. What color caravan? Oh, oh that's a good question. Would you do up the inside? Would you maybe be quite kind of like particular? I would bling it up, yes. I think I'll bling it up. I would have lights on it. Nice. Disco lights. On the outside? On the outside. On the outside. So like a party caravan at all times. It would be a party caravan. It would

be Bob Geldof. It would be Bob Geldof with me, traveling around. I reckon he might be up for it. Be a groupie. He'll be happy to have an adventure. Let's give him a ring. What are you doing when you are feeling most alive? Okay, that's an interesting one. When I feel most alive, I suppose it's being surrounded by friends, being surrounded by like-minded people. That's when I feel more alive. I can listen to their opinion. I love a good disagreement. I love it when somebody has the opposite opinion to me because it means that we can discuss it, we can agree to disagree and it's fascinating

hearing their views and like I said I like to come across people who, for example, are homophobic. I'd like to find these people, not to hate them, not to kind of feel any animosity towards them, but just to listen to their views on why they feel like this. And at the end of the conversation, we can shake hands. I don't know whether it would stretch to go into an LGBT IQ venue with them. They might not feel comfortable with that. But you don't have to agree with something to go and take part in something. How do you go about finding a homophobic person if you're just out on the lookout? Where do they hang out? At protests. Oh, good point. They're normally... Good point. Protests, of course. They will normally turn out at a good old protest, okay? You will have the pro protesters, shall we say, and then you'll have the counter protesters. Got it. So that's the perfect time to ensnare them

in the net, humanely, of course. Yes, humane catching. Humane catching. Okay, how do you humanely capture a homophobic person? Okay, I think you just go up to them and you engage. Let's do a mock test here. Okay, okay. Let's do a bit of roleplay. Okay. I'm the sake of argument, the homophobic person. Okay, nice to meet you. In this, at the protest, okay? Okay, okay. I've got the banner, you know, huge homophobe. You come up to me, what are you saying? I ask you your name, because that's the icebreaker. Everyone has a name. We'll call you Bob.

Bob, yeah. A nice, random name. Solid name. Bob's my name, that's me. Okay, classic homophobe called Bob. Hi Bob, first of all, you know, I would engage, I would ask why you're here today, and I suppose you would say you're here because you hate gays, you hate gays, you hate anything homosexual related. I would

allow you to say your bit as long as you don't become confrontational in terms of violence. Do you say that like, do you say that I don't want it to be violent beforehand? I think I don't have to say that because I think by my demeanour, by going up to them and being that friendly face and smiling, not in the patronising way, but approaching them and willing to listen, so that person has a view, they want to get that viewpoint across, and I think it's very important to listen to them. You can then suggest to them why I think that you may be wrong. I feel that Bob is wrong. Bob will

feel he's right. I'm guessing Bob goes... I mean what's the classic thing people say? It's not natural or something or it's not... I think the biggest one is the Bible. I think that comes up quite a lot in conversation. If Bob starts to write the Bible what do you say? Well I would just quote that God is supposed to love everybody apparently so I would use that not to kind of make him angry but just point out that God likes everybody and then he's going to come back and say in the Bible it says that man shall not lay with another man, and I'm not sure the exact wording on it. And then I could say, well, that's not what I believe,

but if that's your religious belief, and we'll go with that. And the important thing is that after this conversation we've had, Bob the homophobe, me, the polite camp, shall we say, gay person, We could then go for coffee. We can even go cinema, snooker maybe, darts. Yeah. Can you play darts?

I can't, no. But you're willing to give it a try for Bob? I'm willing to give it a try. Just to make Bob smile, I will be willing to go. There's a million things you could have talked about on this bench. We've talked about what we've talked about. Okay. Anyway, is there a question you would like to ask yourself and then answer it? I suppose, Where am I going? Where are you going in life? Where am I going in life? That's a good question, that's a good question.

I suppose... Just go with the flow. In a way. Go with the flow, continue what I'm doing. And eventually, becoming that superhero that I want to become. By not necessarily changing the world although one person can change the world I believe but I suppose yeah becoming that that superhero kind of learning more through life experience

learning through other people listening to people's views and becoming more educated as well because education goes on throughout life so you learn something new every day. You absolutely do. I believe that. You absolutely do. I believe that. You're completely right. Thank you.

We really need to get you that rainbow cape and you'll be flying. That's it. Maybe that's all you need really. Once you have the kit, you start feeling more of the total superhero package. Yeah, that would be the gimmick wouldn't it? Yeah, just start walking around with it, see how people react to it, spread the joy. And then you would have your comment, that may be the way of finding your homophobes as well. Oh yes. Or the allies. The allies, yeah. It will be a beacon that attracts everybody. Yeah, it attracts the LGBT community

It attracts homophobes. Yeah, because you could have it all with that cape. I think so. I'm gonna be that superhero I can come up with a name yet, but Bob maybe yeah, maybe yeah, perfect. Yeah Okay, last question for you. What are you going to do next? What am I going to do next? Oh, that is a brilliant question. Sitting here in the sun on this park bench, for me that's my sanctuary.

This is my peaceful time to just think about where I'm going in life and think about the future. I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing. I'm going to live every day as if, well, as if it's, well not the last. An important day. An important day, like a Monday. Be nice because sometimes we can all get moody, we can all get angry with people, it's a natural reaction to things and just keep learning, keep striving to learn from other people as well. Fantastic. Thank you so much for your time.

That's okay, pleasure. Pleasure to speak to you. Many ways, many ways, many ways to say I love you There are many ways to say I love you Just by being there when things are sad and scary Just by being there, being there, being there to say I love you Cleaning up a room can say I love you, hanging up a coat before you're asked to do it, drawing special pictures for the holidays and making play There are many ways to say I love you There are many ways to say I love you.