Strangers on a Bench - EPISODE 34: Living on Borrowed Time

Episode Date: May 5, 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 by Rose De LarrabeitiMixed by Mike WoolleyTheme tune by Tom Rosenthal & Lucy Railton Incidental music by Maddie AshmanEnd song: 'My Father Never Told Me He Loved Me' by Michael McGovernStream it here: https://ffm.to/myfathernevertoldmehelovedme--------------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? What's your favourite day of the week? Quite like Sunday because there's no Guardian newspaper and I can just have an easy morning and come to the day slowly and gradually. So what's your, if you can take me in as much detail as you feel comfortable with, you know your ideal Sunday? Well my wife and I, I'm retired but she still works so we don't work on Sundays and if it's a day like this we might go and have a nice breakfast or something or just a nice coffee somewhere.

She can't walk very far so I often take off and walk around the Heath. I walk here almost every day and then we may go and see my daughter or my son who lived not far away and then in the evening make a nice dinner together and in the evening often watch TV, I'm sorry, sad to say. And I also listen to a lot of music. That's one of my main ways of just being alive, as it were. Classical music. Wonderful. It sounds like a very pleasant day. Has it always, you know, for how long would you have given this answer? And what would you say your answer had been, say, 50 years ago?

Well, when the children were younger, obviously it would be a more active day. And now I retired a couple of years ago because I was ill, and I had to give up a psychotherapy practice that was fairly full, and it was very sudden and it was a big shock to me and a shock to all the patients as well. So that kind of put me into a whole new mode of living really called retirement which I

wasn't quite ready for although I'm 80 now and I... It's been a shock? Yeah, it took quite a lot of adjusting. But when it comes to weather like this now, just being able to slowly, freely walk around the Heath and take it in is just so beautiful, such a privilege. Yeah, it is, isn't it? Yeah. Did you know that it was your last day of work when it was your last day? Yes, because I was going to hospital, it was pretty urgent and then I nearly died really.

Did you see the light? Well, no, not at that point. The Royal Free just took over and managed to bring me back. Now I'm quite stable, so it's good. I feel very grateful to be alive and have a reasonably healthy body. So that last day of work, can you take me through what you remember of it? I think it was knowing that I was going to have to stop with these particular people, all of them, and I had to say that I would be having a break and that I couldn't say when I would be back. That was pretty sad and they were all a bit shocked and surprised and I remember at the end of the day feeling that I had you know made a big change in my life and then I got some quite urgent

clinical problems that put me into the role free for six months so that was experience six months yeah yeah it was looking experience. Six months. Yeah. That's a long time. Yeah, it was. Looking back on that time, what are your kind of abiding memories? Terrible, terrible abiding memories. Really, really difficult because my levels of cortisol suddenly went away up to almost us all suddenly went away up to almost deathly levels and that causes your system to go kind of crazy. I went a bit polka really and everything was in crisis and they didn't quite know what it was. It's called Cushing's disease but they misdiagnosed it a little bit at first. It was difficult but then when they at last found medication that sort of brought it into a level, it stayed like that now for two years. But I still feel slightly I'm on borrowed time,

that kind of thing. But I mean, I think that is getting older as well. During those six months, how do you keep going? Did you ever have to have a talk with yourself? Yeah, yeah, I certainly did. When my mind was a little bit better, it was very full of kind of fantasy and I was not really waking up properly. I was half asleep a lot of the time. But then when I began to calm down, but I follow a Tibetan Buddhist path, so my own meditation and my own mantras and things, that was enormously helpful during that time. But it was the night times that were so lonely, you know, because I was in a room on my own, because I was so ill.

But I had to learn to deal with that. Did you ever feel like you were going to die? Yeah. You had that and what were your kind of, you know? Well, I said to my wife, I think we should arrange a visit to Switzerland. You know, I actually wanted to die, it felt so awful. But she said, no way are we doing that. So I managed to come away from that and I don't have those feelings anymore.

But it did feel like it was a crisis in my whole system, you know, my whole body. It was an unusual thing, you know, it was a bit of a rare case. That's what the endocrinology staff at Royal Freesey. Yeah. Did you form any relationships with kind of particular nurses? Yeah, yeah.

Well, there was a particular endocrinologist consultant that I formed, particularly a kind of closeness to and still I feel very held by him. Is there anywhere to keep you in touch? Yes, yes, yes, because they see me every few months and I ask to see him and sometimes I can. How do you go about beginning to express gratitude to someone like that? Oh, I just hug him when I see him. Oh, that's lovely. That's a long old hug.

And he hugs me. It was very warm. There is a contact between us. And he was very kind to my wife when I was away because she was in a terrible state. She's elderly as well and she had to work at the same time. So anyway, these are the things that happen in life, aren't they? She's elderly as well and she had to work at the same time. Anyway, these are the things that happen in life aren't they? When you came out of hospital, to what extent did things feel new to you?

It was like just such gratitude to be alive. And the first moment I came back and my son and daughter and my wife were all there with a wonderful breakfast. That was the most amazing thing. It was January the 6th, two years ago, and I came back and we just sat at the kitchen table together and held hands and I just couldn't believe that they'd let me go and they're all free. It's been a lifesaver for me, that

hospital. It also saved my life. Did it? Yeah. I came very close to dying from undiagnosed at that time type 1 diabetes. I don't know how much you know about it. Type 1, yeah. And you can die quite quickly. Yeah, so I really got to a point where I wasn't that far away from that and I just felt this sensation my body shutting down. I went to see a GP and they quickly did a finger protest. And then, oh, you know, unless you've had just the most kind of crazy breakfast, you've got diabetes.

Yeah. And then they're like, you've just got to go straight to an E now. And I was kind of like, oh, really, an E? Okay, fine. You know, I just didn't think much of it. No. And then when I got in there, as soon as I said the words, they just rushed me straight into the rushing bit. Yeah.

Into the emergency. Yeah. They didn't let you hang around. I wasn't waiting for a second. No, no. And that's when I was like, oh, well. No, it's a little bit like me. That's very similar, yeah.

Anyway, yeah, so we were both there. That's interesting. Both safe by the same hospital. And did you have to stay in for a while? I stayed in for a while? I stayed in for about four or five days. Four or five days, yeah. And I left too early.

I walked out and I refused to be picked up by anybody. It's that classic kind of denial. Yeah, you didn't want to be ill. This isn't me. I was just going to stride out of this hospital and whatever. My feet felt so hot I had to take off my shirt. I was wobbling. I was just an absolute idiot. and then I was so wobbly I had to go back in

I wobbled after I took me back in. That's not funny. I know but it's kind of it's just you needed to get back to the help. But it was so silly of me you know you look back and what an idiot you know. No. Well you were young aren't you? Yeah. It's a big responsibility having to get used to that injecting routine and so on. But also I do have that feeling that you have now about to borrow a time. Because I think I play an active part, such a very active part in keeping myself alive every day, if you forgot you just die. I know, I know, keeping yourself going. It's like you're playing the role of a body part. So that kind of always...

So how old are you now? About 40? 30? 20? No. Are you over 40? I am 38. 38? Yeah, I was thinking that. Yeah, okay. You've seen about that. Oh, that's perfect. I'm happy with that.

Because I've been through that with my son. He's 50. And I know the 40s, you've seen about that. Oh, that's perfect. Yeah Yeah, because I've been through that with my son. He's 50 and I know the 40s, you know, you're coming up to the watch I watch I what should I expect? What your 40s like my 40s? quite Amazing. Oh really quite amazing yeah, because I was working as a teacher and I changed over trained as a psychotherapist and Started to work with patients and have my own analysis and all that. These were big moments, big turning

points. It's often a very powerful time of change. I'm excited now. So you were teaching in a school? No, in a college. I was sick of that now and I wanted... Why did you get sick of it? Because I was working with language and linguistic and it came down to being a bit automatic. And I was interested in working with people, always have been, and so I knew I needed my own therapy first.

But what I'm beginning to realize, more and more, with all this world geopolitical unrest of the most extreme and confusing condition is the importance of coming back in oneself to being grounded in some sort of reality that's not all just about the world, you know, but it's about being alive and being in touch with what's real in me. And to do that I've got to meditate quietly on a regular basis so that I can get a little bit away from words and especially phones and messages from the phone and so on and once I've really made the effort to do that I can come into a space that feels more balanced and In touch with something deeper. It's so easy to get

something deeper, it's so easy to get pulled into things like Instagram, that it's just endless pictures and endless speaking. I think endless speaking is such a trap because words just don't really take us anywhere, you know. We've got to come back to a certain respect for silence and stillness. Just like they say in music, the silence between the notes is as powerful as the notes themselves, you know? So when you're kind of, yeah, I mean when you're meditating, how are you starting and how are you, what are you saying to yourself as you start? Well, I mean I just use a classical mindfulness sort of approach. So I just sit with a straight back, I usually put my hands on my knees now and then I close my eyes often to get started and then as I was taught and advised it's quite good to open your eyes again but not look around, just keep them at a kind of a slight angle and just

sort of work with one's breathing you know keeping it regular coming back to that as a sort of grounding space you know your breath is the way to sort of quieten your mind and your mind of course behaves like a monkey as it's supposed to do and it'll go off all over the place. Nothing wrong with that. And then gently you return again to the breath and to the breathing and to one's energy right through the body, every part of the body from the legs right up through to the head and then again you'll find your mind has gone off on whatever it is your holiday or your lunch or whatever and then again gently just come back to your breath. Breath is

the thing that is most real about us in many ways, not all the stuff that goes on in our mind, you know, because that's endless. Yeah. Yeah. We jumped off topic. You were about to tell me about what you fell up with teaching and going into psychotherapy. Yeah, and realising that I needed to go on a journey. I've always been interested in sort of psychological things. So that was also part of the reason why I thought an analysis

of my own would be very important because you've got to begin with that. You can't really help people unless you've worked on some to begin with that. You can't really help people unless you've worked on some of your own stuff. In doing that, what did you learn and what surprised you about what you learned about yourself in that process? Well I learned about my capacity to be too forward, not quiet enough and able to listen and wait, you know, impatient and a bit sort of impetuous kind of. I think one of the things you have to learn in that work is the importance of listening and waiting, letting something emerge. But all

that stopped now. So it is a strange new thing for me because I have this knowledge and kind of understanding in myself and I have to be careful not to terrify people because that's not healthy. There's ways to do it in the gentle ways, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. The relationships you've built up with your patients. I call them patients, yeah. Clients or patients, yeah.

How long were some of them with you? I mean, what's the longest? Sometimes six, seven years. Or more. There was some 10, 11 years ago. That's a long time. It's quite common, yeah. I mean, how difficult is that to end? After that amount of time, you've seen so much

arc in their life. You have. That's right. And so how do you... Is it very complicated saying goodbye? Well, I think... Or do you get a chance to say goodbye? Well, they always say in psychotherapy, there are bilateral endings and there are unilateral endings. Unilateral endings is when the patient says I've had enough, bye-bye, which sometimes happens, or the therapist can kind of, you know, bring it up and work towards an ending. But a sort of

bilateral ending is where there's a sort of gradual negotiation and a kind of sense that maybe at the end of the summer or something like that we might feel that it's time to and they have to enter into that as well you know. Can you think of the most kind of dramatic session that you've had with a patient? I don't know whether I should talk about that actually. I think that might be a little bit delicate. But they wouldn't, as long as you say it's a name. I think the most dramatic things happen around suicidal sort of people. I think that's, on a couple of occasions, that's been difficult. When someone's right on the edge and you don't

know when they leave or they're going to come back. That is very scary. So you've just got to wait quietly. But in that moment, what do you say to them? Well, you just have to work with what they bring. That's the important thing. Often they're just feeling very, very down. And that's something you just have to stay with. And that can be quite painful when it leaves something with you you know which you think about them in the week and wonder

how they are and so on and then there they are the next week gradually that chapter sort of closes and so on and there's usually something going on in their lives that they once they begin to talk about that helps Can you think back to any times when you feel like you've made a mistake? Countless, countless times yeah countless times. What was your mistake that you most often made? Well trying to sort of read into something that wasn't accurate and having to re-establish in myself and listen again and see what the real position for the patient is. It's a very sensitive job, you know, you're always on a

slight tightrope because that's where you do the work. There's got to be a little bit of challenge and a little bit of holding. It's all there together, you know. I think what's nice in the last, I don't know, I'm going to say 10 years, there's been a kind of an openness in talking about having therapy. I talk to people on these benches and they say, yeah, I'm getting therapy about this and this has meant this. You know, as if it was never,

you know, like somebody went for a pint of milk. I think it is more acceptable now. Which is really nice, I think, and encouraging other people. Now, I'm interested, you're the first person I've had from the other side, first actual therapist. What do people not know about life as a therapist? What's kind of invisible to the lay person out there about life as a therapist?

There's a French cyclonist called Lacan, you've probably heard of him, and he talks about the one who knows. And that's always a big sort of pitfall all the time that the therapist is the one who knows and the patient is the one seeking, seeking the knowledge of the therapist. You have to keep rethinking that and realizing that very often you don't know, you absolutely don't know what's happening and sometimes you have to just stay with that because often the patient's the one who knows and you have to get out of the way and let that knowledge begin to grow and foster it, you know. But I think that's often the biggest mistake and it's disappointing for the patient at first sometimes when you don't know

everything and you can't just give them answers. I'll tell these lives now still floating around in your head you would have been told so many things and I know anything shared with you know but that's a great privilege yeah but you sometimes just are you sometimes walking around okay oh I remember I do wonder what happened to all of them actually in the end I think there was only about 12 or 14 people altogether. I do long in a way to know how they are and to be able to say to them sorry kind of thing. Oh, I'm sure they would understand. Yeah, yeah, I hope so, yeah. I mean, can you not find them?

No, I don't think it's appropriate really to go chasing after them because they've moved on in their lives. Running down the street. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, hey, hey, how are you? Closer, I need closure. I mean, sometimes I do.

I haven't actually, although a lot of them live in the area, you know. Strangely enough, I haven't bumped into them lot of them live in the area, you know, strangely enough I haven't bumped into them, but it would be beautiful. I would be very warm and nice to them They were all in their own ways Just struggling and professionally and all that sort of thing, you know, I think the question for me now is why am I here? You know if I'm not here to be available to other people professionally,

which can also be a way of maybe not looking at your one's own sort of existence as it were, you know, then what is my path now? Well, are you here? You know, that is a very deep question. Can you think of anything, I mean, when do you think why am I here? What's your kind of wildest thought that comes into your head?

Well, wildest thought? You know, what do you think, oh, you know, maybe I could actually do this, or maybe I could be X and X, you know? Not really. I think what I want to do as much as possible is to meditate more often and be ready for whatever is going to happen, you know, because one doesn't know. There's all sorts of encounters happen within the family, you know, my grandchild and all that

sort of stuff. And I think one needs a sort of place to think. So I think you could be a voice for the meditation, you know, I put your tape on, maybe I've got a tape now could I use what you did earlier, just put it on repeat. What's it like being a grandparent? Oh, it's lovely. Lovely. He's 13 now, just the other day. He's going through so much teenage stuff at the moment. Really, really quite strong emotional kind of stuff, but... Do you try and say anything?

I don't. His mother's a psychotherapist. Oh, wow. Okay, go on. He's in trouble. I won't say anything more about that. I won't say anything more about that. That would be very indiscreet. You don't have any psychotherapists in the family? No, I don't. None. You and mom and dad are still alive. My mother is. My father isn't. Oh, your father died. Yeah. Yeah. That was a time. Sad time. Yeah. But actually, I think, I mean, in many ways, the whole thing is quite invigorating Yeah, yeah, that was a time. Sad time.

Yeah, but actually I think, I mean in many ways the whole thing's quite invigorating. You know, when you watch someone die, I don't know, I think I probably live more fully since that. I know, you watched him, were you around when he died? Were you there? I was there, I was in the room. That's quite a big moment, doesn't it? It is a big moment, but also a huge, a huge, what's the word, is honour a word? A huge privilege? I know, I found that with my parents both.

Yeah, and I think to be there at the end is, I mean, something you'll never forget. Yeah, completely. We're watching life, you know. It's quite a gentle kind of moment, but it's still got that awful feeling of, that's it, there's no way back, you know, which is also frightening. It's a mixture, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. What do you remember of your parents' time? Well, my mother, I came up to Scotland and she'd had cancer for some time,

and the Macmillan nurse said, look, I think you should come up. So I arrived on the train very early in the morning, and I walked to the house, and I could just feel in the air that she was about to go, and I just lay on the bed with my arm around her until she died, and it was very, very beautiful, peaceful, and she waited almost for me to

get there. I think she was close to me. But that moment with my mother when the breath just stops and they're still there and they're still warm, still in your arms, but they've gone. That is terrifying. But it's also terribly touching. It gives you a feeling of the whole of humanity, you know, of birth and death, and the links that are between the two, you know? Completely. Yeah, I was struck by that exact feeling to watch spirits kind of fly. Yeah.

And then, oddly enough, actually, after I saw that, there were other people in the room as well. People kind of hung around, and I just wanted to get out of there. Yeah. I almost like, you know, he's gone. That's not him anymore. No.

That's just a lump of flesh. There's nothing there. And I just went out, I didn't even, I'm not sure I went back in the room. And also these are the most kind of, you know you mentioned you were kind of hugging your mum. And those kind of, if you think though in one's life it's so rare to have that kind of intimate moment with someone. You know, how often do you just sit with someone, hugging them for five hours, or just literally to be right next to them,

or holding their hand for an entire day. Or there are so many potentially incredible moments surrounding death, but I feel that those are such magical things that stay with one. Tell me about your childhood. Let's imagine a typical Sunday as a, I don't know, let's pick an age 10 year old. What would that look like? Well, I was the son of a Church of Scotland clergyman. Oh, interesting.

So I was in Glasgow and my parents went to church on Sundays. My mother was a very deep Christian as well, into healing and things like that. So I would get dressed up and we'd totter up the road to the local church. I went to the Sunday school which I didn't like much and I didn't behave very well and then we would come home and we would have a nice big meal together and then Sunday afternoons very often I went to play with some friends around the corner, a big family. I used to go and play board games and all that.

Or my cousins would come and we had a big old fashioned flat in Glasgow. So it was very much about family life at that point. My father, when I was three, he contracted polio very badly. He had two sticks and he had calibers and things but he was always quite disabled. So that was quite difficult for me growing up because I didn't think he was kind of normal, you know, he wasn't an ordinary physical dad like the others and so that was part of my childhood that was a little bit painful. Did you have to you know little boys need that physicality? I know well, how did where did you find it if he didn't find it in him?

You know I suppose I went looking for other figures kind of in a way and that went right through my life in a sense and The need for male company, you know the importance of that and the closeness of it I think that was started from the loss of that and the closeness of it. I think that was started from the loss of him at that age because in those days it was quite early with Boulio and they didn't quite know, they kept him in hospital a long time and I got close to my mother and then when he came back I didn't want him there because I just wanted to be close with my mother. I suppose he got in the way of you and your mother. Yeah. Did you find a way before he died?

Yeah. How did, you know, what age did you kind of come round to him? After my mother died, I had 10 more years with him. Okay, okay, that's nice. And I never wanted that, you see. I wanted him out the way, and I could spend the last years with my mother. But that does happen in family.

That's life, is it? So I got much closer to him. Okay, yeah. So in a way that's actually kind of a blessing. Yeah, it was, it was, because I really could see how he loved me in a very different kind of way. And in fact, he was generous, thoughtful man really. And towards the end, I would kind of bathe him

and things like that and that was very close and very physical and really helped me to sort of heal something about whether he loved me or not you know because that was always my great thing he doesn't he doesn't love me you know did he tell you he loved you no he told me he didn't love me. He was very perverse like that, you know. If you said to him, do you love me, Dad? He would say, no, because he hated any sentimental thing. He was very practical, you know, that kind of person,

but a good man. Do you find that, because your father didn't say that he loved you, have you tried to go the opposite way, or have you find this up in his kind of character? Yeah, I think so, maybe. I think that was part of a kind of rebellion, yeah. And I was an actor, you see, originally. And, yeah.

Oh, an actor? Well, that's gone from nowhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were an actor. I was. I worked in Scotland for a number of years. And, um. And on the stage?

Yeah, a little bit, on television, but I wanted to be a director, but it didn't kind of work out. And then I went to America and did a degree in English and drama, so I directed plays there. That was a huge, huge moment of freedom for me to get away from Scotland. Which, yeah, which part of America? Georgia, the University of Georgia. When you look upon that time, what did you find? What was the awakening?

Well, first of all, I was able to have my first girlfriend. Oh, is that all in that? Because I wasn't with my parents, you know. I had my own place. Oh, I see. And I had a big love affair there, and that was extraordinary. Why was this love affair extraordinary? I found America very... being on a campus and you know being able to have friends with the tutors and the faculty as they called it,

as well as other students and I was from Scotland so they thought that was very interesting. And it was actually at the time when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy sort of were killed and the university had just been integrated and it was a very tricky period with the black white issues in the deep south. How did that, I mean, what was your kind of memory of being there at that time? Feeling very white and realising that it wasn't the same as being black. And there were two sides of the, literally of the railway line in the town.

And you didn't cross it. And then I went to LA and San Francisco and all that. Did drugs and all that stuff, you know. It was a very spiritual period. What kind of drugs were you talking? Mostly just smoking and that sort of thing, you know. It was a very spiritual period. What kind of drugs were you talking? Mostly just smoking and that sort of thing, you know. I didn't really go down the acid road, although everyone wanted me to, but I was a bit frightened. Why do they want you to? Because everyone did in those days. And I think maybe I missed out, but I know people that did do it and got quite damaged by it.

So I've had a kind of different sort of life. I do like cook some dinner. So I think I've got to meet my wife at 4.20. Yeah. Can I get you to do two more things and take a couple of minutes? People listening will have no idea about what we can see. Could you explain what you can see and how that makes you feel and describe, paint a picture for the people listening who can't see. Well, this is a spot on the heath which is part of a very ancient circle of trees

and it's a place I come a lot to meditate and I can look over at Hampstead where I've stayed for 40 years and Highgate where my old aunties and things lived so it feels kind of like an orientation that's very close to me and today I feel very deeply that sort of shyness of spring that's beginning to just show itself in the trees as if they're kind of getting ready to kind of come alive, you know, and not quite there yet. But they're so beautiful in the sunlight. I can see all around London below me. That's very, I feel very privileged to have this place. That's a great answer, wonderful answer. And lastly I'm going to ask you a question which

you can either answer in a grand way or a kind of mundane way. The question is, what are you going to do next? I'm going to go home and cook a vegetable curry, which I looked up this morning, and it'll be ready when my wife, when I meet her from her clinic. If I have time, I've got, oh God, it's nearly three o'clock. I've ruined the curry. No, no. I've gone bad.

No, no, no, you haven't. Okay. No, it's fascinating. I don't think I've said anything curry. I feel bad. No, no, no, you haven't. OK. No, it's fascinating. I don't think I've said anything too discreet. You haven't. I think you've been absolutely great. Thank you so much for talking. I've really enjoyed it.

Yeah, I have too, Tom. Thank you. On the day my father died I travelled through the past His breath had stopped and then I felt alone at last I lay down beside him and watched the spirits fly He never told me he loved me I never dared to ask why Wasted conversation Where does it go when we die? I'll be your burden and I promise I won't cry Hmm... And I promise I won't cry