Strangers on a Bench - EPISODE 41: A Common Humanity

Episode Date: June 23, 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 : 'Read it Back Aloud' by Roo PanesStream it here : https://ffm.to/readitbackaloudListen to all the end songs featured on the podcast (so far) on one handy playlist :https://ffm.to/soabendsongs————————————————————————————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? Okay, you feeling ready? How's the ice cream? Very good. It always is. Okay. So the easy starter, is there a day of the week that you favor? Friday probably. Probably. Probably? So it's not touch and go? Well I'm retired for 12 years now but I still get that excitement about the end of the week even though I really liked my job. I still look forward to Fridays and of course when Have I Got News For You is on.

That's an added bonus at the end of the day. Take me through what for you now is an ideal Friday spent in the world. Yeah, I'm usually getting up not long after sunrise. Fresh. Straight at it. Straight at it. Straight at the world. And then,

ablutions, breakfast, and then I'm at my desk. Straight onto the desk, interesting. Are there any pictures on this desk? No. No. Any perf, no, any kind of ornaments?

No, No. Any kind of ornaments? No, pencils. Pencils and, oh, I should say my mouse has to sit on four encyclopedias. Specifically four? Yes, it has to be the right height for me to reach. I've had two bouts of surgery in the last two years. That's why the desk has to be set up just so, because some positions can still be a bit uncomfortable for me. So it's quite a setup you've got. Yeah, yeah. And the mouse and the four-inch arachnopedes,

does it ever fall off? Occasionally. There's usually a mad scramble then when that happens. Do you ever talk to the mouse? No. Do you talk to anything in the house that isn't alive? Yeah. What do you talk to? I talk to the room really because I'm reading aloud what I'm doing to test the horses over the jumps as it were. Yeah and what does the room say anything back? Not normally but I do have some neighbors who can be quite noisy. What they say? I'm not sure I can repeat that. Oh go on, go on. Are they making love?

Yeah they're at it. There's very few words, it's all noises. Fantastic. And I'm sat there trying to talk to the room and blotting it out. At some stage, I want to record what I've been writing, but obviously it's not going to be on one of those days. Mark Threlfall Have you sensed any patterns to their lovemaking? Mark Threlfall I think it's pretty random. I haven't exactly marked it off on the calendar. Mark Threlfall I think you should start noting it down. It to make it fun to chart these patterns. Then you might see there is a pattern and if you have to work or record something, what do you think of it? Is it annoying? Is it

interesting? It's just there. He was playing the piano. He's playing the piano? Yeah, I don't think they ever do anything on the piano. But I get the impression that he's having piano lessons. I've heard him playing guitar, and he's quite good on the guitar. He's quite proficient at guitar. But he's obviously a newcomer to the keyboard. You kind of impress with his, you know, he's expanding his horizons? Yeah, he's gonna have a repertoire, isn't he, eventually? I think he's probably got a repertoire at the moment.

Could you imagine ever, you know, saying anything to about the love making? It would require quite a cue on there apart from me to come out with something. I'm not ruling it out, I've been known to say a few things in the past. To neighbours or just to people who are love making? To people generally. So you are a bit of an interventionist, you've got it in you? Oh I've got, yeah. To dive in? Yeah.

Okay, well it sounds like you've been quite restrained. Yeah, yeah. So tell me about, you say you're not averse to diving in there. I don't know whether to ask you whether there's ones you regret or ones you're happy you did, but either one is fine. I've intervened with bullies before now. Okay, okay. Is that from early?

Because I've been bullied myself when I was a boy, so. I see. If it's not too painful, what do you recall of being bullied as a boy? Oh, I'll tell you one incident that happened when I was about nine or ten years old when myself and a friend were cornered in the local playing field by a couple of boys who I had always got on with beforehand but suddenly they got it into their heads to have a go at us.

I'm quite small, it doesn't really come across on radio or podcast. And this lad pulled me down onto the ground and pinned me to the ground, knocked my glasses off and then grabbed hold of a stalk of grass and he ran it across my cornea, across my eye, which was extremely painful. I ended up at home in tears and off to the doctors and what have you and that was probably the worst of it I would think. And these are kids you thought were fine before that? Yeah, I thought they were fine beforehand, but it's like Lord of the Flies, you know, everybody's capable of turning, I suppose. I mean, you've obviously remembered this very vividly.

To what extent did moments like that shake the rest of your life? Do you feel like it's moulded anything? Well I think it's obviously played on my mind because the first novel I ever wrote was on the subject of bullying. It's not been published, it will never see the light of day but I obviously picked that as my first subject. Is there any reason why you don't want it to see the light of day? Because it's your first? I don't think it's good enough. Oh, okay.

Like anybody who writes, you build up a cupboard of stuff that you hope will never see the light of day, really. It's a long apprenticeship. Can you be short? And I'm old enough to admit that it's still an apprenticeship. I think it's always in a friendship. At the moment, I've been reading, 20 years ago, I was in Fiji. Okay. I'd taken a year off. I was in Fiji. Okay.

I'd taken a year off. I'd stopped you there. No, no, no, it's obviously why I just tell you a funny link to Fiji that I have. Yeah. I can't not bring it up because it's the only link to Fiji. Before I started doing this, I do songs.

And one of my songs is used as the Fiji airline holding music. All right. Anyway, back to your story about Fiji. I just had to get it out there. That's been the first time in my life I've had a chance to say that. Why are you in Fiji 20 years ago? I worked in the health service but I yearned for a gap here and at the time the health service did the thing where you could take a career break So I took a year off and went traveling. So I had the gap here that I should have had before I went away to uni. I bought a round

the world ticket. And at this time, 20 years ago, I was in Fiji and I kept a journal, which was probably the longest piece of sustained writing I'd done up until that time. And I've been rereading it day by day. Oh, okay. In my footsteps of where I was. That's fun. And 20 years ago, I was at a place called Corotogo on the Coral Coast in Fiji. But I know what's coming up.

I know what's coming up on this second night. What's gonna happen on the second night? On this second night I went and had a drink in this restaurant and then a waiter came over and said the gentleman over there has invited you to have dinner with him. I thought invite the dinner, what can I do? So I went over and sat down with this chap. I think he was Australian. And I don't really remember much because I think a fair few sherbets were hot.

It was a very pleasant evening. And then walking back, I was sat with some locals at some benches that were set out along the road. This is not like in this country, it's a different pace of life. And people say to me, okay, you were away for a year. What was the most incredible thing you saw? And it happened at night. The sun had gone down and the thing I saw wasn't even on this planet.

Because there wasn't anything in the way of streetlights. There was no light pollution whatsoever and I just leant back and I looked up at the sky. And if you live in this country, you might have seen the Milky Way, but you've never seen it like it was in Fiji. And it was this incredible glistening glittering band above. I can't, I could read by it. That's how bright it was. And it was the most astonishing.

I'd seen the Milky Way from sort of dark sky areas in this country, but I'd never seen it from the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And I just looked up and I thought, yeah. How did it make you feel to see it? Well, everybody says it makes you feel very small and it does, but mostly I think I felt privileged that I'd had the opportunity to do that. You get to relive it every night at the moment? At the moment, I'm reliving it every night.

I've got to say- Is that enjoyable? Oh, yes, hugely enjoyable. Do you find yourself surprised by any of the things you wrote? Yeah, I'm constantly surprised. I think, wow, how did I ever write that? Because it was so, because it's good. It's just captured it. He just absolutely nailed it. It's captured it, yeah.

He smashed it. This sounds like a pretty epic trip. When you returned, to what extent were you a changed person? I knew I wanted to do more writing. I'd always wanted to write but work had got in the way. I was working long hours in the NHS and there was precious little time for writing. It is a full on, full full-time thing, really. I was working long hours.

What was your last day like there? Well, I had to go in and hand in bits of equipment and stuff and sign some papers. That was all done by mid-morning, and I met up with my closest friend that I'd made there in 27 years. We went and had lunch together and I went home and burst into tears basically. Why? Because I'd loved the job, I'd loved many of the people that I'd love the job, I'd love many of the people that I'd worked with. When you work as a team, it's like having another family.

In the environment I was working with, for a lot of people, I mean I'm single, but for a lot of the people that I worked with, they spent more time with the team than they actually did with their families. Yeah, okay. You know? So, yeah, it was hugely social and I hadn't expected to do that line of work at all. I fell into it entirely through a twist of fate. What was the twist? I walked into a job centre. I bumped into an old school friend of mine who I hadn't seen for years.

I was planning on being a librarian so I was looking for stopgap work really and we were looking at the daft jobs that were on display and having a laugh and he pointed out this one job which was working in a laboratory and I said I can't do that I'm arts I'm not science he said no you said you could do that he said it's just a lab assistant job I took the card down and was instantly offered an interview instantly offered the job after the interview turned them down and went and did something else. Then six months later, they came after me again. I thought, blimey, these people are persistent.

You must have been great in that interview. What did you do? I don't know. I guess I just... I fitted the mold of what they already had working there. They had these temporary lab assistants that they'd taken on. They were all different. there. They had these temporary lab assistants that they'd taken on and they were all different but they were all unusual in their own way and I should say that one of the guys I was working with was he'd had a nervous breakdown while doing a physics degree at Cambridge.

And then there was another guy who is the director of a major cancer research company out in the States. When I met him, he was the most impressive 18-year-old I'd ever met. It was like he was 35. I mean he was so mature and he was so bright and so wise. He was obviously destined for great things because he was hugely impressive. And the last time I saw him he was living in a two million dollar house in San Diego. Wow. I actually went to his house on the trip, on the big trip. So I called in to see him and that evening in San Diego we sat in his back garden as the evening cooled off and we sipped our beers and I looked around me and I said

where did it all go wrong? Fantastic. What did you learn about human beings from doing this job? The variety. Everybody goes on about how divided the world is and how divided different countries are. But at the end of the day, we do have a common humanity and I think that in almost everybody there is compassion and sometimes I think we bury it. Sometimes we forget about it. I mean we're all different but fundamentally we're all quite similar really perhaps striving in different directions but ultimately we

need more time just to talk and listen to each other I went to a funeral about two or three weeks ago this was somebody who I met in my my line of work and I met him the day I started work then. First of October 1985 and he was pretty much unforgettable right from the off and we became very good friends and I knew him for nearly 40 years and he always had boundless energy and enthusiasm. At times I could find him a bit exhausting. But he was hilariously funny. He was a really lovable character. But he was the sort of person who would go into a bar and he talked to the most unlikely person just to get to know them, just to experience another perspective and he'd do that with everybody and I never met anybody who didn't have a good word for him who

fell out with him. Everybody really really liked him and he always made an effort. If you were feeling a bit down, if you bumped into him in the course of your day, you wouldn't be down for very long. He was a remarkable individual and I miss him terribly. I can't believe he's gone but you think about that and we all have immense opportunities to do more in our lives and to connect with people and to listen to people you know even if it's people who are not on the same page as you whatsoever you know when you meet people like that it's an opportunity I think and our shared humanity is something that we need to explore a lot more fully. You mentioned compassion. Can you think of a moment in your life, a time in your life where you felt like someone had given that

genuine compassion to you that really kind of moved you and helped you in a particular moment in your life? Oh, that's a difficult one. Or maybe the act of compassion that has been most significant in your life. I'm going to try to get a little bit of a hangover. It's easy to sort of dive into areas that are really dramatic and I saw some incredibly aspects of life-saving, which were totally unexpected. And sometimes it doesn't always work. I saw a young Down syndrome woman who collapsed. And this was at the end of a long working day. It was nothing to do

with us we just happened to be there on site and we did everything we could to try and save her and then eventually because we were working out in the sticks the ambulance arrived and they worked with her for quite a long time but she didn't survive. It wasn't the thing that was normal for us. We wouldn't normally see something like that and A&E see it all the time. Since I finished work I saw somebody who was brought into the eye hospital after a vicious attack. I was there for something else. And the staff were absolutely astonishing. I should say, I mean, I think we've got a fantastic hospital in the Bristol Eye Hospital.

They basically saved the site in my right eye. Yeah. The compassion and care I received from them, from staff who came from all over the world, from probably 20 different nations, all utterly dedicated to their work and they showed me the utmost patience. They gave me so much time and it was incredibly moving really. With your writing, you just talk about your dear friend who died recently and how wonderful they were and it sounds like you got so much out of the different relationships at work.

You find writing a bit lonely? As they always say on radio, and I've noticed that people do this, that's a good question. People always say that, don't they? That's a good question and you always say that don't they now? That's a good question and you think, oh yeah you're thinking about what you're going to say next. Exactly, it gives them time to answer it. The smug answer to that is I spend my mornings, especially for the last five years with a group of imaginary people and they're quite company enough really especially with everything that they're up to and they've become quite real to me really I spent so much time with them and the nature of the project is such that I hear their voices all the

time and sometimes I hear the voices next door as well but when I'm out and about I'll be thinking about certain scenes and certain bits of dialogue. So you're carrying this bit of writing everywhere with you? Yeah. You're living this? Oh yeah, it's a very intense project. I mean, will it end? Well it's pretty much finished now.

I've spent the last nine or ten months editing, which has been a fairly full on thing, although I try and stop work by by lunchtime I try and clear my head. What do you do after lunch? Well after lunch I go for walks like I am today. I vary them as well I've gone a bit off track today because I wanted to see the view but also for the listener there's a Mr. Whippy park over there and I was having an ice cream. I was having an ice cream and our friend turned up.

So, but yeah, so it's a different walk every day. And if it's pouring with rain, I'll allow myself to skip. As in skipping along the journey, there's nothing to do. As in skipping? I like that. Along the journey, there's not much to do. No, no, no. Sorry, I thought maybe you're just pretty much skipping along. Because maybe it's raining, people aren't seeing you,

you know, you allow yourself to skip. Skipping time, skipping the rain. Yeah. Would you like to find a partner? You said you mentioned your signal. Yeah, signal. Single. I have mixed feelings now because of my age really. It seems a big step to take. I've always, well, I've not always been single, but I've never been married. I've never actually lived with anybody other than when I shared houses when I was a student in early working days. It would be something a bit

unusual for me. Mark Threlfall But you don't have to live with someone. Mark Threlfall No, no, no, no, true. I know somebody at the moment who I like very much. I think she's possibly considering me as well. Okay, as we speak? Quite possibly, yeah. Oh, God, it's an ongoing, it's a live situation. It's been a slow burn.

From? I've known her for not quite 10 years. It's quite a slow burn. Yeah. I should say, I should say, I think- What's stopping you, sorry, this I'm confused about. Well, first of all, I should say I think... What's stopping you? Sorry, there's something confusing around. Well, first of all, this project I've been involved in has really monopolised my time.

Sure. Plus I don't... I'm not the sort of person who would want to monopolise somebody, because this woman is... independent, rather like me. Mark Threlfall I thought that could work, no? If you're both independent, there's hope. Mark Threlfall She lives at the top of a very big hill. Mark Threlfall You get fit. You get fit. I don't know, I feel like it could be a great adventure for you. Mark Threlfall It could be. It could well be.

Mark Threlfall You could always just go is, I don't know, I feel like it could be a great adventure for you. It could be, yes, it could well be. You know, you could always just go slowly, don't have to rush anything. Yes, but as I say, how old are you? Guess. Oh, I would say you're- Look at my hair. Do you see any gray? Yes, I've got a bit. I would say you must be Yes, I've got a bit. I would say you must be 30. That's very kind. 38. 38, that was the next number I was going to say, was 38. I mean, I'm 65 and I like to think I'm a young 65. You know you know what? Yeah. I'm glad you said that. I do get a real sense in talking to you

that there's a real youthfulness in you. Oh, that's very kind of you to say. That you don't always see from people who are slightly older. You know, there's a balance there. I think there's physical activity and I wish I could do cryptic crosswords because they say doing cryptic crosswords keeps you young mentally. Maybe this lady could help you too.

One more question about her. What do you like about her? She's smart. She's a big reader. Perfect for reading your stuff. Yeah. She has read some of my stuff. Does she like it? Yeah, I think so. I think she thinks that I'm...

What I'm writing is quite out there. It's pushing at envelopes. Oh, okay. In what sense? It's a comedy and it's quite dark comedy. It's also not the sort of book that your listeners might imagine. It goes against the grain in every possible way. Oh wow. Because for a start, it's not in prose. It's a verse novel. Whoa! There we go. So it's enormously complex.

Whoa. Is it a funny question if I asked you to, do you remember the first line to it? Would you like to hear the opening? Yeah. Okay, here it is then. This is, I'll give you the opening. It begins in Bristol at St. Mary Reckleff, which for those of you who don't know it,

is our most beautiful church. Queen Elizabeth I said of it that it was the fairest, goodliest parish church in all England. And it goes like this. A story must have a beginning. So let it be here on this day, when half the city's out and grinning at summer breaking through in May and as the blood rush of elation prepares as the blood rush of elation you'll have to edit this bit out. There is an editor don't worry. Alright. Hello Rose. I'll start again. A story must have a beginning, so let it be here on this day, when half the city's out and grinning at summer breaking out in May. And as the blood rush of elation preoccupies a stirring nation,

imagine you were floating there above the streets on warming air, detached from all the throb and bustle of modern life. And as you tread the wafting thermals overhead, watch as the cars hurry and hustle, as if they are already late for what has been ordained by fate. 200 feet above the traffic a pair of steeplejacks stand paused, as if the height has grown too graphic for them to cope with and has caused them both to question what enjoyment they ever got from this employment. The topmost man says something to his mate below, it's super glue that holds him to the rising spire, and then proceeds to climb once more, rung after rung just as before, attaching now and then a wire for safety through his long ascent towards that infinite blue tent. Around his neck and to his shoulder a rucksack hangs, bulging and fat and looking awkward, even more so since what it holds.

But let's leave that for later, as it is symbolic of what's to come, the froth and frolic that lovers wade through when their eyes are fixed upon one certain prize. So single-minded are these climbers, they never think to scan the ground, those upturned faces each spellbound at their adventure, all those rhymers with their little books pausing to ponder, wire or hooks. Perhaps the way with steeplejacking, should such a word exist, must be to have a certain something lacking that others have abundantly. How else to fathom this existence they seek out daily at this distance from solid ground. And yet, in crowds, there must be those who yearn for clouds, not in the sense of isolation, although that too will play a part, but rather what impels the heart towards the risk of immolation, chasing

an Ikarian dream, for that dear reader is my theme. Also watching on this morning and with his heart close to his tongue, a man is mouthing out a warning to those whose lives hang by a rung. He can't help this, it's in his make-up, as is the way he'll always wake up before his wife who in the bed is stirring now. Her tousled head emerging from the hotel duvet and the aurora of the wine they sank two bottles of, a fine and musky Merlot plus a cuvée she can't remember yet but will. The champagne was just overkill. To say it as it is and call a spade a spade she got quite pissed and now feels grim poor poorly

paula yes that's her name and in a twist her husband's paul what are the chances of that you say what circumstances what starry pattern made that so you couldn't make it up I know. She stares at the four walls uncertain of what the time is or the day and with her furred tongue finds a way to tell her beau to close the curtain for Pete's sake Paul. But he just smirks. For that's the way their marriage works. They're lovers, but more lately besties, who bonded over Elton John. Unusually, Rock of the Westies, an album which had sunk and gone

till the reissue added Kiki, a song that leaves me rather peaky, if I'm honest. To each his own, eh? Since that time time their love has grown much like her hair. He calls her punsy. It almost reaches to her bum. Each cries I love you when they come. It's like sharing an outsized onesie is how they've seen it from the start. They'd never break each other's heart. Crikey. I mean that's, I mean I feel like I should just clarify that you

you have just remembered that. Yeah. I mean that's gonna sound for all money like you're just reading that out from a bit of paper or a phone or wherever you just remembered that. Yeah Incredible I told you this might be an unusual interview. What have you remembered that? Those are the first bit and you've and you've done how much since that was? That was the first 98 lines and that came out in the first few days that I wrote it and it's virtually pretty much unchanged from how it emerged. How much more is it? There's a lot more of it. That's the first 98 lines and the whole thing including the dedication is 14,000 lines long.

Who's it dedicated to? I dedicated it to a poet who I knew when I was younger called Peter Redding. He was known as the Laureate of Grotte and he wrote a lot of very funny satirical poetry and he was a major influence on me. I thought he was a wonderful man. I pretty much knew as soon as it got started that I was going to dedicate it to him. Yeah, lovely. So... Not your parents or anything? Um... You didn't like them enough? No, no, I love my parents dearly, but I feel there's other stuff that I can dedicate to

them. Yeah, that's fair enough. My father was an interesting man. I had a fairly sort of close relationship to him. We didn't always see eye to eye but I think mostly we got on. And I greatly admired and respected him because he was a self-made man of virtually no education. My mother was a fairly typical working-class mother, really. who, I think it's fair to say she lived largely in the shadow of my father because my father was the sort of person who entered a room and all eyes were on him. But you were asking about

compassion earlier on and the compassion shown by my mother towards my father when my father became ill in the last 15 years of his life That's probably the most obvious, but it's the most personal. Yeah, you have virtually every aspect of diabetes, so bilateral amputee below the knees and lost most of his vision So yeah, my family's done quite well out of the NHS, thank you very much. Mark Threlfall You've given plenty to it, so it seems like a fair swap.

Mark Threlfall Yes, I was born two months premature and I was a rhesus baby and I was saved by the science of blood transfusion. And I can remember when I was five years old I was playing on my mother's piano which they brought up from Dorset. And it sat in our living room and I never heard her play it once. Not when anyone else was in the house anyway. And I was playing on the lid of the piano with my airfix soldiers, a little known theatre, a conflict between the Russian infantry and the French Foreign Legion, which most people have never heard about. And my father came in from work and he put down a little blue book on the lid of the piano and he said do you know what that is? I can remember this like it happened this morning. I

said no, what's that? He opened it up and inside there was a ticket with the day's date on. He said I've just given blood. He said when you were born somebody gave blood and their blood saved your life. So I've just gone and given some blood back. And 20 years later I started working for them. When I was a student I used to see their vans roll up at the Hall of Residence where I stayed in the first year and they'd unload all their equipment for blood donors and I used to see them unloading and you think blimey. That's a job and I never I never envisaged

I'd end up doing that job. It's a strange life isn't it? It's a very very strange life. Oh, there's so many different questions I kind of want to ask you. Just take one off the top of the deck. Who's been the greatest love of your life? You don't want to say? No, I'm... The thing with great love is they change over time. If you'd asked me that 20 years ago I wouldn't have hesitated in knowing but as you get older you appreciate people for different things and love has many different colours to it. Of course.

Even for somebody like me who's colour blind. So it varies enormously at different times of your life, I think. I'm not certain that it won't change yet again. It might be like all the cells in your body that change every seven years. So undecided, I think, is the answer. What was the... you said 20 years ago you'd be short, does that mean 20 years ago there's something? Yeah, yeah, because 20 years ago I'd be thinking of the most important relationship of my life. I mean that was a sort of a very passionate relationship.

The people hear you through the walls. Undoubtedly. Undoubtedly. I'm sure there were a lot of winks passed in the street What would you like your if you could have one something happen at your funeral it doesn't normally happen at funerals What would you what would it be? And you listen it's a is to use that one again it that that that sort of door stuff again it is a good question but as long as people aren't queuing up with screws and screwdrivers just to make sure that'll be a result. Fantastic. So no particular... You're happy with that?

Just a lack of screwdriver people? I'll be gone. I'll be in the next realm. Whatever that is. Yeah. So as we'll find out. Can you think of a time in your life you wish you had more courage to do something but you didn't have it at that time? Two possibilities really. Both of them to do with women because I think it might have sent my life in a slightly different direction and I'm curious. I'm curious about the path not taken

and there were several moments in my life. I can look back now and at the time you can't see that there was a fork in the road. Yeah. You just go along the one that just seems right. It's that Robert Frost thing. For those who know that he's that Robert Frost thing for those who know that he had a Robert Frost poem but I'm forever curious about these me's that

might have been but never were. What's the one? And would they have been happier? Yeah can you say which was the one that's most plays on your mind, as the path not taken? How old were you talking? Oh I was quite young with the first one. And what was the choice, whether to be with this person or not? To make a move really. Okay. But the other one, I mean was, can move really. Oh, okay. But the other one, I mean, was... It was fairly sort of obvious, but I... I backed away. Something didn't feel right, and I backed away.

And I later found out that I probably made the right decision. Okay. Yeah, I think I know now that if I had gone down that route, it would have completely upended my life. Have you ever had a notable experience with a horse? Mark Threlfalle-Yes, I have actually. Mark Threlfalle-Fantastic. That was a shot in the dark there. Mark Threlfalle-I went for riding lessons with some colleagues from work. They'd ridden horses before, I hadn't. Of course, I'm the one bloke because most of my social life

in those days when I was working involved me and a lot of women really, truth be told. Why were so many women? Because I worked in a predominantly female environment for many many years. many years. But anyway, I was the bloke so I got put on the big stallion and yeah that was pretty scary. Were all these ladies watching you? Yeah all falling about laughing of course. And then there's, it was unthinkable when I was a boy, I was brought up in a council estate in Bristol and it was unthinkable when I was a boy. I was brought up in a council estate in Bristol and there was these big open fields at the back of our house.

Enclosed fields that were pretty much the same as they'd looked for a hundred years beforehand I suppose. Except there was a playground, but it was all pretty run down. We didn't know any better when we were kids. I went back there about four or five years ago, and the playground had gone. And right where the playground was were stables, and there were horses in the backfield. Really? And it was a complete, it was a complete meltdown moment.

What's happened to my child at home? Where'd it go? But how fantastic for the kids now. You look out of their bedroom window and see horses. Oh, yeah. Incredible. You look out of your bedroom window and see horses. Oh, yeah. You know, incredible. On that estate, you could never have imagined anybody keeping horses. Yeah. Was there anything you'd like me to ask you?

Ask me about that hill over there. Can you describe, obviously, can you try to describe what this hill over there is? There is a long arm of hillside that encloses the southern edge of the city and that's called Dundree Hill. It's not a very tall hill. It's probably about three miles long. And it's about six or 700 foot high, I suppose. And I often wondered about it.

And then 50 years ago this month, I finally learned to ride a push bike. It was the one thing I always wanted when I was growing up. I didn't want a bike, I wanted to be able to ride a bike. And then 50 years ago this month I got a bike. And I remember riding up onto Dundry Hill and riding all the way along from that side over to the west, past the village of Dundree and then cycling down through the lanes.

And for a 15 year old to suddenly have that degree of freedom was astonishing. And I spent most of the summer of 1975 appreciating that and riding over the other side where there's a big reservoir called Chew Valley Lake and then the following year was the glorious summer of 1976 which was an unrepeatable summer. Everything about 1976 for me was it landed at exactly the perfect time. That was the summer I first read D.H. Lawrence. That completely opened a window in my head really. When I took this year off travelling, a lot of it was travelling in

the footsteps of D.H. Lawrence. One afternoon I was up a mountain, a lot taller than those hills over there and I was at the chapel where Lawrence's ashes are supposedly interred in the concrete and I had no idea when I was 16 years old and just getting that idea of freedom and the ability to get out for the day and do what I wanted to do for the day. And I had no idea that it would end up with me up a mountainside in New Mexico, paying my respects to DH Lawrence. But it all began with the cycle ride up onto Dundry and that sense of illimitable freedom.

That's wonderful. We could go on forever, but you've got to end on a high. The last question is the same as everybody gets. What are you going to start looking for an agent. But here today I'm going to go home, I'm going to have a sandwich and then I'm going to watch Doctor Who. It's the only thing you can do on a Saturday. Fantastic. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you.

And to you. I really enjoyed it. Good. I think I enjoyed it. I certainly gave more than I thought I was going to. Although I did have a feeling that those verses might be in there somewhere. New Mexico There's 5,000 miles made of stepping stones Each was a choice to go where freedom goes Each one a chance to grow a desert rose

Like the tango molds the iron folds I'm going to make a You follow its scent until the end of the road Hey, I think I'm gonna write it down And then one day I'll read it back aloud All of the moments and their stepping stones All the friends and all the loves I've known come Back to me as it unfolds I'm back beneath the stars that grazed my path with gold I've come to know Footprints of love as you learn to fall, the unknown's it's like a road

You follow its scent until the end of the road You follow its scent until the end of the road