Strangers on a Bench - EPISODE 44: A Second Life

Episode Date: July 14, 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 : 'Roots' by Rosie MilesStream it here : https://ffm.to/soab-rootsListen 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? Do you have a favorite day of the week? No. Perfect start. Did you ever have one? Well, probably a Sunday because I didn't have to go to work. Now, take me through a... Let's pick a day, any random day.

Right. What is your idea of a day really well lived? Right. Okay. Well, I naturally wake up about five in the morning. Oh! Early? Yep.

Are you a farmer? No. Do I look like a farmer? No. Oh, you never do. It's all possible. No. I've always been an early riser.

Although I've been retired a long time, it's never changed. Unless I'm doing something, I don't necessarily get up. So I put her about on my iPad and, oh, that's rubbish that folk do now. What happens on your iPad? Well I'm into genealogy in a big way. Oh, okay. When did that start? Probably about five years ago maybe. My grandparents were all dead before I was born and I knew my dad, his ancestry was Scottish

and my mum's family were all Irish and they came over to Scotland seeking work and that is as much as I knew so I decided that you know I'd bags of free time and started to do it now and yeah it's been really interesting journey. Can you tell me of all the breakthroughs you've made, what's been the one that's most surprised you? Well, it's a bit circumstantial, the evidence, because I'm going back quite a long way. We like it, we like circumstantial evidence, we'll take anything. Right, yeah, it looks as if I'm, and I'll say at this point, I'm not the least bit religious, but it looks as if I may be descended from the first moderator of the Free Church of Scotland. That's quite interesting. That is quite interesting.

But little things, you know, even things about my own mother that I never knew. Really? Like what? She came from quite a poor family, whereas my dad's family, they were farmers. There you go! Not far off. Good guess. And while they were never wealthy, they were always able to eat, a completely different life.

I knew she'd lost her mother when she was in her teens. She had four siblings. The dad lost the plot and I think he took to the drink. And she was the eldest of the family. My mum was about 17 and the family got split up. The other three got taken into care and went away. Yeah. Which I've managed to trace.

One of them, which I didn't know, had an illegitimate child. So I've discovered a cousin that I didn't know that I had. Amazing. A living cousin? A living cousin, yeah. Have you met this living cousin? No, I haven't met her. She lives quite a long way away from me.

Have you been in touch? I've been in touch. Oh really? But she was trying to... How did you start that message? Basically, I just sent her a message saying, it looks as if we're related. Is that the first line?

More or less. And she came back and she says I was adopted. Okay. The other legitimacy. Yeah. But this woman had obviously done some research and knew who her mother was. Okay. But legitimacy. Yeah. But this woman had obviously done some research and knew who her mother was. Okay.

But she was dead. She'd died. So I simply went back and said, you have relatives, but your mother's dead. And I said, you know, I told her little bits that I knew about her mother because basically what happened when all three of my mum's siblings when they came out

of whatever care they were in came and stayed with my mum for a little while. So she did come back to the town that I stay in and I suspect that's where her mother fell pregnant. I see. You're quite the detective basically now. Yeah well it is detective work basically. But your own family? Yeah, yeah. All these things you've discovered about your mum, if you could see her this afternoon, some kind of, that might make you really just, but if you could see her this afternoon, yeah, that might change it. If you could see her this afternoon. I think it would.

That might change it. And knowing what you know now, would you say anything to her that you didn't say before? I've got much more respect for my mother from what she went through. She always had a massive guilt because she felt that she should have kept the family together. She was 17 years old for fuck's sake. She was a tiny little feisty woman. So I would say to her, you did as much for your family as you possibly could. She must have put up an awful lot when she married my dad for a kickoff. Different religions. And she was 17?

No, she was a bit older than that when, maybe 18, 19 or something like that, when she married my dad and she was pregnant with me as well, you know. She wasn't particularly well-educated. She was at school during the war in a Catholic school and it was run by nuns. And she was, my mum was really partially deaf

and they kept calling her stupid, stupid, stupid, you know, and all that sort of thing. And that had a profound effect on my mum as well, you know. So there was a lot of things that my mum had to put up with that gave her the issues that she had. Do you think on the whole that we don't push hard enough to find out about our parents when they're actually alive? No, not at all. And we probably should do that. Yeah, absolutely. And also you're kind of keeping them alive at the same time.

Yeah. And one of the reasons I am so obsessed with my genealogy is I want my family to know. Yes, of course. Like my grandchildren, they're obviously lucky to have me, but my husband died at young as well. So there's, you know, there's whole lot of their family as well. So, you know, if you've got family, maybe you should think about things that are in your family. You know what? I have definitely haven't covered all the bases, but it's something that I've been quite preoccupied by very recently.

So, yeah, so yeah, I actually sat down with my mum and kind of interviewed her about her family. That's very important. And the way actually if you record it, it gives it a kind of gravitas and a kind of meaning and a kind of, you feel like, okay, this is the time now. Yeah, that was quite an important thing to do. And when they're alive, they'll tell you things that you wouldn't find out otherwise. Oh, for sure. No, I wouldn't. I mean, she told me various bits and bobs that I just wouldn't have known.

Yeah and it's all very well you know having you know the paper evidence but there's much more to life than paper evidence if you know. No exactly. If you want to get through yeah go for it. Tell me about your you see your husband died quite young. Yes. Can you tell me about that? He was 49 when he died.

Oh god. Yeah and he developed a very rare form of cancer. My husband was a nonsmoker and a very modest drinker. But he worked in a place where, in those days, you could smoke at work. And he worked in quite a confined atmosphere. And the cancer he developed was cancer of the jaw. He had two major operations which lasted 14 hours.

So it was major surgery, major surgery. And unfortunately other things happened just while he was in hospital and then he died. Yeah. It wasn't the nicest of death because he hung on far too long. Obviously cancer of the jaw, he died. Yeah. And it wasn't the nicest of deaths because he hung on far too long. Obviously, Cancer Joy couldn't feed, so he was getting fed intravenously. And eventually they took his feed away.

And it took him nearly two months to die. So you can imagine that wasn't very nice either. So it left a big effect, on the family but particularly my son. He's taken it because he was only 17. Oh god yeah. So yeah, I fill up just thinking about it. She always says I wish I could have gone for a pint with my dad. Oh.

It still brings taste to my eyes. So sad. Yeah. I mean it's such a simple thing isn't it? Yeah. It still brings taste, man. Oh, so sad. I mean it's such a simple thing, isn't it? You know, it's not... You could have seen me going down the aisle and thinking, yes, this is a place hard. It's a simple pipe, completely. Completely.

How did you get through that time? Well, I think I must have some of my mum's strength. What it taught me was that I wanted to live. So yeah I've done a lot of things after that. My husband he worked in the shipyards and his idea of a holiday was going to somewhere in the sun and lying on a bench for two weeks which I was happy to do because he worked really hard. But then I did a walk for charity, but it wasn't like any old walk, it was in China. Oh wow!

Yeah, it was for cancer research. And it opened my eyes to a whole new world. He died the year before what would have been our silver wedding. Okay. Right. And we were planning the big holiday, you know, which obviously was not going to happen. And I thought, right, I have to do something. And then I thought, well, I'll do a charity walk.

And obviously it had to be for cancer research. And that's the one that came up. A long walk, not just a 50-mile hike or something like that. And it was really interesting. I don't know if you've ever heard of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yanksy River. It was in the process of being built. And what was going to happen was the river

was going to be flooded. But where we were walking was the Old Main Road. And that was going to be flooded but where we were walking was the Old Main Road and that was going to be hidden by water. So that was interesting. I thought I'm gonna walk somewhere that nobody's gonna walk after me kind of thing. It was and it was a wonderful experience and very emotional, very emotional. Because you're thinking about your... Not a while I was walking because I just wanted to get from A to B. At the end, I just burst into floods of tears. I'm interested in that you said, after he died, you said, you made me want to live. Does that mean that you felt like you hadn't been doing as much living as you might do

before that? I was just too busy bringing up my family and the things that that involves, and seeing to them and just the basics of living. When I realized there was only me now, so it's me time that I can do things on my own. And I think to be fair, I had half sisters, I was also a single child.

So I've always been able to do things on my own. And one thing you might have noticed is I'm not scared of talking. LAUGHS This is true. I'm always able to talk to people and find somebody like you that I can talk to. So you're never alone. You're never alone. What do you, not to be, I don't mean this to be a painful question,

but a more positive one, what do you miss most about your husband? I miss just having the company when you're home alone at night, watching telly, talking just the stupid nonsense that you talk. Or if something's not going well, bouncing that off somebody, you know. That's the one thing I really miss, just the companionship. Would I, you know, from having my first life and my second life, would I swap it in a minute? I would. Yeah. But you're doing your best second life you can. You only have one life, so you've got to make the best of it.

So it's completely true. Yeah. What do you think he would think of your adventures now? He'd think I was off my head. That's interesting. Do you keep anything of him as any physical items or photographs or anything like that when you're going about? No, I don't. I'd rather have it in or whatever. It's just, I suppose I'm just a different person. You mentioned you lost religion at some point,

or you didn't ever have it, no? Well, no, I mean, I went to Sunday school and all that sort of nonsense. And I was married in church, and I think both my children were baptized. So you started strongly there, church-wise. I have. But then, I don't think my husband's illness helped. Yeah, that makes sense.

That makes another sense. You know, I think that's maybe when I went right. You know, this is a lot of rubbish. Not for me. Not for me. If there was a merciful God, would you have let him suffer? No, I never went to church. Yeah. You certainly were gonna start going after that.

Not even your genealogy is gonna... No, not that. You're tracing back to your... Yeah. He's probably looking down on you. A big boat of lightning coming down. He's probably like, where did it all go wrong? I was doing so well. In your, this second life of yours, this adventure time that has led you, both you and me to this bench in a city that isn't ours, which is quite comical. We're both on our individual adventures. Can you think of any moments where you felt most euphoric?

Euphoric? Euphoric is maybe a big word, but most joyous? Well, I think when I visited places, like Taj Mahal and... Is Taj Mahal good? Well, yeah. Not bad? Well, yeah. Not bad? It's alright, you know.

No, it's magnificent. But important buildings and places and thinking, I'm here. You know what I mean? And I suppose a sense of euphoria there, you know, because I think this will be the last time Scotland has done this. And to see, you know, because I'm into wildlife in a big way, to see wild animals in the plains of

Africa, you know, I only ever saw in a zoo, you know, you know, just things like that, you know, that's what makes life worth living. But I've moved on now. I mean, this is me coming to Bristol. But now we're in Bristol. And now we're in Bristol, yeah. So you've moved on from super wild adventures to just smaller adventures, but still adventures nonetheless? Yeah. And here I am.

And after being up the tower, I sat down here and this stranger walked up to me. This weird guy who walks up to you. Did you ever want to, or have you ever wanted to find anyone else in your life? Early on there was someone I thought, no, I think I am a loner, you know, though I get married I think maybe in another life I wouldn't have got married, do you know what I mean? Really? That's interesting. Do you count yourself as a loner just full stop and you just happen to get married?

Well in many ways. I wasn't someone who had lots and lots of boyfriends when I was young. Do you feel like you were a bit of a loner as a child as well? Well yes I was. I had loads of pals, don't get me wrong. You just enjoyed your own company? Well I think circumstances made me. As a child, if you can imagine a Sunday as a child,

what would a typical Sunday be spent in your own company? At home, if it was a wet day, you know nowadays kids spend their life on the internet. Well it was encyclopedias. Oh yes, okay. In the. Yeah. Well, it was encyclopedias. Oh, yes. OK. In the old days, we had a set of encyclopedias. You got them out.

I mean, at one point, I could have told you the flag of almost any country in the world. I don't even know the names of the countries now. Does that mean you have a favorite flag? Well, there's only one with my accent. Scottish flag is a good flag. It is a good flag. So just your head in the encyclopedia, that was it? Yeah.

You know, I had pals in the street. We were allowed out to play on a Sunday. It was a nice day. We were playing with pal out on my bike, playing skipping games and all the stuff that kids my generation did. Did you have any mysterious local figures? Oh yeah, you mean Worthies? What are they?

Sorry, what? Worthies. No, I haven't heard of that. Worthy, that's cool. And that means a mysterious local figure? Yeah, generally who maybe had fallen in hard times and maybe had an over enjoyment of refreshments. Dumbarton was full of them, full of them. Just various people and they were all known.

In my town there was one coloured face when I was young. There's one? One. And he was known as a name that wouldn't be allowed in these day and ages. He was known as that, right? And he, you know... Imagine this being the only...

It must be so isolating. It must be the only name. He was very much part of the community. You know, he got married... Presumably married a white man. I can't remember that much detail of it. But I mean, if anybody of my generation used that name, and we would, because that's what he was known as.

That's why our generation, I think, find it quite difficult with this, what's right and what's wrong to say. Yeah, I get that. I mean, it's tricky when you've grown up saying one thing and suddenly you have to say. Sure, yeah I get that. I mean it's tricky when you've grown up saying one thing and suddenly you have to say another, I understand. Yeah, you know. Sometimes I think it's not so much what you say, it's what you do. Exactly. So if you're integrating and you're being welcoming to whoever is coming in, that's more important than saying the right words.

It's funny, not on colour. I'll tell you a classic example of things that men might say to women that were offensive. And I worked with two guys. At your work? At my workplace. One of them could say the most outrageous things to me. And he did? And did. But I was not offended because I knew the person and I knew it was just silly

banter. You never made any physical, it was just chat. The other one could say something that was half as offensive and I could feel my fresh crawl. Do you know what I mean? So it's not always about what people say. Yes. It's the context it's in. And that's where the whole, you know, what you can and cannot do is problematic. Because not always is something that's not quite right offensive.

Yeah, you're right. And it's not quite right offensive. Mmm, yeah, you're right. And it's getting the balance right, you know. And that's where the individual has a responsibility. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Can you think back to what was, you considered the happiest, you know? If you could go back to one year of living, from where you are now, what year would you choose? I did enjoy the time when I met my husband because he was part of the group, although

I didn't know him. He was nearly two years older, which when you're younger, it's like 100 years, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. It's only as you get nearer. But he was part of the group. I mean, the pub used to have a back room, and there used to be maybe 30 of us all around this big table.

And it was one place, because back in the days, gential women didn't wander into pubs to the way that it's accepted practice now. But I knew I could go on my own and there would be folk that I would know. So I didn't feel that strangeness of walking into the pub and we just had a good time. That was happy carefree times. We had no responsibilities. Mark Threlfall

Can you remember the moment where you first formed a connection with your husband-to-be? Sue McClendon We met through one of the group. I used to be a keen supporter of my local football team. And I used to go to the game and so was a lot of these people. My husband was a member as well, but I never knew him. We didn't always necessarily stand together or stand in a group. There's 30 people, you don't always, you know, he didn't stand out from the crowd, I think that's what you say.

But it was through one of the group, it was his 21st birthday, and he was having it in the local place. And he allegedly, it was one of his pals, tried to introduce him to me. I didn't particularly like him at first. Really? Because he kept wanting to buy me a drink and I'd had, you know. Yeah, no. I had got to the tanks full.

Okay. Right. And what, you felt that he was pushing you? No, I don't think he was, I think he just didn't know anything else to say. Yeah. You know, I don't think he was trying to get me drunk or anything.

I don't think he was. So then how did it? Well, nothing really much happened initially and then it kind of... developed, you know, just drifted on, you know. I mean, things were very different back in that day. We're now working back 45 years ago now. So life was very different to what life is now.

Yes. We didn't live with anybody back in those days. I thought I was talking to somebody just now, you know, about when we bought our house. I said, we had it a year before we got married, but we didn't live together. And she goes, no, you didn't do it back in those days. Some people did, because I'm too young for the hippie generation. Yeah.

Do you have any visions of what your funerals look like? I don't want a churchy funeral. Yeah. But I don't want them to be sad. So there'll be no black yeah and I've kind of half picked the songs okay half half picked I haven't run it by the family yeah what's what song would you like played in particular well one of the songs is the old Frankie boy I did it my way that's I think one of the songs is the old Frankie Boy, I Did It My Way. That's, I think, one of the most famous funeral songs.

Yeah, but I think it's quite apt, is it not? For me. It is apt for you. Yeah, yeah, completely. So, yeah. Will you let me have that one? I'll let you have that one. Good, good, good. What's the line, regrets I've had a few but then again see a few to mention? But if we had to mention them now, any regrets? Any regrets? It's a bit late for asking.

I'm sorry, am I right? Any big regrets? Looking back over your life. You're not gonna have one. And it's to do with a boyfriend. Oh, okay. And I broke one of my cardinal rules. Okay.

Which, never get involved with a friend. Never get involved with a friend. Never get involved with a friend? Romantically. And you broke it with this person? Aha, he was a friend who I really liked, and we got romantically involved. But he saw more in the relationship than I did. Okay. When was this?

Before I met my husband. Okay. So what's the regret? That, I think I hurt him. He'd had a few disappointments and I think he saw me as the kind of The last great hope? Well, your word's not mine. I think he saw it as

a reliable Scottish person. Which obviously was a bit of a mistake. So I was probably a bit of a business card there. The reason it never went any further was because I met my husband. Okay. And I didn't fully explain it to him. I didn't handle it particularly well and I knew it must have hurt him. Ah, yeah. I mean, at least he stayed with you, obviously.

Yeah, he stayed away from me, you know. Did he stay with you in terms of your head? Yeah, yeah. I don't have many regrets. Could you say anything now to him? No, I lost touch with him, yeah. So, you know. So you're sad that you, you're sad that you disappointed him or you're sad that you lost him as a friend? Both. Two things.

I'm sad I lost him as a friend. Yeah. And I'm more sad that I did the dirty on him, really. You didn't get to tell him? I didn't properly. Tell him. Him the reason. Okay.

I'm not saying it would have been the acceptable reason. But the way I handled it wasn't clever. What's a good penultimate question to ask? Is there anything you want to be asked? I think I'm made bare. We've covered quite a lot of territory. Yes we have. Is this the normal length of time we take? It is actually, yeah. I always do it, I lie at the start. Because if I say to someone, can we talk for an hour? No one's going to want to do it. I've enjoyed it. Oh I've enjoyed to do it. I've enjoyed it.

Oh, I've enjoyed it too. I've really enjoyed it. Is mine a sort of typical one? I mean the beauty of humans is that they're almost no typical ones really. If people are open, you know, you guarantee, you know, the idiosyncrasies of life, like you can't... People are defensive in the same way. Do you know what I mean? I think that's one life when I get to my advanced years is you hear folk moaning about other people and I think, well, you don't know

what's going on in their life. And I think genealogy has taught me that. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Not just with my own family, but extended family. And you think, you know, nobody knows what people are going through in life. I think that's what life has taught me.

If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything. You know, unless you're having a fight with them. Perhaps. Very well put, very well put. Okay, so last question for you. Okay. This one is the same one that everyone gets. Right.

What are you going to do next? What am I going to do next? If it gets too hot, which I suspect that I fear Scotty's skin doesn't like the heat too much, I may go to the museum in the aquarium in the way back and just chill. Thank you so much for your time. Okay.

It's a funny place to meet. It is a funny place to meet, but it's passed some time. Yeah. I know when your mother died The jobs that you tried in your morning or did you rise with the sun was it you who gave me the issues for exploring or did you find it boring? I never knew what you had gone through

The rot in our roots? But was your faith ever murky? Did you always the same? And leaves and branches surround me And the things I would do Just to have a pint with you