That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Show n Tell with Sarah Parish and Jim Murray

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

Actors Jim Murray and Sarah Parish share with Gaby the objects that bring them joy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So for our extra nugget of joy, we always ask our guest to bring in something or show a picture of something. We have Jim and Sarah, Sarah and Jim, who are two of the loveliest people you could wish to spend time with. I have no idea. You see, I try and picture what some people will bring. And some people have surprised me. Greg Wise completely surprised us with this little statue. Diane brought in her dog. So many people bring in different things.

We've had sledging helmets with all sorts of things So where are we going to go with you two? What brings you join? Now is it a joint thing or a... No, it's two separate things. Okay, let's go with Sarah first. Shall I get mine out? Yes, please.

Okay, so I've brought... There's something that brings you joy. It's this. This is... It's a little silver hair. Okay. And it on my hand. Yeah, that...

And it's sort of representing... something to me basically. Years and years ago when Ella Jane died, it was coming up to her first birthday, I think. So she died when she was eight months. So it was probably, you know, eight, nine, ten. May. Yeah, May, four months after she died.

And I was having a particularly awful day, you know, in really, really depressed in a very, very dark place. And we were living in a little cottage in Weald at the time. And I thought, I'll get on my bike and I'll go riding. So I got on my bike. and I was riding for about 20 minutes and I just stopped at the side of this field and looked into the field

and in the field not that far from me was a hair, a little hair and I remember going it doesn't even look real because it's so still and usually hairs spooked very, very easily so I put my bike down and sort of went up to the gate

and it still didn't move I thought when I climbed over the gate and it still didn't move and I walked towards it and we were literally it was probably about where the door is now So a few feet away. Yeah, a few feet away.

And we stood looking at each other for what seemed like an enormously long amount of time. And in that time, it felt like somebody had come and taken a huge weight off my shoulders. It was like somebody had sort of taken a brick cloak off. And I went from feeding terribly unhappy to really joyous, like completely full of joy. It was like sunshine. just went right through my body and then the little hair just turned around and off it went and that was that.

So I always get a bit upset when I think because it's such a weird thing and I'm not a woo-woo kind of person in any way at all but it was such an odd I mean out of world experience that I've had an affinity with hairs ever since and the charity about a few years ago

did a thing called Hairs of Hampshire because I really wanted to do something about hairs and we had all these huge statues of hares all around Winchester and Southampton which we auctioned off didn't we made about 200 grand from those which was great but it was just yeah so

Ella Jane to me is you know a hair basically this magical spiritual so that's my little That is beautiful That's my little hair They're just how special that's really really special

I love that you say that you had this overwhelming feeling of joy Yeah it was like yellow It was sort of It was a really strong experience and I've never had it since but it stayed with me. Yeah, you've still got that in your heart. You'll always have that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. That's all right.

Never get told that story does. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's incredible. Jim. I'm just got a fishing rod. It's your tattoo? Well, yes, because so it's a lovely tattoo I think it is of a fly fishing rod. Oh, it really is a fishing rod. Oh, my words. There it is. Now, I had this done reasonably recently because I forgot to go fish because life gets in the way I forgot how important fly fishing was to me

and it all stems from the same place when Ella Jane passed away I was fishing back in those days but not nearly as much and you know I couldn't we went to therapy or we were offered therapy we spoke to lots of friends read lots of articles

took ourselves away we volunteered didn't we I went to we went to South East An orphanage in Southeast Asia. You do all these, you know, extreme things, because when an extreme thing happens to you, you need something extreme to sort of help you process it. And nothing was working for me,

and I was in a bad place too. And I didn't think go fishing. I just went, oh, I got fishing a week on Thursday, and I went fishing. And I had a similar moment. I was just casting because fly fishing, you know, you're moving, and you're never fishing in a ugly place. place when your fly fishing is always beautiful because you're in a river.

A river. And I was fishing and casting. And just literally after about a couple of hours, I went, I don't know what it is about this and where I am, but this, I feel okay. I'm starting to feel okay. And then I started having massive waves of emotional waves of thinking about Ella Jane. And I go through periods of blubbing my eye. You know, I'm stood there on my own, crying like a child.

And then feelings of elation, which I think is the equal and opposite of the pain that you're, you know, it's the pain coming out. Of course it is. So I kind of was having my purge, if you like, in the river. And I thought, wow, that was quite powerful. And so I kept going back to the river more. And then it just became this connection. And again, it sounds a little woo. It doesn't at all.

It doesn't at all. But it kind of became like my religion. And I vowed from that moment on, you know, I'm saying, is this indulgent? Is this what I'm doing? Where does it wrong? And I made a pact that after everything, the rivers give me. And fishing is obviously part of it, but I don't have to catch a fish. Just being in the river.

And I'm going to Scotland this week because they do rivers very well up there. And every time I go there, I feel better. And I vowed that from now to the... day I die, I owe the rivers everything and with everything that's going on in, you know, in the country at the moment with all the sewage and what have you. It's very worrying. I'm a serious sort of almost obsessive advocate for the health of our rivers because of what they've given me.

But they need you. They need you. Maybe, maybe so, but that's why I had this done because I got to a point where I wasn't fishing very much or as much as I shouldn't. I didn't figure out, I was going through a bit of an unhappy period and a dark period. and I thought, of course, you just need to spend more time in the river. And we live on a river, but I don't even walk down to the river as much as I should. You live on a river?

We live on the river. In a river boat? No. Oh, we can see the river from... From our house. Yeah, we live on the Itchen, which is a beautiful chalk stream in Hampshire. Oh, how lovely. So I just...

This is just to remind me, you know, this saves all. Yeah. That is incredible. Thank you both so much. such heartfelt reasons to be joyful. That was really lovely. As I said, you're a joy to be with. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.