The Netmums Podcast - S11 Ep6: Nigel Clarke: The CBeebies star on parenting wisdom and panto

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

Energetic TV presenter Nigel Clarke has brought endless smiles to CBeebies and The Baby Club audiences. But he's also the founder of the Dadvengers Community & Podcast. Nigel shares parenting wisdom, his passion for supporting dads through parenthood and what’s lined up for the CBeebies panto. Check out the new Dadvengers series 4 podcast, out now. https://dadvengers.com/dadvengers-podcast/ This series of the Netmums podcast is produced by Decibelle Creative.

You're listening to The Netmums Podcast with me, Wendy Gollich, and me, Alison Perry. Coming up on this week's show... Providing support for them to feel comfortable only helps them get involved. When a dad is more involved, it means a mum feels more supported. When a mum's more supported, the whole family unit feels better, and suddenly you get better family outcomes. But before all of that... This episode of the Netmoms podcast is brought to you by Kiddylicious.

Yummy snacks for little ones from six months to five years. Brilliant for weaning babies and growing children, Kiddylicious snacks help with self-feeding and developing pincer grip and hand-to-mouth coordination. With an allergen friendly range there's something for everyone plus they keep your little one's hunger at bay. Hello everybody, welcome to another episode. Now I don't know about you but I'm baffled as to where the heck 2023 has gone. It seems like two minutes ago that I was hungover making New Year's resolutions and

longing for spring and daffodils and now it's pumpkins and bonfires and my eight-year-old demanding that she can wear tights and I'm just, I don't know, I swear the years go by faster as you get older and that means I now sound like my mum. Do you feel the same? I think it's an age thing. I feel like when we were younger, years stretched out in front of us and it just seemed to take... And summer just lasted for ages. And now I'm so with you.

Where has September gone? It went by in a flash and now it's nearly October half term and the kids are going to be off again. It's like they've just gone back to school. How are we at October half term already? So I'm just I'm interested to know what our guest today thinks, because he's got three kids.

They're not all at school, but I'm going to grill him a little bit on this. Because today on the podcast, we are welcomed by someone who will be a familiar face if you have young children, because he's a regular on CBeebies. Nigel Clark is a presenter on the Baby Club and the Toddler Club and he's set to appear in the legendary CBeebies panto this Christmas. Oh no he isn't. Nigel also runs... Yes, I'm into it. I know.

Oh no he isn't. Nigel also runs Dad Community, Dadvengers, and hosts the award-nominated Dadvengers podcast. Nigel, a warm welcome to the Netmums podcast. Hey, thank you for having me. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, wow, what an intro. I'm doing quite a bit of stuff. You're a busy guy.

Busy, busy, yes. The panto questions are scheduled. I need to know a bit of stuff. You're a busy guy. Busy, busy, yes. The Panto questions are scheduled. I need to know about the Panto. I am one of those people. I blimmin' hate Panto. I'm like... Oh, I love them. Oh, really?

I'm a Panto Grinch. Wendy! Wow. We can't be friends. Are we allowed to know who you are in the Panto? I don't know. So to be safe, i'm not going to tell you who i am no you know what because you won't have recorded it by the time this goes out so let's just be safe let's not by the time this goes out we will be in rehearsals i'll be thick in the middle of rehearsals oh it's so exciting i was going to see this for later but we went to the cbb's pantel last year when it was an esport i took my little

kids it was it was incredible it was so much fun oh just slick professional christmas magic it's amazing oh yeah we have loads of fun But it all gets put together so quickly. You saw it and you saw a well-oiled machine. But we'd only been doing it for like a week. A week before, we didn't know our lines. Just goes to show how professional you are. Yes, it does. Yeah, let's leave it.

Or you're flying by the seat of your pallet. That's probably more like it. Because isn't Chris Jarvis like the producer? He's the director. Am I right? He's the director. Director. Yeah, yeah, he directs him.

So he's done the last two he's directed, and then the one before that he was in. So he's gone from being in it to now directing it, and I think this is his third one that he's directed, yeah. Amazing. He's a multi-talented guy, on screen, off is like he's a friend of mine and he's the sort of person you can call in any situation and he'll just like chill you out and be like here's a little bit of advice take it leave it you know whatever he's just that kind of that father figure he's like a great kind of father

figure he's an amazing guy. That's so nice to hear because it's horrible when you hear about people who are lovely on screen and then you hear that they're an absolute nightmare behind the scenes and they're awful, awful, terrible people. Yeah, I hate it when that happens. But luckily at CBeebies, it seems to not happen. Everyone who works there is genuinely lovely.

And I think that's because we love the work we do like it really resonates with us so we care about it we care about the audience so it it just means that the people who are involved in it have a different there's a different ilk imagine if he'd said actually they're all really nasty like that would have broken my CBeebies bubble my doorbell's just gone hang on two seconds oh maybe it's the CBeebies panto father Christmas arrived to deliver something for you yeah let's be honest it's Amazon we all know it's Amazon oh what's she been ordering let's see let's see let's see do you know what it was it was the postman delivering a taylor swift themed mug that i've ordered for my best friend's birthday so wow wow the present but wait hold on hopefully

her birthday's before this goes out i'm seeing her at the weekend it's good we're safe it's all good okay cool um i was gonna say when i when i did the intro um and i mentioned the baby club it's really hard to say the baby club without singing it i nearly said the baby club the baby club yeah do you find yourself the baby club yeah the baby club the baby club do you find yourself breaking into song like when you're talking about he just did i kind of made him break into song to be fair you can Wendy. You kind of have to sing it. It doesn't work as well unless you sing it. It's honestly one of those programmes where when it's on, I think because it does like replicate what we do in real life as parents, as mums, it just feels like such a lovely thing to watch with our kids.

Yeah, definitely. This will make you laugh, Nigel, because I didn't, my kids are 12 and 8, so we're a bit past the baby club. But I sat there last night watching, at kids are 12 and eight, so we're a bit past the baby club. But I sat there last night watching, at 9.30 last night, watching the baby club because I was like, well, I can't interview. Got to do a little bit of research. So I was doing my research and I was thinking if anyone...

Was it the Giovanna years or was it the Gemma years? It was the Gemma years. Okay, some toddler club action. And what did you think? Well, I just thought that if anyone walks into my house right now, they're going to cart me off because it's 9.30 at night. Because you're up singing and dancing. And I'm watching the baby club.

Anyway, fatherhood, Nigel. What kind of dad are you? If I went to your kids now, first of all, tell us about your kids and then tell us what kind of dad you are. Okay, so I've got your kids now. First of all, tell us about your kids and then tell us what kind of dad you are. OK, so I've got three kids now. I have a 15 year old parent, probably, because I take an interest in what they do. And I'm always talking to them about whether that be school or their interests or, you know, whatever it is or TikTok or whatever they're into, I take an active interest in it because I feel like I need to be part of it to understand it, to understand what they're thinking about things to then be able to parent as best I can.

So I think I'm quite a hands-on dad, a hands-on dad, but I'm also a fun dad. I do get told that, yeah, dad, you're quite fun. You do do things that other parents and other dads don't do but we like it so it's all good that's so good and has your time at cbb's influenced the way that you parent do you think i mean do you find yourself asking what would mr tumble do like when you're about to lose your rag with them um not in that way i tell you it definitely affected the way I parent um but I would say more it's after doing the baby club because I did a whole course like to become a peak practitioner to be able to

deliver the um what we do like a baby club um and learning all about that and why you do certain things what you're teaching children what they're learning what's going through their heads uh how kids react and all of that has definitely made me more aware of things and uh with baby especially with baby now um I think my head's in a total different place where I can go okay no you're doing this because of this so if I I try this maybe we can we can figure something out do you ever feel kind of guilty guilty is probably the wrong word but aware of how different you're parenting your youngest compared to the older two I mean parent guilt is a thing that's like through vein of parenting parent kill um i wouldn't say i feel guilty i just try and adapt um as as and when you

feel things so but i did that before even baby came along so from first to second second to third you realize oh you can't do something a certain way because you've got another child there and you need to make it fair or you need to make it um make them both feel valued so with that in mind I think I've always kind of been this kind of parent that's adapting all the time because I think you as parents we do need to adapt all the time not just because of the way they are but the way the world is as well it's just changing all the time so I've not been one of those parents that's like kind of stuck in their ways and said, no, this is the only way. No, we have to adapt and we have to keep moving

and kind of growing with them and growing as parents. You talked about the age gap between your daughter and your son and your littlest one. And Alison is another large age gap parent. She's got eight years between her eldest and her twins so we get what it's like how is it for you what do the bigs think of the little does the little adore the bigs as is usually the way I think it for us it's both ways um it's a totally different way of parenting when you've got older older siblings

we know that we can um give him to one of the older siblings to feed him a bottle or to just feed him or to hold him and play with him while somebody does some cooking or has a shower or one of them can cook while we're looking after baby there's that whole dynamic where you've got so many more hands on deck that makes it a totally different experience but as you know a baby takes all the focus in a family and that focus kind of brings everyone together so we've got a family whatsapp group with the older kids and if something happens like say I'm out with baby I'll put it in the whatsapp group and then they're all in there commenting or if they're out with baby they'll be like oh look what he did today and it's all in the group so there's a whole um communication

that I think is closer and I know a lot of people talk about their teenage uh kids and now they don't see them they don't talk to them and all of. I think us being in this situation where we've got a baby there, that has lessened, I think, because they want to be involved. Because mum and dad are fully involved with baby, they can't really be, oh, I'm up in my room playing the computer. It's like, oh, I want to come and see my little brother and be around and, oh, look, he's walking for the first time and they want to be around it. So there's, I think it's maybe helped with that as well that's so interesting I because my eldest being eight when we had she had twin sisters that were born I worried that um at a time when she still needed us eight is still little right I I felt really guilty that suddenly we were consumed by these

two little things but actually now like five years on I feel like what you're saying I feel like it probably has changed things for the better you know it has brought us together and created this whole new family dynamic which is really lovely yeah definitely definitely the dynamic totally changes I mean any any family dynamic changes when you have a baby whether it's your first or your second bring a new baby into the household and suddenly dynamic has changed shifted we've got adapt what's going on here but was there there must have been stuff about those newborn little baby days that you'd forgotten or blanked out that kind of hit you back around the face pretty hard. Yeah, totally. You kind of have left that world of nappies and night feeds and crying all the time and all of that. But I think muscle memory

kicks it back in so swiftly. You suddenly know, whoa, I know exactly how to hold this baby. I can hold it with one hand over here while I'm doing, you know, all of the things and skills that you had before or learnt before, they come flooding back almost automatically. It's almost like instinct a little bit. It was for me anyway. Just, yeah, it suddenly all felt very comfortable again for me. That's a relief um now i

i get asked quite a lot whether our two our twins were planned um because there was such a big age gap um did you and your wife always knew that you had one more in the pipeline so to speak or was it a bit of a happy surprise uh no we totally knew there was probably one more in the pipeline it was totally planned um and uh melina was uh early 20s when we had our first two so even then i knew that it was probably gonna come back around later on i was like nearing my 30s and I had older friends and I was like, hold on, this is definitely coming back around in 10 years or more. So always expected it and planned it, actually planned it. What do the kids think of you being on CBeebies? Obviously, slightly different reactions, but to the teenagers, are they a bit over it and is the little one like oh my god it's daddy um funnily enough the teenagers aren't totally over it they think it's pretty cool

and with i love your teenagers with with the cbb's panto i mean they they come to the cinema with me to watch it when it premieres but i think there's the other side of it that they can enjoy so they get to meet the people who are in it or so they can sit down with me and chris and be like oh how was it making so there's a different angle to it yes you get to watch it but you also get to talk to the people who are in it and they're your mates and and your family mates kind of thing so there's a different angle to it uh so the the the big ones love it and little man he's just getting into the whole cvb thing i mean he'll sit there and watch a baby club episode of course he will uh and he loves it when all the songs come on stick on some dougie he'll love that theme tune of go jetters he's well into that he'll be dancing along so yeah he's he's getting

into his cvb right now and the kids, I think, like I said, yeah, it's just that access that they have to it that other people don't that makes it kind of cool for them. Half term is coming up, Alison, and you know what that means, don't you? Yes, Wendy, it means not only entertaining our kids, but also putting up with our many snack demands. Exactly that. My kids seem to request snacks on a half-hourly basis.

Where do they put it all? Well, your kids are a bit older than I, but my four-year-old twins love the new Kiddylicious Veggie Straws. They're for kids aged three and older, and they're available in flavours that pack a punch, including pizza and salt and vinegar. They sound delicious and ideal for lunchboxes and snacks on the go. Yep, and best of all, they're free from artificial colours, flavours and preservatives.

Another great option is Kiddylicious Apple Crisps. They're baked, not fried, which means they're low in saturated fat. You can choose between original apple or cinnamon flavours. Pick up yummy Kiddylicious snacks in the baby aisle of all major supermarkets and find out more at kiddylicious.com. So let's talk about the Avengers. Now, if you'd asked me a few years ago, I'd have said, oh, dads don't need any help. It's us mums who need it. But partly from listening to you talking about it,

I've had my mind changed. Tell us why it's so important. Right. The landscape for parenting has totally changed. 100% changed in the last 50 years or so. So if you look back when our parents were parenting us, there was that whole dads would be at work a lot more, mums would be at home with the babies and the kids.

And that was kind of the staple. Now, mums want to work as well. Dads want to be at home looking after the kids and being involved. So the whole way we are with our families has changed and because of that men haven't had a model to look at as much they haven't seen their uncles their dads their the men in their life parenting especially in the early years being there doing the feeds, looking after baby,

and all of that. So not having had that, some men are a little bit lost. They're like, whoa, hold on, what do I do? Help, help, please. I do want to get involved. I just feel a bit awkward, and I don't know, am I doing it right and all of that. And with that in mind, when they turn to the resources, it's really mum heavy, which is great. There's loads of help for the mums. But they feel a bit awkward in that space because they feel like the person in the back of the class or the person who's going to ask a question, should I ask this question because maybe everyone will think I'm silly. There are no silly questions, but we know how that can feel. So providing support for them to feel comfortable only helps them get

involved. When a dad is more involved, it means a mum feels more supported. When a mum's more supported, the whole family unit feels feels better and suddenly you get better family outcomes and that is kind of why I founded Dadvengers to support dads on their on their parenting journey so that at the end of the day it's not just the dads we want to help we're helping the families helping the dads helps the families and to help the dads we need the mums and I called it dadvengers and I want to explain this because it's it's kind of a weird way of thinking but it works you call something a mummy group all the mums come you call something a parenting group all the mums come all the dads think it's a mum's group, so they

don't go. You call it a dad's group, the dads go, and the mums are curious about it anyway. If they're allowed to, they come along as well, so it becomes family. So I've had, that's why I've called it Dadvengers. It's actually a family thing. It's actually a family thing it's actually a family situation but as soon as you put it as family or parenting or label it that it becomes mum heavy you label it a dad thing mums aren't they're not scared to get involved in the dad thing they'll be like all right let's see what's going on here with you lads what's going on so you said you faced many of the stigmas present in modern day fatherhood. Tell us about what you mean by that. I mean, when I talk to the dads on the different groups and walks and meetups that we have, you mean the stories of a dad going out with their child to the supermarket or wherever, to the playground,

and the amount of dads that will be able to tell you someone came up to them and went oh mummy's mummy's you babysitting mummy's mummy's uh you know and no we're not babysitting we're looking after our kids but and that that's the first one that one always happens left right and center um But the other things, and I'm not trying to rile anyone up here, is that as mum sometimes, because we are used to doing things, we're used to changing nappies, used to feeding baby. When a dad gives it a go, if he's struggling, right, instead of letting him struggle and letting him figure it out and be like yeah you're on your own mate they're in mum jumps in mum jumps in let me do that i'll finish that for you i'll do it don't worry oh you're making a hash of it back off ladies back off mum's had to learn how to do it mum's had to learn how to do it yeah so you if you want that help if you want him to be able to

help you more and be more supportive let him struggle his way into it that's so true because like we we as you know any parent whether it's mums or dads when you're first you've got a newborn you don't get everything right first time you've got to learn how to change a nappy all of those things yeah we all we all have to get it wrong to be able to get it right regularly. When my oldest, who's now 12, was a baby, I was, I don't know where I was. My husband had her and I was somewhere. And he rang me and he said, what do you do when she's pooed on the bin? And I was like, what do you mean?

And basically she'd done that baby thing where she was on the changing mat and she'd done a squirty poo that had squirted all the way across the kitchen and gone all over the bin. And I was like, what you do, my darling, is you put the baby in the bath and you clean the bin. But it was that thing of he, it was really funny because he had to deal with it on his own because I wasn't there. But had I been there, I guarantee I'd have gone,

oh, for god's sake picked the baby up exactly exactly and you're so right we're our own worst enemies actually yeah so that's that's another of the things it's about giving men that space to learn the job to learn the parenting job that's what it's all about yeah it's so interesting though like hearing you talking about how the landscape has changed I have noticed such a big difference in how hands-on dads are so eight years ago when my eldest was in reception starting school there were zero dads in the whatsapp group the class whatsapp group and now I'm in two class two whatsapp groups for each twin and there are loads of dads in each of them getting involved

in like my child loves his cardigan and all of that stuff. You know, is that a trend that you are seeing, like talking to all of the dads in your community, are you seeing that played out elsewhere? And why do you think it is happening? Definitely seeing it. Definitely seeing dads getting much more involved. And like you say, it's not like they haven't been involved, but vocally involved.

So they're putting the messages in the WhatsApp group. They're actively participating and vocalizing and communicating. I think personally, and nobody really knows why it is. I think it's because slowly where're, it's not seen as being, one, it's not seen as being a mum thing, but it's not seen as not masculine to be involved with your kids. I think in years gone by, a man being actively involved in changing nappies

and getting involved in the school running and talking about him lost his cardigan, like you go to work and say you got involved in that, somebody's going to turn to you, this is back in the day run and talking about him lost his cardigan like you go to work and say you got involved in that somebody's going to turn to you this is back in the day and be like what are you chatting about me what were you they'd be like you your missus been doing that yeah yeah shouldn't you be down at the football like but that way of thinking and that we all know now that's wrong so it's it's become a much more comfortable space for men to be able to talk about that and do that so one of the core values of dadvengers is to share knowledge which

is something stereotypically perhaps us women are better at yeah yeah you guys are great at it but why is that such a huge part of dadvengers why is there such value in teaching fellas to get a bit better at it okay um to to properly give you an uh sort of why that is you have to look at the stats so in this country, we have a lot of people take their own lives up to, I don't know in front of me, but it's near 20,000 a year, let's say. 75% of that figure is men. And a lot of the time, that is a result of the fact that they haven't been able to talk about things. They feel a lot of pressure. They haven't shared things. The pressure builds and builds and builds and builds and builds till they feel they can't cope. And then it leads to these situations.

So if we're going to combat that and bring that figure down, because no matter how many men are taking their own lives, a lot of those are going to be dads. Because the age bracket that it's most prevalent in is 45 to 54. So if we're going to change that, we need men to talk. We need them to be able to share, to be comfortable to share, because it's like a pressure cooker. If human beings don't release the pressure that they may be bit vulnerable able to share problems able to ask for help then in the long run we combat that and we have more dads that are here that that may have decided to not be here and are you seeing the benefit of that within your community? Like, do you see, you know, the effect that happens when dads are sharing? Yes, 100%. If you ask any of the dads that come to our walks and things,

they'll tell you how they just feel less isolated because of our group. They feel like they can turn to people um they feel more engaged with their family there's so many different answers that people will give you but they're all geared towards them feeling more comfortable and better in the situations definitely 100 that's good so we're in october now nigel which is black history month and lots of schools will be talking about it but arguably it needs to be talked about all year round um what changes would you like to see made with talking to kids about black history uh yeah this is a great topic to talk about um one i am in 100 agreement with

you um it's great to have a a black history month but we shouldn't have to have a month it should just be part of the curriculum like throughout the year dotted through and hopefully we'll get to that point we start with the black history month and then people understand and they learn and we get there in the end so hopefully it's a process to get there. For me, what I'd like to see change, and I talked about this with Troy Deeney, a footballer, who did a documentary on Channel 4 about what our government recommends to our schools as what we should be teaching our children about black history and

black role models and icons they recommend one book there are a plethora of books but they recommend one book and there's a really like jarring photo that they did on this documentary of Troy Deeney with two bookcases one bookcase has what the government recommends that the school should be teaching. And it's got this one book on it. On the other shelf, you've got all the books that like have black content in there and history and knowledge in there. You've got like hundreds of them. And that is that is the starkness of the situation so but the thing is you and i don't want to bash at all schools and all teachers because you do get teachers out there that know that and they will make sure that they start using those books but it's but they're taking it on their own initiative and thank you to those teachers that are taking it on on their own initiative. What we would love is for the government and the education system to be like, actually, we'll take this on and we'll help the teachers by saying these good things.

Use these resources. So for me, that's what needs to change. And people need to also not be afraid of it it can be a scary topic to talk about and people think am i doing this right am i being politically correct about this am i using the right terminology and that sometimes stops people from talking about it i think people need to feel comfortable to make mistakes no one's going to judge you if you make a mistake and go oh i didn't know that hands up thank you for teaching me. What else can I learn? That is a way better place to be than I'm not going to say anything

in case I make a mistake. Yeah. So I'm going slightly off pace now. I want to talk to you about Stomp because I love Stomp. So obviously you were in Stomp, which is just one of the best musicals ever and your kids are into performing and gymnastics and stuff i think as well so have you encouraged them to follow that path or is it something that's happened naturally um yes and no so what happened is and what i did with both of my children and i probably will do it Cassius as well, is I let them try lots of things when they were young.

So Rory did ballet, tap. He did swimming, gymnastics. He did a musical instrument and, you know, he got to experience the same with Sienna. She got to experience lots of different things. When I found something that I didn't have to ask them to do, when you don't have to say, go and practice this, or when you find that they're at home on the sofa doing it, like for an hour, when you haven't asked, that's the one. That's the one. That's the one where you go, okay, cool.

Let's get you some more lessons in that. And seeing as you're having so much fun doing it, let's go down that route. So for Rory it was gymnastics for Sienna it was dance and and singing and theater and performing and all of that and they they both still love them and they both you know get involved with them without much complaint you'll get a complaint when they're really really really tired but that's just because they're tired not because they don't a day later they're like oh can i do this and you're like yep go for it so i think but that's from the ethos that i take for like if you can love what you do it's not a job anymore it's not a chore anymore so i've kind of tried to to go down that route

with them and that's what i try and tell them as well when they think about what they're going to do for jobs and things later on or what they want to work in industry-wise. I try and say, look, as long as you love it, you can make money doing anything these days. You can make money playing computer games if you love it, designing computer games, cooking, doesn't matter. Whatever you love doing, probably concentrate on that and think of a way to to work

in in that way because you'll be hopefully um a happier individual as you grow older well and you'll be better at it because if you love it you're naturally better at the things that you enjoy yeah yeah because you put the time in even if you don't start off better you you put the time in and you become better so yeah yeah um finally nigel if we could rebrand fatherhood in some way with the wave of a magic wand a pantomime magic wand um what would you change about the way that we see dads um Oh, that's a toughie. That's a toughie. It is a toughie.

We need to see them as part of the team. A team is all about helping each other. So we need to help them. And this brings me to like how Dadvengers engage with most of their dads. 90% of the dads that are involved with Dadvengers were recommended by a mum, dropped off by a mum. Take care of this one for me, please.

You know, 90% of the dads that get involved have been sent to us by a mum. And that just shows you, those are mums who have realised, hold on, I'm helping myself to help this dude. So they have said, here's some good help for you. And then that's improved their lives. Perhaps with your magic wand, we should also rebrand men as a species to be just a little bit more okay with admitting that they need some help maybe yes totally uh and they do need help they 100 need help we all need help that's the point this is it but as soon as you say to a man he needs help he'll be like no i don't need help right it's toxic masculinity isn't it essentially

what it boils down to nigel it's the patriarchy this is the problem no but no you're right you're right as soon as you but that's why i mean you know from looking at our website what the ethos of dadvengers is and theoretically from if you listen to this podcast back i've talked about mental health and we are really mental health help for men. But we never, ever say that to the men. We don't brand it as that. We don't say, come along to our walks, it's going to help you with your mental health.

We don't say, come along to our meetups, because it's going to, you know, we're, no. We never say that. We just say, come along and ask for help. This will really make you laugh Nigel I something I wrote about years ago I was helping a brand promote something and they had something called Andy's man club yeah it's huge now and Andy's man club met in a shed and basically Andy convinced these men that it was cool and it was all okay because they were meeting in a shed

drinking beer yeah but it was a men's mental health group in a shed and it's all about how you brand it it's all it is it is totally about how you with men it's all about how you brand it if you brand it as mental health help you'll get a lot of some men will be fine some men will be like actually let me investigate this let me go forward and try this out but a lot of, some men will be fine. Some men will be like, actually, let me investigate this. Let me go forward and try this out. But a lot of them will be like, oh, no, I don't need any help. I'll be fine. And then they're gone. When really they probably did need the help.

Or they didn't even realize they needed help. But send them into a group. I love it. Yeah. That's the deal. It's genius. It's genius. Nigel, thank you so much for joining us today.

This has been such a wonderful chat. It did get deep a little bit towards the end there, but it's good. It's thank you so much for joining us today this has been such a wonderful chat it did get deep a little bit towards the end there but it's good it's all good no no thank you so much for having having me on this podcast you guys are great thank you for spreading the word about like the adventures and men and and the help that we're providing because it's really really important and as soon as you know what you are in the panto we want to know i'll give you a clue i'll give you a clue right so you know we're doing robin hood i am yeah in the forest i'll put that there yeah i i would say i hang out or live in the forest are you good or bad and i'm good i'm a goodie i'm a goodie and are you oh i think you i think you might be in the band of merry men or you are like a fox or some sort of woodland animal

or creature all i'm gonna say is out of the three things that you said there something is right watch this face folks thank you nigel it's lovely thank you so much for chatting to us it's been great no problem thank you thank you having me