Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Reverend Richard Coles

Episode Date: July 1, 2019

This week Emily heads to Northampton for a walk with the Communards star who became an Anglican priest, Reverend Richard Coles. They take out one of his five dachshunds, Daisy, and he tells Emily about coming out as a gay man to his mother, his wild days as an 80’s pop star, and his decision to give it all up and enter the priesthood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Daisy. Come on Daisy. What's Daisy doing, Richard? She's complaining. Is she tired already? She's not tired. She wants David, which is why she's looking over her shoulder. Come on, Daisy. Really, is she that bond? Daisy, come here.

She's so used to getting her own way. But now, look, you've tempted her with blandishments. This week I travelled to Northampton to go out with pop star turned priest, Reverend Richard Coles. I remember Richard really well from his days in the communards, so I was fascinated to hear how he's made that unlikely career transition. And I also wanted to meet his five Daxons. Five! But we just took one of them out for a walk, the adorable Daisy.

Richard, as you're here, is utterly fascinating. He's an incredibly bright and interesting and funny man. But he's also been through some tough times and emerged from it with a lot of wisdom. You can catch Richard regularly on Radio 4's Saturday Live. And he's written some brilliant books as well. I actually really recommend his two autobiographies, fathomless riches and bringing in the sheaves, which you can get on Amazon.

I loved Richard and his partner David, who's also a priest, and their five sausage dogs, of course, so I will be making a return to that vicarage, and no, not in a flea bag way. I really hope you enjoy this. If you do, please rate, review, and subscribe on iTunes.

Here's the Rev. Mumu! Come on, moo, good girl. We'll see you later. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. I know, I know. Come on, Dave. Listen. Do you want to get them in there?

I can't bear this. I'd be crying every time. I'm sorry, darling. We won't be long. We love you. Oh. Come on. Right, come on.

Now, go leave you. He wasn't talking to us, by the way. Oh, there's eight of us. Hey, come on you. Okay. You get in there. Not you, the dog. Right.

I wasn't speaking. to your partner like that by the way Richard. No, sorry, I do. Is it like that every time you leave the house? Yes. Are you going to get in the car? Yeah. So where are we driving to?

We are going to go to... There's a tiny, there's a sort of tributary of the eyes, which is a little river, which meanders at the bottom of the valley. Yeah. So we're going to walk down to there. Do you think Daisy senses she's going to have a dog walk imminently? Oh yeah. And she's slightly distressed because David isn't with us. isn't with us and she is very loyal she doesn't really I think think very much of me I'm

useful for as a dispenser of goods and services but she doesn't really think much of me I should say David is your partner David is my partner yeah and Daisy who is also a priest also priest yeah and you know dogs don't especially dachshunds they tend to be loyal to one so I mean because we love them all, I do love them all, but you do develop more of a rapport with some than with others. I might introduce you again when we go on the walk, but I'm going to say, I'm in a car in Northamptonshire at the moment, with someone I'm a huge fan of, and it's the...

And it's Daisy. And it's Daisy, the sausage dog. It's the Rev Richard Colt. I don't know if it's okay to call you the Rev. No, Richard's phone. A lot of people call me Rev, if you like that. Do you mind being called Rev? No, no, that's fine.

Oh, no, Reve's just, everyone's calls me Reve. Okay. Come on, Rev. Well, you were the inspiration for Rev anyway. Well, the TV show. Kind of one of them. Good. Daisy.

Mumu, come on, darling. Yes, there we go. Good girl. Richard's taken us into their lovely countryside and there's an abandoned Lucaset bottle. Three days. And an abandoned packet of Super Kings. Come on.

Here we go, this is lovely. We've got a man on a bike which to Daisy is like Christmas and birthdays. Does she like men on bikes? She's barking at men on bikes. Oh, does she? So she might put up a spirited greeting to this chap. Over there you can see one of the follies of the pack. We had a squire, Macworth Dolbin, in the 1850s and 60s, built a number of follies,

one of which the loveliest one fell down unfortunately and killed the lady who lived in it. But this was a windmill that he sort of pimmed. mill that he's sort of pimped for gothic reasons. That's absolutely beautiful. I love a folly. And very nice it is too. That's so beautiful. Oh, the man on the bike's coming. Yeah, we'll just get out of his way. We'll give way to him.

Daisy's being very good. She's... Well, she won't be for long, I'm afraid. She's fond of cyclists, but as a sort of meal. Oh, does she? Hi. Hello. Come on, Dase. Do you think, Richard, that... You know, I mean, you're both, which we'll get on to, but...

Famous people. People who are well known see the world through a slightly more, I think a slightly more benign prison because people are happy to see them. And I would say that's probably true for people in the clergy. So I think you're wearing your uniform, as I call it, your work uniform today. Yeah. You've got your dog collar on. Do you think that people sort of smile and look calm when they see you?

Well, you can elicit widely differing reactions. I mean, some people do. I see it's a very good traffic calming measure. If I'm walking down Church Hill in my collar, it's a rat run, but everyone slows down. It's like seeing a 30 sign. They see the collar and they think all best behaviour or something. So that's useful.

In case you tell God. Well, I don't know. It's just a reminder of who I want to be on best behaviour. But that can also be extremely annoying because sometimes people are less, and direct with you because they want to, hello days, she just like to wander a little bit and smell the various effluvia of animals alive and dead. People are less direct with you. Well because they, you know, it's traditionally...

You're like the school swat. Well, no, it's something people project onto. So clergy, I think perhaps like doctors or teachers, people import to their encounter with you stuff. And sometimes the worst thing is when you see people who look guilty. that we make them feel worse. And I hate that. So you have to sort of, on the one hand, try to use your best advantage, the uniform,

but also, on the other hand, be aware and sensitive to it might not be received in the spirit in which it's intended. And also clergy can be, you know, notoriously bossy and pompous and self-regard. Daisy's so happy. Do you want to introduce us to your dog, Richard? Well, we have five dogs. five sausage dogs dachshunds and Daisy is both number one in terms of age and also

our alpha. Interesting backstory she's a white and tan dachshund with blue eyes, myl colouring which is very rare and usually advised and properly rare because to get a dachshund with those characteristics it can be quite risky breeding and Daisy was a gift which was given to me by Lord Palumbo of the Ministry of of sound whom I met once and we had an interesting conversation and he seemed to take rather a shine to me so he said I'll buy you a dog and when was this this was 10 years ago 11 years ago and I thought yes of course you'll do do do next day his PA phoned up and Daisy was dispatched by limousine to London and we met at Pet Kingdom at Harrods and James bought

well yeah and James bought Daisy her entire trousseau at vast expense and I had to protect we hadn't looked up on a catalogue all the things we wanted. So I pretended to be sort of naively blinking at this stuff, but actually we had quite a worked-out shopping list. And if James was aware of that, I don't know, I expect so, because he's rather shrewd. But anyway, the long and the short of it was, we got Daisy, who is the most adorable dog.

Oh, she is absolutely adorable. But she was a gateway drug, as far as accents are concerned, because the gates opened and another four piled through. Well, you say that, but I met your part. David, who I really liked, by the way. Good. He's handsome as well, isn't he very handsome. Don't tell him that. Why?

Well, because he might realise how much higher than my league he's in, which wouldn't work for me. That's not true. I think you're a lovely couple. Well, thank you. But does he, it seems to me like he's been the cheap architect of the dog overload. Would that be right? Well, yeah, I'm not consulted. So, I mean, our most recent arrival, general,

Augusta. I found about that on Twitter. I was away and I came home to find a fifth dog, but that was the same with the fourth dog too. So take us for all the names? Well there's Daisy. We have here. We partly have with us, I should say, because I really bonded with Daisy.

You did? As soon as I was in the vicarage, yes, I know. There's a whoreishness about Daisy. How dare you? And she does throw it. No, it's about Daisy. There's absolutely nothing to learn about you. I said, I really bonded with her. And you said, yes, there's a whoreishness. about her. She is a total whore, she is a total whore actually. And she's nothing to like small than having her tummy rubbed. And you were so generous in your affection and attendance that that went down very well. Where is she? Well, I love a sausage dog. Everyone loves a sausage. Well, I think I particularly like them. I think I was saying to you earlier because I'm small. And I identify. Yeah, I do with the body proportions. We get about as best we can. But life can be a challenge. I like these whippets.

The thing I like that. The same bolts of the dog world. No, I know. I mean, I love Whippets actually, but I've always had dachshunds from when I was a kid. So I've had 13 now, I think. So obviously I'm pretty breed loyal. And, no, 14 now is Guster. I like they are independent and feisty and just very loyal.

And you know that, you know, a dog owner, you know, how important that relationship between human and dog is. Well, I want a dog to be sort of a bullion and effervescent and good fun and to turn on the charm when the guests arrive, but also I like them to be, to want to snuggle up. Oh, yeah. In front of a movie or something. We may have to broach that sensitive subject of sleeping arrangements. Well, listen, I'm going to have to tell you something

because I'm afraid David's already giving me the heads up on this. Oh, okay. I asked David back in the vicarage earlier, Do you let the dog sleep on the bed and your partner confirmed that the dogs are very much allowed on the bed? Yes, to the point where they kind of look at us sometimes thinking, why are you on the bed? Well, I'm the dog on the bed person too. I know. I think more and more people are and I feel slightly bad about that because I'm sure it's bad practice and all the rest of it. But actually, I can't think of anything I like more than having five sausage dogs snuggling up to you in bed.

I mean, you need a big bed. I think it's strange when people leave them in the kitchen and say, you know, sometimes people will say, you have to show them who's boss. And I just think, I'm glad I'm not married to you. I mean, what, you share your home with someone and treat them like a servant. There is, I know what I mean, there is something, isn't there, that brings out the cartman in people.

Respect my authority. And I don't think that should be encouraging. I mean, obviously safety. And there are certain things essential to contented, happy and functional living. Yes. But I'm very happy to let dogs take up a large part of our life. And you, so talk me through your history with dogs, Richard, because you grew up not, I mean, this is the, this is where you grew up. This was your manor, wasn't it? It was Kettering.

Well, near there, it's sort of actually in between Kettering and Finder, a place called Barton Seagra. And we're in Finding right now, we should say. Are we allowed to say that? Yeah, yeah. Yes, you're a sort of public figure, really, in that sense. Well, every vicar is in a way. Yeah. And your background, I read your book, which I really love. Thank you.

And just about your childhood was interesting to me, because it was relatively prosperous, wasn't it? Yes. The shoe, sort of, it was a fortune made up shoes, essentially. Yeah, my great, great grandfather, well, he was. an inventor and he was one of the people who invented the machines that mechanised shoe production and that kind of industrialized this part of the world which had been you know agricultural pretty much before and there'd always been leather around here because of

tanning because we have lots of rivers and oak forest yeah and oak bark used for tanning and um so the leather work had been a long time a feature of this part of the world but it was the mechanization that turned it into a countywide industry and my family caught that rising tide. I mean completely nondescript and unrecorded in history until that moment. So there weren't, there's nothing, no grandness in the background, just enterprise and energy, I think. And so my great-grandfather took over and then my grandfather took over, and then my grandfather took over, and by that time it was a big thriving industry, but completely destroyed in the 70s by cheap imports. He came back from the factory one day and he had this

pair of shoes and he took out one and it was this lovely brown loafer and he said this is from Portugal or Spain I can't remember but he said it's better than we can make them it's cheaper than we can make them and the writing was on the wall yeah and so this once great industry that employed tens of thousands of people and made literally millions and millions of pairs of boots and shoes and you pick up on things like that as a kid don't you do you know what I mean just a shift in your pair you think oh this is they look worried or they look you know and also of course I think children I certainly was very status conscious and I kind of felt that this decline in our fortune would lead to a decline in

prestige and I didn't like that at all in a rather mercenary sort of way so and it coincided with so teenagehood and adolescence when you know pecking order your place in the world that stuff is sort of unusually accented well you I mean I'm just embarrassed about it now because are you well yes because my poor old father was trying desperately to keep a show on the road in impossible circumstances. Yeah. And it was deeply difficult for him

because it wasn't just us, you know, there were lots of people who he employed and who he felt responsible for. And he tried his, I mean, he tried beyond endurance to make it work, but it was impossible. And it was you and your two brothers, wasn't it? Yeah. And were you a close family?

I mean, yes, in the perfectly ordinary sense. We were, it's an interesting one that, Because, yes, of course we were, you know, it's a family that we grew up. But we went on different paths quite quickly once we got to adolescence. So I went off to London, came out, went to London, screamed around London, the alternative gay scene. My older brother joined the Metropolitan Police. So we were both in London at the same time, but our paths were going in very different directions. Except not that different.

Because as you get older, you realise that you have far more in common than you think. And we've all got closer as we've got older, actually, which has been great. Well, it's true because you all end up essentially thinking, oh, that music's a bit loud, and you all end up looking at Arthur Scargill, male and female. That's what binds us all. You're right. Eventually, you look in the mirror and you'll see the President of the National Union of Mineworkers, not in his finest display either looking back at you. It's true. Because someone said to me that recently said, oh, don't you worry, that's aging.

I said, well, we'll end up as Arthur Scargill. It's fine. You just have to walk into it. Come on Daisy. What's Daisy doing, Richard? She's complaining. Is she tired already? She's not tired. She wants David, which is why she's looking over her shoulder. Come on, Daisy. Really, is she that bond? Daisy, come here.

She's so used to getting her own way. But now you've tempted her with blandishments. And she likes that. But you see she keeps looking over her shoulder. I get the sense that you were always quite precocious. And I mean that in a positive way, not in a sort of... Pain in the ass well. But I'm not in the alley way, but...

cautious in terms of your reading ability and your, you know, where you came from in a sense. Was that always something that was evident when you were growing up? Yes, I think so. You were other, you know? Yeah, I think so, actually. And I was, I kind of read voraciously and I was good at music and all those sorts of, I mean, it's a screamingly gay child. I think about it. I didn't realize that's what it was.

But if you looked at me then, I mean, I used to dress up in a bedspread and do dancing to my bonny lives over the ocean in the sunroom for the delight of my parent, my mother's knit and nutter group. I mean, it couldn't, it was really just one. I would have paid a great deal of money to see that. Maybe you could do, you could reenact that for us later. Well, I think strictly come dancing did somehow evoke memories of my first excursions in the field of dance. Yes, because you were on that, weren't you? Yes, but it was a very vivid display of how that's an ambition that's probably best left unfulfilled. Were you sort of closer to your mom or your dad? Or was it, because I always think, you know, like I had a very, I think my mum and my sister had a close relationship.

So I think there was a sense of me with my dad thinking, all right, I'll pick the drummer then. Do you know what I mean? Like, he's a bit more shit. But I think I'd rather pretend that I like the drummer than carry on wanting Brandon from the killers and fighting for his affections. Do you know what I mean? I'd rather just pretend that I just wanted the drummer. Well, I think. complicated way of saying were you closer to your mother or your father?

Well, it's an interesting one. I mean, both of them were unfailingly devoted and loving and just, I never doubted for a second of their love or their support. But I think I was probably closer to my mother. I don't know why. I was secondborn, you see, and I wonder if mum kind of looked at the secondborn in a way that was different from firstborn. I don't know. But mum and I have always been on each other's way. legs yeah we still are and I was also you wrote about when you came out and I loved it it's one of the best coming out stories I think I've ever heard in my whole life which was you tell me your mother well I thought it was I was 16 yeah and it was an

era when coming out was quite a big deal I mean it still is a big deal but it was in the sort of social context was really quite very uninclusive and unconsolive and unkind actually. So it was a big deal, but I wanted to tell my mother because I thought it was important to be honest. And so I came up with a method which was basically to play her, Tom Robinson's glad to be gay. I think I got to five times before she said, darling, you're trying to tell me something. And I said, what do you mean? And she said, do you think you might be gay? I said, I know I'm gay. And then she was a sort of, I think she's just said, well, that's lovely. Can we not have that record again please.

I'm with your mum. And that was that. And then, so that was, cat was out the bag? And was your dad okay with it? Yes, I mean, she said, I'll tell your father. I mean, I don't think any parent then, you know, would have relished the thought of a child saying I'm gay.

I was so touched yesterday by Prince William. Well, except my parents, who, my mother, who is an actor. I was able to prefer to it. Well, no, she said to me, it is my greatest tragedy in life that I never had a gay son. Greatest tragedy? The greatest tragedy is that I've got grandchildren. She was devastating.

She used to say, look, if you are gay, you honour. We were like, no, we're not. I'm really sorry. We get to apologise for it. So, yeah, so it was sort of I'll talk to your father. Yeah, and it was, I mean, we got there. It was not something they wanted to hear. And also, you know, I had grown up in an era where you internalised a great deal of that very negative stuff.

And it was a kind of long years of. Years of trying to not be defined by these sort of negative views, stereotypes. So that took a bit of work, actually. And then after a while it just becomes perfectly normal. Then after a while it just becomes boring. I remember a friend's parents saying, the thing is your life's a lot harder. I always remember that.

Although, interestingly... People still get beaten up in the street for it. But that's what I mean. When I say your life's a lot harder, it was almost like, I think it would be as if you had a choice. So it would be better if you didn't choose that path. Oh, I know, I'm not suggesting it's, you know, everyone's all like my parents and very accepting.

I'm just saying it was the idea that are you sure you want to make that choice? As if it was a choice that I found strange. Well, I've never experienced as a choice at all. And in my experience, nobody... Yeah, I mean, I don't want to generalise from my own experience, but I, you know, I've been out and about on the gay scene for 40 years. And very unusual to have anyone say that they felt that they felt they chose it.

Yeah. Perhaps more women than men in a way, I don't know. But, you know, sexual identity is very complicated in how we get to where we are. Yeah. It involves, you know, numbers of things. It's not straightforward. I know you had quite a hard time afterwards, though, didn't you? And you had to really struggle with mental health.

And what do you think that was prompted by? Do you think it was almost a release of tension or... Well, I had a sort of what used to be called a nervous breakdown. I don't what do you call it now. after I came out and I think it was this sort of... You go first. You leave the way. What do you think?

Let's go here. Yeah, one day. Yeah. Daisy's found some droppings to roll in. Oh, Daisy. It's so picturesque here. There's a lovely little bridge for you, Daisy. Don't fall in.

She's borrowing. Are they borrowers? They are. Well, they like a burrow, but mostly what she really likes to do is to roll in the smelliest droppings of nature that you can imagine. Come on, Daisy. One time when we were in Cornwall, we were just getting a car for a 12-hour drive home.

Yeah. And Pongo rolled in fresh fox shit. And we got in the car and realised that we simply had to delay our journey because there was no way we're going to do 12 hours with that. So you were saying, yeah, so you had what would have been called a nervous breakdown back then. Yeah, well, I ended up hospital. I was in a psychiatric hospital when I was 17. Yeah. After a suicide attempt.

And it was a very bleak and horrible time. You know, kids at that age, when you're kind of running into the sort of challenges of life, they're overwhelming. And also you don't know that you can survive them because you haven't survived it yet, if you see what I mean. Yes. And so I think young people are very vulnerable to that.

Of course. So I became part of that statistic. And also one in four gay men experiences sort of I think suicidal thoughts as a consequence of because you grow up thinking you are at odds with the world and some people are quite happy to be at odds with the world but for a timid conventional soul like me it's kind of not what i wanted and it took a while to sort of feel to understand that that was perfectly fine so i had this summer in the wonderful st andrews hospital in northampton which was a very liberal and tolerant regime with a lovely doctor a psychiatrist who

Colin Wilson, who was the doctor in company, the magazine company, in which he dispensed advice in a column. And I bumped into him. We met up, in fact, only a couple of months ago. I hadn't seen him since I was 17 and had a very jolly time. But he was lovely. And I just remember him. I sort of confessed my dark secret of homosexuality to him and he was utterly unconcerned about it and reflected back. That's just a variation on the universal theme and it's nothing to worry about. and that was very powerful. I think it's when someone sort of punctures what you think is a drama and says it's okay.

Yes, it's slightly disappointing when you're in the market for a drama. So I did get growingly dissatisfied with the sort of lack of reaction of people as my coming out story unfolded into a sort of war and peace saga, multi-episode big screen adaptation. And I noticed the audience were getting more and more bored, which was so that was more. people saying I'm gay, they were like, yeah, anyway. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you're not reeling with surprise. So, but you did, it was after that you were hospitalised and then you sort of came out and you. Yeah, it was okay then. Yeah. And that's, and then you sort of, you studied in London, didn't you? Well, not really. I came to London. You came to London.

And I sort of just ran around London. And that's when I met Jimmy. I was just gay runway. Like so many of us who arrived in London in 1980. You know, in. search of a better life. And I don't mean, in the sense that Alan Sugar might mean it, but in the sense of trying to involve an identity for ourselves that wasn't negatively defined. We wanted to be autonomy, we wanted to declare ourselves who we were. And of course,

that was a theme that gay liberation, the first generation, which was before us, had kind of marked that out. What we had that was different was we'd been through punk. So we had that kind of energy and edge and non-negotiability. Sort of early 80s or mid-80s, wasn't it? This was early 80s. I arrived in London in 1980. But it was just before sort of Bronsky Beat, essentially. Yeah, Bronsky Beat came around 83, I think.

Jimmy and I met in 1980 and became friends. And then after Bronsky Beat, I joined Bronsky Beat, and then Jimmy and I left to the former Communards. And then, to the surprise of everybody, not least me, I seemed to become a sort of pop star. But you were always musically gifted, won't you? Well, that makes me sound like Mozart. I mean, I wasn't particularly gifted.

I could play the piano a bit. Did you teach yourself to play? Saxophone. Yes, but not very well. I wouldn't claim to be an autodidact of world renown. I wasn't that at all. I just wanted to play the saxophone. Also, I've been brought, I was a chorister when I was a kid,

so I grew up with that classical tradition. And I wanted to sort of learn to play in a different way. But then also there must have been as well because anyone who willingly goes into that line of work, I suppose, or seeks out that there is a sort of, there's a look at me element, but I got the sense when you're in the communards. And again, it's something I really respected your honesty over that, that it was difficult for you because you were sort of grinding away, slogging away, working at it. Yeah, my fingers of the bone. standing next to someone who just happened to be one of the most preternaturally gifted singers of the era and Jimmy was and is an extraordinarily charismatic and he could just open his mouth and without any preparation or effort could sing sublimely beautifully whatever he wanted to sing and also he had this

there was something about Jimmy that people found you couldn't take your eyes of him he was just such a extraordinary talent and I wasn't that I was the sort of work-a-day one who stood at the back. I remember once shooting a video and I overheard... I remember you very vividly, though, because that was my era very much. Yeah, go on. What did you ever hear? Well, somebody's saying,

the one on the keyboards, can you just put him in more shadow? And so I was literally put in the shadow. And of course, you pretend that it's all that you don't mind, but actually I did mind. And Jimmy and I had rather a... It's a very difficult relationship, singer and instrumentalist because you both without realising it sort of envy the other.

I think for me it was Jimmy had this extraordinary degree of attention and at my expense. Whereas I think Jimmy sometimes sort of looked to me and everyone thought that I was the clever one. And we weren't old enough or experienced enough to be happy with each other's attributes, I think. Well also it sounds like self-confessedly he seems like quite a sort of you know a big character in terms of impulsive moods and you know yeah and an alcoholic as well yeah which is now um exactly on top of him didn't jimmy stopped drinking a few years ago oh really only after he'd stopped drinking i think got into rehab and now it lives a sober life and helps other people to do so which is brilliant It's only now that I realise that so much of what was challenging about Jimmy was to do with his drinking.

Yeah. But of course, if you're, everyone's drinking like an idiot in their 20s, you just think you're being in your 20s. Yeah. You don't think this is someone who's got an alcohol problem. As the years go by, if you continue to drink like that, you begin to see it much more as a problem. You would sort of, you know, having a bit of a party lifestyle, weren't you back then? Yes. Because, don't leave me this way, became so huge.

It was just everywhere. Yeah. And you made a lot of money out of it? Yeah. And it sort of the thing that was interesting about it, it sort of propelled us from respectable league to kind of bigger league. So that record had such an impact in so many places

that if we went to, if we were on tour, we went to a place where we'd been number one without knowing it yet. The experience was just difficult so you would walk into a venue and there would be this kind of wall of sound of people kind of screaming and chucking stuff, their knickers.

Did you like that? Were you uncomfortable with it or how did you feel about it? Or did you again feel, oh, Jimmy's getting more with your attention again? Must have liked it. I think I probably had slightly mixed feelings about it. We had a row about it. I remember once. We came on stage in Dublin and met this wall of sound.

I remember saying to Jimmy after us, God, no one could hear what we were doing because of the screaming. And he sort of was cross because he thought I was on a downer, which I probably was actually. Jimmy, of course, as the singer in the front man, had that relationship with the audience which is different from an instrumentalist because he could and Jimmy has the ability to do that you know they're like surfers they've managed to jump on this extraordinarily dynamic wave yeah and stay standing up and he could do that and I don't think I could do that the bit at which you know things you start to think hang on this isn't fun anymore and things were imploding was I suppose excess

just rock and roll stuff wasn't it really well also probably self-medicating in a way, do you think? Well, the thing that changed everything was the arrival of HIV, you see. Yes. Because of who we were, when we were, middle years of 1980s. Daze.

Daisy! Come on. This way. Daisy. Mooh. Good girl. What's this? You see, they have a thing,

which are called Stubborn Shih Tzu Syndrome. Oh, well, they've got that, too. And I think, what can we call? Stubborn sausage dog. Yes. She's so beautiful. We should let people know she's got the most amazing blue eyes. Daisy, come on. Daisy's the most entitled princess. She certainly is. She took the treat and

normally the social contract with the dog is that you give the treat and they think, okay, you gave me something so I'll do what you ask for, but she took the treat, dumped it and then ran off. She runs off in her own thing. If we go this way, she'll follow. Dase, come on. I've got the treat, babes. Daisy, come on, darling. So go on. You were saying, we were talking about HIV. Yeah. Well, that came along out of the blue and hit us. like, well, it was an extraordinary thing. There we were. There's the best of times for us.

We were doing really well, vindicated. We were an out gay band, and that was pushing back at sort of boundaries of exclusion, and things were, it was great. And then all of a sudden, boom, this medieval plague hit people. And, you know, in spite of being, we were living in a developed economy, everything that medical science, medical research could provide, people were dying of these kind of preposterous conditions that just tore them apart because they had no immune system.

And it was devastating. And, you know, there was from 1986, I just remember stopping keeping an address book because there were too many crossings out of people who died. And there was seeing a photograph of, sorry, a while ago. And it was a group at this party. I remember in Belsais Park. And I realized that I was the only gay man in the first.

who was living. And we were exactly unlucky that we arrived in London at the moment when gay liberation meant it was party, party, party. But before anybody knew about the risks of that and safe sex came too late to save many of my peers. And what's awful about that is that there was a shame which there should, do you know what I mean about that disease as well? Well it winkled out all sorts of dark stuff including me that was lurking, unexamined,

in the sort of deep mud. What do you mean? Well, I lied about being HIV positive. I thought I came in on tour. I came in with shingles. Shingles often an indicator of HIV of your immune system been compromised. So I kind of, and in those days,

if you were HIV positive, your chance of survival were nil, practically. So I remember going to have a blood test, and in those days it was a 10-day weight between blood tests and results. And in that 10-day result, I remember having row with Jimmy and I told him that I was HIV-positive

and he sort of was shocked by that. And then when I got the result, I was not the only person ever to be, oh, no, I'm HIV-negative. And then I had to sort of eventually go around and tell people who had all been incredibly solicitous and kind to me because they thought I was HIV-positive.

And was this after quite a few years, wasn't it? The gap was two or three years, yeah. Do you think also, and this may be, wrong but I wonder if there was a part of you as well that you'd sort of quietly been sitting there in the background playing second fiddle upon intended but it was almost like a slight cry not for attention because that's minimising it but do you think it was complex what about me essentially but part of it also was a me me me which is such a difficult thing to own because who wanted that kind of attention and there were lots of

people very dear to me who were experiencing that kind of attention and who would have given anything not to but in the grip of that sort of craziness it's interesting because I sort of outed myself about this and braced myself and lots of people were upset about it friends and things or just members of the public or my best friend Matthew who I love very much and we and I grew up together we went to prep school together and I remember telling him and he was so angry that he didn't speak to me for I think six months and that had never happened before and actually it was precisely the lesson I needed because I could all of a sudden see in him why it

might actually be distressing for people to think that I was going to die and I was so caught up in the weird psycho drama of what's happening to me I kind of lost if you're in a pop if you're a pop star you become immensely self-regarding because you live in a world which is unusual and defined everyone is pleased to see you, everyone defers to you, a very flattering reflection to return to you, and you just start believing that stuff. And it's not... Isn't you just become a bit of a monster? I think it's easy to become a bit of a monster. People do it in different ways, but yeah,

because, you know, people indulge you and feed the egotism, which burns like a bonfire, like a furnace, in fact, keeps the whole thing going. Do you think fame is an unnatural state then? Yeah, I think fame is fine as long as it's posthumous. Oh, that's interesting. There's a great saying of John Updike who said, fame is a mask that eats the face. And I think that's right. You pay a, you know, it's very seductive for those who are seducible by that kind of thing.

But you pay a price for it, and the price is a loss of yourself to things over which you have no control. And that has to be handled in one way or another. Some people crash and burn. Some people negotiate their lives very tightly and strictly, so they minimise that sense of loss. Others go mad. And of course what generally happens, the best corrective is that it abandons you. And then you go back to being in real life or majority life.

I can remember how tough it was. I remember going to Heathrow Airport. I was going off a dirty weekend, a nice chap. And we were going to Paris. And I went to the sort of VIP check-inie bit. And I was no longer on the system. my star had waned and then I remember moments of realizing that the sort of grand behavior I got away with for years I could no longer get away with it and I remember being outraged first and thinking that people were being incredibly rude and I was what actually said it was that I had got incredibly entitled and so they were just behaving normally yeah and I was having to negotiate my way through the world like everybody else but I'd got used to not having to do that so that was an interesting experience I shudder with embarrassed now when I think about how hoity-to-y

I was and how I just can't imagine you being like that oh I can introduce you lots of people who would correct you on that one days you're gonna roll around in shit or you're going to come and join us so there came a point when you were well off luckily because you'd had good advice and you'd invested money in a pension because you did there's a brilliant moment where you talk about saying I think I bought a speedboat at some point. Yes, it was in Ibiza, but I don't know, it's probably rusting in some inlet now or being used to, I don't know, people smuggling or something, but I don't know what became of it. It's, I don't know, perhaps it sank, I'm not sure. And you decided eventually the band, it's sort of imploded it wasn't it?

Because your relationship with Jimmy was, there was a lot of... Well, the relationship with Jimmy imploded, and then I think both of us thought we didn't really want to do it anymore. didn't break up or anything because if you do that it invites scrutiny and then that often is a sort of an invitation to say things in anger that you might regret and I've been through that before when Bronzky broke up it got quite vituperative didn't want to do that so we just stopped and didn't start again and well I did it I took a year out which wasn't a super smart thing to do because I was 20 How old was that?

27. God, you were so young to have sort of been in a position where you could retire financially. Sort of, yeah. I didn't have to worry about money, but I was so... I took a year out and basically just took ecstasy for a year. Ecstasy came along as a sort of club drug of choice

and found a huge following in the gatewood you because I think life was so dark for everyone because HIV and AIDS had rampaged through... We were all grieving and mad and ecstasy just gave you that. remembered joy. So I took a lot of ecstasy. I like most people who take a lot of ecstasy, I ended up sort of out of control and crashed and burned after the speedboat incident in Ibiza. And then that was the sort of crashing and burning was when

they kind of got a grip and then life turned around. And one of the things that came in that was a desire to go to church which I'd been a chorister when I was a kid. Your literal epiphany. Well you know what it really was actually. But I needed one because I would never have got there any other way because church was hostile territory. Nothing more implacably opposed to equality for LGBT people than the church. So where the hell would you go into the belly of the beast? And that's exactly what I did do because it is a place where stuff fits that doesn't fit anywhere else. What do you mean? Well, mortality for example. I

rude confrontation with mortality when you're in your 20s, I think it's a lot today because I've just done a funeral for a 21-year-old today. And it's interesting looking at the reactions of Nathan's peers, his friends, that sort of shocked in comprehension at what's happened. And once you start getting to grips with the reality of morality, that takes you to sort of repertoire of experience and thought that churches have dealt with for centuries. You know, what's a church? It's a building surrounded by our dead. And that all of a sudden became urgent for me. So I started going to church. I absolutely loved it.

And realised that I had to sort of acclimatize myself to this new territory. Had you done therapy as well? Yeah, I had. Like some sort of group therapy? No, one-on-one therapy. Yeah, I've been to see a therapist in Archway. And that it was helpful? Very helpful, yeah.

Although I got resentful of it, like you often do in therapy thinking, I remember thinking, well, you know, all this stuff about me. I don't know anything about you. And I wanted a little bit about what you think and feel. And I became very curious about my therapist, which of course happens all the time. Yeah. But it was helpful. And then I sort of just started moving in a new direction.

And it turned out to be a very fruitful direction. And that was, I mean, in retrospect, I look at it, it just seemed an extraordinary gear change but at the time it just felt like not a choice it was just really it was just the right transition for you well it's felt inevitable really yeah well it's a calling isn't it so i suppose i'm not the first person whose life has been very distant from what people think church lives should be who all of a sudden finds themselves in church it's very common experience and how did you did that come into it when you were deciding which particular branch of the church you know did that come into it? Your, your, you're about the LGBT thing and...

Well, I kind of shelved all that thinking, I'm going to just have to keep that part of our life separate from this part of my life because it's such a non-compute. So, you know, system crash around that one. So I sort of parked it. And then my adventures in religion took me to, I re-entered Christianity in a very, at the high church, Anglic Catholic thing. And lots of people who re-enter the Church of England through that door, it led me to become a Roman Catholic because I thought that original and best was where to go. Rome. Yeah, clarity. I always think gold, Rome.

It's the Vesarchi of religion. And also it's just if you, you know, if you're in the Church of England, which is a sort of personality disorder as a religion, you're constantly having. to sort of consciously define yourself against this or against that. What I liked about Reverend Catholicism was you just did it. Yeah. You just turned up and went to Mass. And everybody did. There's the sort of romantic of like when my father, I remember when I was really young,

my dad was always interested in faith in a sort of slightly literary way. I mean if you look at sort of Anglo-Catholic circles in the 20th century, of course T.S. Eliot was signed up to the programme and there was just a lot of really fascinating, vibrant things happening. And it was to do with revivals. And the Church of England had got very sort of dreary and grey. And then along came the Anglo-Catholics, who were these extraordinary flamboyant,

often gay, although they didn't have the language, to call it that then, characters who sought to recover the sort of Catholic traditions of the Church which had been lost after the Reformation, and did so in various ornate and interesting ways. But it was a very fertile world for thought and art. I mean, Gerard Manley Hopkins would be a kind of key figure of that, although he, of course, Pope, as we say, went over to Rome,

and a fairly miserable life thereafter as a Jesuit. Jesuits, they're big book readers. Very big book readers. So are you Anglican then? Yeah, I came back to the Church of England. I did sort of nine years, and then realized that I missed the hymns. So do you not have hymns in the Catholic? church yeah they're rubbish though sorry catholic people i mean the traditional plains song hymns are gorgeous but

the sort of parish what sort of things do they sing well it's all kind of brother sister let me serve you that kind of thing and uh i i just this anglicanism is a religion of they only do half the lord's prayer what's all that about make an effort well there's an interesting debate there which i won't believe with there but um anglicanism we have a saying about licks credend lex lexerandi lex credendi that the law of how we pray is the law of what we believe. And so much of being an Anglican is about what you do in services, if you see what you mean. And so much of what's, I think, most attractive about Anglicanism

is bound up in its choral music and its hymnody. So missing hymns is not just about wanting a good old sing-song. It's about who you are, I mean, corporately and individually. And do you, it's interesting, isn't it? Because it's a different sort of fame, in a sense. Well, it's respect, I mean, I imagine, like I was saying, when we started this, you walk down the street and there's respect and there's... Well, there's lots of things actually. But there's a dilemma in this because the prayer we as priests

are called a hope to pray is the prayer of John the Baptist. We must decrease that he might increase. So for a self-regarding attention-seeking performance bunny like me, at the heart of it is not me at all. My job is to get out of get out of the way of Jesus Christ whom we serve. And so everything I do that is faithful to priesthood is about self-denial. I don't know, because he's changed the Brian Adams song. Everything I do is about self-denial.

But in order to actualise the life of Christ, which is what we're for. We're here to serve Christ and his followers by enabling the Christ in everybody to be the Christ in everybody. So in this way, is this some form of atonement for your... No, I don't think it's an atoma. That's a very interesting thought, actually.

I don't think it's an atonement, but I think there's something rather fitting about it. And I find myself once again, la, la, la, la, la. But there's nothing in it for me. Yeah, yeah. The only thing I need to do is sort of get out of the way of Jesus Christ.

Do you find it difficult you were talking this morning about there was a funeral service for a young guy in your parish? Is that, does that sort of, how do you, not distance yourself from that, but you know, it's like medics or something. Because for you it is part of your life, isn't it? There's a necessary detachment because your job is to get these people who are in grief and shock. They're going to get through the day, but also they've got to participate in this ritual that makes certain claims about a life beyond this life.

and that's immensely important to people who are completely stunned with loss and to try to find a way of articulating that that's faithful and intelligible and honest and deeply compassionate is the objective. Well, I found, it was interesting, when I brushed with it,

was when my sister died and I remember she wanted, she'd always had more faith than me, really. That was something that was important to her, but she asked to chat to someone, you know, when it was sort of near in the end, because she died very suddenly. She had cancer.

And she, I realized, you know, my dad was an atheist and very trendy in 60s and all that stuff. And it was really odd how it hit me that all those discussions and arguments we'd had about atheism in the afterlife just seemed utterly irrelevant. Because I thought, well, she's faced with, she's a mum. She's leaving two kids without a mother. And this is just her way of hoping that maybe there'll be something else. And who am I to question that or anyone? I mean, it's the sort of foxhole conversion, isn't it? It is that when we are absolutely on our uppers and threatened by death, our own extinction, whatever it might be,

then all of a sudden you're more willing to engage with those traditions that speak to that predicament. Why do you think people get atheists get angry? which is why I feel probably call myself an agnostic because I don't get angry. Because I think we sell them a pup and they think that what we do is in fact try to smother those hard realities with a sort of palliative. Right. Which actually helps nobody and in fact perhaps just feeds our own negatism. And what do you say to that? Well, I don't so see what the pali do.

Our message is if you don't love, you're dead. If you do love, you'll be killed. I don't really see what the palliative is there. And everything that we have to say about that begins with the cross on which the most horrendous torture and death was exacted upon someone who went to it willingly out of love for us. There's nothing sentimental about that. But that has got lost, I think, because so much... I think one of the reasons why that has gone so awry is that most people in this country, I have to about Britain, stop really thinking and engaging with Christianity at the point it ceases to be compulsory.

which is usually at about the age of 11. Right. And so most people, maybe who grow up with collective worship school assembly, the Lord's Prayer, shine Jesus shine, that leaves them when they're still in childhood. And what they don't have is a mature experience of faith. The other thing about angry atheists is that angry atheists, the God that they believe it,

the God that they're angry with and the God that they don't believe in is the God I don't believe in either. And so, you know, this idea that God is this capricious tyrant, that's not the God I believe in at all. And they're often quite surprised to find out, I've sometimes described as the atheist's favourite vicar, which I'm not sure says very much about my skills as a priest, because I'd be a very disappointing atheist.

Don't you know Richard Dawkins? I do, yeah. How do you get along with him then? How does that, do you say, you know what, Rich, let's not talk about it tonight, religion and politics? Well, I mean, Richard has a, you know, he has a polemical role. And when he's doing his polemical thing, I would take a different view. And we might engage around that as sort of one argument against another.

But personally, we get on extremely well. He loves dogs. I love dogs. Yeah. And I remember the first time, it wasn't the first time we met, but I remember meeting on Newsnight when we were, I think, crossed swords in an interview. He just lost a dog. And he was deeply upset about that.

So we talked dogs. Yeah, that's true. Dogs really unite you with people. I mean, I personally, having experienced grief, I lost my family, and I was sort of surprised at how the sort of restorative power of dogs, you know, just sort of spiritually. It really helps me, Richard, like going for a walk in the morning is really important with him. No, exactly.

As is they're not embarrassed. Yeah. My father died a couple of years ago, which is devastating. Yeah. And even though I'm, you know, around death an awful lot, and my father would deal for a long time and we could see it coming. When it came, it was a thief in the night, and I was sort of knocked over by it.

And everyone's sort of nice. This is odd thing with undertakes. We deal with undertakers all the time. There's a sort of bantering relationship that clergy developed with undertakers. And the black comedy of anyone in the death trade is famous. Yeah. But then, so the people who did my dad's funeral, I work with all the time. But there was none of the banter.

Yeah. Because it was quite right and proper that you observe the solemnities of it. Because dogs don't do that at all. They don't pick up on that stuff. They're just pleased to see you. Yeah. And that's very therapeutic, I think. Well, Freud always said dogs bite their enemies and love their friends,

unlike humans who bite their friends. But I suppose it's the idea that, I think Freud's considered problematic, I should say, by a lot of millennials now. But I think it's that idea that they're... there's a simplicity towards the relationship we have with a dog. There are different species. Yeah. So, you know, if you look at dogs with other dogs, they're endlessly immoral, venal, self-serving,

you know what I mean, self-regarding. But with humans... Talk on a bit, Freddie Mercury. We have the power. Yeah. And so the only thing about dogs is because they don't choose. And I think that's often why people who feel unlovable or unloving for whatever reason, dogs do not require any of the other.

other than your presence really. Do you think you felt unlovable for a long time? Yes I do. In some deeply out of reach damaged child sort of way. I don't think that now, of course the great corrective... Do you think claim would fix that and it didn't? I think there is something about if you do feel a deficit of affirmation, then the roar of the crowd is very attractive. But it's a substitute for the real thing. I keep throwing quotes at you, but I know a priest loves a quote.

Ernest, who is it? Who said this, Scott Fitzgerald. He said, the sign of a good parent, and this is no reflection on your parents, by the way. But he just said, the sign of a good parent, the child has no desire to be famous. That's interesting, isn't it? There is no deficit.

There's nothing missing. So my therapist always describes it as a hole that needs filling, that never feels full. So you might choose drugs, you might choose fame. Yes, I think that's probably true. What I got, though, was God. And there's no, you know, that holes don't come into it because everything about God exceeds and overflows.

There's a wonderful imagery in the writings of Paul that I love. In which he talks about this sort of all the dimensions, human dimension that you can think of, are kind of burst. And as the excelling, the fathomless riches of God. And I think that's true. And that's not to say that, oh, it's a substitute, God loves me, I feel fine. It's about God loves me and that changes everything. But how can you, don't you get, what about when, do you get road rage?

I used to. But I can't, but you're a priest. I stopped doing it. I don't know if that's allowed. Well, I did stop doing it partly because I realized what an idiotous I was and how unattractive it was and how, and it was. And it was through, actually, through my dad. My dad was a very gentle, mild person. I remember once losing my temper with a dog,

a previous dachson, foggy to this batch, who ran off one day. I was walking with my father. And the dog ran off and chased the pheasant, I think. And I got sort of a bit worried because dog on its own in the farmer's field is risky. And when the dog came back, I hit the dog in anger. And my father just said, don't do that. And I remember that moment thinking, why am I doing? Why am I angry with the dog? The dog's just being a dog. And what message have I given? it by hitting it and why did I want to hit the dog? I just remember my father just sort of gently saying don't do that and not doing it himself. Has religion made you and has your faith made you a nice person do you think?

It's really kinder. Has it? I realised this, I was in the car park at Ketri General Hospital where I'm in a great deal and being in the car park at Ketchin general hospital is not a situation which is conducive to calm, tranquil existence. Never get short-tempered with somebody in a hospital car park because they might be having the worst day of their life. And when you sort of absorb that, you realise that anybody anywhere could be having the worst day of their life. And so just don't get angry.

And I do find, you know, someone like me who's an active user of social media and that inevitably takes you into a political discussion and argument. Oh, sometimes, but not very much. And I don't mind if I do, I'm just always really nice back at either go away or you end up becoming friends. But I do find the kind of violence and rage and aggression

and sort of unreasoning rejection of any notion that there may be a common experience here that we should share. There's either there's other zero sum that someone is either friend or foe. And I've got no time for that, I'm afraid. So I do try very hard not to lapse into that, which means that I do find on my kind of social media,

stuff. I find I'm having conversations with people who think very differently about all sorts of things and I like that. Look at Daisy's doing. Do you not want to walk Daisy? No, she really doesn't want to walk. Well, you've had enough. We can have back. Come on, Days. Come on, then, Dave. I wanted to ask you about your partner. Yes. Is he your husband, David, or your partner?

It's my civil partner. We're not at liberty to marry. Because you're both priests? We're both priests, but if we were to marry then the bishop would not be at liberty to license us to do what we do because that is not something the Church of England is able to do. And technically you're meant to be celebrated, aren't you, as well?

Yes. So do you think that marriage thing is something that should be changed? Yes. Do you? Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's simply one, because I have personally kind of theological reservations about it. Personally, I find civil partnership perfectly adequate.

But what I find completely intolerable. Yeah, some of my marriage friends are always like to say to my gay friends, Why would you want what we've got? Well, what I think is you should have the option of it. Sorry, the producer got married last week. Sorry, I hope it goes well, love. Masseltov. You should have the option.

You've got it all wrong. You should have the option. And I would absolutely lie down in front of the tanks of people's right to marry who they want to marry, regardless of their sex. I really want to, David, your civil partner. Yes, only people do. I don't know why.

I want to both of you actually. I can tell you a very good couple. So he talked about your parish where the vicarage, we went to the vicarage. We had elder flower cordial made by him with actual elder flower in it, can I say. And David said that when you came here, I don't know if we're allowed to tell this story, but it involves the Commodores. Oh no, that's right. Well, the word got out that I was in a band and somehow Communards became Commodores and there was just thought that they were going to get not only a, they thought they were going to get a black vicar, but it's not just they got a gay vicar and we worked that one out.

Have you ever encountered anyone who's not okay with that? Yes. And how does that, how do you feel about that and how does that work and? It doesn't bother me in the sense that it doesn't upset me and I don't feel threatened by it. I think it's just a real shame and I think if I were to be, think anything sort of strategic about it, it was how are I going to make it difficult for this person to hate me? Yeah. if I can. And that's not to say I find as I get older I'm less inclined to sort of mollify people.

I want to be absolutely clear about what I think and feel. But I'm also, I'm not want to cut people off, I don't want to denigrate them, I don't want to despise them or scorn them. Or imagine that there might not be genuinely held belief about what they believe about me. And that's something which we have to respect and understand. Do you think sometimes, I mean obviously, you know, you don't, I wouldn't ask you to talk about anyone personally, but do you think it's helpful as well for someone young who maybe wanted to talk about, yeah, if they were coming out

and didn't feel they could talk to their parents, maybe that would be really helpful to them, you know, to have you. Well, we have those conversations, not infrequently, yeah. Daisy? And not just with young people, you know. She likes to eat it when you're holding her. She just likes attention. She's a princess.

I think that's why I want to her. I'm going to go in the back because I'd like to sit with Daisy if that's all right. Of course. You can sit with a producer in the front but I feel we need to spend some time together. Come on, Daisy, we're going to go on the blanket. She will so love you.

Look, Richard, I mean this is a real partnership in heaven. She's loving it. Oh, is it okay to say that? Yeah, of course. Okay. Do you mind if people say, oh God? No. I think it's absurd to expect people who are not Christians to behave in ways as if they were. It's like when people say, I don't believe in God, sorry. And I think, I don't mind.

I mean, I genuinely don't mind if you don't believe in God. I don't feel that. And I was, why would you say, sorry, am I supposed to feel threatened by that? Because I just don't. Yeah. And I like, I enjoy diversity. I'm a vicar of a parish, four and a half thousand people. And a fraction of those people attend church,

a slightly larger fraction of those people, I think would say they believed in God. But lots of people managed perfectly well without either. And I love being their parish priest. We should say as well that David, your partner, as he pointed out earlier, he said, well, they've got two for the price of one, the bottle.

Because you've got two. priests at the vicarage. Yeah, the cost of a half stipend. At the cost of a half. So, I mean, they've done well out of you. Well, we've all, it's been a relationship of benefit to everyone I'd like to say. We're pulling into the vicarage, which is absolutely beautiful. And it does say, spoil your alert, the vicarage on the gate, in case anyone was in any doubt. But I'd feel, I'd just think it's, it's very picturesque, there's even ivy on it. Yeah. We're seeing it on a lovely day because the sun's out. Daisy, you were the chosen one for a walk. It's been a very enjoyable walk. Come here, Daisy. Richard, she can't jump down. I would carry her.

She can, but she can't be asked. I really hope you enjoyed listening to that and do remember to rate review and subscribe on iTunes.