Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Robert Peston (Part One)

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

We are in Regent’s Park in London this week for a walk with legendary broadcaster and journalist Robert Peston and his dog Merlin, an adorable bedlington-whippet cross!On a gorgeous spring day, Robert tells us about his fascinating childhood, the experience of becoming a household name during the financial crash, and the way people have reacted to his distinctive voice through the years.You can listen to part two of our walk with Robert here!Follow Robert - @pestonRobert’s latest book Bust is available now - along with his two thrillers The Whistleblower and The Crash. The Rest Is Money is available on all podcast platforms. Follow Emily: Instagram - @emilyrebeccadeanX - @divine_miss_emWalking The Dog is produced by Faye LawrenceMusic: Rich Jarman Artwork: Alice LudlamPhotography: Karla Gowlett  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is that Merlin? Sorry. Have you just put a paw on your bottom? I do apologise. I told you not to embarrass me. This week on Walking the Dog, Ray and I went for a walk in Regents Park with presenter, journalist and author Robert Pestan and his beautiful Bedlington Cross, Merlin. Robert clearly loves dogs, especially Merlin, who at several points he called Sweetheart. I know. Adorable. And we had the loveliest chat about everything,

from his childhood to his fabulously impressive career. And he also talked really honestly about some of the tougher moments in his life. Do check out the brilliant podcast Robert presents with Steph McGovern, The Rest Is Money. And you can also read his book, Bust and his two fiction books, The Whistleblower and the Crash. I'll stop talking now and hand over to the man himself. Here's Robert and Merlin and Ray Ray. Are you going to take Merlin off the leave, Robert? Is that a right or not?

Or would you prefer to have him on? You'd choose. I love that you ask my permission. Come on, quickly. Come on, Raymond. Do you know, you said that in a very, it was a very had masterlight. Oh dear, sorry.

Come on, children, quickly. It was only to Raymond. What do you think, Robert? How do you think they're getting on so far, Merlin and Raymond? These men are not shagging Raymond so far, so that's a good side. As Merlin had previous?

Yeah, certainly as it's slightly, maybe he's maturing now, Maybe he's slightly more under control. But when he was younger, he was definitely too priapic. There's no question about it. I think for the sake of everyone's reputation, I should establish right now that Merlin is your dog and not a male friend of us.

Merlin is half Bedlington, half-whippet, astonishingly friendly, astonishingly needy, aren't you, Merlin? You just want love the whole type. And you're not very discriminating, are you, Merlin? You'll take love from literally anybody. Oh, Merlin is adorable. So I'm, of course, the man with one of the most distinctive voices you've ever heard. Can I say, I love your voice?

Okay, it's over the years, not everybody has, but there we go. It's nice that you say that. I'm with, of course, the wonderful Robert Peston, and he's brought along his dog Merlin, who's here with Raymond, and Merlin has made quite an impact. on me already. Do you want to talk me through Merlin? Merlin, as you say, is a Bedlington Cross? Acquired, well, gosh, now something like eight, nine years ago. I'm slightly losing track, but he's getting on a bit. We think, unfortunately, because part of the neediness is we think

that the owner let him go too young. I think they lied to us about his age. Looking back on it, I think it would have been better if he'd stayed with his mum for slightly longer. So he's obviously been in therapy for the last five years, like most of us. But... You quite like Raymond, D? I love Raymond. I led the witness there. But Raymond is less of a handful.

Let's be absolutely clear. He's obviously a bit more placid. And he's a little bit smaller. Is he a Lars Arapso? Is that what he is? No, do you know he's an imperial shih Tzu? He's an imperial shih Tzu. Which I think is quite a high-suitzboquet way of saying shitsu.

There's something very imperial about him. Well, can you imagine when I had Tom Ommon from the rest of his seat-suit. history on here and I was going around saying he's an imperial shih Tzu. So which way we're in Regents Park and this is very much your manner isn't it? Yeah. So I would suggest we go right here. I would as well. Come on Merlin. You got Merlin this is you and your partner Charlotte Edwards who's a brilliant writer for the Guardian and various other places but you and Charlotte your partner you did you get Merlin as you say it was nine years ago? Yeah, something like that. Charlotte said to me, I'm thinking of getting a puppy for the

kids and I said, oh my God, our life is too chaotic as it is. What are you thinking about? And I thought, okay, that's it. We're not getting a puppy. I assumed. And then literally two days later, this puppy turns up. And of course, truthfully, truthfully, I immediately fell in love. Merlin is my sort of spirit animal. Come on, Merlin. Do you know, you and Merlin are quite alike, I think. You're not the first person who made that observation. Really? Yeah.

Well, I tell you what I think it is, because the Bedlington is a terrier, and they have a slightly zesty, they have a tenacity as well. But then the sort of poise and self-possession of a sight hound. That's I'm going to sum you up, Robert. Okay, well I'm not going to reject any of that. That's fine. Let's keep our fingers crossed. There's some truth.

God, isn't it glorious out today? Isn't it beautiful? Wow. This really is. Regent's Park. To me, it's number one. Yeah, me too. Really?

It's literally my favourite park in London, probably in the world, actually. And actually, it is sort of extraordinary, blazing sunshine, and there's almost nobody here. It's incredible. This feels like what I hope heaven would be like, Regents Park.

That's not a bad analogy. Do you know what I mean? Look at it. You know, we've got the cow parsley wild on the right. We've got a beautifully manicured lawn on the left. You know, we've got a Regency building just also on the left. It's amazing. And we've got Merlin coming up on the outside lane because Merlin has just spotted some sort of,

oh look at those three tight, the tiniest dogs in the world. He's normally terrified of small dogs actually, actually. Hello? Are these chihuahuas? two hours oh you've got a pram for one yeah they all get in there eventually and she's 17 oh this is great what are they all called um this is bean that's milkshake this is mouth and that's blousey brown what's what's she called so lousy brown from buzty malone yeah yeah oh of course yeah lovely to meet you i'm just going to find my friend's dog now

yeah we've lost him bye bye yeah where's you got mirlin where's you go there then where you go where's on. Where did he go? Melin. He's sniffing somewhere, is he? Come on. Hang on. Where have you gone, darling? Oh there you are. Hello. He's in the long grass. Well done. You're quite relaxed, Robert, aren't you? You're not a stressed out person because I would have been panicking there when I couldn't see the dog. That tells me a lot in that moment. You just went, where are you, darling? Yeah, we've only lost him once, actually. It wasn't me. I'm going to say immediately. So now he's pretty good. You're pretty clear in your.

your own mind it's better to come back. So Robert, talk me through your history with dogs, if you indeed have one. You grew up in North London. Yeah, we grew up in sort of Crouchend Highgate, some sort of no man's land between the two of them. And we were very lucky we had these amazing woods called Queen's Woods backing onto our garden. And actually, it was a doggy household, and indeed we had dogs and cats, actually. We had an amazing dog that, that we adopted called Becky, Becky Sharp. And who was the Vanity Fair fan? I think we all were really.

It's absolutely one of my favorite books. But Becky was named, I think, by my parents because I think I didn't read Vanity Fair until I was in my teens. But we got Becky when I guess I would have been about seven or eight, something like that. And I found my teenage diaries a few years ago. and the day that Becky died is one of those sort of ringed.

It's a terrible day. Becky was a very kind, steady, rather loving dog. Must have had a bit of Labrador in him, or her, sorry. Must have had a bit of Labrador, black. So we had Becky, and then we had a completely chaotic dog called Bella, who was a sort of smallish sort of border-cold. kind of dog, completely chaotic. And around all of that we had a bunch of cats of whom the most striking was a pure white cat who was deaf, who was inevitably called Beethoven.

But then after the childhood, we didn't have, or I didn't have dogs for decades, largely because my late wife, Sean Busby, was allergic to dogs. and cats and so when Simon and Max were growing up we didn't have dogs and cats so it's been quite a big change in my life to have Merlin in my life for the last eight nine years and it just reminded me that I do love dogs and it's it's rather nice to have to have you isn't it Merlin even though you're now sniffing the bottom of Raymond oh is Merlin a puddle liquor Robert let's have a watch Shall we?

Shall we see if he's going to do that? And yes, it turns out he is. Come on. Come on. Oi. So I'm rather fascinated by your childhood. You grew up in what sounds like a really interesting household and a very interesting family experience

because your dad was an economist and a Labour peer, wasn't he? Yeah, he became a Labour peer later when he was. was, you know, when I was a kid, yeah, he was, he did advise the Labor Party in the 60s and 70s, even worked as a special advisor for the Labor government in the 70s. It was a very political household. It was quite a rowdy household. We were, well, what I would describe as secular Jews, so all my family are Jewish, all Ashkenazi Jews. But my dad was a militant atheist. My mum's sort of an agnostic. So culturally we were very Jewish, lots of Jewish food in the house.

My mum was a brilliant cook. There's lots of bimitzvahs. We used to go to my grandparents for Pesach but my dad was always very scathing of established religion which he always, I mean he was respectful of religious people but just very, very scathing about religion which he always described as hocus pocus. And your dad had quite an extraordinary

extraordinary sort of trajectory really because he grew up sort of east end. Is that Merlin? Sorry. Have you just put a paw on your bottom? I do apologise. I told you not to embarrass me. Tell me about your dad. So yeah, so yeah, my dad's history, I think he's very much sort of a history of what's happened to social mobility in this country. You know, when he, you know, he grew up in the then in the 30s, as did my mum. His dad was a pleater. He had a very small business pleading ladies' dresses and he went to a school, which became quite a famous school in some ways called Hackney Downs. Harold Pinter was in his year and there were, you know, it was, you know, lots of very bright Jewish boys, many of whom, you know, like, like,

my dad went on to in some ways become pillars of the establishment and you know this was a period in Britain when it was astonishing the degree to which people from some cases pretty challenged and certainly not easy backgrounds you know really I hate the term social status but yeah they you know they moved up the social class up up the social ladder incredibly rapidly One of the tragedies about where we are now is there is less social mobility than there was in, you know, when he was young. Yeah, I used to ask, what class are we? I used to ask. And what did they say, your parents? So it obviously did matter to them because, you know, we were definitely middle class.

The idea is that we were upper middle class. That was definitely important, which is sort of mad looking back on it that these things mattered. But I think it definitely mattered to mum and dad. It was sort of interesting. Particularly for my mom, I think social status mattered. Is that a bin, Robert? Yeah, it's a recycling thing. I just want to make sure...

Yeah, yeah, you can definitely put your cup in there, yeah. That's allowed. Come on. I was going to say, I remember saying to my dad, I think, can you change your class? Which, as you say, he seemed to be much more preoccupied with it back then. And he said, you can't buy your way out of your class, but you can educate your way out of it. Yourself out of it, essentially. And I thought, isn't that interesting that that probably was true then?

And that was what your dad did. Yeah, totally. I mean, you know, goes to grammar school, go see LSE, Windsor. Scholarship to Princeton is at the cutting edge in those days of what's called game theory, which was a sort of massive breakthrough in both maths and social sciences, sort of works with people like Oscar Morganstern and von Neumann

who are recognised sort of geniuses. And then he comes back and he's literally about the only person in the country who knows about game theory. so as a very young age he's taken on by the Ministry of Defence and given sort of the rank of Colonel or something like that to teach the army how to use game theory to win battles and wars and then he goes off and sets up an economics department

in the East End of London at Queen Mary College it's a pretty impressive early life story really come on come on Merlin and but you were talking about how you grow up in a world where you know, pretty well-known,

particularly politicians would turn up. In my teenage diary, which I found, there's this hilarious couple of paragraphs about, you know, Roy Hatterson, he's coming for dinner, and there's a long thing about how I'm not sure Roy really likes me.

And it's really funny. I get the sense that your mum was fiercely intelligent and possibly may have been from you know a slight victim of her generation in the sense that actually you said she was the one with all this dynamism and brains as well yeah yeah totally what was she like as a mum so she was brilliant cook so meals were absolutely the heart of home life you know you know everything from you know the best chicken soup through to, you know, it's weird the things you remember, isn't it? So my mum's spaghetti bonnese, I still remember.

It's so delicious. And she was a great entertainer. We had, you know, there were loads of parties. And she prepared all the food, and her sort of food was allegedly, you never know how much these are family myths, looking back on it. But, you know, allegedly the food that she brought at her parties were a legend in North London or legendary in North London. Who knows? Anyway, she was a, she worked in the Health Service as a sort of.

of administrator and in sort of public relations for St Thomas's hospitals. He had a bunch of, you know, decent jobs, but I, you know, I sort of did grow up thinking it's slightly mad that we live in a household where my dad is the big hero that everybody sort of supports and my mum is sort of part of that, you know, part of the sort of great man myth, support, if you know what I mean. And I did think when I was growing up, you know, she could have, I mean, look, I think she had a happy life. And, you know, this is not me trying to pretend that, you know, she wasn't perfectly happy with the way things were. But I did at the time think somehow it wasn't fair that he got all the applaudits and, you know, she was just there to help him get the applaudits.

It's interesting that you were vaguely aware of that even then. Yeah, these are the sort of things I thought about as a teenager. And it was you and your sister? So I've got a sister who's only a little bit younger than me, just over a year younger than me. We were a sort of rowdy double act, lots of arguing. And we're very, very close, speak to a more or less every day. Really? And then I've got a brother who's four years younger.

And we're a close-knit, we're close-knit siblings. I mean, I think one of the things that perhaps people growing up today don't get is the extent to which if I mean I'm from quite a young age I sort of declared independence I just decide I'm going to do my own thing and I sort of did to have a sense of bringing myself up and I don't think that was terribly unusual in our part of London I mean you know we just all you know particularly when you got near sort of early teens you just did your own thing and you of kept your parents informed but not of everything.

I mean, I sort of thought, you know, about my parents, that they were a very busy and B, you know, there was tons of stuff they just didn't understand. Yeah. And so I think it, I think, I think, and there was also a sense in which parents themselves took the view that you sort of let your kids get on with it to an extent so long as they didn't disgrace you and in our case

as you sort of pass, they wanted you to pass exams in my case. They, you know, and so long as one sort of came top of the class, that was sort of all they cared about really, I think. And the the other thing, when I was 19, I had a girlfriend whose parents were very affectionate and there were lots of hugs and kisses and I love you and I thought, God, do parents do that. Because I'd literally been brought up in a household, which was, you know, nobody ever hugged anybody. It was all very austere and there were no expressions of emotion. And that was quite, that was quite, looking back on it, that's the thing that I really have totally rejected in, you know, my own, you know, bringing up my own families. Because I just think, you just, you know, we're all these days sort of massive huggers and masses of.

massive expressers of emotion. And a part of that is just a reaction to and a rejection of a much more austere way of being brought up. And so you were presumably, as you say, you were quite studious. I'm getting this sense of a slightly perfect son. No, no, no, no, no, I definitely wasn't. I mean, my mum, who is, she's 90.

My dad's dead. My mom's 93. My mom complained the other day. She just said, well, I wasn't a perfect son. I don't think I caused him too much anxiety, but she said in a very sort of annoyed way the other day. The problem with you, Robert, is you just did whatever you wanted. Which didn't sound like she felt that was a good thing.

But anyway, I suspect she was, as I said to you, I suspect that was right. I do just think there came a moment where I just thought, okay, so I've got this slightly mad family. I've got to make the best of it. You really did excel at school, didn't you? because you went on to... Well, I was quite lucky. I think I was just one of those people,

and it's one of the reasons I don't really like. One of the themes of my adult life has been, you know, trying to champion state education. I set up a charity course figures for schools, which is about getting inspirational people to go and talk in state schools, and we also organise work experience with some sort of amazing employers for less advantaged kids.

Part of the reason for... that is just that I think, you know, I take the views in terms of how you build a better society. Education is absolutely at the core of it. But also in my own case, I mean, I was, you know, I was a lucky kid, right? So I didn't find either studying or exams particularly challenging. But that was sort of lucky, right? I mean, you know, there's obviously some stuff about me that means that's easier for me. doesn't mean to say that I'm intrinsically more intelligent than other people.

It just happens that I have a particular set of skills that work pretty well in school. And I hate the way that people are late developers or have different sets of skills, you know, this can sort of hold them back. And so it sort of plays into my view that in general, as a society, we've got to be much more intelligent and creative about, you know, working out what people, where people can, excel and where people can make the best of themselves. And the other thing which is important, I'm sure you had this in your house, is we did have

books absolutely everywhere. And, you know, I always was amazed when I went into houses where there were literally no books. But you know, it just becomes normalised, in fact, you all love this story. Friends of mine always say this one thing sums up my childhood, which just seems so normal to me. But when I had a tantrum when I was seven years old, and I went, I don't want to go to Doris Lessing's house. I love that story. I love that story. Because it was boring and I said she just talks all the time and I hate her.

And my mum was going, Doris is a very kind woman and she's had an extraordinary life and you must be kind. Yeah, looking back on it, you've got to say, it was a fucking privilege to be taken to Doris Lessing's house. I mean, come on. So, you went to Bealeor. You did, you did P.P.E. I'm telling you your biography now. But it's so, it's your classic P.P.E. Bailey or Oxford. Yeah, but it wasn't classic because I went to Highgate Wood School, which is a comprehensive, it was founded on secondary moderns. And I was, I think, well, I was definitely, so there was a boy in the year above me who got to Cambridge and I was the first to go to Oxford from our school. when I was 11 and I joined the school, it had only recently become a comprehensive.

It had been a secondary modern. It was called Bishop's Wood and then it was when it was a secondary modern. And yeah, when I got there, not a single person had ever been even to university. So which shows you, you know, about that awful, which I, you know, that awful stratification that, you know, between grammar schools and secondary modern schools. And, you know, it's, I did, you know, I am somebody who thinks that that kind of selection at 11 was hugely pernicious and therefore you know even though we need to invest more in our schools I do regard comprehensive education as a you know as a as a

as a very positive change in our education system but it but it does require the individual schools to be run properly and you know it requires both investment and really good teachers well I was lucky I mean my school had a very, in some ways, quite an old-fashioned Welsh head master, but he just believed in the potential of kids to make the most of themselves and the quality of the teachers, you know, they were brilliant teachers. After graduating, was the plan to go into the city originally? Because you became a stockbroker? I think one way in which, whether it was parents or system or whatever, I think slightly let me down and I thought quite a lot about what you have to do

to fix this kind of thing is weirdly from a really young age, not only did I know, I mean, from about the age of 12, not only did I know I wanted to go to Oxford, I did know, I wanted to go to Balliol. It's a really odd thing, right? But the problem was, when I got there, I had a real sense of, well, what now? Because I sort of decided that's what I wanted to do,

but I didn't really have a clue what I wanted to do after that. And the only reason I worked in the city briefly was just because it was very easy to get a job there. You can make a bit of money. But I didn't know that that's what I wanted to do. And as soon as I got there, I discovered I really didn't want to be there. It was so dull. Was it?

And also the people I was working with, you know, their values weren't my values. I wasn't somebody who, you know, I got there and I thought, I'm not interested in making money for money's sake. That's just not what I want to do in life. So I got out really quite right. I was there for a year. and I got out, you know, most of them had been, you know, to public school and it was, there was a sort of sense of entitlement and privilege around the place which, you know,

I didn't particularly enjoy. And there was also a culture of, you know, let's just make as much money as possible and not really care about, you know, the clients or welfare or anything that really sort of matters. Anyway, I was quite lucky that somebody I'd known from university, somebody who's now well known as being rather a brilliant journalist who's also set up weirdly like me in education charity, a woman called Lucy Callaway, was working on a magazine called The Investors Chronicle, and she said to me, this is a magazine that sort of employs people who, you know, I've done journalism when I was at school and university, but I didn't know it was a vocation, but she said this is a magazine. but she said this is a magazine which takes people who have a bit of business experience as well as as journalism. And amazingly, I managed to come my way into getting a job. And as soon as I got there, literally from day one, I thought, this feels like me. This is where I want to be.

And I've never wanted to leave journalism. Every now and then I thought, you know, basically maybe I'll grow up one day and get a proper job. But then I think about it and thought, no, I'm. I mean, if you like getting up in the morning to do what you do, you are so lucky and so privileged. And I love journalism. I love what I do. I can't see you in the city. You've got something of the dad in 101 Dalmatians with the tank top over the typewriter, the creative.

Do you know what I mean? That's very sweetly be to say that. I mean, the answer is I did feel real. It was, I really hated that time. Become a journalist you did. And obviously you moved around quite a bit, didn't you? The FT, Telegraph. So I was on the FT for a decade.

I was at the BBC for a decade. And it won't be that long until I've been at ITV for that kind of like. So they've been the three big stints. Although I did, I joined the Independent when it was launched in 1986. You know, in fact, before it was launched when we were doing dummy newspapers. And that was incredibly exciting, creating a new newspaper. and one, people probably because it went through a sort of patchy time, people don't realise, I think, now how incredibly exciting the independent was when it was launched.

Because we hadn't had a new newspaper in this country for decades, and this one initially was so successful. It's hard to overstate the impact it made, and that was just really exciting. Can we just give the dogs some more, Salve it? Do you have one of these? I don't. Are they good? It's a portable water carrier. I should get one from Manon.

Maybe you wouldn't drink in puddles so much. That's clever. Merlin, have your water, darling. Good boy, good boy. He wants to share it. How does that very, Ray? You want to share it. I always think with Ray.

You're coming to see me. Yes, you are, aren't you? He thinks you've got a treat. Oh, I should have brought some treats out. I normally do. That's silly of me. It's like you circling around a minister thinking you're going to get an excruistic. Yeah, but you're going to get a little scratch on your head.

You are. You're going to get a little scratch. Where are we going to go? We're going to sit on that bench? Yeah, let's go to the bench for a bit. So the financial crash, what was it, 2007, 8? That's when you really broke through. That was your hit me baby one more time, Robert. Certainly it's when people definitely noticed me. You're so right.

It was a sort of life-changing moment in that sense. How did you find the transition? to TV. Was it something you were nervous about? Did you have preparation? Were you thinking, right, my life's going to change on? Because you'd met Sean, your late wife at this point, hadn't you? Yeah, yeah. So we got together. Well, I'd met her first. Well, she was a friend of my sisters. So I met her first when she was 14, 15. And we dated straight after university. And then we went our separate ways and then came back together in the 90s. And so by the time, time of the crash, we'd be married for 10 years, had an older boy that I inherited from her

first marriage and then Max, so son and a stepson, Simon and Max. And so I've been in newspapers by that point for about 20 years. This job came up at the BBC business editor, applied for it. I remember Charm saying, because she worked in television, she made films of operas and ballets. She knew that world pretty well. And she said, you know, your life will change. We will have less privacy. You're sure you want this. But I'd sort of done everything else. You know, I'd been a within journalism, I'd had a whole bunch of, you know, great jobs. I'd been a political editor. I'd been a financial editor. I'd done pretty much all the jobs in print journalism I'd wanted to do. And this was just a sort of hugely exciting new opportunity. So I went for it.

And you're quite fearless, I think, aren't you? I think when I know I want something, I'll tend to sort of just go all in and try and get it. Do you think you got that a bit from your dad? I don't know, actually. I don't know, maybe genetic, who knows? But anyway. Were you prepared for the shift? So I was, you know, I was not, probably still am not, a natural broadcaster.

Why do you say that? I think partly because of the sort of audience reaction after I joined for a period. So I joined, let's just work this out. So it was a good year, I joined about a year and a half before. for the actual crash and for quite a lot of that time, it's all sorts of people, both viewers, listeners, and indeed people in newspapers just hated the way that I broadcast. They just hated it.

You know, the BBC was sort of concerned about it enough to get in a sort of specialist to sort of, help me, God knows whether it made any difference. What did the specialist do? It was all about trying to modify the way I talked, right? Because there was something about the way I talked that really annoyed people. And then broadly what happened was I broke a series of important stories, did some investigations, got some scoops. And they thought, I know, so let's concentrate on what he's saying.

Well, I think broadly is that is what happens. I sort of was giving. you know, from the middle of 2007 onwards, I was giving people information that was directly relevant to their lives, which they weren't getting from anywhere else. And I think at that point, people said, concentrated more on what I was saying rather than on how I was saying it. So, well, but I think, you know, but it's just to make the point that although as it happens, you know, and it is interesting for me looking back on it, I must have very thick skin. because even though there was a lot of criticism,

I didn't feel particularly anxious. I didn't worry about it very much. I just kept doing what I was doing. And fortunately, I then had this breakthrough because of the stories I was breaking and what you might, I suppose, regard as the importance of the fundamental journalistic work. Fortunately, as I say, at that point,

people thought, okay, you might be worth listening to. Your mum said something. You did a relative values with her. which I remember reading and I really loved it. She said, people criticise Robert's voice, but I think it makes him memorable. Well, I mean, there is an argument around that that if, particularly in this kind of personality-obsessed world,

you know, it is important to, sad to say, have your own brand. And certainly in the early days, for better or worse, I definitely developed a brand quite fast because people did sort of know when I came on the radio or the television people knew I was. Now obviously I was sort of thrilled when you know every pretty much impersonator under the sun decided to do impersonations of me. Were you swell? Yeah totally. I just thought at that point I've definitely made it, you know. What a good attitude to have.

That's quite healthy. Oh I hope it's healthy. It's definitely it's definitely me. I really hope you love part one of this week's Walking the Dog. If you want to hear the second part of our chat, it'll be out on Thursday. So whatever you do, don't miss it. And remember to subscribe so you can join us on our walks every week.