Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Tom Holland (Part One)

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

Join Emily and Raymond for a walk in South London’s Brockwell Park with superstar podcaster, historian and author Tom Holland. Although Tom is more of a cat man these days, he tells us about his beloved childhood dog, a bearded-collie called Ben. He also tells us about growing up with a fascination for dinosaurs, the foundation of his passion for history and meeting his wife Sadie at Cambridge University.  As fans of The Rest Is History will know, Tom is an endlessly fascinating man - so we have decided to release this episode in two parts. You can listen to part two here!You can listen to The Rest Is History wherever you get your podcasts! Ray’s favourite episode of The Rest Is History: ‘History’s Greatest Dogs’ is here. For more information about The Rest Is History, including live dates and The Rest Is History Club you can visit: https://therestishistory.supportingcast.fm/ Tom’s latest book Pax is available now!Follow Emily: Instagram - @emilyrebeccadeanX - @divine_miss_emWalking The Dog is produced by Faye LawrenceMusic: Rich Jarman Artwork: Alice LudlamPhotography: Karla Gowlett  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was quite naughty, but in an unpleasant and evil way. So you were a bit Machiavellian? Yeah. I was like a kind of evil character in Game of Thrones. He never gets found out. This week on Walking the Dog, Raymond and I went for a stroll in South London with a very special guest,

the wonderful author, historian, and of course co-host of the hugely popular Restus History podcast, Tom Holland. And you know what? Because Tom Holland is such an endlessly fascinating man who, frankly, we couldn't get enough of. we've decided to bring you our chat in two special parts.

In the first episode, Tom talked to me a lot about his origin story and his very touching relationship with his childhood dog Ben. And it was also so interesting to learn how his passion for history started at such a young age and to find out what really kick-started it all. Tom, I should also say, got on famously with Raymond. And hearing him call Raymond's sweetheart might genuinely be one of the greatest moments I've certainly ever witnessed in history.

I really hope you enjoy part one of my chat with Tom do remember to catch part two coming up later this week and make sure you'll subscribe so you don't miss it I'll stop talking now and hand over to the man himself here's Tom and Raymond Oh sweetheart What do you think Tom so far? Did you see the magic roundabout? You must have seen the magic roundabout

I mean he looks like Dougal Was Dougal there? Well you're the history buff I mean I don't think Dougal I don't think he's 100% unauthentic representative of a dog species but he kind of got that move hasn't he kind of caterpillar

let's walk up here I was going to ask if you don't mind I couldn't help but notice when I heavily researched the coffee bar situation that there is a tea place there there is up in the stately home although it might not be open

it's quite variable can we wander up that way Tom I feel a stately home is exactly where I should be heading with you. I mean, it's a stately home that's seen better days. I think it would be fair to say. Well, it could be all of us. But that's a very Brockport Park.

Well, Tom, I'm so thrilled to be with you. I'm with a very wonderful historian and author, Tom Holland and Raymond is here, and we're in Brock Rock Rock. He's not, actually. He's hanging around the rubbish bin. Now he's come. Tom, what do you make of Raymond so far? Well, I think he's very like Dougal on the Magic Roundabout.

He's very handsome. You can't see his legs. He's a very distinctive-looking dog. He is, isn't he? Adorable. And I was saying to you... I love his tail. Yeah.

Kind of goes in all kinds of directions. He's got quite a tall. Does he wag it? Oh, when he gets excited and you all know. I hope that at some point in this walk, I will get to see him wagg his tail. You can... He sort of twirks, really. He does a bit, yeah.

I can imagine that. But, I mean, it's kind of... He looks like a push-me-pull you because it looks like he's got his head as his back as well. Show Tom how you wag your tail. I've obviously got lots I want to talk to you about because I'm a huge fan of your podcast,

the rest is history, along with the rest of the world. And I thought you were going to get on with Raymond because he's got something of the historian energy about him. In what way? Well, I mean, lots of historians are very lazy. How dare you, Tom. You only just met him. Well, I know, I'm saying he's full of energy.

So I'm not saying it, you know. I tell you why, because he's very thoughtful and reflective. And he's also quite curious about the world. Right, yes. So he's kind of interesting smells. He's quite considered as well. He doesn't roll in shite or anything. Because he's got quite a lot of.

a fur, hasn't he? That would not be pleasant. Do you know what? He's a bit of an old school gent, Raymond. And he looks at other dogs sort of rolling around and as if they're animals, frankly. Which I suppose they are. To be fair. So Tom, you haven't brought a dog with you because you don't have a dog. I don't have a dog. I had dogs when I was a child, but that was because I grew up in the country. And we've just never had a dog. We've just never had dogs in living in London. We've got two cats. Initially we didn't have cat because I was very allergic to them. And then we got adopted by an absolutely monstrous black stray. And this was in Holloway. So we called him Stanley. And we adored him so much. And it was kind of what made

me think that it would be good to have children. We, I mean, we lavished all our parental affection on Stanley, who in so many ways was a cat that did not really repay our affection. It would be fair to say. And then we got two kittens. And just because I'm really arsey, we called them Harold and Edith after Harold Godwinson, who died at the Battle of Hastings and his sister Edith. And Harold ran away. He didn't die.

He got picked up by somebody else. and he'd been chipped but there were two children who adored him so much we couldn't bear to take him back and so we got another kitten whom we called Tosti so Tosti was Harold's younger brother so we've got Edith and Tosti

and Edith is now she's going to be 18 in April so she's a very very elderly lady and she's really living her best life even at this venerable age But obviously, you can't take it for walks in parks. I would say that the reason I think you're going to get along with Raymond is because he's got quite cat-like qualities. He has quite, yeah.

I mean, he's not sitting on a cushion, which is basically what he does all day now. Not right now. But does he? He hasn't been known to. I treat him very much because his breed was originally from the, oh, there's some trouble up there, Tom. What do you like when it all kicks off? I run away. That's the lesson of history.

That's why it's worth studying. You know what to do. This is, I mean, this is a great park for dog walkers. And it's a brilliant way to make friends. Come on, Ray. So whenever you bring a dog here, you always make friends. Such a nice breaker. And so when you were growing up, Tom, let's go back to your childhood

because you did, as you said, you had a dog. Am I right in thinking you had a dandy dim on? Yeah, we did. So our first dog was a bearded collie. He was called Ben, who just was one of those pets that accompanied, you know, when they accompanied children through their lives. And he, when he died, it was like childhood was over. So he's the one who is kind of centre most in my heart. But then my parents have always had dogs. So they've, they've still got one now. And was he like your, I've heard you talking about Lord Byron's dog,

He's obviously famously memorialised. Yes, his funeral honouring is at Neustard Abbey. And it's, what does it say, Tom? It's something like all the virtues of men and none of the vices. Yes. But he had rabies. Bosan, not Byron. Byron tended him, wiping away the froth from his jaws.

So the bearded collie, and what was the bearded collie called again? Ben. How lovely, and you did form a attachment to Ben. Oh, I love Ben. I mean, we all love Ben. Our house is still full of pictures of him. Photos, paintings, drawings of him. Paintings.

And this was growing up in... So it was a village outside Salisbury. And we lived in a cottage called a U-Tree cottage because it had a U-Tree. And the U-Tree, the branches hung over the road. So it leaned over the fence and hung over the road. And whenever a bus came by, the top of the bus would scrape the U-Tree branches.

and Ben would run round and round the garden for about 20 times barking his head off. And we would just scream Ben, but with no expectation that he would stop running around barking. And it just became kind of part of the background noise. So Sadie, my wife, when she first came to stay with us, she was stunned that this dog was just running around howling. We would just shout Ben and nothing would be done. So it must have felt like a real sense of part of your childhood had gone. Completely. And this is why I feel, I feel sad at how old Edith is,

because I know when she dies that it will be like that for my daughters. Well, they say it's that first very difficult lesson, isn't it, and one of life's most inconvenient truth, I suppose. unless you sublet it out to Disney and make them watch the Lion King. Yes. Bambi. Tell me also, you had it, did you have a dandy dimment then? Yeah, called Jake. Jakey.

And Dandy Dimmints are, I'm sure, I mean, you know, as a dog person, you'll know all this. But they're very exclusive. And they have a tremendous pedigree. They come with a family tree. And they have a little top knot. And I think they're named after a character in a Walter Scott novel. And he was a very adorable dog. But he had a bad back.

I think Danny Dimments have bad backs. So he was less mobile than, say, Ben. Yeah. So Jake would not run around the garden shouting at buses. That was not his vibe at all. They're really, they're incredibly unusual, as you say, aren't they? I think there's only, you rarely see them. Whenever I see one, I'm really excited.

Yeah, they're very unusual. as actually are bearded collies. So bearded collies aren't that common either. So I'm interested to know a bit more about your... What life was like growing up for you. You were out near sort of Salisbury, as you say. Yeah. And sounds quite an idyllic childhood.

Yeah, it was. It was wonderful. It was a wonderful childhood. And it was you and your mum... Was your dad a solicitor or something? Yes. My mother was an occupational therapist. And your brother, James... Yeah. So this was a village called Broadchalk, where Cecil Beaton lived.

So Greta Garbo would come there. And we had the house next door to it. So it was this gorgeous, massive Queen Anne house. And had it this huge, I mean, it wasn't really garden, it was grounds. And we would just kick a ball over or hit a ball over. And then we'd have an excuse to go and roam around. So it was like Peter Rabbit, then Mr. McGregor's going. garden. It was great.

How incredible, Tom. Yeah. To have that. What next door neighbours? Yeah, I know. I know. And so did you see sort of glamorous people coming and going? No, never saw them. No, I mean, we never, I think we saw Cecil Beaton very, very rarely. Can I just say that's a great quote? I mean, the thing is, I'd love you to have said that as a child.

We see Cecil had been so rarely. That's the problem. Well, I mean, I don't mean socially. And seize Cecil. But I mean, literally, he barely ever came out. So, it was you, were you allowed to name your mom and dad? Yeah, Jan's and Martin. Jan's and Martin and James. Yeah.

And Tom. Yeah. I read somewhere, I don't know if it's you that said this. It was kind of almost like an Edwardian childhood. No, it certainly, no, it was quite a 70s childhood because it was in the 70s. I mean, it was lots of spacehoppers and rallies and. All that kind of thing. I mean, it was very, very 70s.

And lots of time spent in multi-story car parks. So there was definitely, I mean, you know, it... I just hear you three cottage and I'm very excited. I'm sorry, as a Londoner. Yeah, of course. I mean, there was an element of that. And the whole going around, you know, the vegetable garden of a state of an enormous queen-in house.

I mean, that was quite Edwardian. It was very, very Beatrix Potter. But looking back, it was a very 70s. Very 70s upbringing. And were you quite a kind of studious and quiet child? I was very bookish. I basically found things in the past a lot more interesting than things in the present. So I loved dinosaurs and I loved them with an intensity that I find very, very high.

hard to convey as an adult, I would have given anything to have seen a dinosaur. And I found, um, you know, life in, in the 1970s, immense frustrations. It wasn't the Mesozoic. And I would say that I, I mean, I just kind of, the interest in dinosaurs then seamlessly moved on to the Romans and then Middle Ages and there was never a time where I wasn't more interested in the past. And it, basically, you know, there wasn't that much you could do to engage with the past beyond having books and reading about them. There wasn't a lot else you could do. I mean, you know, there might be, I don't know, plastic models or something, but there's not much you can do with plastic models. So I, looking back at it, I realised that I spent a lot of

lot of time, not exactly a fantasy world, but a world in which everything seemed more vivid in my imaginings. And so that's why I would, that's why I was bookish, because I, a good history book or a good book about dinosaurs when I was even younger, I mean, it would transport me in a way that very few things in the real world would, which is kind of, I don't know whether it's, whether that's a terrible thing when I look back or not. I've always been interested in that sort of childhood fascination with dinosaurs. And I've read different theories on that. There was one thing I read once, I think it was some sort of Jungian practitioner who said something.

And had said something about how it's the child, it's kind of the child making sense of the world, because they're surrounded by all these big unfathomable creatures. I don't know, but do you think kids just like mythical, well, they're not mythical. But it's precisely because it's not mythical, actually. Yeah, it's real. They were real. So the fact that they were real was a crucial part of the appeal. The fact that these extraordinary creatures had existed,

but also the impossibility ever of seeing them. So I don't quite know what a, maybe it's more a Freudian thing, that you want something that you can't have. You know it was there but it no longer is. I can imagine psychotherapists having a field day with that. But I think it's also that when you're very young, they just seem impossibly fierce and exciting and terrifying but safely extinct.

So the fact that they are, that you can't see them, is what enables you, it gives you a licence to be frightened by them. I think also because there was no CGI, because they were very rarely on TV, there just wasn't the kind of the array of commercially driven dinosaur-themed dinosaur-themed products that there are now. You had to kind of collect such opportunities to go up at dinosaurs as you could. So a book would be a magical thing. If there was a new dinosaur book, it would.

would be a magical thing and I would read over and over and over again. Little Tom Holland sitting at home saying, New dinosaur book just dropped. Well, I mean, they give me a Proustian rush. I still have them, the ones that I have. So they're in the attic of my parents' house. So if I look at them, they instantly take me back. There's actually a website that's devoted to old dinosaur books.

And I had them all. And I just kind of look at them. And it's this, as I say, this kind of Proustian... And so I then seemingly moved on to Romans and Greeks. So the books of Greek myths, my grandmother had a massive collection of, they must have been Edwardian books, I guess, about the world mythologies. And they had tremendous illustrations. They were all kind of pre-Raphaelite paintings and sculptures and things.

But again, they were just so exciting to look at. and then there were the ones kind of mortally for children, I have them as well. But there was also a book, it was called The Roman Army, and it was written by the same Blake who illustrated it, a man called Peter Connolly. And on the cover, it had Julius Caesar's greatest victory, where he was besieging a Gallic army, and then another Gallic army came to relieve it.

So he was being attacked on both sides. And on the cover, it showed massacred, a great battle. There was kind of blood everywhere and it was like an illustration of a sauropod being devoured by an allisaur or something and it obviously just appealed to the kind of horrible boy. Horrible kind of little boy thing yeah yeah absolutely. Tom what would you like to drink? I would like a hot chocolate please. What a brilliant idea. I'm going to have. I've had about five cups of tea already. Two hot chocolates. No marshmallows in Okay, two hot chocolates now?

Oh, you're going for hot chocolate? Yeah. Hello. How are you? Good, thank you. Just getting some hot chocolates. And could I have a pastel donata as well? Thank you.

Excuse my ignorance. That reminds me of like those Portuguese cuts for the top. Is that what it is? Yeah. Yeah. Do you know what? You're going to go for that as well? What do you know if I coffee do?

No, go for it. Can I have a pastel don't as well? Two of those? Two plates would be great. I really like you, Tom. But I think it's quite. quite early to share plates, don't you? And I want to respect Mrs. Tom, aka Sadie.

No, she wouldn't mind. She wouldn't mind at all. I love coming to this area. My grandmother used to live around here. It's a wonderful park. It disgraced itself in the pandemic. Did it? Why? It was the first park to be shut down for a misbehavior.

You know, they'd all rushed around putting tape on. benches so that no one can sit down and everyone ignored it and there were kind of massive parties going on so they shut it down we were all put other than a naughty step and i think it was the first park in the whole of britain to have misbehaved so badly i just felt this great pride in brixton yet again should we sit here and finish our tarts tom we don't want to be wandering around holding our plates with our tarts on it like it's the ambassador's reception we could multi-times I'm getting a really strong picture of your childhood and bookish Tom with his dinosaur books. Yeah.

And his books on ancient Rome. Yeah. And I bet you were quite a well-behaved kid, won't you? I was quite well-behaved, yeah. I'm not one of life's natural rebels. No. What about James, your brother? Because normally it's...

He'd always get in trouble much more than me. But I was kind of quite evil. You know, I might occasionally blame him. And because my reputation was a good one, I'd always get away with it. So I was quite a kind of unpleasant, you know, I was quite naughty, but in an unpleasant and evil way. So you were a bit Machiavellian.

Yeah. Yeah. I was like a kind of evil character in Game of Thrones. He never gets found out. I was like Littlefinger. I mean, not 100%, I hasten to add. Well, I always used to have, with my late sister, we used to have a game when we were growing up.

Similar to you and James probably, there were two of us, and I was naughty spice, I suppose. I was the James, and she was Tom. And she used to have a thing, a brilliant thing, that whenever she met someone, she had three categories she put people into, and she said, she used to say some people are kings, and kings can't get along with other kings.

So she said, everyone was either a king or a courtier. And then I remember meeting someone, so I said, what are they? And she went, oh, that's a poisoner. Oh, right, yes. And the poison are cacted, agree. I mean, I don't want to say that I was a poison. I mean, I got on.

My brother and I adored each other. We had a wonderful, wonderful childhood. We got on with each other so well, and we still do. And I, I mean, I know sometimes siblings cannot get on, always get on well, but we always got on well. And my occasional forays into Machiavellian evil were very limited. I suspect you tried to be Machiavellian, but you. But you probably won't. I didn't try, I was.

What sort of things would it be? Just... Oh, you know, I'd do something. My mother would get cross. I would say it was him. And I would look so innocent that he'd then get in trouble for denying it. I mean, everyone's had that, surely. Or am I betraying?

Utter depths of depravity. Maybe he's listening to this and he'll find... He'll realise that it was all me. And he'll never speak to me. I read you said something about your dad wants which I found really telling them quite interesting which was that he was a bit of a sort of TV refuse Nick in some ways and that he was he he he wouldn't allow us to watch ITV or the generation game or despite being a massive football fan match of the day so that so they were all kind of weird weird things that he you know he did

taken against. So I still feel a bit guilty every time I watch I TV. And I still feel quite guilty watching match for the day. So it's kind of lingering aftershock. Well, that's orcs, isn't it? Considering he owns our company. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, it is. Sorry, Gary, if you're listening, can I say Tom, Tom is fine? Yeah, but that was long before Gary was on it. So, I think it must be Jimmy Hill. He had weird, um, things he told him. He took him. He took, against. So, yeah. Other things he took against was basically anywhere foreign. So we never went abroad, ever. I remember there was this, so I said there were no programs about dinosaurs ever. But there was this one series, there was an open university series called For the Ark. And I must have

been about six, but I would watch it without understanding almost anything in it. But then they had a program about dinosaurs, which came from this town called Dinosaur, which was in America, next to a national park where there were lots of dinosaur bones. And the way they shot it, it made it look as though everywhere was about dinosaurs.

So I imagine there being dinosaur restaurants and dinosaur parks and dinosaur shops, and it would all just be brilliant. And I begged and begged my parents, could we go to Dinosaur? But it was in America, so there's no way we're going to go to America. I mean, so my father didn't like America either.

So that was also on his list of things he didn't like. And then just before my first daughter was born, I thought this is going to be my last chance for ages to go on a trip. So I'm going to go to Dinosaur. And I went with my oldest friend. We drove all the way there. It was miles and miles and miles. And these signs would start appearing saying,

100 miles to Dinosaur. dinosaur. 50 miles to dinosaur. You are only 20 miles from dinosaur. Yes, folks, it's only three miles to dinosaur. We arrived in dinosaur. There was nothing there. It was a crossroads with a stegosaur, a model of a stegasor that had been vandalized. They'd knocked its head off. And I just felt this, I mean, I imagine if I'd make my father go there, he would have hated it. I was so relieved. So in lots of ways he was right in his determination, not to go anywhere that wasn't, didn't have really cold seas. Well, certainly he'd realize that pre-Google, you've got to do your research.

He's never had an email. He's never had an email address. Your dad? Yeah. He's never had a mobile phone. I mean, he's a very distinctive man. I kind of love that in a way. Whereas my mother is tremendously game.

Really? Yeah. She's got an iPad. and all kinds of things. You can do it all. Do you think, Tom, as you get older, you kind of look back on some of the stuff your parents said and you think, oh yeah, maybe they were right about that?

Well, they are still. Very loving, very kind, never had any doubt that we were put first. So in that sense, absolutely. I mean they're completely my role models. I mean, in other senses, on the whole never watching ITV thing. I mean, less so. And now, I have to say, I mean, they watch ITV very happily.

They watch ITV a lot. Oh, well, they're sitting there watching dancing on ice, can't get enough of it. No, they wouldn't watch celebrities doing it? Wouldn't they? No, that one. Would they watch any reality TV? No. I mean, no.

Can you imagine if you... The whole celebrities on ice thing. I mean, that is not, that's not their back. You know what I'd love? I'd love to sneak round to your house and find your dad on an iPad watching dancing on ice. We'd catch him. You'd never catch him.

You'd never catch him. So, and you were, as you said, you were very studious and passionate about dinosaurs and passionate about specifically Roman history. Well, all history. I mean, the Greeks and the Romans were my gateway drug, but I loved it all. I mean, and it's kind of limitless source of fascination. So it was a great thing to get into. And when you were at school, was it obvious that were you very good at history?

Yes, I was very good at history. Really? Yeah, it was the one thing I was good at. Well, interestingly, as we know, as many people may know, you ultimately went on to read English at you know. I did. But you were presumably, you were fairly straight A student. Yeah.

What is? Yeah, I was. You were kind of the dream child, really. No, I think I was more awkward than that. In what way? I think there were lots of things I wasn't good at. I had good friends, but there were lots of people who I found it hard to get on with. hard to get on with. My brother has an incredible ability. I mean he has a genius for getting

on with all kinds of people and I felt I slightly lacked the I felt I closed myself off against the kind of experiences that perhaps I should have had. I didn't have I didn't perhaps just as a young child play or as a teenager kind of hang out to quite the degree that I sometimes think I should have done. It's that sort of abandon that children have, you know, that. So we had cousins and when they came to stay with us or we went to stay with them, then it was like, it was kind of magical. It was just kind of magical,

a sense that everything was great. Everything was full of adventure and fun and excitement. So I remember that, but somehow with other friends, kind of less so. And I think it may be because we were, we weren't in a town. And so therefore it was quite difficult to just meet up casually because you always had to kind of arrange it'd go on the bus or get your parents to drive you or something. And I look at my daughters and they, you know, they live in London

and they can just go anywhere. and they, it's really easy for them. So I think maybe that was it. But again, having said that, didn't seem to worry my brother at all. He managed to handle it much better than me. I wonder if, in some ways, that passion that you had,

you obviously got really, was so intensely fascinated. You had this kind of interior world, really, didn't you? The thing is, I mean, That it's hard for anyone under the age of what? 40? To imagine the potential for boredom that growing up in the 70s,

you could be so bored. I think it's impossible now to be bored. Everyone's got phones. There's always something you can do. But then do you look back at your dad saying, for example, slightly restricting your access to TV, for example. He never stopped us watching. it. It wasn't like that.

It wasn't, he never said you can't watch it. It was just he would make it clear that he didn't approve. He despised people, he watched it. I think it was that. I didn't want to. That's quite a heavy incentive not to watch it because kids want their parents' approval. So, no, I'm not acting like he was like some Mr. Murdstone or something. It's just that I know there were things that my parents would say. And it wasn't, you can't do this, but just from the fact that they,

didn't approve of it, that would make me think, oh, okay, that's not in our family script, or maybe I won't do that. What I'm saying is, would you have been as brilliant if you'd have had access to all of that? It's not a question of being brilliant. It's a question of imagining things vividly. And it's hard for me to tell because I think that your imaginings have an intensity as a child and perhaps, you know, into early adulthood. that they don't have as you get older your dreams and your imaginings are less vivid you know your earliest

experiences perhaps because your experience in the first time are always more vivid but I'm sure that that was turbocharged by the fact that you know there wasn't really much to see on TV there weren't iPads there weren't phones so in a way you had to make your own entertainment you went to it was Cambridge you went

to. Yeah. And you read English. Yeah. Were your parents really proud when you got in? Or was it kind of on the cards really? Because you were... They, I'm sure they were. I mean, they must have been. But they... I mean, I never felt I had to do it because they would be disappointed if I didn't get it. I mean, as I say, I always had the utter confidence. that no matter what I did, or if I messed things up or whatever, they would still absolutely love me. I mean, I never had any doubt on that score. I never felt any pressure from them.

You know, that there were things I had to do to impress them or anything. I always felt that they would love me. Didn't matter. I love the Hollands. I mean, they were wonderful parents. I mean, I've made my father sound eccentric. And looking back, I think he is quite eccentric. I like people like that.

I mean, I never thought of him as being eccentric when I was growing up. I mean, he was always the absolute standard of what a father should be. I think he sounds like he just had integrity because I like people that... He does have integrity. He absolutely has integrity. You know, just think, well, these are my beliefs and that's... This is how I'm going to live my life. But he's also... I mean, he was also a very gentle person. And I think quite a very funny, but...

shy as well. See, you're very funny, Tom, and that comes over a lot in your Rested History podcast, because obviously you're a great double at. So was that humour something, did you laugh a lot at home? Yeah, yeah, yes, I suppose so. And when you went to Cambridge, you did English, as we say, and you did quite well, didn't you? Yeah.

What did you get, Tom? I got double first. Again, I imagine that was probably predicted from the tutors probably loved you. What's it like to be so good at everything? I'm not good at everything. I mean, I'm absolutely not good at everything. What are you not good at? Well, I've said, I mean, I'm not good at, I think I'm better, but I'm not good at...

So we've got a friend who's staying with us at the moment, Laura, who has an absolute genius for just, you know, you want to go somewhere, she knows where you should go. You want a great time, she can just organise it. I can never do that. It's a kind of, it's an absolute failing that I, that if I do organise something, there'll be something wrong with it, you know, I don't know. I'll forget something or it will have shut or whatever.

It's a kind of talent for living well, for living kind of joyously. And I, you know, a talent for joy is maybe something that I've really had to kind of work at. A sort of spontaneity and embracing your childish heart. Well, you see, I think you can be too, too, uh, too bookish that in a way kind of just thinking, oh, just go with it, I'll just go with, you know, where things, so I do try and do that.

So I tell you, I tell you another thing, cooking. So my daughters, they can just open the fridge, you know, there's all kinds of rubbish there, and they can just put it together, and it's always amazing. I can never do that. I get kind of tense about recipes and things.

I mean, I really know it sounds like a small thing, but there's a kind of, there's a kind of genius. I mean, loads of people listening to this, I'm sure, it's just brilliant at rustling things up with stuff that's in a fridge. But if you don't have that talent, I know, but you know what? It's something that I really envy.

And I kind of, and it's one of the great things about being a parent is when you see your children, do things that you can't do. Oh, look. What's happened? Oh, no. Your hot chocolate's leaking. I spilled hot chocolate all over myself.

No. See, I've got rid of it now. One of my skills, if you're interested, is getting stains out of things. No, it's getting stains out of things. You see, I wouldn't have that either. So you got your double first from Cambridge, and you had a great time there, I presume. I did, yes, I did. And did you sort of feel you came out of your shell a bit, sort of socially, because...

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. And did you meet your wife? I did. I met my wife there. Yes, I did. What happened when you first met her? So she was, we met on the first day that we were at Cambridge.

And she was in a room, two rooms down. No, sorry, she was a floor barb, but she was in the same block. And she introduced herself a Sadie. She's a distinctive name. And so I said, oh, sexy Sadie. And instead of giving me a slap, she recognised, the illusion to the white album. And so essentially that was the first thing we ever talked about.

And the Beatles remain a bond to this day. That was about, wasn't that song about one of the... It's about the Maharishi. Yeah, the Maharishi. John Lennon came back from Rishkesh, and he'd gone there and decided that he was all a fraud. So yes, it's about him being a fraud. But he didn't want to...

make it explicit that is about our issue so he disguised it but then went around and told everyone she's very John Lennel was there a part of you when she got that reference there was nice those moments where you feel oh yeah okay we're on the same page yeah exactly we were best friends

it was kind of very well it's not like one day because on one day they didn't meet on the last day don't they but honestly I'm I'm slightly less eligible than Dexter. So you guys met and you were friends.

Yeah, and then she got a grant to go and study film at Stanford in California. And the thought of her going away for a year suddenly shocked us both into thinking, let's get this together. So we did. And the rest is history. And what did she make of you when she first saw you? I think she probably thought I was a bit of an ass. I did read her say somewhere that you were wearing espadryls when you first met.

Yeah, it was all kind of, you know, an awful mid-80 student. Slightly wham. All that kind of, yes. Terrible hair. Look at the Andrew Richly of Cambridge. Yeah, what does that make, Dominic? George Michael, I don't think so. I really hope you enjoyed part one of my chat with Tom Holland from The Resters History.

As I said, he was such a fantastic guest. We're extending our chat into a second episode. If you're listening to this on the day of release, you can hear part two on Thursday. And make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss it.