Nostalgia Interviews With Chris Deacy

In the second part of my interview with Irene Williams, Irene talks about how the family moved to Cardiff, and how to begin with they had neither a house nor any money. Her father helped them with a deposit and Irene decided to go out to work, managing to secure the first job for which she applied. We also find out about what was the hardest nine years of Irene’s life. We learn whether their son Martyn was able to get a scholarship to study at Atlantic College. Irene recounts in detail what she heard about the interview experience and about the unexpected occasion when he brought his friends over to stay the night after missing the bus. We hear about how Irene and Cyril ended up in Lampeter. The journey started in Canada when Cyril was asked to start up a department of Religious Studies at Aberystwyth. Irene talks about the importance of studying more than Christianity and how Cyril managed to get a colleague down from Bangor to Aberystwyth. They ate at home and with the money saved Cyril was able to buy bo

My very special guest this week is Mrs. Irene Williams, a centenarian. Irene is an inspiring lady with a wealth of history and experience in terms of the development of Religious Studies at Lampeter and a considerable amount of international humanitarian work over many decades. We will hear more about these dynamics in the second part of this interview, to be broadcast in the next episode. In this first instalment, we learn about Irene’s early years. She was born in October 1921, she talks about her father who had been in France in the First World War, and we discover that Irene is the eldest of four sisters, one of whom is still living in the same house. We hear about Sunday School and her father’s pacifism and how he became the Baptist Church organist for 44 years. Irene met her future husband, Professor Cyril Williams, when they were both at school, and Irene talks about his brilliance. Irene reflects upon her mother’s legacy and values – cleanliness and cooking. We hear about her and Cyril’s courtship

My guest this week is Anne Watkins, who came to Lampeter in 1985, after originally expecting to work for the Civil Service, where she studied Philosophy and Ethics in Western Thought. Anne recalls hearing the sheep bleating on the hills and knowing that Lampeter was the place for her. We talk about long friendships especially with the overseas students and about how Philosophy helped her to think carefully. Anne also did an MA in Interfaith Relations. Anne talks about growing up in Cardiff and her earliest memories and her traumatic transition to high school. She remembers her Catholic education and the Corpus Christi procession. She remembers listening to the charts when growing up and discusses how her dreams have changed over the years.  We find out why Anne couldn’t join the Merchant Navy and how she always wanted to travel. Anne failed her ‘O’ levels but ended up staying and working in Higher Education and made it her mission to improve education for others. Anne is a fanatical record keeper by way o

My guest this week is Jonty Stern, who works at the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. Jonty ran the Doctor Who Society at Lampeter and we learn about his encyclopaedic knowledge of the series and the impact it has had on him over the years. Jonty did Welsh Studies at Lampeter and focused on Celtic languages. He was the only student in the UK doing Middle Breton at the time, and we find out how he became interested in languages. His ‘A’ levels didn’t work out for him – and we learn how Lampeter beckoned. Jonty is obsessed with diaries and history and has been keeping a diary since 1986. He even brought along his 1990-93 Lampeter diaries to our interview which took place at the O2 in Greenwich on one of the hottest days of the year in July 2022. Jonty explains how some of his entries were written up many years later and we have a discussion about who his diaries are written for, and how some of the topics on which he writes only exist in his diary – there is no other, say, internet reference to the events de

My guest this week is Craig Braddick, a British born race caller from Arizona who I have interviewed previously in this podcast series. Craig is a specialist on the history of TV sport and here we focus on various sporting events in the monochrome era from 1948-1966. We begin by discussing the way in which sport has always been on demand and has united people in a community. Craig talks about pre-Second World War women’s amateur sport which came to prominence in the 1948 London Olympics. There is very little of the 1948 Olympics in the archives and it is important for giving us the genesis of what we are used to in TV sport coverage today. We then look at the 1953 FA Cup Final, the oldest soccer broadcast in the archives, and how it is atmospheric of a different era. This is when TV for the first time became the first choice over radio for experiencing sport. We discuss Roger Bannister and the 4 minute mile, and how it was broadcast on a programme called Sportsview which was the first show in the UK to use

My guest this week is Ben Marsh, Reader in History at the University of Kent, and very well known for the Marsh Family musical videos which inspired so many people during and since lockdown. Ben talks about how people have been craving something authentic and we learn what it was like to perform live on Comic Relief, meeting (nearly) Richard Curtis and being watched by people one has constructed one’s world around. Ben reflects on how some people will see in the videos whatever it is that reinforces their cultural world and how the videos have endeavoured to bring people together. Music can reach people and enable us to escape tribalism. We talk about copyright issues and find out about the inspiration for some of the music. We learn about Ben’s research on histories of failure and how he very nearly didn’t become an academic. He couldn’t study History at school, but we learn that something about colonial America clicked for him. We talk about going back to the music or films that mattered to us when young,

My guest this week is Rianna Patterson, an accredited coach, social entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, mental health advocate and founder of the Dominica Dementia Foundation. She has also done film work for an NHS client on the importance of music for people with dementia, and in the interview Rianna talks about the importance of celebrating older people. We find out why Rianna became involved in this research and the stigma around it, and she discusses how we have come a long way in terms of how we deal with grief. Born in Hackey and raised in Dominica, Rianna came to the University of Kent to study Psychology and graduated in 2020. She talks about how she has retraced the timeline and story of her grandparents. We talk about how there is so much more to a person than, say, their job, and why it is important to have human conversations. Rianna’s earliest memories include going to the beach with her grandparents, and we learn that from a young age Rianna perfected the art of video editing. She talks abou

It was a great pleasure to meet José Moreno Carbonell for my latest Nostalgia Interview. Our paths may have once crossed in Lampeter where we were both students in the 1990s. José lives in France but comes from Spain and works as a high school Spanish teacher. José has just had a novel published called A la sombra de la glicinia - https://www.amazon.es/sombra-glicinia-Antonio-Moreno-Carbonell/dp/B09W7FLQ49 - which is a recreation of oral tradition from his home village mixed with classical mythology and 20th century Spanish history. It was written during lockdown and José talks about how it came about and the way in which writing was a survival strategy. We learn about José’s earliest memories from growing up in Spain and how he comes from a family of school teachers. He always wanted to be a writer and we find out how José couldn’t have been a writer if he hadn’t become a teacher. We learn about José’s TV influences when growing up in Spain in the days when there was just one channel, and we talk ab

Marion Stuart turns the tables on me for this week’s Nostalgia Interview. I talk about my earliest memories which involve having my hair washed as a baby and listening to Pinky and Perky at nursery (obsessively) and how my children don’t have the same musical tastes as me. I talk about what I was interested in outside of music, and my obsession with TV or radio schedules. This helped me at university in terms of having a copious record of all my lecture notes and being organized with essay writing. Looking back I wonder if I would be labelled today as having OCD. We talk about what experiences have moulded me the most, as well as my relationship with my parents and the notion of protectiveness. Marion asks me why movies are such a significant part of my life and how I came to film relatively late on, and we talk about what it is like to see a film many years after the first viewing - and the way in which my diary gives me a record of that film. She asks about my theology and about my interest in N

My guest this week is legendary broadcaster David Hamilton. David’s career goes back to 1959 when he joined the British Forces Network radio station in Germany and was there at the same time as Elvis Presley. He was the last person to present Housewives’ Choice and did one of the first TV interviews with The Beatles. David talks about his stint on Radio 1 and how the station evolved from the pirate days, and discusses in particular the camaraderie with the Radio 1 football team. We talk about the latest RAJAR radio industry data figures and how Boom Radio, where David currently works, is rising and how it taps into the gap created by national radio stations. David talks about how lockdown has changed our working patterns, and why he likes being in his cocoon in Sussex. David reflects on his time presenting Top of the Pops in an age when whole families would congregate around the TV, and he talks about how change is happening more quickly now than has been the case in previous decades. Radio was Da

It was terrific for this week’s Nostalgia Interview to meet Lyle Young. Lyle is a research and innovation coordinator for the University of Kent and was formerly a student at Kent where he studied English for his degree. Originally from Hertfordshire, Lyle talks about Canterbury being his adopted home and we learn about his love of literature and of being a novelist. We learn how he came to work in event organization and comms and about two novels he has written. Lyle wrote for 30 minutes a day on his most recent book which he explains is a work of sci-fi that’s similar to the world of Ready Player One about someone who wants to be a video game streamer. He enjoys writing about young people. Lyle talks about how his girlfriend has been really good at helping him and he discusses one’s motivations for doing things and whether we ultimately do them for ourselves. We learn about Lyle’s influences which include Philip K. Dick and Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days and how they’re not about the future but abo

It was a huge privilege for this week’s Nostalgia Interview to meet Nigel Nelson, the longest serving political editor in Fleet Street. Nigel works for the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People. We recorded our interview on the afternoon that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer received fines from the Metropolitan Police for attending a party in Downing Street during lockdown. Nigel gives us his take on whether they should have resigned and how the removal of the Prime Minister affects the country’s command structure. Nigel has worked with seven Prime Ministers, and he explains that he still has a frisson of excitement every time he walks into the House of Commons. He talks about how history can teach you lessons but that it can’t tell you what will happen next. We discuss how the nature of news and politics has changed over the years and how it is now a 24/7 operation. Nigel talks about the things he sometimes can’t publish and why he is irritated by political biographies, and how facts do

My guest this week is Heide Kunzelmann, German Culture & Language Coach for International Knowledge Workers - largely qualified migrants and expats - based in Vienna. Heide left the University of Kent in 2020 and she discusses transferable skills and how to use them to make a living. Heide talks about her Austrian background and how she left home to study at the age of 18. She talks about memories that stretch back to moving at the age of four, including a home with no electricity, and she remembers the quiet and having lots to do as an only child. Heide reveals the importance of her Walkman when she was young and how she would take long walks and listen to Rick Astley. We talk about the notion of instant gratification and of retro and the role of nostalgia as well as how film can be a portal into our pasts that opens up an emotional landscape. Heide talks about the relationship between the uncanny and nostalgia, and we learn why Top Gun was the coolest film ever when she was growing up, but that

My guest this week is Dan Clark, e-Learning Manager at the University of Kent who begins the interview by talking about the power that technology has in learning and teaching. We talk about our experiences during lockdown of rapid change and how technology can make things happen. Dan discusses how and when he is able to stay away from technology because it is a massive part of his day job. We talk about the days before the internet when we would find things via a paper trail and the important role of physical products. Dan is from Cheshire and he talks about his Lake District connection and why it is such a magical place for him. Cornwall was his ‘go to’ place as a child where there was a different pace of life, and this leads to us discussing the notion of counterpoint. We learn why music is important to Dan. He talks about his earliest musical memories relating to travelling to Oban, Scotland, in 1987, including ‘Brothers in Arms’ by Dire Straits. He was given an electric guitar on his 15th birthda

My guest this week is Iain Dale, radio presenter, commentator, blogger, publisher, author and former Parliamentary candidate. Iain talks about why he turns down many TV invitations these days, why he hates the ‘gotcha’ style of interviewing and why the long form interview is back in vogue. He also reveals how he has gotten people to open up to him in a way that they haven’t to other interviewers. Iain reflects on how it used to be a challenge for him to interview people he knew well, e.g. David Davis, but that that isn’t the case now. He says he can get more out of someone through the soft form, non-confrontational interview, and he likens David Frost’s interview style to that of Lt. Columbo. Iain reflects on his recent LBC interview with former House of Commons Speaker John Bercow and the interview he conducted with David Amess, six months before he was murdered. We talk about the difference between a radio and a podcast interview and find out which former Prime Minister Iain is waiting to interview an

My guest this week is a playwright Lance Woodman, who has written for Radio 4 and is a theatre tour guide for the Royal Shakespeare Company.  Lance was born in Hereford but moved quite a bit while young and now lives in Stratford-upon-Avon. He has undertaken research into his family tree (Lance’s great uncle was my maternal grandfather), including most recently the 1921 census. He talks about how this has been a source of stories for his playwriting, and we learn about the rabbit holes he has found himself going down. Lance talks about how it’s a working class history that is not widely covered, involving no dukes, kings or earls. He found an example of a family member, for example, who was deported due to Poor Law legislation. He reflects on how in such a scenario existence is tenuous and that very few people broke out of the cycle until more recent times. We discuss whether and how Lance uses the raw materials of such research as data for writing plays, and we discover that he uses ghosts as a dram

My guest this week is Vera da Silva Sinha who works as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of York, looking at time, number and space in indigenous minority language communities of Brazil. We begin by talking about Vera’s experience of lockdown and of Christmases spent growing up in Brazil. Vera is from a small village in the south of Brazil where her father was a lorry driver. Vera was 29 when she left Brazil, where she was a police officer, and was doing a PhD at the time that she met her husband. She ended up moving to Europe and Vera talks about the stereotypes involved when comparing different countries. Vera talks about how she didn’t have much money when growing up but that this was offset by the chance to meet many people in different places. She talks about how she became an anthropologist and how she came across two Bibles in different languages which had a big effect on her. She isn’t someone who tends to remember dates but she does remember the images of those moments fro

It was a great pleasure to meet award-winning journalist Jo Phillips for my latest Nostalgia Interview. Jo is a political commentator and has worked as a political editor and broadcaster and was press secretary and policy adviser to Paddy Ashdown and has stood for Parliament. She also worked for Bob Geldof for 10 years. Jo is a sailor and gardener and she explains why she sees herself primarily as a journalist. Jo talks about the importance of being curious, and we learn that radio has been her first love. She explains why it sparks the imagination. We also learn about her political interests and leanings, and why politics is not just about Westminster. She has written a book called Why Vote? A guide for those who can’t be bothered – which details the work she has done to get people who wouldn’t normally vote to do so – and talks about why local engagement matters. Jo then reveals how she got to work with Paddy Ashdown and she talks about the importance of his diaries. This was a time when Labour and th

My guest this week is Craig Braddick, a horse racing commentator based in the US where he has been living since 2001. Originally from Cambridge, England, Craig works mainly at Turf Paradise in Phoenix, Arizona, where the new film Jockey (Clint Bentley, 2021) was filmed. We find out why Craig made the journey and about how he has worked in around 18 different states largely doing media work. Race calling is a specialized field and we hear about his passion for that. His father was a professional pundit and Craig has been around horseracing since a young age. He talks about how he overcame a speech impediment by emulating TV commentators as a boy. We learn that Peter O’Sullevan and other commentators were very encouraging, and we reflect on the skills that previous generations of broadcasters had. As a commentator the job is to tell a story, like a novel – there are protagonists and antagonists – and Craig explains that although you can see more through binoculars than you can on a TV screen you have to k

My guest this week is Malcolm Dixon, Head of Quality Assurance at the University of Kent who has just published his first novel, The Little House on Everywhere Street. We learn writing fiction is more indicative of who Malcolm is than his day job, and he tells me why good writing is an exercise in misdirection. Malcolm has written short stories in the past, and his novel is about a house with doors that lead on to different cities. It’s all about what makes a happy family, in which the family members have misadventures and go missing in time. He grew up in Liverpool in a different time when it was a deprived city, and Malcolm reveals that he has a prodigious memory and can remember the great Winter of 1963 and going to see the Beatles in 1965, as well as being able to remember learning to walk. He would listen to the charts on a Tuesday lunchtime and to football matches on the radio. Malcolm did his first degree in Sunderland and went to graduate school at the University of Minnesota on a sports scho