Nostalgia Interviews With Chris Deacy

My guest this week is Suzanne Owen, Reader at Leeds Trinity University, who used to be our External Examiner for Religious Studies at Kent. Suzanne talks about how she is always excited to see what other institutions are doing and we learn about how walking is a counterpoint to her day.  We learn about Suzanne’s creative writing work and whether she can ever publish it. We talk about the different skills involved and how it can be like being a detective. Suzanne was, back in the 1980s, a DJ in San Francisco. She was studying radio technology at the time and played punk and new wave. She has researched indigenous traditions and was once a tutor in Canadian Studies. Suzanne’s first post in Leeds Trinity was in World Religions and she talks about why she is critical of the category. When she was 5 years old she had an encounter with a wolf and no one knew she was missing or seemed to care, and Suzanne reflects on how this turned her into an outsider and a non-conformist, even an anarchist. She joined t

My guest this week is Jennifer Uzzell, who is studying for a PhD in Durham, has done a Masters degree at Lampeter, and used to teach full time in a secondary school. Jennifer’s original background is in theology and biblical studies, when she did her undergraduate degree at Durham. We learn about how her interest in Hinduism developed and how Jennifer is a Senior ‘A’ level examiner. Her latest research is on Druids and their attitudes towards death and dying. We talk about how on many levels she is squaring circles. We learn about how she became involved in the funeral director business which in some respects could be construed as a form of therapy. She didn’t see a dead body prior to working in a funeral home, and we find out how Jennifer does the job and how she has the right resources to do it and how she has a vocational role both to the bereaved and the dead. We talk about how Jennifer’s job impacts on her research and vice versa, and we talk about the different ways of conducting funerals that

The tables were turned on me for this week’s Nostalgia Interviews podcast – as I am the guest. Pamela Petro, who did such a fantastic interview with me earlier in 2021, asks me about my background (and we talk about why I don’t sound Welsh), why I used to emulate great radio presenters and newsreaders and why I ended up in academia if I always wanted to be on the radio. I talk about my career path, the dream that never went away, the bridge between broadcasting and teaching, and how this all dovetailed during lockdown when I would record my lectures like doing a radio show. I talk about my first university memory and recount my memories of the first day at Lampeter, which dovetailed with buying a bed for my sister, and why I came close to crying. Friday 4 October 1991 was the beginning of the rest of my life. Pamela asks me what the song is that sums up my student days (the answer may surprise you), and I talk about the 1992 Lampeter Arts Hall Christmas disco when I danced really badly to the Human L

It was a huge pleasure to meet Alison Robertson for this week’s Nostalgia Interview. Alison’s research is in the area of subcultures – specifically BDSM and kink as religious practice. Alison refers to how this is a notoriously sensitive area – and about how hard it can be to get people to talk to her.  Alison discuss the insider vs. outsider question and we learn that Alison is fascinated by areas where boundaries blur. Her participants might reject the label ‘religion’ but not the things that Alison believes make it a religion. Some people have a very fixed understanding of religion. Alison talks about the therapeutic or confessional benefit for her participants when they talk about BDSM, and how some of them both wanted to be identified and didn’t want to be identified at the same time. We discuss stereotypes and the judgements that people think may be attached to what they do, and we look at this in the context of nostalgia and the past. Alison’s first degree was in Law and she is still in tou

My guest this week is Declan Kavanagh, Senior Lecturer in 18th Century Studies in the School of English at the University of Kent. Declan’s specialism is in the area of poetry and political pamphlets from the period and how they address questions of masculinity, nationhood, gender, sexuality and disability.  We talk about surviving lockdown and how it impacted on Declan personally, and about how he became interested in the history of arrangements of power around gayness, queerness and transness. Declan talks about the rage but never any sense of shame over his sexuality, and he is not sure that as much ground has been won in recent decades as the legislative success of, say, same-sex marriage might suggest. There is, for example, still transphobia, and there are questions over whether feminism speaks for trans women. He reflects on the toxic and restrictive notions of gender which are impacting on people and how, although trans people are everywhere, media representations to this end are not always h

My guest this week is Kazuyo Matsuda, who is an architect, working in the UK for the last 20 years and practices the Japanese martial art of Kendo which she has been teaching for over two decades. Kazuyo talks about how Kendo, which originated in Japan in the 13th Century, was first seen in the UK at the Japanese Village in Knightsbridge built in 1885. Kazuyo has been in the UK since 1993 and before that lived in Japan. She came to the UK initially to study Fine Art and we learn how she switched to Architecture. She has three sisters, her father was a solicitor and her mother still lives in Japan. We learn about her memories of growing up, playing touchball and going on adventures in the days before computer games. She went to kendo twice a week with her sister and ended up sticking with it. Kazuyo talks about how lockdown impacted her – and how the experience taught her how important exercise was. We learn that Kendo is a safe sport, relatively speaking, and how she managed to teach it online during

My guest this week is Penny Sartori, a medical researcher and teacher in the field of near-death experiences who did a PhD in NDEs at Lampeter. Penny used to work in the Intensive Therapy Unit in Morriston Hospital in Swansea where she was upset about the death of her patients and which led her to want to research more about death.  Something that Penny discovered is that the neurophysiological assumptions that better fitted her nurse training didn’t seem to be an adequate or sufficient model for understanding the phenomena. She found that talking to patients about what they were feeling and what they said face to face was an eye opening experience. They appreciated the fact that she was taking their experiences seriously whereas in many cases their relatives might dismiss their testimonies. It was a form of empowerment for them which counterbalanced the trauma of having come close to death. Penny talks about the negative experiences which some of the patients had, and she reveals what her colleagues th

My guest this week is Rachel Gefferie who works at the University of Kent as Diversity Mark Officer and is also doing an Anthropology PhD. Rachel, who is originally from Suriname and later moved to the Netherlands, talks about why calendar and anniversary dates and photographs are so important. She can relive the original feelings she had when she looks back at pictures. Rachel tells us why she selects happy moments and why the camera is like an extended eye. We also discuss how other people may interact (differently) with them, even those in the same picture, and Rachel talks about the role that pictures play in her cultural background. They represent the most important thing in one’s life and all of one’s accomplishments. She talks about the time she was asked what the object was from childhood that means the most to her, and it was when she won her first book for writing a story. And we find out about Rachel’s attachment to objects, e.g. jewellery. She has a necklace that reminds her of her time in C

My guest this week is radio enthusiast Noel Tyrrel, founder of the David Hamilton’s Hot Shots fan site and someone who has an encyclopaedic knowledge and collection of vintage radio shows. Noel grew up with radio, and we learn why the person who awakened his interest was David Hamilton. We talk about why Junior Choice was so special and whether the sort of radio presenting that Ed Stewart and David Hamilton epitomized is in ascendance any more. We also find out why David Hamilton is called ‘one take Hamilton’. Noel talks about what it was like to meet his radio heroes and we hear about the time Noel was at the supermarket checkout and who should ring to apologize for not playing ‘Paddy McKinty’s Goat’, which Noel had requested for his young daughter on the Christmas edition of Christmas Junior Choice, but Stewpot himself. He talks about what was so clever about the Jimmy Young show, and how we could never work out what JY’s political sympathies were. We discuss JY’s previous incarnation as a crooner

My guest this week is Babiche Deysel, Executive Headteacher at Petham Primary School in Kent. Originally from the Netherlands, Babiche lived and worked for many years in Zimbabwe and Botswana. In Zimbabwe she studied the economic impact of projects run by a women's group and she discusses the way in which one doesn’t always realize how bad things are in a country which, as she points out, is very different from the country where she got married, until one steps outside of it. Babiche talks about her experience of living in houses surrounded by barbed wire and of friends being attacked. Born in the Hague, Babiche talks about experiences which have made her and her family stronger and about the ways in which we are inclined to look back through the past with a rose coloured lens but in which there were adversities we had to overcome. She talks about her experience of Christmas during the pandemic and how boundaries were woolly during lockdown. She remembers from childhood driving to Spain or Italy and

My guest this week is Pamela Petro, American author, artist and teacher based in Massachusetts. Pamela has just published a memoir called The Long Field in which we learn about her passion for Wales as an American, based around the concept of hiraeth. Pamela did an MA in The Word and the Visual Imagination at Lampeter and she talks about how she never got over her ‘Welsh thing’. In the last 35 years she has been back something like 28 times. Lampeter has affected her in a way no other place has. Pamela talks about how she felt instantly at home there and about being comfortable on the margins looking critically at the centre. She felt that she was in touch with the world in this intimate place, and she talks about using our own stories as a jumping off place to a universal plane. We learn about the importance of hiraeth, which might be thought of as a form of homesickness and longing and as the presence of absence – perhaps a longing for the self that we once were. We hear about the time a man app

My guest this week is Jasjit Singh, Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Leeds where his research includes how people learn about religion and engage with their religious heritage. He is originally from Bradford and did a degree in Computer Science and Accounting at Manchester. We learn how Jasjit found that there weren’t many HE institutions which studied the Sikh tradition and about his work on a Religion and Society research project on youth. We learn why he’s an accidental activist and why his research was impactful by default. We talk about diversity in the curriculum and how important it is in terms of representation that people see Jasjit on the stage at his university’s Graduation ceremonies. He remembers encountering Radio 1 when he was in school and getting signed photos of Gary Davies and Steve Wright. Jasjit also saw Prince and Michael Jackson in open air concerts within a few weeks of each other. This was a time of bhangra music too an

My guest this week is Gregory Shushan, a researcher in the area of Near Death Experiences who is currently based in Portugal. Gregory went to Lampeter to do a PhD in 2004 on a cross cultural study of afterlife beliefs under the supervision of Paul Badham. We talk extensively about Near Death Experiences and how Gregory was interested in looking at the impact of NDEs on culture. Gregory was born in San Diego and grew up in an environment where his parents had very different approaches to life. He talks about the role of travel in his life, and we learn that he studied at UCL before going to Lampeter. We learn too about Gregory’s tendency to the outsider way of thinking. He once contemplated being a musician and Gregory discusses his musical influences, and the resonances of Matt Dillon’s debut 1979 film Over the Edge. British music and culture also influenced him, and we discover that Gregory listens to it today though not so much in the case of punk.  Gregory talks about his work on indigenous rel

My guest this week is Jan Moriarty, Student Success Manager at the University of Kent, a wonderful project designed to support students to achieve better degrees. We learn how Jan became involved in the project and how her initial concern that it was not going to be possible to solve EDI issues in two years were balanced by the consideration that morally it is something that has to be done. It reveals who is flourishing and who is not, e.g. a black student is more likely to come out with a worse degree than their white peers.  It’s about holding a mirror up to the institution, and changing our behaviours and changing mindsets. Crucial to Jan’s work is the extent to which we have to take people with us and that those with white privilege have to use their white privilege as a force for change. We learn that Jan did a joint honours degree in Sociology and Dance at Roehampton. Her father was a Trades Union rep whereas her mother had quite different politics. Jan reflects on how education when she was gr

My guest this week is Fr. Peter Malone, priest and film critic, based in Australia, who was a foundational figure back when I did my own PhD in the late 1990s. Peter talks about his interest in Christ-figure films, including through the work of Clint Eastwood, and he draws on the distinction between redeemer figures and saviour figures and we find out about his work on anti-Christ figures. He speaks about how these films reveal one’s own understanding of Jesus himself and we discuss the evolution of Jesus films. He has been reviewing films since 1968 when he reviewed To Sir With Love and Far From the Madding Crowd, and we learn that Peter has a drive to see every film and he relays how he was once asked ‘Why can’t you just watch a film?’ We learn how he goes about reviewing a film and how he spent 11 years in London and became part of the London Film Critics Circle. He thought Philip French was one of the most amiable reviewers. Peter asks me if I pay to see a film and he refers to how it’s a waste i

My guest this week is Professor Bettina Schmidt, Professor in Study of Religions and Anthropology of Religion at University of Wales Trinity Saint David and President of the British Association for the Study of Religion. Bettina is also Director of the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre in Lampeter. Bettina is currently looking in her research at questions of spirituality, health and wellbeing and one of her areas of specialism is spirit possession and trance in Brazil and on vernacular forms of religion, such as voodoo, in the Caribbean. Originally from a working class background in Germany, where her father was a coal miner, Bettina reflects on how her mother made sure she and her sisters had a good education. Anthropology was a way for Bettina to see the world, and Bettina talks about the role that religion played in terms of identity in her mother’s life. Indeed, for Bettina, religious identity is more important in some respects than the content of religion. We learn what her pare

My guest this week is Professor David Cheetham, Professor of Philosophical Theology at the University of Birmingham where he has been based since 1999. David and I were both Theology students at Lampeter, with David studying for his PhD at the time that I was an undergraduate, and David talks about how Lampeter influenced him – and how there was more going on than his academic achievements. We talk about the second nature element of Zoom and how it has affected our teaching and we learn why David is an optimist about life post-lockdown. We discuss his memories of living in Lampeter back in the days when you ‘had to make your own entertainment’ in a way that wouldn’t have happened in a city university and why Lampeter was like a self-contained ecosystem of people in which he didn’t have to worry about ‘tomorrow’.  We learn all about the legendary Edmund Estafan and the Mydroilyn Sound Machine where David was the band’s keyboardist and David reveals that he had originally wanted to be a musician and

It was such a pleasure for my latest Nostalgia Interview to catch up with Stacey Rand. Stacey has been at Kent for around a decade where she is a senior researcher in PSSRU, a research unit focusing on social care and community based services. Stacey is also a priest in the Church of England. Stacey’s first degree was in natural sciences and she ended up specializing in neuroscience, and has also worked in the pharmaceutical industry. She talks about the journey towards ordination, about the relationship between utilitarianism and Christianity and the diverse range of backgrounds of those training for ministry. We also find out what has tended to happen when she wears a clerical collar when travelling on the bus. Stacey was born in Enfield and grew up in Hertfordshire and she talks about how she loved being outdoors as a child. Faith didn’t play such a big role when growing up but the interest/curiosity here developed in her time studying at Cambridge, and she was later baptised as an adult. She disc

My guest this week is Jonathan Trigg, who studied Archaeology at Lampeter from 1995-98 and has been at Liverpool for the last 22 years. We talk about the advantages of living and studying on a small campus like Lampeter. Jonathan, who was brought up in Essex, talks about how and why he decided to apply to university and being a late developer. We talk about our relationship with the past and his work on war memorials and how some people are going to be more deserving of our praise than others. From growing up Jonathan remembers watching cricket with his father and we discuss the 1981 Royal Wedding. He also remembers the love of family and then discovering after going to university that he had the chance to become himself. Jonathan doesn’t have a mobile phone and we talk about the benefits (or otherwise) of doing everything online due to lockdown. He appreciates the time that his tutors took to give him and others to learn and we talk about the importance of feedback. We also learn how he ended up wor

My guest this week is Charles Musselwhite, Professor in Psychology at Aberystwyth. Charles is a specialist in gerontology with a particular focus on how people engage with place in terms of age. He first went to Lampeter to study Archaeology and Charles talks about how that experience underpinned what he thinks now. We learn that he prefers a bottom up approach to his research, asking how someone lives their life and we learn how, for example, transport is more about people than vehicles. After Lampeter Charles went to Southampton to study Psychology and later did a PhD looking at how young boy racers change in their lifetime. We look at the role of nostalgia vis-a-vis the people that Charles interviews, and the views that older people who are housebound see from their windows. Charles also talks about how the most interesting bits in people’s lives are often the everyday and ordinary ones rather than the extraordinary events. He grew up near Portsmouth, his parents were teachers, and Charles remembers