🎙️ Episode 17: The Courage To Be

Taz and Asha talk LGBT History Month, World Mental Health Day and Bullying Awareness Month. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

You're listening to Awesomely Off Topic, the podcast where we talk of books, brand, business, and everything else we're not supposed to say out loud. We're Taz and Asher, ex-Gurnos, now coaches, creators, and chaos navigators. Let's go! Episode 17 then. The courage to be. Why have we called this one the courage to be, Ash?

SPEAKER_01: 0:27

I just think it feels absolutely right. And as soon as we wrote it down, it just felt courageous to say that because we've both been in some water situations. Why now? Is it not because this episode is right at the beginning of October? You're right, and of course the beginning of October is World GBT History Month. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 0:50

And also Bullying Awareness Month. Yeah, that's right. It's also World Mental Health Day on October the 10th. Right. Okay. So whilst we might not be covering all of those specifically, we are going to talk about different times in our lives and people we love, people we know about, the impact of um people not feeling that they are accepted or feeling bullied or feeling less than or mental health, all of those things. We're gonna talk around those topics. And when we sat there brainstorming, there's the word again, thought sharing ideas for an episode title because we didn't specifically want it to be about the different awareness um campaigns.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36

Yeah, days, months, days, months, this month we want courage to be felt like a good place to start.

SPEAKER_00: 1:46

So what does that bring up for you, Ash? Courage to be.

SPEAKER_01: 1:49

Um well the first thing that comes to mind is my coming out process. Process. Can I use the word process? No, my coming out, whatever you like. Just my coming out, let's just not fudge that.

SPEAKER_00: 2:00

Do you mean when you went on that coming out rampage and phone me at work to tell me you just told the postman?

SPEAKER_01: 2:04

I was telling everybody at the grand old age of 30. Goodness me, that feels so young now. It didn't at the time. Um, but that was a big change for me, and actually starting to talk about it openly. But I did go a little bit hyper focused on the wanting to tell absolutely everybody, i.e., any chance I got. So, yes, the postman, um, we didn't have a milkman then, but there were loads of people, weren't there? There was a milkman when we first came to South Holland. We did have a Milkman. We did, goodness me, we did I probably told him as well then. Yeah? Yeah. But what happened to the Milkman? I know, but um yeah, so we're all creaky chairs. We should have done the creaky chair, I'm not. I have the courage to be in a creaky chair. Good for you. So yeah, for me it was coming out, I think, but actually it was before that, if I'm honest. It was before that in terms of exploring how I was feeling and all those childhood things that had come up and I'd never dealt with. So around my sexuality. So it was before that, but that was kind of the time of my you know, when I was 30. You're coughing as well now, Scott. Weakie chair, coughing, anything else? I'm just gonna go. There's got to be a third. There was, but luckily it was before we went on air. That better. Ruined now. Ruined it, Taz. You've ruined it, ruined my moment. This is your moment. I know, thank you. Um, yeah, so for me it was all about coming out and before that, so coming to terms with who I was and learning who I was. So yeah, so the courage to be, but also the courage to be what you want to be, not somebody else's interpretation of what they want you to be or they expect you to be. And that's so important because you know, so long times in my life I've been a people pleaser and still can be, and so one of the things I really want to do.

SPEAKER_00: 3:49

I like to think you're now a recovering people pleaser.

SPEAKER_01: 3:51

Thank you, that's a good way of saying that. Um, but I hadn't really allowed myself to be. So that was part of it, and that was a really good opportunity for me to just learn to be who I wanted to be without other influences saying, Well, surely, you know, it'd be better if you did this or you were this or you became this. Um, even down to what I did for work. We were talking about this, weren't we, earlier on? And one of the first things was I always, always, always, since I was about probably about I don't know, eight or nine maybe, wanted to be a writer and wanted to be a journalist because the two kind of went hand in hand. And I can remember having conversations with my dear mum, who's no longer with us, and she was a wonderful woman that encouraged me to write and read really early on, and told me how to, you know, enjoy myself with books and storytelling, and I always use her as a great, I hold her up as a great inspiration, just generally as an amazing woman and mum. But one of the things she wanted me to do was to become, you know, do sort of secretarial stuff, and so of course when I went off to college and did shorthand and typing, I did that at school actually, and then started doing that as part of my German.

SPEAKER_00: 5:00

So a specific type of secretary she wanted you to be.

SPEAKER_01: 5:03

It was uh do you remember? I do. Go on then, bilingual secretary. It was because my cousin um could do shorthand in several different languages. Incredible, incredible, you know, to be able to do that. It always makes me want to chuckle and say, I'm not bilingual, mum, I'm gay. Yeah, exactly. Maybe trilingual, um, as in try it. Um not as in three different things, no, no, no, trilingual, always try it. Um, so yeah, so because of that, I was trying to become this kind of you know, take that route, and it just wasn't right for me. And I just kept coming back to this. No, I want to be a journalist, I want to be a journalist, I want to be in the community writing about people's stories, you know, writing their stories.

SPEAKER_00: 5:45

And but even with your journalism, yeah. Was that the kind of journalist you actually wanted to become?

SPEAKER_01: 5:52

No. And this is one of the things we often talk about this now, don't we? And the day of this this summer, where we're when we're recording this for um a little bit later in the year. I hope that's okay to say that'll be broken the rule of podcasting.

SPEAKER_00: 6:04

No, we're recording this in August, and this episode will come out at the beginning of October.

SPEAKER_01: 6:10

So, all the time, um, this summer is all about women's sports. We just had the Euros lionesses. I love you, what an incredible achievement. Back to back European champions, um, and now the rugby with the roses, red roses. Go on, so yeah, come on, girls. So I loved sport, armchair sports enthusiast, not terribly um athletic myself, but loved watching it, and along with my dad, we used to sit and watch football together and all the other sports that were on the Olympics, you know, everything that was on the telly, we were soaking it up, and went along to a lot of the athletics meetings at Crystal Palace. Used to love seeing that as well, so some of our big stars of the future were there. It was amazing to go along to that. So I always wanted to be a sports journalist, but in those days, women weren't sports journalists, but I wanted to try it, so I went to my local paper and trialled out and went into. I can remember it was a really old style newsroom, you know what those were like where you were still smoking in the newsroom. Tobacco stained ceiling, it was, and nobody under 45, which for somebody that was about 17, 18, that was really old.

SPEAKER_00: 7:15

Or look like they've got a bottle of porks and something with them.

SPEAKER_01: 7:19

You know, there was this is awful, isn't it? Stereotypes, but the kind of the old soak in the corner, you know, it was popping out for a fag every five seconds, or just having a fag it's dead. Yes. Oh, I love Jackson Lamb in um what's it called? Oh Slow Horses.

SPEAKER_00: 7:34

Slow Horses, because William, if you've not read Slow Horses or watched the series, please do. Watch it, watch it, watch it's brilliant. There we are, going off of the tangent again.

SPEAKER_01: 7:41

But but there, I went along, I had a couple of days there, but I felt so out of not out of my depth, because I was sent off to report on a couple of things and I enjoyed that aspect, but coming back into that kind of male-dominated environment with people that I just couldn't, I found really difficult to connect with, and I didn't pursue it anymore. And to be honest, when I got back home, it wasn't it wasn't dismissed, but it wasn't encouraged. And maybe the me of now would have said to the young me, would have said, Don't worry about that. If you want to do this, do it. Do it, you know, and look how it's developed now, look at what's happening. Well look at how much of a stereotype you could have been. I could have been totally, absolutely, and I've got a cat. Um but yeah, so You don't have any dog marters. So that courage, that courage oh god, you're off. The courage to be was in there, but I wasn't giving it room to breathe and and really come to the fore. And so I was allowed, you know, I allowed other people's visions for me and views of what I should be doing to kind of overtake that. And so therefore I went back and I yes, I certainly became a journalist, but not a sports journalist. I went into news, which I could do, but I was never a brilliant art, I could do it, I could go out and report and stuff, but my feature writing became came to the fore. And that's where I found more of the courage to be me. But initially, and certainly that whole coming out thing, because let's face it, if I'd gone into sports journalism then there's a little twinkle in my eye. I know rubber's thighs.

SPEAKER_00: 9:10

I know exactly, but you know, but there's this is just a little arc of thigh rubbing episodes, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 9:15

But then I wouldn't have met you. So if we believe everything happens exactly as it should, exactly the right time. It's true, we wouldn't have to be able to do that. I was you were I mean I was you were you were um so you're very lucky. Thank you. I know I'm lucky. I'm lucky, but you're very lucky. I thought I was going to do a Pepsi Max burp then in celebration.

SPEAKER_00: 9:34

Oh, that's so lovely. Please don't, because you're a romantic hideous Pepsi Max cherry flavoured. It's very nice.

SPEAKER_01: 9:40

I like it, Taz can't stand it. She's got that's not none of that's really good for us, but oh no, we might have ruined a sponsorship deal again. Um so so the courage to be, that's where I you know that's where I wanted to go, but circumstances, you know, experiences weren't what I thought they would be, and I let it go. And there's there's a tiny I know we shouldn't live in the world of regret at all. Absolutely, that doesn't do you any good at all to stay there. But I think if I'm totally honest, there's a tiny, tiny part of me, particularly now where I'm seeing all these TikTokers and people that have become sports journalists, you know, women, young women that are reporting on it and doing all of that to face to camera, and all the journalists now that we've had coming up the ranks of sports journalism for women, you know, Gabby on BBC or you know, others, Alex Scott, obviously a professional football player herself, all of that, well, that could have been me. You know, there's a little tiny part of me going like that.

SPEAKER_00: 10:35

Let me challenge you on this a little bit.

SPEAKER_01: 10:36

I knew you were going to say, I'm gonna have a slurp on my Pepsi now.

SPEAKER_00: 10:39

Go on. Given that this is all about having the courage to be, you've just spoken essentially about the the citizen journalists and all the people with TikTok accounts. Yeah. You still could. You could do that now if you're gonna have to do that. As I said that, I know, as I said that was like, mmm, yes, maybe, maybe.

SPEAKER_01: 10:58

Yeah, something to think about. That's the end of the conversation, isn't it? For now. I just and there I go, there's my limiting beliefs, then I'll go into, well, I'm I'm 57. I'm too old for that. I even struggle to get up the blooming thing on the terraces, get up the steps. We won't right up in the gods last time.

SPEAKER_00: 11:16

I know, but But what does that what's that got to do with it? It hasn't been belief.

SPEAKER_01: 11:21

I know, it's got nothing to do with it at all. So it could be shit my wife says commentary, which would be quite which is where it all started.

SPEAKER_00: 11:27

Well that is where it started.

SPEAKER_01: 11:28

You could do that more. But we're going on this light, but that courage to be, so I think that courage within me, with standing up for myself and going in pursuit of what I want has been growing, but certainly I'd say the last five, six years or so, or a bit more than that, actually, menopause and stuff knock me back again. But I'm on the up from that. So go on, I'm going to go back.

SPEAKER_00: 11:51

So, how's that transformed then? Because you're talking about menopause, etc., knocking you back. Yeah. But actually, at the at the risk of sounding like a cliche, or as Philomena Kunk via AI said, looking like a walking exclamation exclamation mark.

SPEAKER_01: 12:07

I like that. I've got a lovely visual about the views of. Oh no, I love how she has you said Well your hair would suit that. If we spiked it up more, that would be the little more, my goodness. I know.

SPEAKER_00: 12:16

I love how she just she described this this podcast as as falling down a very affirming set of stairs. Clump, clump, clump, pum. Philomena conch for anyone who's wondering, it was me testing chat GPT to see if it could do Philomena Kunk. Yes. You'll find a full interview on um LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01: 12:36

Cool.

SPEAKER_00: 12:36

Where were we? Yeah, so you're talking about how menopause knocked you back, and yet taking a step back and watching you from the outside, I've actually seen you here's where the cliche bit comes. I've actually seen you blossom since then. Yeah. Because it's only since coming through menopause that you decided, hey, this PR social media news agency I'm running isn't filling me up. I want to help people with their content and I want to help people publish their books. And you might have kept your business name, but you have completely reinvented your business. And that's courage to be, surely. So did it knock you back or did it knock off the parts that were limiting you?

SPEAKER_01: 13:22

No, I was I can see where you're going with that, absolutely. I don't mean I'm stuck in that now. I can still be stuck in it sometimes. Yeah, I'm not Oh Saki. What's it? Um the courage to be, yes. Courage to be psyched. And more. Yeah. And more to come. So yeah. So over to you, because I feel like I've hugged a lot of the conversation, which is quite rare because usually you do that.

SPEAKER_00: 13:46

Well it is, it's nice because after most of these episodes, when we stop stop recording, you go, Oh, I've just deferred to you all the time again, haven't I? And I kind of grin and go, yeah. So it's good.

SPEAKER_01: 13:57

Did you ever grin and go, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 13:59

Yes, because I wouldn't dare do anything else. Yeah, yeah. That sounded like roll and rat. You did. Showing your age again. Right. For those that don't know who that anyway. Incidentally, we specifically had a compliment about our podcast a few days ago ago online.

SPEAKER_01: 14:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:16

Because in episode seven, that was the ADHD episode, we reminded someone of the trapdoor theme. And we specifically had praise about that.

SPEAKER_01: 14:24

Oh, that's a nice one. Thank you for that. Lovely feedback. Yeah, well we've done that one, so moving on to us.

SPEAKER_00: 14:31

Bring it back into the I want to bring it back to you again a little bit, because you've talked a lot about I'm sorry. Not sorry. I might burp in a minute.

SPEAKER_01: 14:38

Please don't. No, I'll try not to.

SPEAKER_00: 14:40

We've talked a lot about coming out, you've talked a lot about coming out. But what gave you the courage to do that? Because it when when you talk about having courage, when you've done so many things in your lifetime where I've thought I would never have had the balls to do that. Really? Or the Avery in fortitude to do that. What do you mean? Well, you just you managed to get a really brilliant job out of thousands and thousands of applicants via the Guardian. Yeah. Got this job on it. We did Guardian, everybody.

SPEAKER_01: 15:13

Is it still going?

SPEAKER_00: 15:14

If it does, it's probably got like a a half a column inch at the bottom of a page somewhere. It used to be a really thick, juicy.

SPEAKER_01: 15:20

I forget how many thousand people there had applied to that.

SPEAKER_00: 15:23

If thousands of people applied to that job for that job with an industry film magazine, you got it. I did. Your job was essentially going and sitting in cinemas and watching films all day and then reviewing.

SPEAKER_01: 15:33

And I got I got to interview Fansen.

SPEAKER_00: 15:35

Famky Janssen and Dun Frank and Pierce Brosnan.

SPEAKER_01: 15:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:39

But you decided that you didn't like that job, you didn't enjoy it, you didn't like the commute into London every day. Yeah. And you literally just left pretty much an up yours note on the editor's desk and walked out and didn't come back without another job to go to. No. I would never have dared to do that. Some might say that was reckless, maybe. But also the courage that takes. So you talk about not having courage. You did that. You also had the courage to come out with everything that was stacked against you. I'm gonna let you lead that, also don't know how much you want to say here. You've done amazing, incredible things. And it was your courage to go self-employed way back before we even met. You know, when you walked out of that job, you got together with some friends and thought, I know, let's run a features agency.

SPEAKER_01: 16:26

Yeah, like you do.

SPEAKER_00: 16:27

Yeah. I would never have had the courage to go self-employed and to follow the path that I'm following now and to be doing the work that I'm so that my soul wants me to be doing if you hadn't done that first.

SPEAKER_01: 16:42

I think it was there with that. It was a question of I am so miserable where I am in this moment, I have to do something.

SPEAKER_00: 16:50

But I'm sure lots of people listening to this have felt they've been felt really, really miserable in a job, but then also convince themselves that they're trapped. I've been there.

SPEAKER_01: 17:01

Well, yeah, I've been there as well.

SPEAKER_00: 17:03

You know, and a lot for a lot of people, happiness in a job is actually door-shaped.

SPEAKER_01: 17:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:07

But they won't take it because that becomes part of the narrative. I can't because I'm stuck, because I have a family, I've built you know, you've got to bear in mind your circumstances, haven't you?

SPEAKER_01: 17:14

I have to say, at that point I was married. So we had two incomes. I yes, but not to me. Not to me. Um so we had double income. Much older man. Hi Russell, if you're listening. Hi Russell, how are you doing? Um really skeptical dude, honestly. Um me too. Um good guy. What was I gonna say? You've loved on me now. Thank you very much. That's so lovely, Taz. Thank you. Well, I know how good I am putting up with you, sir. Oh dear. Um, where were we?

SPEAKER_00: 17:45

The courage that you found to do all of those things.

SPEAKER_01: 17:47

Oh, yeah, but for me it was like you get to a point, I think, I got to a point in those circumstances somewhere where I have to I was so miserable, I had to weigh it up, you know. It's almost like the scales, isn't it? On that side, I'm miserable because this job is it promises so much, but I feel like I'm stuck in this. Am I going to be stuck in doing this particular task forever more? Odyssey home. In a basement, in a basement. It was in a basement. There wasn't there were no windows at all.

SPEAKER_00: 18:16

And you was you were stuck as the newbie scene or the Odyssey true story movies.

SPEAKER_01: 18:20

Anybody else remember those again? Aged things. I just love them. Odyssey true story movies. I love a good true story, but those I have reviewed probably the whole collection over the years. Is he some eden one of those? Probably. I can't remember. It's all a blur now. It's a kind of yeah, Odyssey blur. But it's like, oh no, no, not another one.

SPEAKER_00: 18:40

What would an Odyssey blur be? Would it be like an ooh? What was that? An od. Is that a blurred Odyssey? An Odyssey blurred fee.

SPEAKER_01: 18:47

I don't know, but it sounds like I might need to send for a paramedic for you in a minute. Um, yeah, so I had those going on, and it was one of those where I could have stayed there doing that, but it wasn't, and plus, I'm quite introverted in lots of ways, and I think that London lifestyle, even as a 20-something person that I was then, and I had a relatively easy commute. I mean I did, it wasn't getting on the train into London and then getting a tube for an hour, it was literally getting on the on the train for an hour and then getting going down Villiers Street, and then I was there. It was an easy, easy, easy route. So it wasn't even that, and the people were lovely, but it was very much that set that I wasn't part of, and I think that's part of maybe looking at that now. That's probably on the the neurodivergent side of things that I didn't feel I quite fitted in, and plus the editor, some of it I struggled with a little bit around that. So it was for me, it was like I was having a conversation with my former mother-in-law, always remember that, and in her wonderful way, so well if you don't like it, can I swear?

SPEAKER_00: 19:50

I think we've sworn quite a lot on her.

SPEAKER_01: 19:52

It's like, well, tell them to fuck off if you don't like it. And lovely Northern Irish lady, amazing woman, um, and just said that in that wonderful accent, which is so distinct, it's such a distinctive accent, you can't miss it. And she just said that to me, and I went, right, that's what I'll do then. And I remember that was we'd gone round for tea on the Sunday, and then by the month the I think it was the Monday on the Tuesday, I'd gone in there and left me out on the date.

SPEAKER_00: 20:15

I guess I'm she wasn't like that, because whenever you talk to me about her, I mean she sounds like such a formidable lady. But I always get this image in my head of the kind of Northern Irish version of Catherine Tate's nan.

SPEAKER_01: 20:26

No, not at all. Just with the swearing you talk about it. Yeah, but that's that's part of it. That part of the world. What can I agree with? If anybody's listening in from Northern Ireland, that that was Northern fucking Ireland. But it was just her language and and the way she spoke, and she was so passionate about so many things. I could learn so much. Talking about the courage to be, she had the courage to be and made no apology for it. And I loved that about her.

SPEAKER_00: 20:51

So let me just pull you back to the point that we're on 20 minutes already. Oh, sorry, okay, I'm what for. That's okay. You had the courage to do that, and you had the courage to come out and create a completely different life for yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:06

In the face of quite a um how do I say it? You're searching for the words, aren't you? Stifling, strict it just wasn't the way for your I'm not talking about your mum and dad now because they were bloody lovely. I like my second mum and dad, they were beautiful, beautiful people. Still are wherever they are now. But you were very much in a situation where religion was all. And the life you wanted went absolutely against the grain.

SPEAKER_01: 21:41

Yeah, it did. And it was that r you know, square pegging a round hole again. It was that kind of feeling out because I knew that I'd got all these feelings going on. I'd had them since I was really young, couldn't identify what it was, but I knew that there was something going on that wasn't like my fellow schoolmates. You didn't want to be a Charlie's angel. No, I wanted to Farrahforce it, beautiful, lovely. Oh my goodness, me, don't get me started. I'm gonna go on a lovely tangent. You wanted the Faraflick in so many ways. Oh, that works on so many levels. Oh wow. Anyway, stop it now. Yeah, but that because they were the original, for anybody listening younger than like, you know, 45, they were the original Charlie's Angels and the best. There you go, there's some more controversy.

SPEAKER_00: 22:24

Um the first set, or the second, because there was, you know, oh you had you had Cheryl Lad.

SPEAKER_01: 22:30

You had, yeah, and Kelly Garrett was the character that um dark haired lady, um. Oh, it's gone. Don't this is what happens, you see, menopause, I love it. My memory, everybody will know who I'm talking about, who's old enough to remember that series. But it was part of my childhood. My godmother would come round on a Tuesday evening um to have a good old natter with my mum, and they'd always sit in the same armchairs opposite the telly. This is before we had video recorders, so I'd be sitting there and I'd be waiting for Charlie's Angels to come on the telly for an hour. I was so excited, and then all they'd do would would be natter over the top of it, and I'd get really cross about it. So I used to just wait for that lovely is it somebody Smith? I I'm still thinking about the name. Anyway, somebody will remind me. So where do we go with that? Why was I saying that?

SPEAKER_00: 23:19

Because we were talking about you finding the courage being oh yeah, the courage to be something that's not destined to be.

SPEAKER_01: 23:29

It's that thing, it's that thing of I've got a choice here. I can either stay here and be miserable, and then potentially you know, cause that for other people, or be part of that other for other people because I'm not happy, or I can say I've got to do this now, because if I don't do this now, then I'm gonna be potentially stuck in this forever and a day. And I can I for my own good for my own good, you know, for my mental health.

SPEAKER_00: 24:00

And you know that that rings bells with me as well, because I think we it's first to say that we both risked family and friends by choosing to be together.

SPEAKER_01: 24:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 24:12

And isn't it a travesty that so many people are still trying to squeeze themselves into a life mold that does not fit them, yeah, and that indeed suffocates them because they're worried about their life, not even choices, or life I hate that lifestyle choice. It's not a choice. You no more choose to be gay than you choose to have blue eyes or brown eyes or be tall or short. It's it's not a choice. But it impacts so much and why should somebody else's happiness make other people unhappy? And I know it's such a simple, simple question. But for me, if if we love someone, we support them to be happy, whatever the circumstance, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 25:10

That's it really. No, it's it's true. So taking that decision to come out to move away from my husband at the time to do all of that was something that I knew that the ripple effect was gonna be massive, and it was, it was massive. But having the courage, even despite that, to actually say, No, this is who I am and this is what I need to do, I have to take this step now, and in the longer run, it is gonna be better, not just for me, but for that person that I've moved away from because I'm not happy. If I'm not happy, that's gonna impact on them and make them unhappy. And so if there are a few people within a family or a friendship circle, I lost quite a few people around that time. We both did, yeah, but I think it comes a time when you cannot keep going like that, and you know, cracky, that would have been back in it was 1998, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00: 26:02

And that's that's another point worth thinking about, isn't it? And I'm really hoping, I know we're talking an awful lot about our own our own kind of life paths here, our the arc of our own life stories. Um, but I'm hoping this might be helpful for some of the people listening or ringing be ringing bells, even if even if there's some solidarity feelings going on. Because given that this is LGBT History Month, you know, when we first got together, Section 28 was still in place.

SPEAKER_01: 26:31

Yeah, we've actually got anybody that's seen our social channels, we frequently use that picture again because we recreated a picture of us standing at one of our first pride events, yeah, and there were lots of banners in the background, weren't there?

SPEAKER_00: 26:42

Yeah, about you know Yeah, I remember marching against section twenty-eight, and now here we are, you know, having been through all these breakthroughs. I remember celebrating when they were suddenly talking about same-sex couples being allowed to foster an adopt, like, wow, of course. And then, you know, marriage. I mean, we're we effectively got married three times, didn't we? We're just greedy. Yeah. But um, I remember when I first proposed to you, you said you didn't want to get married until it was legal, and I didn't think it would happen in our lifetime. And then we did as soon as we could on my 40th birthday, and yet here we are, some eleven or so years later. And if we look at what's going on in the US right now, all of those rights that we've fought so hard for are at risk if we follow the US, and then we only have to look at what our what our government is doing or not doing to support trans people, and that just makes me so sad, it makes me feel sick to my stomach. Yeah, me too. And when I think of everything that JKK is doing, it's just utterly appalling.

SPEAKER_01: 27:50

I would say that as well if you're listening, and you can be a a JK fan, of course, and of her work, and it is amazing work, but do your research, don't just take one viewpoint and one set of you know, bits of information from one source. Do your research and find out about the trans community and some of the shit, the absolute shit that they go through every day just to live and breathe and be themselves, to have for that current the courage to be, and I would say the trans community have a huge courage to be, the courage it's taken for many of them, if not all of them, to actually be who they were born to be.

SPEAKER_00: 28:30

There's no LGBT LGB without the T, let alone the Q and the I and the A elements, and all the other letters we could tag on to the end. And you know, we fairly recently lost a a trans friend who just couldn't cope with with life anymore. Um but then also to to quote our wonderful, lovely friend Katie Neves, if you're not following following her yet, please do look up. Hey Katie, what an awesome trans. And she always says trans people are just ordinary people who want to be happy, and it's that simple. So it's it's it it seems quite apt that in this month we've got World Mental Health Day, Bullying Awareness Month, and LGBT History Month. I mean, I remember in my early journalism days covering stories about people who had been targeted by hate crimes for being gay. I remember on one of my first newspapers when I would only have been, I don't know, I would probably have been about 18, 19 when I was covering this story. And there were a couple that had been firebombed, they'd had dog shit put through the letterbox, and I remember calling up the fire service to ask for details of of the the latest incident, and they kind of said to me on the on the QT, well you do know they're bringing it on themselves, don't you? I said, What what what do you mean? Well, it's a couple of women chucked up together. Right, so that's okay then, is it? And I remember covering stories about um people who Wh where where people had had laid in wait near gay bars in this country, and there was one case I always remember a woman who'd come out of a lesbian bar and they'd waited for her in in the dark, managed to get her on her own, and she'd got lots of pin badges, all down her jackets. I always think of that because of course when I'm doing my talks, my jackets are covered in pin badges, and they held her down and took all of the pin badges off her off her jacket and stuck them into her face and her head and beat the crap out of her. And and people try to justify crimes like this. So, what does this have to do with bullying awareness and and mental health? Well, all the time there are people out there who do not feel self-to safe to be themselves, whether that's gay, bi, ace, trans, anywhere on that spectrum, when if you are oppressing any individual and trying to stop them from being their true selves, you have blood on your hands. Because that's where the suicides come from. That's what happens. And I know if I look back at my own past, that was a big chunk of me trying to check out of life enough times. And and bullying, it's so easy to see bullying as you know fisticuffs and name-calling, but sometimes Asher and I were both asked to write chapters for um for a book to raise money for the bullies out charity, and that a wonderful chap um Graham Harris put together. And we both wrote chapters in that, and one of the things you wrote about Asher was was actually bullying by silence. Yeah. So it's not always the name calling, sometimes it's the freezing out. So we can just, yeah, we'll draw a line over that one.

SPEAKER_01: 31:52

We don't want to talk about that.

SPEAKER_00: 31:52

No, we don't want to go into too much detail with that.

SPEAKER_01: 31:54

But bullying to be a very good thing. I meant yeah, we don't, but I mean as in in terms of having that coming back at you, if you're trying to kind of talk about somebody that you care about, you love deeply, yeah, and you can't mention that in a normal conversation with people that are supposed to love you.

SPEAKER_00: 32:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:10

Um that's a really tough call for a lot of people. So yeah, you know, that by silence is a horrible way to be treated.

SPEAKER_00: 32:18

Yeah. There's and it doesn't necessarily mean cold shoulder, it means the tight lips and the looking the other way every time you mention something about your partner or anything to do with your sexuality. And it's easy, isn't it, for heterosexual people to think, well, well, what's the problem? But then you imagine being married to your husband or wife and never being able to mention them. And how much it impacts what you did at the weekend if somebody asks you or where you went on holiday or what you did last night. You know, it's it it impacts everything. And anyone trying to make another human being feel shameful for who they want to be, that doesn't hurt anyone else, or who they want to who they who they who they are who they are and who they love. That is bullying. It does impact on mental health massively, and that's without thinking about people in in countries where it's still illegal, and you know, speaking as sitting here while we're recording this in the US they're trying to overs overturn same-sex marriage. Or as I keep hearing so many people online say, gay marriage, or as I like to call it, marriage. Yeah. You know, you don't refer to heterosexual marriage. Oh, oh, I'm going to a straight wedding this weekend. It's just a wedding. It's marriage. That's all. Between two human beings. Who love each other and are committed to each other. And you know, we've been together for I keep saying 28 years, but you can tell me it's 27.

SPEAKER_01: 33:49

You're just saying it feels longer than it is, 27 years.

SPEAKER_00: 33:52

I don't know many of the couples who've been together for as long as we have, and who are genuinely as happy and together and open as we are. Gay straight or otherwise. So, you know, when we think back to some of the political statements that were made when um section twenty-eight was still there. The pretended family relationship. There is nothing pretend about our relationship, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01: 34:18

And also, of course, Taz, when we were doing that, it takes us back, doesn't it, to um the Soho bombings. Yeah. All those years ago. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:29

We were working in Petswood, which is near Orpington in Kent at the time, and fairly frequently we would come out of work together, we'd hop on the train because it was right next door to the train station, and we'd go into London. Down, as we called it, go into down. Go down into town, and we'd we'd just go out on the scene. Because back then, when we neither of us had had any LGBTQIA uh what would we call it? Experiences in terms of social communities. So that was the closest we got to suddenly acceptance. Yeah. It's okay. Wow, look, here we can hold hands, my goodness. We we still wouldn't do that today out in public. We've had so much shit from just for holding hands in the middle of Peterborns. Um and we'd planned this one night to go into town again, go into Soho. We may well have been in the Admiral Duncan or at least in the surrounding areas, and for some reason something happened and we got called to stay back late at work.

SPEAKER_01: 35:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 35:30

And that was the night that the bomb went off.

SPEAKER_01: 35:32

Yeah, the nail bomb, wasn't it? There were what three people I think killed in that, but and loads injured, and it was yeah. So we went over there, I think about a week later we ended up in London, didn't we? Again one evening. I always remember because it had been raining and the flowers had been rained.

SPEAKER_00: 35:47

I think that was actually that was after the Paul's nightclub shooting.

SPEAKER_01: 35:50

Oh, was that am I getting confusing my memories? I often do that. No, we did we did go up after the water. We did go up there, didn't we, afterwards?

SPEAKER_00: 35:56

And we were late and after Paul's nightclub, which of course which was far more recent.

SPEAKER_01: 36:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 36:01

We went up just after that in London and visited the you know the the memorials and the flowers that had been laid out in Soho there, and yeah, it had been raining and it was really quite poignant that so much was being washed away. And it's easy to do that, isn't it? That whenever one of these incidents happens, we're all big on, you know, putting our little little rainbow flags and covers on our Facebook profile pictures and saying we're sending thoughts and love, sending thoughts and prayers. But then just as those tributes were being washed away in the rain, we forget, we move on. And now we're in a situation where in the world it would appear that the rights, the rights, just just fundamental ordinary freedoms that we and those who came before us were worked so so hard for, they're in danger of being robbed out. And I don't want to get political.

SPEAKER_01: 36:55

Um You have a bit already, and that's cool.

SPEAKER_00: 36:57

I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. I think the element of pol of feeling political is that we now have a far right party where I'm gonna deliberately mispronounce him, Farage, is saying that gay marriage in airquaves is wrong. We've got a Tory government, a Tory former government who are becoming further and further to the right, and we know some of the awful things that have happened there, and just some of the comments that Rishi Balsat made before he disappeared. And now we've got a Labour Prime Minister who is making the most retrograde steps, largely fuelled by a gay member of Parliament. Who have we got? Lib Dems, where have you gone? You've gone quiet. Greens, yeah, you're doing all you can, but there are so many of us now who are wondering who on earth do we vote for? And we are heading into an abyss because there is nobody out there fighting for us, nobody in power who is fighting for us, or it seems that way. So something has to change. And on that happy, happy note, we have a rule that we always like to leave people in a in a place of possibility. So given that this is October, please, please, please, you know, there's so much more to LGBT history than just you know section 28 and some of the stuff we've been banging on about. But go read up, visit an exhibition somewhere.

SPEAKER_01: 38:37

There's so many incredible people that speak to me about their life stories. Read some features. I've got to say, years ago, I mentioned Liverpool before, but that was a fantastic, that was a fantastic exhibition because it was all about LGBTQ. The Museum of Liverpool's kind of leadership, you know, and going way back. Yeah, and it was amazing. So go and look up some LGBTQ amazing folks and you know, read about them and learn about them.

SPEAKER_00: 38:58

And the I's and the A's.

SPEAKER_01: 39:00

Yes, thank you, and the I's and the I's. I was thinking, what about? So I've gone, I've gone, yeah, I'm with you. Catch up, I need to look after your thing does.

SPEAKER_00: 39:06

Just go and learn, open yourselves up to new experiences, learn, learn, learn. And for World Mental Health Day, if you struggle with your mental health, for goodness sake, find somebody to talk to. Even if it's Samaritans or I know when I've been down, there's a wonderful online um service called Black Dog, where you can just type in and have somebody listen. There's so many, even if you're talking to Chat GPT, it's not the same as having a real counsellor or a or a or a coach or a therapist, but just find somebody that you can safely talk to and remember that you're not alone. Also, of course, did you mention charities where Bullies Out? Yeah, we mentioned Bullies Out, and remember it's also Bullying Awareness Month. Bullying takes many, many forms, it's not just school kids, it can happen in the workplace, it can happen in networking, it can happen in communities, it can happen online, it happens everywhere. So please let's just build a bit of awareness, and it most definitely happens in the LGBTQIA spaces. Well said, Taz. Right, so do something. Do something positive, make someone smile, don't let history be forgotten, and when the next the next round of elections come, just think about where you put in that little cross.

SPEAKER_01: 40:24

Have the courage to be true to you, but also to support those in your community, whatever their sexuality, whatever their backgrounds.

SPEAKER_00: 40:33

Those who may not have a voice. Okay. So let's end it there before we get more and more depressed. Go out there, go out there and make a difference and do something positive. So until next time, we'll see you next Tuesday.

SPEAKER_01: 40:52

You've been listening to Awesome New Off Topic. Follow or subscribe to make sure you don't miss the next one. We're addicted Millwater and Tennessee the London, and we'll be back soon.