Latest / UK Column Radio / Matt Glamorre | A Thousand Words (Part 1 of 3)

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Matt Glamorre | A Thousand Words (Part 1 of 3) · UK Column Radio

0:00
Speaker 2: Hi, everybody.
0:01
Speaker 1: We just got back from the 20th anniversary shindig in Plymouth.
0:04
Speaker 1: Vicky and I wanted to say thanks to everyone who
0:06
Speaker 1: came up to say hello.
0:07
Speaker 2: That's a great first question because actually I've never considered
0:11
Speaker 2: myself to be gay. I don't consider it as anything
0:15
Speaker 2: that I would want to be associated with. And being
0:18
Speaker 2: around the cathedral, being around... high Christian, high Anglicanism, but
0:24
Speaker 2: also just the power of the cathedral itself. So there
0:27
Speaker 2: was the whole levitation craze going around, which we were
0:30
Speaker 2: very good at. I was very, very good at it.
0:31
Speaker 2: I was incredibly good with a Ouija board. She just
0:34
Speaker 2: started telling me stories of the land, stories of the river,
0:38
Speaker 2: story of the trout and the salmon and the story
0:40
Speaker 2: of the hawk and the kite, the story that we
0:44
Speaker 2: began on the stories of the trees, the ash, the elm,
0:47
Speaker 2: the oak. And I was completely entranced by all this.
0:52
Speaker 2: I had this incredible other world in which I was
0:55
Speaker 2: speaking to spirits. I had a very magical, imaginary world.
1:00
Speaker 2: Incredibly blessed. However difficult I was finding it, whatever pain
1:04
Speaker 2: I was suffering then, in comparison to what my people
1:08
Speaker 2: are suffering now, I have nothing but gratitude and thanks.
1:15
Speaker 2: I believe that as an elder in my community now,
1:20
Speaker 2: bearing that memory, carrying that memory with me to others,
1:24
Speaker 2: expressing it to others, of the world that I had
1:27
Speaker 2: that they have been denied, that is a deep, deep
1:36
Speaker 2: sense of duty. Matthew. Jake.
2:01
Speaker 1: You've described yourself as an outcast amongst outcasts, haven't you?
2:05
Speaker 2: Yes.
2:06
Speaker 1: See, I've done a bit of research. That's about it.
2:08
Speaker 1: That's about the extent of it.
2:09
Speaker 2: That's the amount of your research that's pulling me in
2:13
Speaker 2: from the fringes.
2:14
Speaker 1: Which I think is a very interesting way of describing
2:18
Speaker 1: yourself because it's something that I kind of identify with
2:21
Speaker 1: as well because the more you actually get into this space,
2:26
Speaker 1: the more fractious it becomes. And you're kind of put
2:29
Speaker 1: in this position where you, you know, to be sovereign,
2:31
Speaker 1: you actually have to become a bit of an outcast
2:33
Speaker 1: within an outcast within an out, you know. And that's
2:36
Speaker 1: what I sort of refer to as second matrix stuff
2:39
Speaker 1: as well, you know, trying to navigate the second matrix.
2:41
Speaker 1: So you think you've found your gang and then it
2:44
Speaker 1: seems to get smaller and smaller.
2:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
2:48
Speaker 1: But your story is really interesting. And I think we'll
2:52
Speaker 1: start off with your journey and your journey experience with
2:58
Speaker 1: what became a weaponised kind of identity politics. Tell us, well,
3:02
Speaker 1: right back from when you were little, I mean, did
3:05
Speaker 1: you know you were gay as a young boy? Because
3:09
Speaker 1: that must have been the first thing to put you
3:15
Speaker 1: in that kind of outcast position. Already you're a bit
3:17
Speaker 1: of an outsider, aren't you? If you're not identifying the
3:20
Speaker 1: same as your classmates and all that.
3:24
Speaker 2: Well....
3:26
Speaker 1: I know you don't like the term gay.
3:27
Speaker 2: I was going to say, first of all, I was
3:29
Speaker 2: going to say, right, that's a great first question because
3:31
Speaker 2: actually I've never considered myself to be gay. I don't,
3:35
Speaker 2: I don't consider it as a, as a, as anything
3:38
Speaker 2: that I would want to be associated with. I would
3:42
Speaker 2: refer to myself as a, Stately English homo. Okay. So,
3:48
Speaker 2: you know, being a homo is one thing. I mean,
3:52
Speaker 2: I don't mind being a fag. I don't mind being
3:53
Speaker 2: a poof. I don't mind being any of those things.
3:56
Speaker 2: But gay, I see, is the greatest slur of all. Okay. So,
4:02
Speaker 2: because it's such... To me, it signifies mediocrity, conformity... All
4:10
Speaker 2: of the things that I find reprehensible and repugnant, until
4:18
Speaker 2: it became synonymous with insanity, it was also synonymous with consumerism.
4:24
Speaker 2: So as the plague began to pass in the early 90s,
4:31
Speaker 2: So the kind of idea of the pink pound arrived.
4:34
Speaker 1: Are we talking about AIDS?
4:35
Speaker 2: Yeah. So after AIDS, when combination therapies arrived on the
4:40
Speaker 2: scene and people started to survive, there was this immediate
4:45
Speaker 2: commodification and this immediate corporatization of this kind of rainbow identity. Yeah.
4:53
Speaker 2: And that was just yet another thing I found repugnant.
4:58
Speaker 1: So the term gay, even when you were younger, did
5:01
Speaker 1: you feel it wasn't?
5:02
Speaker 2: Well, it was the first kind of swear word I
5:04
Speaker 2: ever heard when I was, I think I was probably
5:07
Speaker 2: about eight. When I went to primary school in Wales,
5:11
Speaker 2: one of the first things someone said to me was, hey,
5:13
Speaker 2: you speak like a girl, are you gay? I remember thinking,
5:17
Speaker 2: and I said, yes, thank you, I'm very happy. I
5:21
Speaker 2: had no comprehension. When I was growing up, I was
5:24
Speaker 2: really femme. Everyone thought I was a girl, until I
5:28
Speaker 2: started growing when I was 11 or 12. So as
5:30
Speaker 2: a child, before I became a teenager... I was super
5:37
Speaker 2: little Lord Fauntleroy, white ringlets. It was the 70s, so
5:40
Speaker 2: everyone had long hair, but my long hair expressed itself
5:42
Speaker 2: as like Shirley Temple.
5:44
Speaker 1: Right, okay.
5:44
Speaker 2: So I basically looked like Shirley Temple growing up. And,
5:47
Speaker 2: of course, I was just slouching around in corduroy flares
5:50
Speaker 2: and a body warmer, like pretty much all children of
5:54
Speaker 2: that era. And so everyone was going, oh, you know,
5:58
Speaker 2: I'd say to my mum all the time, oh, you've
5:59
Speaker 2: got two such pretty daughters, because I've got a sister
6:02
Speaker 2: and my sister always found it hilarious. of course, having
6:05
Speaker 2: an evil sister. So she always found this completely, utterly hilarious. So, yeah,
6:14
Speaker 2: I kind of grew up with people thinking I was
6:15
Speaker 2: a girl. Okay. And I seem to remember just not
6:18
Speaker 2: bothering me. I thought, oh, well, you know. Right, okay. Hey, whatever.
6:22
Speaker 1: And then when you were a bit older.
6:24
Speaker 2: But as I started going to school, so about eight, nine,
6:26
Speaker 2: when people started going, oh, you're a girl, you're a girl.
6:28
Speaker 2: I remember thinking, well, that's like a bad thing to be.
6:31
Speaker 2: Because I didn't think it was a bad, I just.
6:32
Speaker 1: Thought, But the way it was expressed, obviously, you thought.
6:36
Speaker 2: Well, I suppose I could be one way or the other.
6:39
Speaker 2: So it hadn't occurred to me that this was being
6:41
Speaker 2: seen as a bad thing to be. So when I
6:44
Speaker 2: started school, obviously, you start to realise, oh, yeah, this
6:47
Speaker 2: is not done. Not the done thing. This is not
6:50
Speaker 2: whatever it is I am supposed to be. But of course,
6:53
Speaker 2: I hadn't started really thinking about boys until... I don't know,
6:59
Speaker 2: you know, early teens or something, 12, 13. Well, no,
7:03
Speaker 2: because I knew I liked fellas. I knew that I
7:06
Speaker 2: was interested in men because I was attracted to masculinity,
7:14
Speaker 2: of course. But I hadn't put that attraction together with sex.
7:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that's because I remember playing Kiss Chase
7:23
Speaker 1: when I was... a third year infant school so I
7:27
Speaker 1: would have been seven or eight and I kind of
7:30
Speaker 1: knew that I wanted to get caught by the girls
7:32
Speaker 1: right like so you but.
7:34
Speaker 2: Yeah I would have just been like ew I don't
7:36
Speaker 2: want to get caught by anybody you don't get you
7:39
Speaker 2: know no no and I'm still quite like that you
7:41
Speaker 2: know even even kind of when I made my first
7:44
Speaker 2: mates and people you know I realized that my um
7:50
Speaker 2: friends were all shagging about and that part of this
7:52
Speaker 2: was just having it off with all and sundry. Yeah.
7:55
Speaker 2: Which is a thing. The kind of promiscuity of the
7:58
Speaker 2: girl world is certainly a thing.
8:02
Speaker 1: I was thinking like, men tend, that promiscuity tends to
8:06
Speaker 1: be balanced by women. Like men, when they, you know.
8:10
Speaker 2: They don't stop having it off until a woman says no.
8:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically.
8:13
Speaker 2: Yeah.
8:14
Speaker 1: So when you get two men together, I can see
8:15
Speaker 1: how that culture.
8:17
Speaker 2: That male sexuality thing is certainly part of why the
8:19
Speaker 2: promiscuity exists.
8:22
Speaker 1: Yeah.
8:23
Speaker 2: Absolutely. But all I'm saying is that I was known
8:26
Speaker 2: as a prude in kind of mid-80s London. Oh, interesting.
8:29
Speaker 2: Because I wasn't having it up with anyone. But I
8:33
Speaker 2: was always horrified by the idea that I would walk
8:36
Speaker 2: into a club or a bar because I immediately, nightclubs
8:40
Speaker 2: were the centre of my world back in the mid-80s.
8:43
Speaker 2: Just going back, I left school when I was 13.
8:45
Speaker 2: I left school to come to London. to become a
8:50
Speaker 2: nightclub figure with the express intention of becoming a nightclub figure.
8:53
Speaker 2: Hang on, when you were 13? When I was 13.
8:55
Speaker 1: You left home?
8:56
Speaker 2: Yeah. I left home and came to London. I mean,
8:59
Speaker 2: there was a period of going backwards and forwards, going home,
9:01
Speaker 2: stealing money and food, washing my clothes, and then coming back.
9:05
Speaker 1: How did your parents.
9:07
Speaker 2: I had quite a troubled teenage years. My early life
9:10
Speaker 2: was idyllic because my father had been quite a trendy
9:15
Speaker 2: interior designer and architect. Okay. and had worked with lots
9:19
Speaker 2: of pop stars. So I grew up in my early
9:21
Speaker 2: life surrounded by people like Slade and the Stones to
9:26
Speaker 2: a lesser degree. But Keith Moon was a friend of
9:30
Speaker 2: my dad's. And very unfaithful people like that were around
9:35
Speaker 2: as I was growing up. And so we moved to Hay-on-Wye,
9:39
Speaker 2: which was where they were all hanging out. My dad
9:41
Speaker 2: did a studio for Led Zeppelin in Hay-on-Wye. And so
9:46
Speaker 2: it was one of those... kind of trendy people decamped
9:51
Speaker 2: from London kind of places in the 60s. So we'd
9:55
Speaker 2: moved there when I was young, four or five, from London.
9:59
Speaker 2: And so I had an idyllic childhood in mid Wales.
10:05
Speaker 2: And my father had money because he was successful. Well,
10:09
Speaker 2: my father had money for about two years while we
10:11
Speaker 2: were there. And then suddenly we had nothing at all
10:14
Speaker 2: because the oil crisis hit. I believe it's because Nixon
10:18
Speaker 2: came off the gold standard. I think that's what's to
10:21
Speaker 2: blame for the crash in my family fortunes.
10:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, blame Nixon.
10:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, OPEC. The OPEC oil crisis of the early 70s. Yeah,
10:30
Speaker 2: lots of people lost everything and my father was amongst
10:32
Speaker 2: them and he lost everything. But even then, we moved
10:37
Speaker 2: into a rented farmhouse in the Black Mountains. So I
10:43
Speaker 2: could walk out the back door, big orchard, sheep field.
10:46
Speaker 2: And I had that. until the age of 11 or 12.
10:51
Speaker 2: So it was completely idyllic. I had no... It was
10:54
Speaker 2: a wonderful childhood.
10:56
Speaker 1: So leaving for London two years later, how did that.
11:00
Speaker 2: Well, then I had a traumatic two years. And then
11:04
Speaker 2: my life shattered, as it were. So I went to
11:08
Speaker 2: boarding school. I went to Hereford Cathedral School for a year.
11:12
Speaker 2: And I kind of liked it. It was very music-focused.
11:15
Speaker 2: And so I really enjoyed that.
11:18
Speaker 1: But.
11:19
Speaker 2: I was getting myself into trouble. I was weaving all
11:21
Speaker 2: sorts of tall tales.
11:26
Speaker 1: Why was that?
11:28
Speaker 2: I don't know. A lot of things that had been
11:30
Speaker 2: stirring inside me started to surface. I was 11 in
11:33
Speaker 2: my first year of school. And being around the cathedral,
11:37
Speaker 2: being around high Anglicanism, but also just the power of
11:43
Speaker 2: the cathedral itself, started to really pull at a conflict between,
11:51
Speaker 2: you know, I want to say kind of the hedgerow
11:58
Speaker 2: and high altar, so to speak. I began to feel
12:04
Speaker 2: things I'd never felt in village churches. I'd always found
12:09
Speaker 2: through the Harvest Festival that there was a kind of
12:12
Speaker 2: equilibrium between the local village church and the corn dolly,
12:18
Speaker 2: there seemed to be a relationship that as soon as
12:22
Speaker 2: I was in this great temple of Anglican, what was
12:25
Speaker 2: then Anglicanism, which probably still is, if such a thing
12:28
Speaker 2: still exists, discuss. But that conflict between the old path
12:38
Speaker 2: and Christianity really surfaced within me as a child. Before that,
12:44
Speaker 2: growing up in this natural environment, I generated a deep
12:50
Speaker 2: sense of the earth and nature and my place within
12:54
Speaker 2: it and the creature's place within it. Not from, I mean,
12:58
Speaker 2: obviously we're talking between the ages of, I would say,
13:01
Speaker 2: six and 10, 11. I was just out constantly in
13:06
Speaker 2: nature with the creatures. And I had friends, but they
13:11
Speaker 2: were all farmers. So it was a very agrarian life. Yeah, yeah.
13:15
Speaker 2: And I was deeply connected to the seasons and the
13:17
Speaker 2: wheel of the year. So my job was to lay
13:19
Speaker 2: the fires in the morning at home. So scraping the
13:23
Speaker 2: ice off the inside of the windows on the Welsh
13:27
Speaker 2: mountains during the winter. And then laying the fires. And so,
13:31
Speaker 2: I don't know, I just always felt very connected to
13:33
Speaker 2: the cycle of the year, the earth, da-da-da-da-da-da. So then
13:37
Speaker 2: I went to school and I was faced with the
13:39
Speaker 2: great edifice of this cathedral because we had... What do
13:48
Speaker 2: they call it in the morning at school? Assembly. Assembly.
13:51
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm losing memory banks as I age. Assembly
13:58
Speaker 2: was always in the cathedral and it was every morning.
14:02
Speaker 2: And it was... On one hand, it was deeply moving
14:05
Speaker 2: and touching and beautiful and awe-inspiring and in equal parts,
14:09
Speaker 2: boring as hell. But also there was something else happening
14:15
Speaker 2: beneath it, which was this rage I was getting into.
14:18
Speaker 2: Now looking back, I can separate these things that were
14:23
Speaker 2: happening in my internal life. But at the time, it
14:25
Speaker 2: was quite confusing because I didn't know, I didn't have
14:28
Speaker 2: any perspective on anything at 11. So I just felt
14:33
Speaker 2: this anger and this rage, this need to escape, but
14:36
Speaker 2: also this need to integrate, not with the other pupils
14:41
Speaker 2: or the teachers or the teaching, just whatever was happening
14:45
Speaker 2: in this bloody great throbbing energy centre that I was
14:49
Speaker 2: going in and out of multiple times a day. It
14:52
Speaker 2: felt like I was going in and out of this
14:53
Speaker 2: battery that I somehow, or like a power generation plant,
14:58
Speaker 2: that somehow I knew I had to recharge. And I
15:00
Speaker 2: just couldn't find where to plug in. It was a
15:03
Speaker 2: very strange sensation. And it was really breeding anger and
15:06
Speaker 2: resentment in me because I could sense this calling. But
15:09
Speaker 2: I couldn't find the socket.
15:12
Speaker 1: So what about your relationship with your mum and dad
15:16
Speaker 1: at this point?
15:17
Speaker 2: Well, I'd left home by that point, so I'd gone
15:20
Speaker 2: to boarding school.
15:21
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15:23
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15:52
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16:01
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16:04
Speaker 2: I think because they were, you know, I suppose they
16:07
Speaker 2: were upper middle class and I thought that that was, well,
16:09
Speaker 2: my dad was, my mum was very working class, but
16:11
Speaker 2: my dad was upper middle class, I suppose, and thought
16:14
Speaker 2: that that was, he'd been to Shrewsbury, I think, so
16:17
Speaker 2: I went to Hereford. So I think it was just
16:19
Speaker 2: that I went for good, that they were trying their
16:21
Speaker 2: best for me. You know, I was going for a
16:24
Speaker 2: good interview. Do you think if you'd been at home,
16:26
Speaker 2: Your life would have turned out completely differently then because yeah,
16:28
Speaker 2: I think so and I think but I have no
16:32
Speaker 2: regret Rianne.
16:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
16:35
Speaker 2: No, no, no, it was absolutely fine. Loved it. No, no,
16:37
Speaker 2: it was a wonderful experience It's one kind of wish
16:39
Speaker 2: I'd stayed there. Basically. I got myself into such bloody
16:41
Speaker 2: trouble in boarding school. I was forever on the bloody
16:46
Speaker 2: Ouija board I was forever trying to summon things from
16:50
Speaker 2: the ether. I was forever doing the old levitation. Remember
16:53
Speaker 2: that thing in the 70s? Everyone was obsessed with levitation.
16:55
Speaker 1: Yes, it was. Yeah, yeah, it was a thing.
16:56
Speaker 2: So there was the whole levitation craze going around, which
16:59
Speaker 2: we were very good at. I was very, very good
17:01
Speaker 2: at it. I was incredibly good with a Ouija board.
17:03
Speaker 2: And then things would be shooting around the Ouija board
17:06
Speaker 2: without people touching. All sorts of spooky dookies started happening.
17:09
Speaker 2: So in a sense, my boarding school experience was much
17:12
Speaker 2: more Hogwarts than anything else. And I... Was, I had
17:21
Speaker 2: a party trick of being able to drop the temperature
17:25
Speaker 2: in a room just by going into a trance. That
17:28
Speaker 2: became like my party trick.
17:29
Speaker 1: So hang on there, let's just, so how did you
17:32
Speaker 1: get from, okay, what age are we talking now?
17:36
Speaker 2: 11, I'm supposed to be 11. So you got your
17:39
Speaker 2: first year of boarding school. But it went really off
17:42
Speaker 2: the rails. I'm saying that year everything went off the rails.
17:44
Speaker 1: All right, so how did you get that information coming
17:46
Speaker 1: into you about, you know, all the esoteric stuff?
17:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:49
Speaker 1: Did you... I mean, we didn't have the internet then.
17:51
Speaker 2: No.
17:52
Speaker 1: Was there someone who came into your life and introduced you?
17:54
Speaker 2: There was a hedge witch who taught.
17:56
Speaker 1: A hedge witch?
17:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a hedge witch who kind of adopted me,
18:00
Speaker 2: called Enid Duncan, who was a potter, and she owned
18:05
Speaker 2: the house that we rented. When my father lost all
18:09
Speaker 2: his money, we moved into this little village near Cracowell
18:12
Speaker 2: in Mid Wales, and.
18:17
Speaker 2: The lady who owned the house that we subsequently rented
18:20
Speaker 2: was a kind of herbalist and hedge witch and potter,
18:24
Speaker 2: and she had a pottery studio. So I went under,
18:27
Speaker 2: she was going to teach me pottery, making pinch pots,
18:32
Speaker 2: owls and things, the obligatory pinch pot owl in 1976
18:35
Speaker 2: or something. And she just started telling me stories of
18:43
Speaker 2: the land stories of the river story of the trout
18:45
Speaker 2: and the salmon and the story of the hawk and
18:49
Speaker 2: the kite the story that we began on the stories
18:52
Speaker 2: of the trees the ash the elm the oak and
18:56
Speaker 2: i was completely entranced by all this so i was
18:59
Speaker 2: spending my days exploring the countryside freely yeah you know
19:04
Speaker 2: out breakfast in at dinner and As well as having
19:11
Speaker 2: a very traditional rural country primary schooling in the village
19:18
Speaker 2: school next to the village church. The headmaster was the
19:23
Speaker 2: local vicar. Yeah. Therefore, the primary school being included in
19:29
Speaker 2: every celebration of the year, which marks the sacred year
19:34
Speaker 2: of the seasons. Yeah. The agrarian year.
19:38
Speaker 1: Something like the Steiner kind of set up.
19:40
Speaker 2: Isn't it? Yeah, so it was... Yes, it was... You know,
19:48
Speaker 2: those remote... villages, even by the early 80s, they were
19:54
Speaker 2: still in Devon, Cornwall, Northumbria, Wales. Then the roads weren't good.
20:02
Speaker 2: They were still quite remote. Isolated, yeah, yeah. I mean,
20:06
Speaker 2: I remember seeing horses working on the land in Devon
20:10
Speaker 2: and Wales when I was, you know, three, four, five years.
20:14
Speaker 2: And every time you went into a barn, there was
20:17
Speaker 2: still all of the horse-drawn equipment everywhere. And so it
20:23
Speaker 2: was obviously, we were the very last people who would
20:26
Speaker 2: have ever seen horses at work in the fields. But
20:29
Speaker 2: to think that we'd actually seen it now as a thought,
20:34
Speaker 2: I saw Shire Horses pulling a plough. Mm-hmm.
20:36
Speaker 1: I know.
20:36
Speaker 2: You know, it's like... I was.
20:39
Speaker 1: Just talking to my son because we'd just come back
20:40
Speaker 1: from Devon. You know, I was just saying how incredibly
20:44
Speaker 1: different society is, you know, just on that level of communication.
20:48
Speaker 1: You know, go back just a few generations and you were...
20:51
Speaker 1: Wherever you were born, you kind of stayed there, didn't you? Really,
20:55
Speaker 1: you know.
20:56
Speaker 2: And... When we were in Wales in this little village
20:58
Speaker 2: where I was with Miss Hedgewich in the pottery and
21:02
Speaker 2: my lovely parochial village school, we were the only people
21:07
Speaker 2: in the village with a car. Okay, yeah. And then
21:10
Speaker 2: somebody else got one. So we were forever taking the
21:13
Speaker 2: old ladies to town and waiting for them and coming back.
21:15
Speaker 2: There was always an old lady with shopping bags in
21:18
Speaker 2: the car or another one of the mums with the kids, whatever. Yeah.
21:22
Speaker 2: Very few people had cars, certainly in the rural areas,
21:28
Speaker 2: and we couldn't afford a telephone. We'd gone from having
21:34
Speaker 2: a quite comfortable life to queuing up for the telephone
21:37
Speaker 2: in the village with one P's and two P's, but
21:42
Speaker 2: it was still a wonderfully magical young childhood. So I'm
21:47
Speaker 2: being very torn from my first year in boarding school.
21:49
Speaker 2: I was very homesick when I first went. I struggled
21:52
Speaker 2: a little bit being away from home at first.
21:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you would, yeah.
21:57
Speaker 2: But then I kind of threw myself into it and
22:01
Speaker 2: started to really enjoy it. But I felt this real draw.
22:07
Speaker 2: So there's an antagonism, an offset, a mismatch in energies
22:14
Speaker 2: between what I was feeling in my heart and what
22:17
Speaker 2: I was experiencing in the cathedral and a resentment that
22:22
Speaker 2: I couldn't plug into it, which was ending up in
22:25
Speaker 2: a kind of rebellious anger. As well as the fact
22:28
Speaker 2: that I didn't understand hardly a word anyone was saying
22:31
Speaker 2: in classes. I mean, it was completely a....
22:35
Speaker 1: In what way?
22:36
Speaker 2: I don't really know why. I mean, there were certain...
22:39
Speaker 2: I understood history. I understood story. Did it just feel.
22:43
Speaker 1: Dead to you?
22:44
Speaker 2: Did it just feel dead like it was just... Yeah,
22:46
Speaker 2: I understood music. I understood religious studies. And I understood history.
22:53
Speaker 2: But when it came to the maths... And I mean,
22:56
Speaker 2: Latin to a certain point, I couldn't really get into
22:58
Speaker 2: Latin that much. But the maths, definitely. I had no
23:04
Speaker 2: clue what they were talking about. Yeah. Everything I was
23:09
Speaker 2: struggling to keep up, really, because my head wasn't there
23:12
Speaker 2: at all. And it was a very traditional public school
23:14
Speaker 2: education still, where a master walked into class and you
23:18
Speaker 2: stood bolt upright. Well, anybody older walked into class and
23:21
Speaker 2: you stood bolt upright. You spoke when you were spoken to. Mm-hmm.
23:26
Speaker 2: People didn't really swear. There wasn't much bad language. It
23:29
Speaker 2: was still a very English... And the first day I
23:34
Speaker 2: went there was the first year that they had girls
23:37
Speaker 2: at the school. So it had gone from a boys-only school... Oh, OK.
23:39
Speaker 1: That's a big shift.
23:40
Speaker 2: To co-ed the school itself.
23:42
Speaker 1: That's a big shift for the school, for the teachers,
23:44
Speaker 1: isn't it?
23:44
Speaker 2: For everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I walk in and
23:47
Speaker 2: they're doing the sorting hat, basically, in the... Oh, Harry Potter. Yeah.
23:53
Speaker 2: So there is a sorting hat. When you go to
23:55
Speaker 2: a public school, you're split up into houses. That does happen.
23:58
Speaker 2: So you're in a hall and you get split up
24:01
Speaker 2: into the different houses. You're going to this house, you're
24:04
Speaker 2: going to that house. Well, it's like the sorting hat.
24:06
Speaker 2: That's what it is. And so Matron is doing this.
24:09
Speaker 2: And it was Matron doing the sorting on this staircase.
24:12
Speaker 2: So it was a kind of big split staircase with
24:14
Speaker 2: Matron in the middle. all the kids in front being sorted.
24:18
Speaker 2: And she pointed straight to me and said, no, dear,
24:21
Speaker 2: girls are over there. So that's my first day. I
24:25
Speaker 2: was like, thanks, Matra. I was like, I'm a boy.
24:29
Speaker 1: And how did the other kids react to that?
24:30
Speaker 2: Of course, everyone rolled around laughing. And that was the
24:33
Speaker 2: end of it for the rest of it. So I
24:35
Speaker 2: was targeted there and then as the kind of puffy one.
24:40
Speaker 2: They weren't wrong. but it was still like, I could
24:44
Speaker 2: have lived without that on my very first meeting of
24:46
Speaker 2: any of the children. So that was the moment when
24:50
Speaker 2: I thought, yeah, this is pretty bad, the fact that
24:53
Speaker 2: everyone thinks I'm a girl. Obviously over the following year,
24:56
Speaker 2: I was 11, over the following year I kind of
24:57
Speaker 2: sprouted up and I turned into a boy. Yeah, so
25:02
Speaker 2: there was a lot of change. That whole public school period,
25:05
Speaker 2: there was this mismatch, there was not really understanding what
25:08
Speaker 2: was going on, feeling that I was falling behind academically.
25:11
Speaker 2: but not even understanding the rules of engagement. I remember
25:14
Speaker 2: at one point at school just thinking, what am I
25:17
Speaker 2: supposed to be doing here? No one had explained what
25:20
Speaker 2: learning was or why it was important or what I
25:24
Speaker 2: was going to get out of it or how to
25:27
Speaker 2: approach it. Why? Yeah, what on earth am I actually doing? Yeah,
25:30
Speaker 2: it was completely just like... It was a bit like
25:34
Speaker 2: being in Peanuts. when you hear the adults speaking in
25:37
Speaker 2: the Peanuts cartoons. It was just normal. I remember thinking
25:44
Speaker 2: it's probably not ideal that that's what I'm hearing here
25:46
Speaker 2: right now when the maths teacher is speaking or when
25:49
Speaker 2: the geography teacher is speaking. That's literally all I'm hearing
25:53
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking I'm sure I should be hearing something else.
25:57
Speaker 2: I'm sure this is supposed to be meaning something to me.
26:02
Speaker 2: And so I completely tuned out and just kind of
26:04
Speaker 2: went off into my daydream world in which I was
26:07
Speaker 2: travelling through time portals and I had this incredible other
26:12
Speaker 2: world in which I was speaking to spirits and I
26:15
Speaker 2: had a very magical, imaginary world. The line between the
26:22
Speaker 2: imagination and the reality was remarkably thin, I must say.
26:28
Speaker 2: These entities, this world of, of portals and strange beasts
26:33
Speaker 2: and angels and demons.
26:36
Speaker 1: And how do you see that now? Looking back, do
26:39
Speaker 1: you think you were tuning into something?
26:41
Speaker 2: Oh, I definitely, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that, you know,
26:43
Speaker 2: it formalized as I grew up, I, you know, that
26:46
Speaker 2: was what I found. I wanted to go and find
26:48
Speaker 2: out what the hell that was all about. But I
26:53
Speaker 2: lived in this fantasy world, I suppose, that to me
26:58
Speaker 2: was very, real was a very real part of my
27:01
Speaker 2: world um.
27:04
Speaker 1: It's not a black cat well it's partly.
27:06
Speaker 2: Black partly it's a it's a tutti frutti hello you
27:11
Speaker 2: black and white it's a yin.
27:12
Speaker 1: Yang cat uh yeah her name's Zorro oh Zorro it
27:17
Speaker 1: is Zorro yeah hey Zorro a boy's name for a
27:19
Speaker 1: girl cat well it's.
27:21
Speaker 2: All me can't tell the difference these days can you
27:24
Speaker 2: go ahead and you go as she decided where to
27:27
Speaker 2: go have Has they then decided where to go?
27:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so.
27:30
Speaker 2: Go on, in you go.
27:34
Speaker 1: Well, you see, we went away for 10 days, which
27:37
Speaker 1: we've never done before. Oh, really? We only got back
27:39
Speaker 1: last night, so she's incredibly clingy.
27:41
Speaker 2: Oh, okay. Yeah. Wow. Right, so anyway, yeah, whatever. So 11,
27:49
Speaker 2: that was a really seminal moment. It changed me. It
27:52
Speaker 2: very deeply changed me, but I just started trying to
28:00
Speaker 2: contact whatever it was that I could feel in the
28:02
Speaker 2: cathedral via seances, via rituals that I'd kind of picked
28:10
Speaker 2: up along the way, and also via watching lots of
28:16
Speaker 2: Dennis Wheatley films and kind of schlock horror. I was
28:20
Speaker 2: absolutely addicted to Peter Cushion. Yeah. Christopher Lee Schlock Horror
28:26
Speaker 2: and the Dennis Wheatley books.
28:28
Speaker 1: Wicker Man.
28:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Wicker Man. All of that. So I
28:32
Speaker 2: had some basic understanding of what was required. Also, I'd
28:36
Speaker 2: seen plenty of priests by this point up at the altar.
28:41
Speaker 2: And so... Nothing dodgy? Huh?
28:44
Speaker 1: Nothing dodgy?
28:45
Speaker 2: No, they never really spoke to me. They were scared
28:47
Speaker 2: of me. Right. The church clergy was... I now know
28:53
Speaker 2: that they... Gave me a really wide berth. I wasn't
28:57
Speaker 2: in the choir because they tried me in the choir
28:59
Speaker 2: because I look perfect. I look like bloody Shirley Temple.
29:01
Speaker 2: So I got front row choir. I remember I think
29:04
Speaker 2: I actually did a few gigs with them where they said, oh, Matthew,
29:08
Speaker 2: just mime the words. Don't sing. That's why I was
29:11
Speaker 2: supposed to do the first drag show. I just think
29:13
Speaker 2: I look so perfect. I heard the voice of a
29:16
Speaker 2: fucking foghorn. I had no angel in my voice. I
29:27
Speaker 2: seem to remember doing a couple of shows with the choir,
29:29
Speaker 2: just to keep up numbers.
29:30
Speaker 1: I like the way you call it shows.
29:33
Speaker 2: And then just having to mime along.
29:34
Speaker 1: So that.
29:37
Speaker 2: Made me feel bad though, because I could hear the
29:39
Speaker 2: sublime sound. sound around me and again i couldn't be
29:41
Speaker 2: part of it right so this outsiderness feeling that the
29:47
Speaker 2: feeling the the world is a bubble that i'm actually
29:53
Speaker 2: looking into from the outside and a desperate want to
29:57
Speaker 2: get into the bubble because it looked like fun. But
30:01
Speaker 2: it also looked like it was an easier life because
30:05
Speaker 2: everything was uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable in my body because
30:10
Speaker 2: I was a teenager. I was uncomfortable in the modern
30:16
Speaker 2: world coming from such a deep connection to country and ancient...
30:24
Speaker 2: animistic spirit in a way. I was uncomfortable with ideas
30:32
Speaker 2: of wealth and money and who was rich and who
30:35
Speaker 2: was poor and not even being aware it was a
30:39
Speaker 2: thing but not understanding it. I was uncomfortable with class,
30:43
Speaker 2: but not understanding what, being aware of divisions, but not
30:46
Speaker 2: knowing what they were. There was an awful lot of separation.
30:48
Speaker 1: So it's like- Was that a sense of injustice? Did
30:51
Speaker 1: you have a sense that.
30:53
Speaker 2: Everything felt like injustice.
30:55
Speaker 1: Right.
30:55
Speaker 2: Everything felt, not that injustice had been done to me.
30:59
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no. That's what I mean.
31:00
Speaker 2: It wasn't, yeah, it was just this general- Universal sense
31:03
Speaker 2: that something was off. Where I had felt incredibly connected
31:06
Speaker 2: to everything during this idyllic period of growing up. all
31:11
Speaker 2: of a sudden the world had shattered into this really
31:13
Speaker 2: confounding and confusing oppositions and separations and conflicts, which I
31:25
Speaker 2: was left on my own to try and figure out.
31:28
Speaker 1: And....
31:32
Speaker 2: I don't know if lots of people feel that in
31:34
Speaker 2: their early teenage years. I mean, it must be awful now.
31:37
Speaker 2: I mean, can you imagine being like the only white
31:39
Speaker 2: child in your school or the only English person in
31:42
Speaker 2: your school? I just can't imagine what that feels like now.
31:46
Speaker 2: Or even to be a minority, a handful of English
31:49
Speaker 2: pupils in a predominantly third world school. I mean, they
31:53
Speaker 2: don't even speak your language and it's in your country.
31:55
Speaker 2: I mean, I can talk about my feelings of injustice
31:58
Speaker 2: and separation, but, you know, Darling, that was some kind
32:02
Speaker 2: of rookie practice for what the kids who are 11
32:06
Speaker 2: now are dealing with. Right? So I'm at Hogwarts feeling
32:11
Speaker 2: a little bit estranged. You should probably deal with it. Yeah. So, yes,
32:18
Speaker 2: all of that. I mean, as far as forming a
32:20
Speaker 2: personality is concerned, yeah, it's reasonably interesting. The fracturing, psychological fracturing, emotional,
32:26
Speaker 2: spiritual separation. Gender, confusion, sexuality, all of these things, yeah,
32:31
Speaker 2: they're real. Yeah, they make up a character. They all
32:34
Speaker 2: feed into the general make-up or, what's the word, recipe
32:43
Speaker 2: of what makes a personality. But incredibly blessed. Incredibly blessed.
32:49
Speaker 2: However difficult I was finding it, whatever pain I was
32:52
Speaker 2: suffering then, In comparison to what my people are suffering now,
33:00
Speaker 2: I have nothing but gratitude and thanks for what it
33:03
Speaker 2: was that I was fortunate and I had the luxury
33:08
Speaker 2: to experience. And I believe that as an elder in
33:13
Speaker 2: my community now, bearing that memory, carrying that memory with
33:19
Speaker 2: me to others, expressing it to others, the world that
33:23
Speaker 2: I had that they have been denied, that is a deep,
33:31
Speaker 2: deep sense of duty. So it's interesting. You know, some
33:39
Speaker 2: funny stories and this and that, but it's not, it's just,
33:43
Speaker 2: you know, I had a normal childhood.
33:47
Speaker 1: Hang on.
33:47
Speaker 2: Well, do you know what I mean?
33:50
Speaker 1: It was normal for you.
33:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, but normal as in I was in a country
33:54
Speaker 2: that I knew where it was on the map. I
33:56
Speaker 2: was with the people who I knew who they were.
33:59
Speaker 2: They spoke the same language. My parents had passed on
34:03
Speaker 2: some kind of tradition of parenting that was normal. I mean,
34:08
Speaker 2: they separated, whatever. They didn't get divorced, but they separated.
34:11
Speaker 2: So it was a bit split that they were always arguing, whatever.
34:15
Speaker 2: But It was still a normal childhood, right? I still
34:22
Speaker 2: had normal friends. I wasn't worried about getting stabbed.
34:24
Speaker 1: Right, okay.
34:25
Speaker 2: You know, I wasn't worried about having my, I mean,
34:27
Speaker 2: I did, I went on to worry about having my
34:29
Speaker 2: head kicked in every day, but I mean, that was
34:30
Speaker 2: another story. What the life was, was violent for young
34:34
Speaker 2: people in those days as well. It doesn't compare. It
34:38
Speaker 2: doesn't compare. There's no comparison to the world I grew
34:41
Speaker 2: up in and what is now bequeathed to this generation
34:45
Speaker 2: and the next. There's no comparison. So, you know, ultimately
34:50
Speaker 2: I'm saying, yeah, it was tricky. It was interesting on
34:52
Speaker 2: certain levels, but it was.
34:54
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like the fact that you grew up
34:57
Speaker 1: in nature gave you something like a real foundation to
35:04
Speaker 1: deal with any of the psychological....
35:08
Speaker 2: I mean, there was some psychological issues, certainly. I mean,
35:11
Speaker 2: so school just went downhill. Everything just went wrong. This
35:14
Speaker 2: kind of fantasy world and the world of reality had
35:16
Speaker 2: just kind of bled into each other. And I didn't
35:18
Speaker 2: kind of know which world I was living in. And
35:20
Speaker 2: I was also doing organ lessons. And I mean, I
35:24
Speaker 2: got caught doing some, I would say, you know, basically
35:28
Speaker 2: a black, what the church would have seen as a
35:29
Speaker 2: black mass in the cathedral. That didn't go down too well. Yeah.
35:36
Speaker 2: And then I was caught, oh, Mr. Massey, who was
35:41
Speaker 2: my organ master, let me play a congregation out at
35:46
Speaker 2: a wedding, because practically an actor's playing some Bach cantata
35:49
Speaker 2: or something on the organ as something very basic. And
35:52
Speaker 2: I thought, oh, if it was my wedding, I would
35:53
Speaker 2: want the theme from Star Wars. I put it on
35:57
Speaker 2: full organ, which is really loud, and played a very bad,
36:00
Speaker 2: poor rendition of the thing from Star Wars as the
36:03
Speaker 2: congregation were leaving Lord and Lady Marks. It was a
36:05
Speaker 2: cathedral wedding, so it wasn't the local coal scuttle merchant.
36:12
Speaker 2: It was a posh do, so I got in trouble
36:15
Speaker 2: for that. I remember I cracked the bass pipe of
36:17
Speaker 2: the organ, I think. So I was reprimanded very seriously.
36:22
Speaker 2: I think that was just the last straw for the school.
36:26
Speaker 2: and the chaplains. And I seem to remember being offered,
36:30
Speaker 2: I thought I was expelled. My memory is at that
36:32
Speaker 2: which point I was unceremoniously expelled. However, my mum has
36:38
Speaker 2: a different story where they offered me to go into
36:41
Speaker 2: the cloisters or to become part of, you know, go
36:44
Speaker 2: to priestly training or something. Okay. Because they were aware
36:47
Speaker 2: that I had certain talents when it came to the
36:51
Speaker 2: hocus pocus. But it had to be challenged. Then it had,
36:57
Speaker 2: you know, if I was going to go further, that
36:59
Speaker 2: had to be taken seriously and channeled. It couldn't be
37:01
Speaker 2: allowed to just go crazy. I seem to remember someone
37:06
Speaker 2: saying that I'd caused a demonic infestation in the science
37:08
Speaker 2: lab at some point.
37:11
Speaker 1: So do you think there were people actually, that was
37:12
Speaker 1: on their radar?
37:14
Speaker 2: Well, it was hard to admit because as I was living.
37:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, but as a positive thing. So like, you know,
37:21
Speaker 1: there were people within the church who, who were aware
37:26
Speaker 1: of these kind of forces. Because you might think, you know,
37:29
Speaker 1: in that kind of situation, you know, it's just very mundane.
37:35
Speaker 1: People aren't aware of the spirit world, you know, in
37:37
Speaker 1: the church.
37:37
Speaker 2: Well, you would hope that the priests would be.
37:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you might hope it, but I would.
37:41
Speaker 2: But rare. No, no, you're right. I mean, and this
37:43
Speaker 2: is one of the problems. I mean, we can get
37:44
Speaker 2: on to the death of Anglican. But this is indeed
37:47
Speaker 2: one of the problems with the church is they forgot
37:49
Speaker 2: their spirit.
37:50
Speaker 1: There's no spirit, is there?
37:52
Speaker 2: Exactly. Absolutely. But yes, I think there would have been
37:56
Speaker 2: somebody behind the scenes who picked up on that. There
37:59
Speaker 2: must have been somebody who was at least somewhat spiritually
38:02
Speaker 2: aware within the church structure who said, oh yeah, that
38:05
Speaker 2: one's got something about him. And they were right. I
38:10
Speaker 2: did have something about me. I had a natural ability.
38:13
Speaker 1: So.
38:17
Speaker 2: But I was, by which point I was in a
38:19
Speaker 2: rage of my own over something at the time and
38:22
Speaker 2: flounced off.
38:23
Speaker 1: Well, the rage, presumably that was just the conflict between.
38:29
Speaker 2: The two worlds. Of all these things. There were so
38:30
Speaker 2: many things that were in conflict. But I had no
38:33
Speaker 2: way of expressing any of it. So I just flounced
38:35
Speaker 2: off in a big hissy fit and ended up at
38:38
Speaker 2: Ilfracombe Comprehensive. My mother sent me to my first day
38:42
Speaker 2: at comprehensive school. We moved to Devon. At which point
38:46
Speaker 2: we moved to Devon, to North Devon, because my mum
38:48
Speaker 2: had to get a job and the only ones she
38:49
Speaker 2: could find. And actually, it turns out I've got loads
38:51
Speaker 2: of family in North Devon, which I hadn't realised. Okay.
38:54
Speaker 2: It's all another matter. But she sent me to school
38:59
Speaker 2: in my rowing colours for my first couple of brands.
39:01
Speaker 2: In your what colours? Rowing colours. Which was your outfit
39:05
Speaker 2: for rowing. Okay. Why did she do that? I think
39:09
Speaker 2: I'm just, I never, we've never spoken about it. Okay.
39:13
Speaker 2: But she gifted me the most traumatic, my first proper
39:17
Speaker 2: psyche-shattering trauma.
39:20
Speaker 1: So, as a gift. It's a bit like the Johnny Cash,
39:23
Speaker 1: I'll call you Sue, you know, like, here you are, son.
39:25
Speaker 1: You wouldn't be the man you were if I hadn't
39:27
Speaker 1: called you Sue.
39:28
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, yeah. yeah i don't know it took me
39:32
Speaker 2: um i don't know if i ever really did recover
39:35
Speaker 2: from that day um i was the horror it was
39:42
Speaker 2: a very big very rough in those days school so
39:46
Speaker 2: i'm sure it is even but it probably still is
39:48
Speaker 2: um Comprehensive. And I turn up in a cap with
39:52
Speaker 2: growing arms on it and shorts. Oh, dear. Looking that
39:58
Speaker 2: little awful. Still with ringlets, by the way. I don't
40:00
Speaker 2: know how I've still got these ringlets. OK. And, yeah,
40:06
Speaker 2: I mean, all hell breaks loose. I mean, it's just like...
40:09
Speaker 2: That was the start of it. Yeah, it was just like,
40:11
Speaker 2: you know, throwing a kitten into the bear cage or something.
40:14
Speaker 2: It was... I was not prepared for what I encountered
40:17
Speaker 2: on any level. I know. And I had a meltdown.
40:20
Speaker 2: I mean, I couldn't go back. I did one day.
40:22
Speaker 2: I don't think I even finished the day. I think
40:24
Speaker 2: I was there for four or five hours before I
40:27
Speaker 2: was just expelled, you know, from just, that was a
40:32
Speaker 2: bubble that popped me out quite quick. And I just
40:36
Speaker 2: couldn't deal with it. So then we found another school
40:39
Speaker 2: that was a bit, you know, better in inverted commas.
40:42
Speaker 2: And I went there for a while. So that was
40:43
Speaker 2: when I was trying my second year of school. So
40:45
Speaker 2: that was my second year of school where I got
40:47
Speaker 2: kicked up and down the playground for a couple of months.
40:49
Speaker 2: I mean, I was beaten up every day I went
40:51
Speaker 2: to school. I had people waiting for me outside the house.
40:52
Speaker 2: I had people following me to school. I had my,
40:54
Speaker 2: you know, I was punched over. And as I say
40:56
Speaker 2: to people in those days, you know, the teachers would
41:01
Speaker 2: break up. When you were getting beaten up for being
41:02
Speaker 2: a poof at school, the teachers would break up the
41:04
Speaker 2: fight just so they could lump you on. so it
41:07
Speaker 2: was you know there was no bullying campaign anti-bullying campaign
41:13
Speaker 2: there was no awareness it was just you got your
41:16
Speaker 2: head kicked in repeatedly every break time and that was
41:21
Speaker 2: quite tough because it's not just the violence it's the
41:28
Speaker 2: threat the constant threat of violence when you're young and
41:33
Speaker 2: it's Not feeling safe anywhere. I can't imagine what it's
41:39
Speaker 2: like now, even at home with a mobile phone, and
41:42
Speaker 2: they can get to you on the phone. At least
41:45
Speaker 2: in those days, you could shut the door behind you
41:47
Speaker 2: at home. I mean, even if they were banging on
41:49
Speaker 2: the door, you had the kind of glass and the
41:51
Speaker 2: lock to protect you. So I was mercilessly kind of
41:56
Speaker 2: stalked and hunted when I was 12. And it was...
42:08
Speaker 2: Very hard to navigate. All children have experienced that. Understand
42:16
Speaker 2: that process. We'll hear what I'm saying. And, you know,
42:21
Speaker 2: bullying is bullying. You know, it's hard to deal with
42:23
Speaker 2: at a young age. It's hard to deal with, you know,
42:25
Speaker 2: it can happen in the workplace. It can happen when
42:27
Speaker 2: somebody takes against you like that. Yeah. But anyway, when
42:30
Speaker 2: half the school around today, it was... So I was
42:34
Speaker 2: not happy, to say the least. So my comprehensive experience
42:37
Speaker 2: was not only did I not understand that I was
42:39
Speaker 2: supposed to be learning something. By this point, it was
42:42
Speaker 2: impossible to learn anything because I was in a state
42:44
Speaker 2: of abject terror 24-7. So.
42:50
Speaker 2: Terror and anger. So this anger that I'd felt was
42:53
Speaker 2: now multiplying because I had terror to go on top
42:55
Speaker 2: of it. And they're a feedback loop. Terror and anger
42:58
Speaker 2: are a feedback loop. Yeah.
42:59
Speaker 1: What about hate? How did that come to you?
43:00
Speaker 2: Well, hate comes along. Did you hate? Did you feel hate?
43:06
Speaker 2: But the person you hate most is yourself in those environments.
43:09
Speaker 2: Because what you want to do is take a gun
43:11
Speaker 2: in and spray them all down. You want to fight back. Mm-hmm.
43:18
Speaker 2: And when you're feeling that the more you hit back,
43:21
Speaker 2: the worse it gets. Before you actually move, what kids
43:26
Speaker 2: don't know, I'm not giving anybody advice because every situation
43:31
Speaker 2: is different, but there is a breakthrough moment, which is
43:37
Speaker 2: how hard you hit them. When one of them goes down,
43:39
Speaker 2: the others think, right? But you don't know. Which one
43:44
Speaker 2: it is that you've got to knock out.
43:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
43:46
Speaker 2: You don't know how much you have to fight, how
43:49
Speaker 2: many you have to fight until you get some kind
43:52
Speaker 2: of reward. Yeah. And so although I was fighting back,
43:55
Speaker 2: I wasn't fighting back well enough to climb out of
44:00
Speaker 2: the hole.
44:01
Speaker 1: Sure.
44:01
Speaker 2: The victimhood hole. So that makes you very, very angry
44:06
Speaker 2: with yourself because also there's no roadmap to how many
44:10
Speaker 2: of these people have I got beat up before I
44:11
Speaker 2: get some peace.
44:12
Speaker 1: Yeah.
44:14
Speaker 2: And also being quite effeminate, being not physically able, in
44:26
Speaker 2: a sense, not physically strong. All these things kind of
44:32
Speaker 2: feed into each other. And so I felt very powerless.
44:37
Speaker 2: So since going to public school, I felt like I
44:40
Speaker 2: was just ricocheting down and down and down, spiralling out.
44:43
Speaker 2: I felt I was spiralling out with no end in sight.
44:47
Speaker 2: Like the floor that had been the meadow and the
44:52
Speaker 2: brook and the mountain. It's just gone. It was, yeah,
44:57
Speaker 2: it was another world. It had just disappeared, fractured, shattered.
45:02
Speaker 1: So.
45:04
Speaker 2: We get to Christmas. I mean, that was better. That
45:07
Speaker 2: entire experience was between September and Christmas of my second year.
45:12
Speaker 2: My dad had to move back to London because of
45:16
Speaker 2: trying to earn a living as an architect. And we
45:19
Speaker 2: used to go and visit him in school holidays. And
45:21
Speaker 2: he had a flat in Chelsea just off King's Road.
45:25
Speaker 2: So this must be 1981, 1980, 1981. we went to
45:31
Speaker 2: stay with him for Christmas. He gave my sister and
45:33
Speaker 2: I five pounds to go and buy badges. My sister
45:35
Speaker 2: was into heavy metal. So I thought I was into
45:38
Speaker 2: heavy metal. And she dragged me along to a Iron
45:40
Speaker 2: Maiden concert, which I found appalling at the age of 12. Like,
45:45
Speaker 2: how have I got into an Iron Maiden concert at
45:47
Speaker 2: age 12? But I didn't taunt them. But I did.
45:51
Speaker 2: And I remember finding the whole thing very undesirable. So
45:56
Speaker 2: I thought, that's not for me. but I'll stick with
45:59
Speaker 2: it because my sister's into it. And so we went,
46:05
Speaker 2: my dad gave us five pounds each to go down
46:06
Speaker 2: the King's Road because that's where we would find heavy
46:09
Speaker 2: metal badges. Okay. And we're going, we're just kind of
46:13
Speaker 2: wandering about. And we walk into a shop called the
46:16
Speaker 2: Great Gear Market, which was a converted cinema, which had
46:25
Speaker 2: all stalls there. of people making their own clothes. Independent designers, makeup,
46:31
Speaker 2: it was a punk shop. It was post-punky, neo-romantic, goth
46:35
Speaker 2: kind of place, right? So it had all these concessions
46:40
Speaker 2: of designers selling their own gear. Now, I remember in
46:42
Speaker 2: those days, everyone made their own clothes. Prime art didn't exist.
46:45
Speaker 2: I mean, top shops at that point did. It was
46:47
Speaker 2: only Dorothy Perkins, I think, was the only young lady's
46:53
Speaker 2: fashionable clothes brand. chain. If you wanted crazy clothes, you
47:00
Speaker 2: had to make them, really, or go to see... I mean,
47:01
Speaker 2: Vivienne's clothes were ridiculous. I knew nothing about that at
47:04
Speaker 2: the time, but looking back, what Vivienne was charging, like,
47:08
Speaker 2: £ 80 for those Pistols T-shirts in 1982 or something. Ridiculous, anywho.
47:13
Speaker 2: So I walk... I can remember it, vivid as day.
47:18
Speaker 2: It had steps going down to the floor, to the
47:20
Speaker 2: main floor. So you walk in through a kind of
47:23
Speaker 2: double entrance. It was an old cinema. Then it had
47:25
Speaker 2: steps going down to a large floor, but it had
47:28
Speaker 2: all these designers. In the middle was a cage with
47:31
Speaker 2: a DJ in it. I would never see anything like it.
47:35
Speaker 2: The smell, the look. It was full of people with
47:38
Speaker 2: coloured hair, spiky hair, makeup. It was full of freaky
47:42
Speaker 2: goths and tranny goths and neuromantics. It was just the
47:46
Speaker 2: beginning of the neuromantic thing. And so you had punks, goths,
47:51
Speaker 2: and neuromantics all on a Saturday. And the King's Road,
47:55
Speaker 2: as it turned out, was where everyone went to pose
47:58
Speaker 2: on a Saturday. And everyone just walked up and down
48:01
Speaker 2: King's Road posing of a weekend. I knew nothing about this.
48:05
Speaker 2: I just literally stumbled into the middle of the scene.
48:08
Speaker 2: That was the daytime scene of post-punk London. And what
48:13
Speaker 2: I didn't know was everyone was in there, darling. I
48:16
Speaker 2: know eight people still that were in that shop the
48:19
Speaker 2: moment I stood on those steps. I still know eight
48:22
Speaker 2: people that were there that day. And I was 12. And....
48:31
Speaker 1: Everything changed.
48:31
Speaker 2: Everything just fell into place. It was amazing. From this
48:35
Speaker 2: point of total splintering, psychological splintering, it was just like
48:41
Speaker 2: the whole thing went like that and came together into focus.
48:46
Speaker 2: And I was home. And that was it. I was home.
48:50
Speaker 2: And that was where I was always going to come
48:51
Speaker 2: home to because this was my home.
48:55
Speaker 1: But that's a different home to the home that you
48:57
Speaker 1: had as a younger boy. So the nature, that's a–
49:01
Speaker 1: I find it quite interesting because it seems like a
49:06
Speaker 1: contradiction in a way. I don't think it is. But
49:12
Speaker 1: you were grounded in nature.
49:14
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
49:16
Speaker 1: And then you found your home in this, not contrived, but.
49:22
Speaker 2: Darling, contrived. Let's call it contrived. Let's go there.
49:26
Speaker 1: I don't know if contrived has got some negative connotations,
49:29
Speaker 1: but it's certainly constructed.
49:31
Speaker 2: Very constructed. But it was the pose. Completely contrived. Everyone's
49:35
Speaker 2: sort of.
49:36
Speaker 1: So we're all living like this. How do you reconcile that?
49:40
Speaker 2: It was completely contrived.
49:42
Speaker 1: How do you reconcile that? How do you look back
49:44
Speaker 1: at that? And what would that child that was feeling
49:47
Speaker 1: all this? You obviously had a gift for connection with spirit,
49:50
Speaker 1: with nature. Because it was magic.
49:53
Speaker 2: Okay. Because the projection into reality, the projection of thought
49:58
Speaker 2: form into reality, it was a show. But it was
50:02
Speaker 2: so obviously a show. It was so obviously a facade
50:10
Speaker 2: being played out by people who were as damaged as
50:13
Speaker 2: I was. Right. By this point, I'm carrying some damage. Okay. Right?
50:18
Speaker 2: I've had intense trauma for, you know, two years of
50:23
Speaker 2: my life. A lot shorter than many, but it was
50:26
Speaker 2: still pretty real. Yeah. Right? It was shorter than, thankfully,
50:31
Speaker 2: than many people. But it was still pretty traumatic. And so... This,
50:40
Speaker 2: everything came together here. Now this place, although I'd come home,
50:44
Speaker 2: it then soon turns out that it's full of factions.
50:48
Speaker 2: It's very violent. It's incredibly jealous. I mean, we can
50:52
Speaker 2: go into how he, we call it the Hades. I
50:55
Speaker 2: walk into the middle of the Hades. Brighton Pride asked
51:23
Speaker 2: me if I would do a float. I think, I'm
51:26
Speaker 2: sure it was 97. I can't quite remember. If I
51:28
Speaker 2: was interested in doing a float for 97, they had
51:30
Speaker 2: a large budget. I remember it was 40,000 pounds, which
51:32
Speaker 2: is a hell of a large budget for late 90s. Yeah.
51:35
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm going to.
51:36
Speaker 2: Have 50 people in Rainbow Clue Clark's clan outfit waving
51:39
Speaker 2: really happily from the top of the bus and all
51:42
Speaker 2: doing line dancing behind it, but all through Rainbow Clue
51:46
Speaker 2: Clark's clan. And they were like, I'm sorry. Surely there's
51:51
Speaker 2: some kind of fascism going on somewhere. I can feel
51:56
Speaker 2: a darkness. So it's a comment on that. So praying
51:59
Speaker 2: to Christ and being engaged in a Christian practice daily
52:07
Speaker 2: makes that easier to do. Jesus says, you know, God
52:11
Speaker 2: is in everyone, that we have our own relationships to God.
52:14
Speaker 2: And of course, it's priesthood. The power structure comes in.