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Catherine Carr37min

Speaker 1

00:01

My name is Catherine car. And this is season three of relatively, the podcast all about potentially the longest relationships of your life.

Unknown Speaker

00:11

What are you doing there, Charlie? Right.

Unknown Speaker

00:14

I'll be bringing siblings together to talk about the connections they have as adults, as well as what it was like growing up together.

Unknown Speaker

00:22

Eat it right into the microphone again. I'm going to make some slightly sexy noises as well. Oh, God like that. Oh.,

Unknown Speaker

00:28

this week, we're talking to the comedian Tom Ward and his sister Charlie ward. She remember mark the murderer? And yes, was the sort of the more Bible based person who sat between us and neighbours. I only remember the murderer because that was exciting. And we had a killer in our house. But I also talked to them separately to get a more private take on the relationship. In my mind, I think she was okay. She wasn't going to hell, because somehow she'd already been saved, even though she left the church and I was very concerned about that. I was very concerned that everyone had to be saved. I think we're kindred. I think we've had that thing that brought us in close but then there's so much it's a gift what was what was given to us. I was saying to me that that kind of forged our friendship. Yeah, I said that to someone's like we had this similar experience

Unknown Speaker

01:16

came from the same womb something

Speaker 1

01:19

and in a new twist, I'll be delving a little further back with the help of our sponsors find my past the family history experts.

Speaker 2

01:27

And Granny's the the word diamond that

Unknown Speaker

01:31

yes, Muriel Catherine

Speaker 3

01:33

so Muriel's parents were 70 and 24. Yes. Oh my God.

Speaker 1

01:38

Brothers and sisters are never straightforward. Tom and Charlie grew up in London with parents whose extreme religious beliefs affected the siblings profoundly. It's the main thing we talk about actually. Although climate change activism, comedy Herald mad from neighbours, and teenage rebellion, also get a mention. Charlie started by explaining their nicknames and telling me about a recent brush with the law.

Speaker 2

02:07

I am Charlie Ward, sometimes called Charlotte by my mum and the police and more recently, the magistrates and I am the oldest sister by four years of my dear brother, Tom Ward.

Speaker 3

02:22

Hello, my name is Tom Ward. And I am Charlie's little brother by four and a half years. I call her Charlotte sometimes I call her show a lot. I put a dash between the show and a lot. I just think it's such a stupid name, isn't it? Charlotte? is so silly. Is it? It's just it just sounds ridiculous.

Speaker 2

02:44

I call him Tommy. And always I've done which just reminds me of a London cab driver. Actually it doesn't. Yeah, but it does suit him. I love I love him with that name. And then he calls me Charlotte.

Speaker 3

02:57

Charlotte. Yeah, I think Mum had a mate who says show alert.

Speaker 2

03:02

There was a woman who is the mother of one of my mates. And she doesn't sound like that. He's spiffs. Her coming up the stairs to ask for her rent. Is Cheryl arts. I've come about the rent. So yeah. Charlotte, Charlotte.

Speaker 3

03:20

And, yeah, I had that to the burger and chirps. Which she may have told you about as well. Like, I suspect also, I heard a woman say that in a market. I want to get a burger and chirps. So that stuck has been there for 20 years rattling in my head.

Speaker 1

03:37

It's good that the useful information stays there. Yeah, I always think we, you know, I'm going to ask why you've been in touch with the magistrates.

Speaker 2

03:44

Yeah, I got arrested for climate action. I got a sat down in front of a bus on Oxford Circus with a dear friend, we put our arms in a pipe. And then yeah, held up traffic for a number of hours. And I got put in Brixton. Nick, eventually,

Speaker 1

04:02

is climate action, something that Tom does with you.

Speaker 2

04:06

What it is, is we talk about it a lot. And then He supports me in what I do. He's, I would say more the background guy. And obviously he talks about it on stage as well.

Speaker 3

04:17

She's got involved in it in the last what three years, I reckon maybe more. And she goes to the protests and really enjoys it and where's all the extinction rebellion badges and holds the placards and I basically can't stand all that stuff. I just die inside whenever I'm in a crowd shouting about anything, even if I agree completely with the sentiment. But yeah, and I fully fully support her and I'm grateful that she does it and I give her my room if she wants to stay here and I look after her when she comes in, take her out for breakfast and make her smoothies and stuff and give her a pat on the head. I'm glad that she's doing it. understand what to do.

Speaker 1

05:01

So where does that come from then? Is it something that your family have believed you like kids of original hippies? Or is it something you've grasped at yourself?

Speaker 2

05:11

So, you know, there's this whole thing of people going around in the West saying, Oh, well, I do the recycling. And my mum always did the recycling. But it was before everyone was doing it. And we went to the dump. So there was that consciousness about waste and trying to sustain things as long as possible. And dad was quite skinny. So there was also that thing of hand me downs and jumble sales and just being quite economic and frugal. But I think it might be a bit of a hangover from our apocalyptic Christian upbringing as well. It's like the end of the world. It's sort of maps quite well on to that the idea of like, the end of something, which in fact, it is, so yeah, I think it's, it's been in our psyche as it were, in our in our family psyche.

Speaker 1

05:54

What I love about an interview is not us that I asked you a question. And then it's almost like you give me a multiple choice answer. It's like, well, you can either go down this really fascinating Avenue or this one, or this one. So I'm gonna try and remember them all in my mind to pursue them. So tell me a little bit more about your mom and dad, the way you said it. It sounded like they might be separate, but maybe they weren't.

Speaker 2

06:15

They're separate now in the ad dad has passed away, which was in 2006. So in that sense, they are although they think they're going to be reunited in heaven. So that's why dad didn't get a cremation because he thinks he's going to rise from the dead in physical form. He was very literal. And I think I'm understanding now because I'm studying to be a psychotherapist that that he had some autistic traits, so so his brand of evangelical Christianity is quite binary. Are you asking me what their relationship was like?

Speaker 1

06:43

Or what it was just the way you said that dad was frugal? It sounded like a separate thing. That's all that maybe they were together and to leave or stay Worsley?

Speaker 2

06:51

Yeah, they were. So he left in effect, but he just left by the more traditional method, maybe rather than divorcing her. But yeah, they were definitely the product of a watch, let's say like, a bumpy connection.

Speaker 1

07:03

Okay, so tell me about being raised by evangelical Christian parents? How did that sort of look?

Speaker 2

07:11

It looked on the outside, quite harmless. So it's also two people who were quite distinct. So dad was definitely the fundamentalist and mum was more the she's really practical. She's a nurse. And she's very traditional. And I think she's not really someone who goes into the ideas too much. And dad was really fixated on the ideas and very worried we were praying for mum to become a born again, Christian. From when I was about eight

Speaker 3

07:38

years, she was into it, she was into it. I think she might have even nudged me towards Jesus. I remember there being a sort of a ripple of excitement through the church hall as I came in and said that I was ready to turn my life over to Jesus when I was eight. But everyone was smiling and celebrating, it was good news. You know, I didn't quite know what was happening, or really what that meant. But I'd said the right words. And that meant that I was now saved. And everyone seemed so happy. So I just assumed it was a good thing. And yeah, we were at church in Wimbledon, who was in a swish new building, that they'd moved into a few doors down, and I remember costing a million pounds to make and I was obsessed with that. They cost a million pounds, that is the wow. That means it must be real. This Jesus thing must be real.

Speaker 2

08:27

Get all kind of culminated when I was a teenager when I was 1415, with our grandfather dying, and she had converted to biblical Christianity, which had appalled her mother and they fallen out before she could be reunited with her father, which I think was terribly a terrible blow for her. We had a kind of succession of what I'd call quite fairly major traumas. So mum left the church fell out with her parents, her father died. And then and then we got involved with a cult. And yeah, so it wasn't Waco. It was waco without the guns and without the fire and the feds, but it was, yeah, Jesus was coming back. And this was the mid 90s, I was going to be doing my GCSEs. And we'd left the church because we'd sort of basically clustered around a much more, a much stricter brand of Christianity, which involves even less people going to heaven, and we needed to tell everyone about Jesus coming back to Earth.

Speaker 3

09:22

I basically just told the line really, whatever my dad told me to think or say I did it. And by the time I became suspicious, or sceptical or bored, then the sort of fear element was used more. So there was more of a kind of you do know what will happen to you after you die if you don't do this, right. And that would come at me at sort of bedtime. And then I'd it would sort of send me into a bit of a tailspin and then I'd say can we stop talking please? And then gradually, I just, I couldn't, couldn't really cope. So I had panic attacks and charged around the house. In and Out of rooms could have beside myself this idea of hell.

Speaker 2

10:06

And, and me and my dad really fell for it and I was really in cahoots with him. And then mum was much more like, Can we all just calm down a bit. And Tommy was also really anti these people but me and daddy, and what it was started as three French, three Parisians like a couple and their little baby. And first of all, we were sheltering them for dad's friend, Sybil who had had a massive crush on at school, who was like, She's nuts. And she had this big house in Wimbledon, and she was like, she couldn't fit any more missionaries in so she said, Oh, can I come to you? And that's like, yeah, of course. And so they came along, and then they said, Oh, we got some friends. And we're missionaries. And we're working through Europe. And there's some people in Switzerland that need to come and then and then before you knew that there was this guy, Mark, who was it turns out he was he'd been a murderer. He's like, what I say murder, he was convicted of killing someone was drunk driving in South Africa. And we were like, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, he'd served his time and all this sort of stuff and and got, you know, got this heavy brand of Christianity whilst he was in prison. But we, my brother pointed out recently said, you know, Mark was a murderer. So we spent a lot of time sort of laughing and so they all came

Unknown Speaker

11:12

in at a new house.

Speaker 2

11:14

Yeah, we had a three and a half bedroom suburban house in Wimbledon. Yeah.

Speaker 1

11:19

I mean, it almost sounds like you're just sort of inventing it. As you're saying it. It sounds so mad. So if you were includes with your dad. I mean, that sounds it sounds like you knew what you were doing. But I would hazard a guess that as a teenager, you're very impressionable. You didn't really know what was going on. Maybe. Just don't. Did it cause problems between you and Tom if he was like, No, thanks. And you're like, Yes, please.

Speaker 2

11:45

So this was just before Tom and I formed what I'd say is like the bond we have now, what happened was these people left unceremoniously because our pastor from church came around prayed in tongues, which then revealed that the head of this organisation who was very unprepossessing man called Leon, he was short he had really bad acne scars and thick greasy glasses.

Speaker 3

12:06

I remember Leon so that's a start I presumably on was before my time or was Sunday School teacher I have no clue Leon was

Speaker 2

12:19

and he used to sit down in front of the TV when we were trying to watch neighbours and he'd be like, you can't watch this in his thick French accent because it's premarital sex. It's condoning premarital sex is very jumpy about sex.

Speaker 1

12:35

Charlene did not know what she was. She was creating. And this is mango was more on the money but Charlene had no idea. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker

12:45

good old Mrs. Mango Harrowed match. get time to do is match impression.

Unknown Speaker

12:52

I certainly will.

Unknown Speaker

12:54

Sort of emphysema and Rothmans. I haven't I haven't done any sheets. That sounds like a wounded frog. I haven't done it since what the night is I don't remember doing it. Here we'll merge the trumpet or the trumpet? Boom, boom, boom. Yeah, quite a wobbly chin.

Speaker 1

13:28

Thank you, um, my days made? We were talking about silly voices earlier because Leon the man, you couldn't remember who he was. Tom was apparently according to Charlie, the weird leader of the weird missionaries from France who lived in your sitting room? Yes, yes.

Speaker 2

13:44

Mark, the murderer. Yes, was the sort of the more Bible based person who sat between us and neighbours. I only

Speaker 3

13:50

remember the murderer because that was exciting that we had a killer in our house who was now trying to save us and take us to South Africa. Our dad

Speaker 2

13:57

was completely nuts. You know, he was manic depressive because he had breakdowns more than one. He ran a business and he was the most ludicrous businessman, he just he was an accountant, which is like guaranteed to press the money button and he couldn't make it work. He you know, he was very eccentric. And he was lovely. He was so lovable. And then he had these appalling beliefs, which meant that he made him very inflexible, and he sort of following the book rather than his feeling it was in constant battle with himself, you know? Sorry, what were you gonna say?

Speaker 1

14:32

No. Well, that leads me to a different question really, which is so you, your childhood was one of like impending sort of danger, whether it was like unpredictable parental behaviour, people being cast into hell, people being in touch with each other or not in touch with each other weird people coming and living in your house. It's not as that's not a safe emotional environment for any child.

Speaker 2

14:55

No. It's very funny though, isn't it? You just rattling elf like that. That was really funny.

Speaker 1

15:02

I mean, I mean, the Leon and the neighbours detail is funny, but it's not really funny. It's it's actually quite frightening for a small person, I would think. And it's at 14 You think you're very, very old and you're really not? Yeah, you're

Speaker 2

15:15

right. And I think what you said earlier as well is that you don't really know what's going on as a teenager. Like I said, You think you've got an idea, a handle on stuff, but I will I don't think I did. I knew the Bible very well. And I knew how to talk the talk.

Unknown Speaker

15:32

Can you still recite Well, the books of the Bible

Speaker 3

15:34

was in the fall to end I mean, you don't have

Unknown Speaker

15:38

to but could you please, probably

Speaker 2

15:41

a bit more Swati than so I'm gonna give you the new test. I read the New Testament twice going in. Matthew, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. X Corinthians. Oh, it's quite nice not to know actually. Philippians Philippians Colossians Timothy, Titus. Two lots of betta

Unknown Speaker

16:01

ones not enough.

Speaker 2

16:02

No. Yeah, the Acts of the Apostles and Corinthians were really heavy in our mix because it's all like marriage and sex and Paul was just a grumpy bugger who didn't really yeah he wasn't wasn't very nice about women and we internalised or that or I did anyway was the anti bombing very anti bombing do not bomb he said other ours are. This is we're fine. This is

Speaker 3

16:31

actually locked in. Locked in orifices absolutely fine.

Speaker 1

16:39

This season a relatively is sponsored by find my past the online home of the 1921 census in 1921. Life in England and Wales could be tough. But there are lots of examples of humour in the census records. Constance Bernard Fitz Harmon listed her three young children's occupations as getting into mischief, and getting into more mischief. And for her 11 month old baby occupying feeding bottles. Did your grandparents add a quirky note when they completed the census? View the record itself at Find my past.co.uk to find out?

Speaker 2

17:15

Catherine described it as quite dangerous, emotionally and otherwise our household?

Speaker 3

17:21

Yes, yeah, I would say so. I would say so. The word dangerous has definitely changed in the culture, isn't it in the recent years? But yeah, by modern standards, it is dangerous. It was dangerous. It was emotionally violent. Reckless.

Speaker 2

17:38

Yeah, it was very confusing, because there's a lot of learning how to not trust my feelings, which is the work I've had to do as a grown up or as a person emerging from that is to No, no, no learn to trust, to trust myself first and to love myself. Which is another thing that with sin. It's very easy to fall into a self hate sort of spiral.

Speaker 1

18:01

When I suppose churches like that are often Grace Light, aren't they? Yeah. Yeah. And sin heavy. Yeah. Yeah. And I think Charlie said something really interesting, which I've, you know, I've heard other people who've left organised religion, say, which is about learning to trust your own instincts and your own emotions. And being in a situation where you're constantly sort of divorced from your own emotions and told to listen to people who are sort of patently a bit nuts. That is quite dangerous, because then you grow up to be an adult. Without that skill. That seems quite central to me.

Speaker 3

18:37

Yeah. But you wouldn't end up be doing comedy if you hadn't had that. So you know, you have to wait up. You get to, you get to go on stage every night and live this perverse lifestyle, or everyone thinks you're really cool and in control, but actually, you're frantically paddling under the surface. I think Charlie started calling it a cult I remember and I remember thinking, is it was it a cult, but I guess it's just a very suburban version of a Netflix series. You know, the thing about a Netflix series is that, that it's usually the people are separated off from society, they're on a commune or, you know, some sort of place off grid. And then things happen off grid, whereas ours was in plain sight and was was in the world, which, which is usually sort of seems less like a cult. But the the essential doctrines were the same, weren't they? Charlie wasn't like, absolutely. But dad wasn't pumping all the women at church and trying to have babies and saying that he was the messenger. No, as far as we know.

Unknown Speaker

19:44

We don't know what Katherine might have found out. Yeah.

Speaker 1

19:50

Nothing I just think there's sometimes something that's in plain sight, and it's only three degrees away from something that's accepted and normal can be more pernicious. Yeah, I quite

Speaker 2

19:59

agree. And it also So that was terrible. Once I left, there's no one I could talk to apart from Tommy, he was the only person who understood, because at school, it's just too weird.

Speaker 1

20:08

So you weren't allowed to watch neighbours because there was the leader of a cult living downstairs in your sitting room. And you were given just to recap, and even Tom was slightly not loggerheads, but you know, had different positions about when and where Jesus was gonna come back. Is that fair up some?

Speaker 2

20:25

I found out much later that he never really loved Jesus, whereas I was in love with him. And Tommy, and I were not, I would say, like we you know, he was my brother. But at this point I was, he was much younger than me. It's a really big age gap at that age between like, you know, 15 and an 11. Yeah, because what happened is, then this cult, basically their pastor prayed in tongues. And then we were all meant to go back to church, but it had been rubbished, because it's like, this was the broad and easy path to destruction. And then we were meant to go back. And the church counsellor basically, rather than listening to me, told me what she thought I should think. So I've gone back to church for a couple of weeks. And then I was like, I'm absolutely done. Because my faith had started to shake and sort of be very wobbly, because my dad had condemned my mother's father to hell for being a lapsed Methodist. And that's when that's when our bond became really central. Because it was, he was already in my, in the house. And obviously, and we were seeing each other all the time. But that's when we started to really talk.

Speaker 3

21:31

I don't really know what was said, I just remember being just out of my skull with fear, and not knowing where to turn. So I'd run into my mom's room. She'd be in bed lying on the bed reading, and then running from that room into my sister's room. She didn't she was just kind I don't really know what was said, but she was just there. Safer. Yeah, I think she put on some music. But I said it was too scary. So I asked her to turn it off. And I can't really tell you what was said, because it's so long ago, but I just remember it being a reassuring presence and being utterly grateful that someone was there that was holding the space. And in my mind, I think she was okay, she wasn't going to hell. Because somehow she'd already been saved, even though she left the church and I was very concerned about that. I was very concerned that everyone had to be saved. So I it felt, okay, it felt like all right, she's not she's not fallen, as you would call it, is she's just not there at the moment. So she's alright, she's alright, I don't need to worry about her.

Speaker 2

22:37

And we would talk all the time, like really long conversations. And he'd just be in my room or if I had bath, like, remembering it's we were very prudish. So like, you wouldn't sit in the bathroom with me be on the other side of the door. Or if it was hidden, then I'd sit on the other side of the door with him. And, and that I was saying to me that that kind of forged our friendship. Like that's what set it on the track. It is now I think, yeah, I said that too. Yeah. And it's

Unknown Speaker

23:05

so much like we had this similar experience

Unknown Speaker

23:09

came from the same womb. So

Speaker 1

23:12

I mean, you're trained to be a therapist now so you understand what it is to sort of reprocess and reprocess and look at things from different perspectives. So it I mean, I guess you're doing it as a grown up and a mother of two did it did it but immediately after leaving the church and losing your faith, and then being loyal and close to your brother and sharing that attitude, you must have looked back at your very recent past together, and that must have just been madness to talk about me. You could never stop talking about that. There'd be so much to unpack.

Speaker 2

23:40

Yeah, that's exactly right. And we are cult survivors like we because I think that the church was quite culty as well. It wasn't called that but it has some such extreme beliefs around women's sexuality and around women's role there was no one in the leadership who was female they were stewardesses at the at the most as a naked Asha you to your seats. was normal

Speaker 1

24:03

teenage life allowed to go on and did you do parties and sleepovers and hanging out with friends or were there

Unknown Speaker

24:08

lots of strict you want to know when we got laid? Don't

Speaker 1

24:10

you know, I don't want to know. I just want to know what it looked like to be children who have day.

Unknown Speaker

24:19

conceptions?

Speaker 1

24:21

Was the mention of holes earlier? I mean, no, I just want to know because I'm presuming there was youth groups and teaching and socialising in a bubble and

Speaker 3

24:31

and fingering Yes, Catherine godsake and some fingering.

Speaker 1

24:37

So what was teenage life? Like come on human me, Charlie.

Speaker 2

24:41

My feeling is that we had a really bizarre thing, which really revolved around dad's mental health, as I experienced in life happens on so many levels. It was possible to have a complete fallout with him him condemn me to hell, and then me to go carry on with going back After School in playing hockey and having a, I would say, quite probably quite a normal time as a young person. I had great friends at school, I was lucky with school because I had a good cohort. I was really sporty and talented. And I was good at the academic stuff. And I liked it. I wanted to do it. And I was well supported by my teachers and stuff. I would say, Tommy, have I My feeling is Tom, you had a different experience?

Speaker 1

25:26

Do you think that's true that you had a different experience than at school and with your relationship with your dad, and all of that hit you at a different point in time?

Speaker 3

25:33

Yes, I think for whatever reason, I was sort of traumatised, and then re traumatised in a short space of time. And I think that meant that I was sort of frazzled in a different way to Charlie, in that I was just terrified. And then I was I sort of looking back, I could feel myself sort of breaking, splintering, the impact of being scared so much and being controlled and corrected and not allowed to express myself. I just felt I could the depression crept in. And then from there, it was like, Oh, God, I was in a really low place from about 12 onwards, and trying to leave the church but then being scared enough to come back. And then even the fear didn't work anymore. You know, I remember being very scared one night and ringing my I didn't know how to ring. And I think Charlie was out and I rang, I went through the directory, and there was a, one of my teachers, we were given all the phone numbers of all the staff at schools, a little school. So I rang my gym teacher and asked if I could speak to his wife, because in my head, she was really kind. So I rang her and had a chat about how scared I was. And then in the morning, she told my head teacher, and he cornered me and shouted at me, and said, Don't you dare ever call my staff, one of my staff ever again. So I was like, you know, as a kid, it had a breakdown, essentially, who was now being told not to reach out to the people. So it was like, I remember just looking back, that's one of those where you go fucking hell that's, like, a lonely place to be when you're 12. And going home, and then having your dad pray over you and tell you, you know about salvation and how the Lord is with you. And yeah, I mean, it's so yeah, I think from then on, I was sort of reeling. And maladapted. Socially, I couldn't, I just didn't know how to do it. But I remember being I remember being quite good looking. Like when I was about 15. Being cute. And I was like, the girls were flirting with me. I had no clue what to do with it. Not a clue. And that and I remember feeling like, oh, this is a whole new world that could open but didn't. But I've been smashing birds for the last 10 years to make up for us. That's fine. We'll keep that in. Definitely keep that in. Yeah, so

Unknown Speaker

27:52

sensitive, Tommy so sensitive, just. Yeah.

Speaker 1

27:59

Let's talk about competence, shall we? I just wonder where that all came from the idea that this might actually be something I do. That's what my life could be.

Speaker 3

28:06

I mean, when I was 21 ringing, Charlie, because I'd spent I would be I'd watched him bed, Ben Elton. Video and was so buzzing from it that I spent all night thinking I was burnt out and, and got out a pad that she'd given me and used it, and then rang her in the morning like beside myself thinking, right? I'm a comedian. Now she's gonna love this. And Charlie just listened very quietly, in that way that she does, where she doesn't give you anything unless it's genuine. And you went once, and then it took about eight years to recover. Since I started to hope I'm like,

Speaker 1

28:43

did you tell her after you took it bombed over the phone with your pad of jokes? You're highly derivative. Did you tell her like this is this is it now? This is this is the new the new aim.

Speaker 3

28:54

I just thought I was just excited. I just rang her up and said, Charlie, it's me, Tom. And gentlemen. Our fracture. Yeah, I was excited. I thought this could be it. This could be something you know, and I was desperate for something. So you know, to have Charlize total silence was very painful, because she was the person I want it to be impressed.

Speaker 1

29:14

Maybe that's quite refining. So then you know you've got good and now she's impressed. Right. So it worked in the end.

Unknown Speaker

29:20

Yeah, yeah. Took a while. Took a while.

Speaker 2

29:23

I've mellowed a lot as well. So I'm your standards dropped. You've met

Unknown Speaker

29:30

fat and fat and

Unknown Speaker

29:32

I lost all hope.

Unknown Speaker

29:34

Yeah, that combination has really been good for me, actually.

Speaker 1

29:38

So how would you describe Tom's character? Oh, it's a good question. What he's funny.

Speaker 2

29:48

Yeah, there's he's funny. I'd say he's, he's a very intelligent chap. Very thoughtful. I'd say very spiritual.

Speaker 3

29:58

I wouldn't I'd never use that word. describe myself, I just think that's really embarrassing. I'm a very spiritual person that basically means you're not you're an idiot.

Unknown Speaker

30:08

I think she meant you're

Speaker 3

30:11

just I think probably Phyllis, I don't know what the word is, I just, I don't feel fully engaged in things in a slightly removed, I think when you're a kid and you're sort of taught to distance yourself from the world, and from sin and, and temptation, it kind of makes you more of an outsider. So I think that lends itself to the Buddhist stuff of being a witness. And that kind of side of things. It's hard to hard to explain.

Speaker 2

30:51

And he's done the work. He's earned that. He's made it himself. He's very trendy. So he's got the right trainers on. There's a sense of things are gonna happen. He's one of those people who instigates he's a proper artist. He is not an emulator. He's, yeah, he's an instigator.

Speaker 1

31:15

Oh, wow. That's mean. I mean, yeah. That's an amazing accolade to give somebody I think. Yeah.

Speaker 2

31:21

Like his hair, good hair. Good, French, good, French, long, wonky nose. And he's taller than me, which I also really like, because I'm tall. And I like the fact that he's taller. And he'll, yeah, so slightly protective thing going on, I think.

Speaker 3

31:36

Oh, Charlie, is ice as a brilliant question. She's incredibly engaged, incredibly funny, quite scattered. She has big notions. She has big aspirations that then suddenly change or feel like they suddenly change. She's a seeker and is coming to find herself quite late in life, it seems. She's been sort of searching and searching and searching for a long, long time. But yeah, it seems like she's finally finding some ground the sheet that is steady.

Speaker 1

32:28

Yeah, this podcast is all about kind of nuclear family stories and immediate family stories. But it's sponsored this season by find my past, which are the family history, people and they've looked into kind of stories from not just your nuclear family, which are fairly hair raising and extraordinary, but they've had a look in your family history. So you gave some names, right? I've got the names that you gave your maternal grandmother Muriel Katherine harbour, right. So she was born in Southport in Lancashire to her parents, I think you gave this name as well, potentially Alfred harbour and Mary Jane Webster. And in the census in 1921, Alfred, and was a professor of music but it says you may know this, you may not. It says his story is way more interesting than that. And there's the actual census entry with his handwriting on which is really lovely. On the 12th of December 1921. In the Liverpool Echo, Alfred harbour is featured as the composer of a piece of music called the horizon. Do you know about this? No. And he is considered by many and there's an article here from the newspaper to be one of the Forgotten figures of English music. His work crossing the bar, a dramatic symphonic Cantana was his most ambitious project, and use the words by Alfred Lord Tennyson, and was dedicated to Her Majesty Queen Alexandra and published in 1909.

Unknown Speaker

33:52

Did you know that? No. Did you know that Charlie?

Speaker 2

33:56

No. We've got an auntie called Alexandra. I bet that's why gurgi Yes.

Speaker 1

34:01

So in the musical times on the first of April 1894 is the announcement of his work with the full orchestra, the chorus and everything else with Tennyson's poem. He married a woman called Jane man who had a large family with eight children. She passed away in 1921 and he then married a young pupil who was 24 and he was 70.

Unknown Speaker

34:25

Oh my god, dirty dog.

Speaker 2

34:28

Granny is the the one time is that yes,

Unknown Speaker

34:32

Muriel Catherine

Speaker 3

34:33

so Muriel's parents were 70 and 24. Yes. Oh my god.

Speaker 2

34:39

Yeah, there's a lot of music in the family. Is there a lot of musical people? We can all sing? Was that a churchy

Unknown Speaker

34:46

thing or was that? Partly Yeah.

Speaker 3

34:50

Yeah, if that doesn't inspire you, if that doesn't make you want to become assigned to this site of those wobbly bums in faded blue Levi's in front of us with their arms in the Am memering See this is oh lord and saviour Jesus shine

Speaker 1

35:20

thank you to Tom and Charlie and thank you too for listening.

Speaker 3

35:24

Catherine just asked me about to describe your character. I've never had to do that before it was exhausting. Impossible, impossible. Yeah, you're very complex, completely contradictory, utterly silly and quite facile so it's really tricky to do justice. So

Speaker 1

35:41

this is the end of season three relatively if you've enjoyed it, please do rate review and subscribe. It really helps others find it or you could just share it with your brother or sister. Tom is at the Edinburgh Festival this August the links to the tickets are in the show notes and he's absolutely brilliant. I'd also like to say a huge thank you to our sponsors for this season a relatively find my past for digging into their extraordinary records and uncovering surprising and often revelatory family stories, some of which you've heard today by my past is the only place online where you can access the 1921 census. So if you want to start your family tree or add colour to what you know already, then find my past or co.uk is the place to do it. Thank you to Tony to tickle him for letting us use her amazing song. This is a pocket Production and Sound Design is by Nick Carter at mixed onyx.com

Speaker 4

36:33

tradition of love and hate saying my fireside this good tradition of love and hate steal my the fireside another way may for your father's calling you. You still feel safe inside on the mask too proud. The brothers ignoring you. You still feel safe. Washing Solo was his yesterday was his wild west Chanti can time

Speaker 3

37:06

still. The wonderful, wonderful podcast. Isn't she just lovely? She's absolutely lovely. She's absolutely lovely. What a lovely, lovely woman. It's beautiful. She deals with some very uncomfortable subjects just brilliantly Yes.

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