Get Booked – Colin Stewart, Flid 261222

You're listening to Get Booked with me, Hazel Butterfield, for Women's and Men's Radio Station. Welcome to today's show. Today we're going to be discussing the book Flidd by the author Colin Stewart that was released on the 8th of November of this year. Flidd is a book about a character, a character with a disability, but forget everything you think you know about disability and meet Kevin. What follows is a moving and sometimes comic account of a life lived to the max. No arms, no legs, no problem. Watch as Kevin navigates his way through school, the workplace, and university, breaking barriers at every step. An optimistic and ebullient force, it is only when Kevin unexpectedly finds love again in later years that he is called upon to reassess a condition he has long come to accept. Thalidomide was a widely used drug in the late 1950s and early 1960s for the treatment of nausea in pregnant women. It became apparent in the 1960s that thalidomide treatment resulted in severe birth defects thousands of children. 'Flead' was the rather derogatory term assigned to such children. Joining us later in the show, we have the author of this book, Colin Stewart, who not only has meticulously recounted the first installment of Kevin Donnelly's life, he actually knew this incredible character too, so definitely firsthand experience. I'm super excited to be chatting to him today on Get Booked. But that is what Get Booked is all about, going into detail about the topics covered, the inspiration, the mental health and well-being elements, opening discussions and offering support via the incredible writing community out there. I love books like this that kind of throw perceptions of subjects such as disability on its head and help us to to understand a more in-depth take and help broaden the mind. So definitely not one to miss. Please do feel free to catch up on our previous shows at womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked and on our SoundCloud, or you can pop onto hazelbutterfield.com and just click on the SoundCloud link and it will take you through to all the previous Get Booked shows. We are coming to the end of a fantastic year of shows here for Get Booked and indeed for Women's and Men's Radio Station. We've received some brilliant awards and thank you to all of you listeners for your support. Please do pop on to womensradiostation.com and mensradiostation.com to find out what we're all about and all the different shows that you can listen into. Now joining us on the show is today's author of the aforementioned 'FLID,' Colin Stewart. 'FLID' is a meticulously and beautifully written memoir of the life of Kevin Donnellan, and the sheer bloody-mindedness to not be perceived as less than is a great lesson to many of us and a great reminder about how much effort has been put in to achieve inclusion for anyone with a disability, and yet how much further we do have to go. These are the kind of stories that broaden the mind, help us understand more about perceived limits, and learn from our mistakes. Let's find out more from today's guests. Colin, hi, thank you for joining us on Get Booked. Hi, thanks for having me. You are very, very welcome. So, um, I have been storming my way through this book, and I'm worried that we're not going to be able to squeeze it into our allotted time, but let's, let's kick it off By telling us a little bit. There's actually a second part to the book as well. I've had to split it into two, so it was even longer as, as envisioned originally. Well, actually, what was quite funny is as I was reading the book, I— it took me a lot longer to read it than usual because I kept on having to go off and Google certain things that you were talking about in the book. And then obviously I knew about Thalidomide and what happened in the late '50s and '60s, but the more you read, the more you wanted to find out more, which is, you know, what's supposed to happen when we read books like this, but I do. Yeah, so it works a little bit like as a hybrid because it is based on fact and there is a lot to research and look into and you'll find online, but it is written in a novelistic style as well. So it's quite, it's quite interesting how it's pitched. Well, yeah, it's, it's definitely a quite a unique way of portraying the story and I really enjoyed it, but I, I ended up Googling Kevin Donnellan, like the character that you're talking about, and it's like, no, I'm finding out about things before I want to, and I had to stop Googling 'cause then I kind of saw some of the ending in a way before I was ready for it. 'Cause obviously a book offers a representation, but as soon as you see a video, you have a picture in your head. It's like seeing the movie before you've read the book in a sense, isn't it? In that way. Yeah, so I must say to all the listeners out there that rush out to go and get this book, please do not Google anything until you've read the book, 'cause it does kind of ruin it for you. You're like, ah! I remember sitting there just going, I didn't want to know about that just yet, I wanted to follow the story as you were telling it. Now, if we just kick off first, Colin, telling our listeners a little bit more about you, who is Colin Stewart? Well, I became Kevin's friend in later life really, but I used to see him when I was a child and he was my brother's friend. And when I became his friend, he was going out with my friend's girlfriend, he was, my friend's girlfriend was working for him and Kevin slowly started to fall in love with her and it was at that point I thought this is a really interesting story and I really wanted to tell it because she was making notes on his disability course all about how if you're disabled you might be infantilised and seen basically as no threat, as not sexual. And yeah, he was there falling in love, feeling, you know, feeling sexual and feeling he had just as much a chance as anyone else. She was also telling him how much she loved him and how much better he was than her boyfriend, which again gave him kind of hope of, you know, because he's a man, so he's thinking, I have a chance here. And I thought it was really ironic that she was making notes on the very things that she was kind of enacting in real life. And he was suffering from the very things he was making notes on and studying. And from that kernel, then when I asked him about his life, because I didn't— he was just a friend, I didn't know where he went to school, I hadn't really asked that. I saw him more as a person than his backstory. But as soon as he started to tell me things, it was just, it was like gold dust. It was one story after another, was fascinating, you know, how he went to school, how he learned to swim, his first girlfriend, story after story. I just thought, this is brilliant. So the book grew and became basically a biography of most of his life with that love story at the center of it. The thing is, he was just— he was one of these people, from what I've read, that just embraced everything and was just brimming with drive and such character that it's just quite nice to read about. But also I did find a bit like what you said about, you know, how people perceive people with disabilities, especially, you know, in the late '60s, '70s, and '80s. It is getting better, but there was this whole idea that, you know, a perceived lack of intelligence or being less than of those with a disability. And it doesn't help, especially with the certain height restrictions of those that were treated with Laminate. It's that whole looking down on people, and it kind of changed people's— well, it contributed to people's mindset of how they perceived people in wheelchairs and with disabilities and looking different. Just because you looked different, then you automatically were different. And we are all different, but just in our own different ways. Whereas Kevin's a very, very intelligent man, you know, went on to do a degree, and he's lectured in lecture halls and all the rest of it. He's also an Everton fan, you know, season ticket holder at Everton. But we shouldn't hold that against him. No, we shouldn't hold that. I mean, I'm a Liverpool fan, so yeah. But, you know, I've been a couple of games with him. It's very exciting on the front row. He's long-suffering, but he's kind of lived all the things that anybody else would have done, you know, and probably more. He's lived a very, very full life. And as you say, he is someone, he's very, very enthusiastic, so he always jumps in. We have a joke about him being a joiner. That if there's something to join, he'll join it. So he's been a socialist, he's been in the Liberal Democrat Party, he stood at a local council, he's been in various religions. So as soon as something comes along, he tends to join it and then he throws himself in wholeheartedly, you know, whether that's love or whether that's an organisation or a movement. So he's someone who doesn't really have regrets, who lives absolutely to the max. And my part in the story as the narrator is kind of contrasted with that because naturally I'm an introvert. And I don't join things. I'm very, very cautious. So it's quite an interesting contrast, and I've put that in for that reason, in a way, to, to make the contrast. I think also sometimes when we're faced with something that puts us on the back foot or puts us at a disadvantage, the strength of a person and character is what they do with that. And some people see these setbacks and they run with it just to prove people wrong. And that's definitely Kevin, isn't it? Oh, definitely, yeah. Yeah, and he sounds quite funny. If there's anything he hasn't tried, can you think of it? Maybe hang gliding or something like that, possibly jumping out of an aeroplane, but there's not much, no. That surprises me that he hasn't given that a whirl, to be fair. He will probably line that up for one of his future birthdays. Yeah, well, so the book, there's nothing left out. I said in the intro it's very meticulously written, the detail you go into, and I must say you are such a wordsmith. It's— you write things so poetically and I just was enthralled. I was kind of drinking up everything you had to say. Well, that's good to hear. Thank you for that. Yeah, well, part of the reason once I started writing was Like the opening few pages when I described Kevin, it was like, do you describe his disability or do you describe everything else? And I went for everything else, so you know about all his hairstyles, his different moustaches, the earring in his ear, and I know that it'll beg the reader, will want to know, well, what about his arms and legs? And it was a conscious decision to not really talk about the disability so he wouldn't be defined by that from the off. And in the second book, in the sequel, it begins with a quite anatomical description of him as a kind of contrast to that first description, when I go into how many fingers he has, the length of them, to the nth degree. And I'm hoping a reader who knows Kevin by then won't really want to know those things, because you wouldn't want to know the length of your friend's leg or how many toes they have. It's irrelevant because they're your friend. So I'm hoping by that point a reader, when they get to there, realize they don't want to know about his disability. They're more interested in what he's doing, who he's in love with, who he's arguing with, just the everyday things that we're interested in. Well, I mean, I'm in two minds about this because, you know, we are many different parts of nature and nurture. You know, this is what creates us. And the thing is, to know somebody and to appreciate how successful somebody is, even if they would've done this regardless of the cards dealt to them. Yeah. You know, we need to understand each other a little bit more anyway so that we can be more mindful. I mean, there were certain elements that kind of feel like they should've been common sense, but I didn't understand some of the things that he would have to go through until I read the book. I mean, things like learning to swim, how it had to be on his back because of you know, the distribution of his body mass. Yeah. And then, you know, if he ever flipped over the other way, that he has no means of flipping himself back round again and the dangers of such. And, you know, I was talking to friends this morning, um, on my walk about how there are certain elements about dating and going out with your mates to get drunk where, you know, you kind of, as blokes, as women as well, you go out, you drink, and you kind of take the mickey out of each other and you're having a laugh. And then at one point he's got to have somebody help him go to the toilet. Yeah. And then, and they're, they're the, they're your friends. You don't really want to put that on a friend in a sense, do you? But who else could you put it on? No. And it's a bit like when he was dating as well, and that, you know, if he went away for a weekend, he could only go for one night because otherwise ultimately the new woman in his life would have to put him on the toilet and things like that. And you kind of think, you kind of still to know about these things to understand. Otherwise, if we don't understand people, we concoct our own idea of what's going on in their heads, and it's quite often wrong. It was trying to get the balance of that right. So for a lot of the story, he's just getting on with things as anyone else would, and then I think the reader might be brought up short by, oh, but now what's he going to do now? As in, he has to be taken to the toilet or his new girlfriend has to go and tour with him. So I wanted to play with that tension so you almost forget about the disability until it's suddenly right before you, and then you— then, you know, it shocks you again thinking, oh wow, I'd forgotten he was in a wheelchair, and that's difficult. But that is— it was playing with that balance throughout, you know, and sometimes maybe went a bit too far one way and then pulled it back. It's just a matter of choice at each point. It's, um, it was— I think you did it really delicately. I think you focused more on him as a character and what he achieved rather than the disability, but also the fact that he went on to actually work for a disability trust. Yeah. Because who best to ask than somebody who actually has to contend with the issues? Yeah. But then it was not really all it seemed, was it, when he went to Ellesmere House. It was, um, he was welfare advisor, but the job was a little bit concocted in a sense. It was International Year of the Disabled Person in 1981 as the UN declared it, and the job wasn't really what it— I mean, that taught him a lesson going forward of how often these things are just kind of tick boxes and don't do what they should do. And so when he came to deal with organisations later, he kind of had that experience in the bag. You know what I found quite interesting is that there is accessibility, you know, there are laws in place now to make sure that there is accessibility for absolutely everybody, but I mean, a few years ago I worked in an office that I know could never be made available to anybody with any disability, you know, it's, it's really dodgy metal outside steps that go up, you know, windy little curves, and in no way, shape, or form could they ever employ somebody who was in a wheelchair. And you just think, there's only so much that can be done with it. And it's quite— There's only so much you can do structurally, isn't there, I think? Yeah. With old buildings and old settings. But obviously with a new build you can design it taking into consideration different people, but With old buildings, it can be difficult and impossible. Yeah, yeah, completely. But no, I find it— I found it so incredibly interesting reading through. And when is the next one due out? Have you finished? Well, the next one— because I said, yeah, because I split the book in two because it was just too long as a debut novel, and it had two parts, so it worked anyway to do that. But the next one's written and edited So I'm kind of seeing what happens with this first of all, but it's, it's ready to go. I'll probably reread it in case, you know, anything's come to me in the meantime and, and the reaction to the first makes me adapt things slightly. But there's a lot in the second book, you know, is his whole— his politicization is in the second book. He joins the Baha'is, as you're saying. Well, hasn't he joined? He joined the Baha'i religion, and it's a really funny and interesting chapter on the Baha'is. He was in that for 6 years. And there's 2 big relationships, some of them Um, I certainly hinted at in the, in, in, in the, in the first book in Flidd, but they, they come to life in the, in, in the second book. He was definitely somebody who was always in love, always in love, always searching for love, and there was always somebody that was on the, in his sights in some way. Yeah, he's, he's, his heart's on his sleeve in, you know, relationships, but also in politics and things like that as well. He's, he's he's all in when he likes something. Yeah, I like that, and I think it is— the book is more about the character of somebody. The fact that he achieved what he achieved, given the restraints, is what makes it even incredibly more remarkable. I mean, what I just really struggle with is there was certain elements of the book where you talk about this perceived lack of intelligence of those with a disability, and when people met him, especially famous people, because he, you know, managed to go on and do documentaries for the BBC or met people at certain fundraisers. And the fact that some people would have a joke with him and be shocked that he was capable of humour. It's just, yeah, it's infantilisation, isn't it, of anybody with a disability. Yeah. And the expectations of what they might or might not be able to do. And obviously Kevin's very, very bright, very, very sharp and very opinionated, and that's would come as a little bit of a shock to them. Yeah, yeah, very opinionated, I love that. Yes. Was there a part of this book, and I'm talking about the book as maybe part 1, that you enjoyed the most writing about? Probably not, just every story you told me was just fascinating. It came towards the end when I'd go around to check up on a particular detail, and he'd be telling me more stories, and I'd be putting my hands over my ears and saying, well, don't tell me anything more because I've written like 250,000 words, you know, I don't want any more material, stop. And he'd be trying to tell me, um, you know, there could be a third book with, with, with where his life's gone since, if it was interest. Um, yeah, so it became quite a symbiotic relationship by the end. And when he tells people stories now, he tends to frame them a little bit in the way I've written them, slightly, which is interesting. And also what anecdotes he might tell people are often ones that I've possibly picked out, because if I found them interesting, he now maybe finds them more interesting, and they have a bigger weight in his sense of his own identity and memory, because memory and identity are very creative, aren't they? And, you know, we tell stories of our own lives, and obviously Kevin had already done that, but I've tightened that up because I've been making a book of it. So it's probably tightened his own memory and his own thoughts in a particularly— in a written way rather than, you know, a haphazard way as memory normally is. So that was very interesting. Have you had much feedback since the book was released on the 8th of November? Not so much, I'd say, so far, because I think people have often got it and then put it on their shelf, and it is, as you say, it's a it's a big book, but I think it's entertaining and readable. But people sometimes put books on a shelf for a while, and I'm cautious to force anyone to read them. I'd like them to come to it in their own time. But the feedback I've had has been really good, and it's always very interesting to see how other people take things. I think also, I mean, yes, it is a big book, but it does— you actually race through it remarkably so. But also, the book will force a lot of people to face their own unconscious bias. So it might mean that people have to stop every now and again. Yeah, yeah, I hope it'd have that effect. I think it is, it is, I think it is a bit of a page-turner. When I was writing, trying to write synopses, I was coming up with the idea of it being quite picaresque. It is one event after another, you know, it's thematically done, but it's one thing happens, then another, then another, then he gets drunk, then this happens, and though very entertaining you know, entertaining stories, hopefully with enough humour in there. It's not really, in no way is it a tragic story. I mean, he's gone on to live a really good life, but the events in it are funny and entertaining rather than tragic, given the fact, you know, at the back he's obviously had all these difficulties that he's coped with. Yeah, I mean, should we talk a little bit about his mum, Agnes? She's quite quite a character. She's had a lot to go through, but she's just one of those mums that just fought for him like no one's business. And I'm sure this story might not have been or would be very different, have a very different tone if it wasn't for Agnes kind of not accepting less than. Well, she— I mean, she was the one who got him into a normal mainstream school to begin with, which they didn't want to do to start with. I mean, she was one of the first when they— it's in the second book— but they went for compensation and went through the court case. She and her husband were part of the first people who did that because a lot didn't take that fight on. She was part of the first 62 and again and again and again has like shown him that he can do anything and given him courage and fought for him and refused to see him in any different way or treat him any differently to anyone else. But yeah, very, very strong character. It's lovely to give her, give her a time and give her her story as well. So she died in 2017, is that right? Yeah, yeah. So she— I assume that this book hadn't started at that point because I don't know how long you've been writing the book. Probably about 10 years. It probably had started, but she was, you know, she wasn't as, as, um, you know, as together in later life, to be honest. So I see her more in passing. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't interview her. It is very much— the book's very much from Kevin's perspective. So even though it's factual and third person, there's a sense that he's narrating it to me, and I do sometimes break into the narrative to, you know, have, well, Kevin told me this, just to put that in. So it is factual as it is and researched as it is, there's that sense of it's somebody's perspective. It's about memory and identity as well. Well, life is very subjective, isn't it? And but it's good that we all see it from everybody else's different perspective. And I found it interesting reading, especially the way you recited it, the events of him being included in a mainstream school and the efforts from the female teacher. And, or as she sat everybody down in the assembly hall to discuss their issues and, you know, various other— which this happened so regularly in the '80s, the '90s, even the, you know, the early 2000s where people didn't want their children being left out because there was more effort being put into helping a child with a disability that would take up more resources. And you kind of think, and you remember hearing these stories, and it just kind of reminds you of just how backwards we were. It's kind of an envyism, isn't it? You know, and you probably get it now with, with immigration where people don't want, don't want that in their backyard, you know. People protect their own to a certain extent. But Miss Skelly, who was the teacher, was fantastic. And, you know, when she passed away and some of her— what she'd left behind was passed on to Kevin because she'd often spoken of him. So I did see a box Kevin showed me, and it had her wage slips in, hence why I've put that detail in there. But it had like the first car she owned and where she lived and cards she had from children when she retired. And, you know, a whole kind of— she wasn't allowed to marry at that time because she was a head teacher, so her life had really gone into school and these children. And as well as Agnes, I think Miss Skelly was a really important part of Kevin's life. If she hadn't taken those children on, you know, they might have just stayed in the kind of NHS school they were in, but she gave them that chance and opportunity and really ran with it, you know. They had a great life there. It just shows how many different elements there are to this book because it It takes incredible women like Miss Skelly, who quite frankly, she was already breaking down barriers with doing the job she did and going to university when she did and not marrying or not being allowed to marry because of the role she took on. And then yet, rather than just sitting there and being— and I'd love to use air quotes, but they don't work very well on radio— but being happy with what she had achieved, she just stormed through and thought, in for a penny, in for a pound. If I'm here, I might as well do something with it. Yeah, it's fine. I mean, there's a lot of stories like that in the book. It's kind of quite maybe Dickensian in its way, and I like going off on those side characters, I think, to give them their moment, but also so it's not all about disability in that way, because all our biographies are partly to do with who's around us. So if we go off on those paths a little bit, it brings colour and it it brings the kind of very similitude, because our life is full of things we even, we even forget and don't remember. And it felt important to get that into a biography. So I'm not, I'm not telling the normal, um, it hasn't got the normal kind of plot shape that you, that you'd expect from the book. It's, it's got lots of color and lots of variation and lots of other things going on. I mean, it's, it's about, it's about Liverpool in the 1980s and 1970s in some respects as well.— it's about place. Yeah, no, I think so as well, and also up north was possibly less progressive as well than the south. Everyone's all catching up left, right, and centre, but I think it was interesting that it came from that perspective as well. Now, I've been Googling this Thalidomide. I can say it. I can say it. And it's interesting reading more because obviously thalidomide was only in use for 4 years until the correlation and the understanding was come about that obviously it was quite problematic. Bizarrely, somebody who I was speaking to this morning, she said that her mum used thalidomide for about a month because of her terrible morning sickness. But then she just suddenly went, oh, I don't like this. It's not working as well as I want, and I don't feel comfortable taking these drugs. And so she stopped. And it's— I'm sure there's many stories out there of such, but, you know, you read about these. Well, I think, you know, I had the book— was it— it's been— the book's been put in, um, in the libraries across Liverpool. So I went to the main central library to just get a photo of myself holding the book, and the doorman took the photo and he said, oh, I went to school— he went to the same school Kevin had gone to in Highfield Comprehensive. Um, so you get lots of these stories and And somebody else I contacted, a journalist, and he was saying he was born in '61 and his mum took some of the pills and it could have been him. So you do, if you, you know, for a particular generation it was, you know, my mum didn't take one but she was offered it by a doctor. Wow. I mean, it's just close calls, isn't it? Obviously everybody that was affected, they're all within a 4-year span, so they're all similar ages. Dealing with together, which is a really bizarre saving grace, like camaraderie and same stages at the same time. But they had to fight through the courts for like 10, 13 years in order to get sort of what they— better compensation. I mean, that was ongoing and where they were getting hardly any help off the government. The newspapers couldn't talk about it because I had been in contempt of court. So they were scrabbling to make ends meet and fighting these court cases while trying to look emotionally after their children and get them in a school and all the rest of it. So it's a, you know, really tortuous time and difficult time. Um, but as far as the pill goes, you had to take it in a particular, um, time during your pregnancy. So it had to be within like almost a 2 or 3 day period. So either side of that, and you, you know, one one day before or after when Kevin's mum took it, he would have had legs, you know, which would have obviously made a difference. So it's as precise as that. It's just, I mean, there's so many procedures that for drugs to be approved in the UK, evidently anyway, um, they're so much more stringent But, you know, thank goodness it is. Thalidomide case, I'd say, is what, is what really changed how drugs were tested. You know, because they believed at the time that the placenta would protect the baby from cigarette smoking and from medication. So the adverts said, good to take for you and you and your child because you couldn't overdose on thalidomide. So they developed a drug for no particular reason. They just experimented and they thought, this is a really good drug. You can't overdose on it. It has all these properties. Now what, who should we give it to, you know? So, and then they decided, oh, pregnant, pregnant women. But they would give it for different reasons. So they had different brands, one called Malgraine. You'd have that for if you had a migraine, and they had different brands, but it's basically the same drug. But if you had like depression, they might give you it. If you had headaches, if you had morning sickness, all different things you might get it for, but it's the same drug differently packaged. That's unbelievable. But after that, that was when, you know, I mean, some at the time other companies were testing on pregnant animals. So that was the case against the drug company really, that they should have been doing more and could have been, and then hid a lot of what went on when they fought the court case. But obviously after thalidomide, it changed everything as far as which drugs were taken and how they were tested and all the rest of it. So it had a really positive effect. On society in that way. And also the compensation they eventually got, because it made, you know, it changed the rules on that a little bit, on what you should be able to claim if you've suffered in some way at the hands of a company or the government. That was changed from the court case they went through. It set the precedent for what was to come after that. Well, just to point out to all of our listeners that they can pop on to thethalidomidetrust.org to find out more Now I heard a little bit of a rumour, Colin, that there's some ITV interest in Flidd. Can you say anything more about that? There was a lady I spoke to at ITN and she rang me and said, well, we're going to do something next week, and this was a couple of weeks ago, and then I think they pulled the plug on that, maybe because it wasn't a current story to kind of attach it to, so I don't know if she'll come back. To me. I'm kind of waiting on that one. Yeah, that's the thing though, isn't it, with these stories? All of a sudden something comes into the public sphere and then bang, they'll be knocking your door down. Yeah, I mean, I think when there's anniversaries and things, if I'd finished this book 5 years ago, or, you know, would have been— that would have been a better time as far as the anniversaries of certain things. But yeah, there's lots of bits of interest going on, so we're hoping to kind of build it. But obviously the Christmas period slows things down a little bit. Well, it does indeed. And just before we came on air as well, you were saying you work as a teaching assistant, don't you? Yeah. So you've got two— So it's difficult for me because I'm here quarter to 8 to half 5 and then trying to get home and connect with different contacts and make things happen. Even, you know, fitting this in, I've had to kind of steal, steal 45 minutes in the middle of the day to fit it in, you know. So it's quite difficult. It's like doing two full-time jobs a little bit. Yeah, well, you know, but this is the world we live in anymore. We're not one thing or another. We're so many different things, and we have different jobs, you know. We're constantly juggling, and we're a writer, a parent, um, got this job, that job. I mean, I've got about 4 different jobs, you know, just Keep them all spinning to keep life interesting. And now a question I like to ask all my guests is for somebody that my guest admires in the public eye, which I'm sure you've got absolutely millions, but I think it's nice to kind of— I don't know if there are that many actually in the public eye. Um, yeah, well, maybe not. Well, sometimes in the past, like, I've had some guests have just said, oh, do you know what, My neighbor, I wish they were in the public eye. They always give me something nice to think about. But I think there's so many people out there that just kind of bring us down or they're not great to see on the socials or they've not got the most— they've got the loudest voice but not the most helpful of voices. But there are people out there. That's often the way actually, isn't it? It really is. It really is. Is there anybody out there that you'd say, oh, I like what they do? Well, usually, you know, I'll go for like writers and musicians and things like that. But, um, I think in this example I was thinking about it before when you asked the question, I was thinking maybe Jürgen Klopp, Liverpool manager. Oh, he's brilliant. Oh, he's just about everything he says, every interview, football and not football, he's absolutely brilliant. And he doesn't seem— he doesn't have any arrogance. He'll get angry in the moment because he wants to win the game, but that's nothing. Yeah, yeah, completely real, but nothing— there's no hangover from that. He would never hold a grudge. He's very kind to his players. You know, player plays badly, he's on their side. I think he's a really, really great man, a really great leader in, in any field, I think. Do you know what, if you, if you look at some of the speeches he gives and you forget that he's actually— it's football that he's referring to— it is so relatable to many things in our daily lives. What he has to say is so inspirational, and it's just— yeah, he's brilliant. That's a brilliant one, and thanks for a bit of a reminder on that. Yeah, he is really— and he's really— there's a, there's a I think it was on the news, Spitting Image. They've got a Jurgen Klopp puppet, and people— so he gets through the post, he gets this big heavy parcel, he's like, oh, what's this? Let's have a look inside. And it's, it's, it's a brick from the Everton fans. They've thrown it through his window. He's like, that's great, I can build a wall with it. Oh, Everton fans, they're so kind. And then someone puts like poo through, so he said, I can help my plants. Oh, they're so kind, lovely people. Positive attribution, I love that. Yeah, but he'd probably say it and laugh as well, and it's, it's, he's positive about everything, but yeah, it's great. I absolutely love that. We're running out of time, but we've just got a couple of minutes if we can try and squeeze in for the, uh, the 3 top tips on mental well-being, trying to achieve good mental well-being. What would you give to our listeners as 3 tips? Again, I'd say, you know, I put a piece of music on and my mood just changes, you know, feeling a bit down, as soon as I hear it coming out the stereo, so all the arts really, I can lose myself in a book, I love cinema and the, you know, the curtains go aside and I'm in that world, so anything in the arts is, you know, is brilliant for me, I love that. Being active is another one, I play football myself and play a bit of tennis, but even I ride to work, I'm only like 10 minutes away, so it's a short ride, But just that little ride, just the little hit of serotonin doing that. When I don't, if I take the car, I sort of notice that I get more grumpy at the night. Yeah, it's the fresh air, isn't it? And kind of just being out with it, with the elements. And yeah, and you feel freer somehow, you know, on a bike. You're like, you're going by your own, your own limbs are doing it. Even today, you know, it's black ice, I'm having to every corner, I'm not braking, I'm going really slowly. I've done it all year and I'll probably do it the whole of the year, riding, so yeah, that's a little bit essential part of the routine for me. And other than that, I think having a project, you know, some kind of focus. A goal and focus, I love that. Even weekends, when I was writing, every weekend I'd be in the library and I'd get down there for 9, I'd cycle in, get down there, work till 12, have a packed lunch and a coffee, work till 5, ride home, and it just gives a real focus. And as soon as I kind of finish and I'm edited, it's like, well, you know, what am I going to do now? I think I need that routine. And then it's like, well, obviously I have to write another book. I need to, need to keep this thing going. But what I've found with trying to sell this book, it's— that's project enough, isn't it? Trying to kind of promote and get out there and all the rest of it. So I've still got a project even though the book's in the bargain and out in the shops. I'm still writing it in a sense, in trying to get out to the public. Well, hopefully all the listeners are going to run out and buy it now. Thank you so much, Colin, for chatting to us here. And a quick reminder to everybody to go and check out Colin Stewart's Blade, released on the 8th of November, and another one is to come. Thank you so much for joining us on Get Booked and chatting to us. It's been an absolute pleasure. Yeah, I appreciate the, appreciate the support and the chance to, you know, get my— talk about my book a little bit. Thank you. Yeah, no, thank you very much, and we look forward to having you on the show again when the next book comes out. Will do, yeah. That was today's guest, Colin Stewart, the author of Flidd. He has very kindly done a reading of today's book. I hope you enjoy it. Kevin Donnellan was delivered at Walton Hospital. On the 28th of November 1961. His mother, Agnes, heavily sedated at the conclusion of the long and difficult birth of her 5th child, was barely conscious. There was pity rather than wonder when the newborn was revealed, with Agnes still too confused to take proper account of what was uncharted territory, and no one knowing if Kevin would last the night. Thalidomide. The superdrug had been withdrawn from the pharmaceutical shelves by the morning, with cause belatedly following effect. I first came to know Kevin through my brother Gary, who met him off the back of a 6-month youth employment scheme he was forced to attend in the spring of 1984, our relationship initially conducted at something of a remove. Kevin was 22 and slowly filling out into the man he would become, no longer the child he'd once seemed set to remain. Though his smooth, heart-shaped face, with its button nose and fleshy pink lips, was ageless, some said cherubic, initial impressions proved misleading. The squashed red pug nose, which had been broken on numerous occasions, that of a boxer or a drunkard. The chin, cleft, The man himself, anything but an angel. Kevin's face was broad and articulate, with widespread asymmetric blue-gray eyes, the right of which, its feathery brow lifted in permanent entreaty, like glass compared to its heavy-lidded companion. Rising lavishly over these eyes on the ridge of a particularly pronounced brow, the untutored supercilia allowed for the full range of expression. Worldly and innocent, candid and calculated, incredulous and naive, as quick to engage a friend as a stranger, Kevin was a challenge to interpretation. Behind the bloated childlike lips that retreat to reveal a gummy protuberant smile, his most habitual expression, Kevin's teeth are straight, square, and false. 'Crowns!' he cries, reading over my shoulder. 'They're crowns!' Drawing the discriminating eye almost intentionally from the scar cutting a left-right diagonal across the soft convex of his pale philtrum. His hair, which would suffer any number of revisions over the years, was at the time a feathery brown mop, his diminutive ears showing like golf balls through the rough, while his upper lip would soon be sporting the bum fluff moustache which was then the fashion By the time I'd been properly introduced and first took account of his appearance up close, Kevin was boasting a high alkaline permanent wave from his recent visit to Smithies on College Road, having spent the better part of an hour straddling a reclining chair as the noxious glue was applied. Reveling in the weft of his new pelt, russet gold in full sun, Kevin had felt like a new man when he set off on a celebratory drive 'A Solid Bond in Your Heart' played on the radio and he sang hoarsely along, licking at the footballer's moustache now perched on his upper lip. The moustache was gone within a month, Kevin shaving smooth after learning of its preponderance within the gay community. 'I had a reputation to uphold,' he chuckles, though the approbation of the hair did little to forestall his next misguided phase. New Romantic. Kevin, in truth, rarely stuck with anything. His hair, short and sharp one day, might be left to go to seed for the rest of the year. His most dramatic makeover came during the fortnight when he briefly considered himself a punk. His dismayed mother barely recognizing her son when he rattled home a bona fide goth. The jarring effect of the heavily applied eyeliner and the jetpack liberty spikes was only slightly confused by the checked shirt that Kevin wore down below. "Is that you?" his mother quivered, which seemed an exaggeration. Kevin's gossamer-thin locks were all too soon receding anyway, and though he made an occasional attempt at the Bobby Charlton comb-over, it was quickly apparent that he was fighting a losing battle. Henceforth, he kept the styling strategically short and clipping those steadily reducing strands back up with the tide of a naturally high hairline. The gold glint of stud that idled on the dimpled lobe of his high-set left ear was a later addition and came as a surprise when Kevin called me across, asking after my brother. "He's in, I think," I said, just as Gary came striding down the path, kicking up stones. Kevin turned the engine in reply. And dropping the ball from under my arm, I backed away to watch from a suitable distance as, spinning full circle, the van departed with a sputtering throttle. Kevin had still been in college when, having seen a girl get it done in Michael Johns, he decided that he would have his ears pierced too. Though he was, by his own admission, shitting himself when he finally took the plunge. He was letting out preemptive cries before the needle even hit twisting round for a better view when it was done. "You're very brave," the assistants cooed, already considering what to attach. Kevin was too proud to correct the condescension. That simple gold stud was an unexpectedly elegant first pick, Kevin fitting it into the soft left lobe to make his sexual orientation clear—not that anyone cared. A larger ring featuring a white-on-black C&D insignia would take its place with a snarl of political defiance within a week. The latest constant of a fickle wardrobe, Kevin would soon tire of such ornaments altogether, leaving the punctured holes to seal up in their own good time. They were nothing but a memory when Paula forced a heated needle through to prise the rift apart again, after declaring with undue irritation, "You looked better with an earring!" Though way past caring what Paula might have thought by this point, Miss Harrison was a force of nature and hard to refuse. 'As long as you know what you're doing,' Kevin allowed. 'Course I do,' Paula snapped with a malevolent sneer. In the event, there was blood everywhere, on the mirror and the walls, with shrieks and squeals of the sort of open laughter they hadn't shared in years. The suture was blistered rather than breached, however, with Kevin indefatigably refusing to insert any sort of ring or stood into that quickly closing aperture again, or to let Paula anywhere near. That was today's guest Colin Stewart with a reading from today's book, Flid. Thank you so much for listening in to today, and this was the final show of 2022. Thank you so much to everybody who supported Get Booked and women's and men's radio station throughout the year. We wish you a fantastic Christmas and an even better New Year. Join us in the new year for more incredible shows. Right now I'm going to leave you with a little bit of a recap of last week's show, the author Becky Hall with The Art of Enough. Ever feel like you aren't enough, or overwhelmed by too many demands, concerned about overconsumption and the climate crisis? You are You're not alone. The art of enough is the challenge of our age. In a world full of pressure to be more, do more, consume more, this practical guidebook will help you find your own version of enough because it is different for every single one of us. We all have different lifetimes, circumstances, and constraints. Enough is a springboard for self-belief, a healthy workplace, and sustainable living so you can move from striving to thriving, weaving together ideas, stories, and practices. The Art of Enough offers 7 ways to ease away from the pull of scarcity and excess towards flourishing with enough and finding the balance and boundaries we all need for ourselves and for our world. Becky Hall, today's guest, is a coach, facilitator, and speaker and has worked for over 20 years with teams, organizations, and leaders helping busy people all over the world create their own art of enough. And now she's here to help you, our listeners here at Get Booked as well. Becky, hi. Hello. Hi, Hazel. Good to see you. Well, and be here. Yeah, well, thank you for joining us on the show. Now, I've been storming through this book. I mean, I found there's so many elements to this book that in theory it should be common sense, but we're too busy to even and spend time to think about the common sense and just digest what we're doing. And I think this book helps us. It's a bit like Speculate to Accumulate, isn't it? We need to just slow down, spend a little time figuring out what's right, and then just use our energies better, focus them more. Because, you know, we, we don't all have to want the same thing in life, but we need to know how to get the out of our life without completely burning out. Completely. I— yes, preach! I, I think it's— you're absolutely right. And partly the— one of the reasons I wrote the book is because I just kept noticing over and over again with clients that I work with, and in my own life of course, because I'm part of all of this too, that we just get sort of swept along in the pace of our life and the demands that other people seem to set for us, whether that be work demands or home demands. And we just go at life at 100 miles an hour. And often we're doing that because we don't feel like we've— we're good enough inside, and we have to somehow sort of prove ourselves or, or compensate. And, and really, my book is a sort of is a cry for let's just remember that we've got choices and seize those moments, or find a way of noticing when we've got choices and see if we can choose a different way. Because we haven't always lived like this, and it does feel pretty intense right now. And it— the, the thing is that it sort of mirrors what's going on in the world, you know, that this— whole, this anxiety, and quite rightly, about climate crisis. And it feels like, for me, when I, when I was thinking about the book and noticing these patterns, I thought, gosh, it's really interesting, isn't it, that so many of us have imposter syndrome, so many of us are working like crazy and feeling like we're knackered the whole time and want to burn out, or don't want to burn out, are burning out, and, and then, you know, the climate is, is a problem and we need to sort of readjust how much we consume. So it sort of all seemed to link to me. You know what, when I was reading that section about climate crisis and I was thinking, why is climate crisis, uh, a part of this book and why is it affecting our art of being enough? But we're all getting stressed about not doing enough. I mean, I actually realized the other day I was halfway through this book and I was out in London with my children, and I kept on seeing like plastic bottles in the bin and things like that. And I was thinking, oh, why can't they just put it in the recycling? And I was getting wound up. And it is, it's, it's the world around us that we're just, we're taking it all in and we're letting things get, wind us up, you know? And if we don't feel like we're doing enough or we feel like somebody else isn't doing enough and it's affecting our mindset, it's affecting our psyche, and we are not in control of what other people do, but we're in control or we should try and be in control of what we do. And it's just finding that balance is so hard. And I find sometimes I will actually walk all the way home from work with a can of Coke, an empty can of Coke in my hand that I've consumed because I want to put it in my recycling when I get home. But that's ridiculous, isn't it? It's true. And it's— I mean, so there are two aspects. One of what you've just said, which is it's so blooming worrying. Isn't it? I mean, we can easily get into the sort of doom narrative where we just go, oh God, we're all just— it's all awful. And that's not healthy for us at all, um, for our psychology. And then, I mean, I do think there's probably a connection with this idea that we're— we, we strive for things that we don't really need. You know, in part— in one part of the book, I talk about, you know, that we're hooked on on buying stuff that we don't need to somehow compensate for the fact that we don't feel good about ourselves. You know, the whole concept of, um, of, you know, shopping when we don't— when we don't need stuff just to make ourselves feel better. It seems to be quite interesting. And it's like, if we understand, if we begin to get— get— make friends with the idea of limits, I think, both in our own lives but also in, in terms of what we buy and what we consume, then we're all going to live more healthy lives. And that means that the planet will also be healthier because we won't be buying stuff in for Christmas that we'll be chucking out in February when we clean it all out. Well, this is something that quite often is another area for me getting quite angsty at Christmas time with the amount of packaging. And I do know it's something that affects me. We just need to find a way to balance balance that out. I mean, that's what the book is about. It's about finding the balance that's right for us. And there's something else that I kind of came across in the book. I mean, we are feeling like being busy is like a badge of honor, right? Yes. And I remember, like, especially when my children were quite young and I turned around to my NCT group and I'd been at the gym in the morning, and they go, oh well, lucky you for having the time, we haven't got the time to to the gym. And I said, well, actually, the kids were in the crèche. That's helping them socialize. And if I spend 1 hour in the gym getting rid of any angst or anything, the following 6 hours is a lot better and a lot more productive and a lot healthier with my children than if I hadn't have gone. So sometimes it is that whole speculate to accumulate, accumulate. And it's knowing our boundaries. It's knowing what we need to be better. And if that means, you know, doing a 12-hour day and going, oh, I work for 12 hours, I'm so incredibly busy. It is so ridiculous. Actually, if you had an hour lunch, you would have had a very productive 6 hours rather than a half-hearted 6 hours because you were knackered and you're getting backaches and everything. And we just, we need to just sit back, address what we're doing, and see how we can make it better. You're so right. It's really funny. I mean, my kids are now, um, 17 and 19, but when I first, um, when I had had them, I was working in an organization, and I had been doing really long hours before I had them. And then I went— I remember going back after maternity leave and thinking, right, I've got to be home by 5 o'clock because that's when my childcare finishes. And, um, you know, I was so much more efficient. I got everything done. I did just a straight— I say just— a straight 8-hour day. And I remember thinking, right, I can do this. You know, you can work really focusedly and efficiently. It didn't mean that I didn't say hi to anybody, or I was like, don't talk to me, I'm working. But, um, I think it's a complete myth that we have to work long and hard. And I usually— and I think that actually when people get caught in that myth, it's overcompensating for something else. I really do believe that. And you know that thing where— I mean, I find myself doing it, and I do it when I'm stressed, which is what people say, 'Hi, how are you? How are you doing?' And, and I go, 'Oh great, I'm really busy at the moment. I'm really busy.' And that somehow gives me validation for the fact that I'm, I'm okay. And it's, it's nonsense. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a funny story that we're in. You know, how, as you said, how would it be if you If we said, we started saying to each other, when someone asks us how we are, say, "Oh, I'm doing really well. I'm managing to find that hour for the gym and I feel really, really grounded and resourced and it's brilliant because I get everything done more quickly when I need to." So it's, this isn't me saying we just have to settle for not being quite as good as we could be. You know, Some people, when I first started talking about enough, was like, oh, so what, we just have to settle for mediocre? I'm— that's the absolute opposite of what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that when we set ourselves healthy limits, when we really understand what resources us, and by that I mean what charges, recharges our batteries, like you're going to the gym, actually was a really good example of that. When we allow ourselves to have what we need in life, to do what we, what we need to do to meet the challenges that we all face— I mean, gosh, it's not like we don't all have complex and challenging lives in our different ways— that then we set ourselves free to really be the best of ourselves. So you don't have to do the 12-hour day. You could do a 6-hour and get absolutely as much, or have this similar output, um, because you are really resourced, you're really, really, um, grounded, you're feeling good about yourself, and you can give the best of yourself, you know. It's so— yeah, I think this takes us on to quite nicely onto one of my favorite sections of The Art of Enough, which Page 34, mind your language. This is something that is so important, and it's not something that's new to me, but it's something that I need to keep on reminding myself, and I try and get my friends to kind of work on this practice as well. The language we use while speaking to other people and to ourselves is so important. If we say, oh, I feel terrible, terrible, oh, I'm really, really busy, that's just forming our mindset. It's, it's really damaging. Whereas if we say, I had a bit of a busy morning, but you know, I hope it's going to get better later. You know, even just slightly changing the way we talk about ourselves, or, you know, oh, I was— I'm rubbish at work. No, you can just say, I had a bit of a rubbish day, but tomorrow's going to be better.