Half‑Built Estates and Full‑Hearted Memories

Loz 1964
 
son/father/grandfather 

A noisy pub outside Petworth becomes a time machine the moment Loz starts talking, carrying us straight back to Southampton in the late sixties and seventies. We get into street football with one car a day, climbing trees, roaming until hunger called you home, and the wild logic of exploring half‑built housing estates with absolutely no health and safety in sight. If you’ve ever wondered what childhood freedom used to feel like in working‑class Britain, his memories are vivid, funny, and occasionally a little alarming.

Music threads through everything. We swap the songs that pull you back in an instant, the ritual of Top of the Pops, and the Sunday chart countdown you tried to tape without the DJ talking over the intro. From there, the conversation widens into class and expectation — being nudged towards trades, being told what you couldn’t do, and how rarely anyone explained a route to bigger dreams.

Then we shift into mental health and the pressures that arrive later in life. Loz speaks openly about anxiety and panic attacks, what sets them off, and the habits that help: slowing down, talking to someone, choosing the road over the sky when flying feels impossible. And at the end, a simple lesson lands with real weight: enjoy your days, treat people well, and if you feel the pull to change course, take the plunge.

If this episode resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend who’ll relate, and leave a review with the memory — or the song — that takes you straight back.

At 9:45 there is a slight loss of sound for a second, “it’s not you, it’s me”.

Bits & Bobs

• Mud - Tiger Feet (Live TOTP 1974)
• Anxiety Help

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

This is Mum and this is Long Time Ago. Now today I'm in a pub just outside Petworth. The pub's called the Halfway Bridge, I think it's called, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 0:14

None of us have never been here before.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

We haven't been here and I've never been here before as well. We just we found a halfway point, didn't we? Which is quite apt with its name, probably why it's been called the Halfway Bridge pub. Today I'm sitting here talking to a friend. Now I know you as Loz, your real name is Lawrence. What do you prefer?

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Los.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Friends, Loz. Loz. And where did is it a school name? Is it a family name?

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Yeah, that just for as long as I can remember, which is a long time ago, as we both know.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

With exactly the same age, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

My dad's a Laurie, he's Lawrence as well. Right. And I never I just got called Los by all my friends. Ever since I can remember, people have called me Loz.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

And he's called Laurie.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

He's Laurie. He's Lawrence. I'm named after me and him are Lawrence, but he's Laurie. No one really ever calls me Laurie.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Do you think that's a thing nowadays that kids get named straight away after their fathers? No, I don't think. I don't think it is either.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

I just get named little kids are being called names that my uh my grandmother was called Daisy and Mabel.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?

Street Football And Roaming Free

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah, stuff like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Okay, we're gonna talk about a few things today. If you think back to sort of like growing up in Southampton, like in the late 60s, early 70s, what details come back to you first? Is it the sounds, the street, or the people? What's the first thing you think of?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Less people, clearly. The street I grew up in when I was three and older. I can't remember back to I lived in Southampton till I was three, and then we moved out to a place called Charnersford, which is six miles outside Southampton. Newish sort of development, and we were this is when you played football in the street and one car a day came along, and you'd be kicking a ball and then shout because the car's coming up the road, and then you'd just carry on playing football. Looking back at that, lots of not houses being built, but not many, not built up because we'd come out of the city and just not many people, just kids playing football with. That's the sort of thing I can remember. We were just kids, you know, three, five, six, seven, eight, nine years of age, bright and sunny, because the summers were hot back then and the winters were cold to a degree. Yeah, what we what I remember. Yeah, that sort of thing. I suppose I I don't have that sort of answer.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

No, no, that does, yeah, definitely. I mean, again, the football in the streets is uh has come up before.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Just you know, all the things that probably kids don't so much do these days, climbing trees, going down the river, as you see on social media now. When we were younger, you went out at eight o'clock in the morning, you come home when you're hungry, you went back out again, and then someone's trying to find you because you're down the river, you're playing on the railway line, or you're up a tree trying to get conquers or something like that. Brilliant. I don't know if people do, you know, I doubt it.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

What sort of age did you go out at?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

In the street, just outside our house, five, probably four or five. Because there's no one about. No. You know, just kids, the kids that are new developers.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

How far did you roam at the age of five?

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Oh, probably not that far. No. Probably just in the field opposite, which then became a school. So we lived in a road that was being new builds down the road. Probably at seven, eight years of age. I was in the building sites at the week when they'd all gone home the builders. At the weekends, we'd be in the building sites on scaffolding and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Just climbing around.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Just climbing around, completely dangerous, help, no housing safety. But probably trying to mix up some cement and build some bricks and brick walls and things like that. And then, of course, Monday we went to school and the builders all came back and went, Well, who the bloody hell's been messing around with our building site? So it was a new development back then. But yeah, probably five, six, six, seven, eight, I'd been off on the bike, gone down the field. Round the corner from us was an old um I suppose you should call it a mental institute back in the day. Uh, and up in Charners Fall, that was all that was there. So when I see pictures of that now, all the houses we were in obviously weren't there, it's just a house, big, big buildings in the middle, loads of fields, as you would imagine back in the 1930s, 40s, as an asylum, you know, mental asylum. But that had shut down, so we used to go and play in there. We used to play golf round the grounds as well. But that would have been from I think I left there when we were I was 15. So from five to fifteen, we would just play in that area and we would be gone. You know, your mum would be out 10 o'clock. Where are you? Get in, come on, in you come. Tea's ready, you know. And there was a good there was a lot of friends. I mean, I'm still friends. My best mate is three years old. We I met him when I was three, we're still good. He's still my best mate now.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

This is a guy that you went out of the room.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Yeah, just to lift across the road, and I'm still best pals with him now. So 60, 59 years on.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yeah. Yeah. If you have to think of a song from like the 60s or the 70s, just one song that as soon as you hear it, you hear the first couple of notes from it, it takes you right back to that moment. Tiger.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

One of the sweet songs, yeah. Definitely Tiger Fit, Shawdy Waddy. Basically rollers are a bit later now, won't you?

SPEAKER_01 4:49

No, no, but it's still all Gam Rock, isn't it? It's all early 70s, damn rock.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Yeah, so it'd probably be any one of those bands would be Koh. That was, yeah, that was like mud Tiger Feet was probably 1972, three, wasn't it? Something like that. I don't know. I think maybe four, I'm not quite sure myself. Yeah, Top of the Pop. I watched some Top of the Pops the other day, dreadful. It was dreadful. All the mining, it was dreadful that miles, wasn't it? Look at it, I thought God, it was bloody awful. But it was good, it was a good way of getting the songs out, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Oh, it was good, and again, we we watched it religiously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every week, yeah, yeah. Every week we were there watching it.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Sunday night was the recording of the top 20, top 10.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

It was really funny you said that because we we tuned into um uh Radio 2 the weekend to hear some chart being it was an old chart being counted down, but it was at the same time as I think it was Tom Brown or whatever. Um there was a chart back then, wasn't there? But you every Sunday you would just tune in to listen to what was in the charts on what number one was and try and record it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Without the on your tapes, without the DJ speaking over the start of it.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

I remember actually writing into Simon Bates to complain that he spoke over Kate Bush's wovers in heights.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah, I was so young, yeah, yeah, yeah. But probably, yeah, those sort of bands, just sidetracking slightly. One of my cousins, he's about 70 now, and growing up he was always a little bit quiet and aloof at family dues, or he wasn't there. And the reason he wasn't there, as we found out, is he played in a band. So he used to be at weddings on a Saturday when people he was playing in the bands, but not at the wedding. Yeah, because they used to gig locally, and he's we found out that he supported Shawadi Wadi in Salisbury, and then he said, Oh, we used to we obviously every time we see him we take the Mickey out of him about Shawadi Wadi, he says, Yeah, but I uh I I supported Emerson Lake and Palmer and so we're like, really? So yeah, so actually we thought he was a miserable bugger, but actually he was out earning a few quid playing gigs and supporting people like that, which is great, and he still plays today, yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

How did your sort of working class background sort of shape what you thought was possible for yourself? I'll give you an example. I mean, obviously we're the same age, I no one ever ever spoke to me about going to uni or anything like that. It was not something that was ever done. No, um, and I think it was just I don't know if it I mean obviously people did go to uni from our generation.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Bright kids went to uni, yeah. My so my dad's an engineer in engine in engineering and my mum was a hairdresser. When I was I my dad did I was bang average at school, you know, but I have got an engineering brain. So maths I was quite good at and physics is English dreadful. I remember my dad saying to me, what are you gonna do when you leave school and all that lighting? He said, because you're not you're not academic, right? And I didn't even know what you meant. What academic? I thought, no, what does that mean? Well, obviously I'm not that intel, I'm not the chemistry, this sort of, you know, I'm not gonna go and I'm not a rocket scientist. So I think no, like you said, no one said to me, You're gonna go to uni and do things like that. It's free back then, wasn't it? If people went to uni, it was really the bright kids that went, you get pushed down a that system of education. I think you get pushed down a roof depending on what you're doing. So I did practical stuff at my last couple of years at school, so I did woodwork and metal work with physics and maths and stuff like that, where a couple of my mates were a bit more arty, so they went in the art classes and stuff, streamline you into those things, and then you end up like 1980 we left school, you end up thinking, Well, I'll just end up doing going into engineering, get a trade, because that was the thing I thought get a trade, get a job was one thing, you know, you're not you're not laying around doing bugger all. Make sure you get a job, and I ended up going into engineering straight from school, which I think some of my mates went into the building, building, but they were labouring without being rude to them, but they were earning twice as much money as me, but they were just labouring on building sites, but there was no real you know, getting a trade and then getting on was probably a better. I mean, plenty of time I thought I'm gonna bail out of this, go and earn more money on a building site because I'm gonna have more money at the weekend when I'm going out for a beer. So I don't, yeah, and I I remember starting at a careers, I've always been okay. That's the glasses chinking. Yeah, I've always been okay at golf. I've always been okay at golf, which is what I do in my spare time, but I've never been elite golf. But when you're 14, 15 and someone says, What do you want to do when you leave school? Okay, I want to be a professional golfer. No one went but how does that look then? What do you think you've got to do with that? They just went, nah, you won't be able to do that. Yeah, oh okay, I won't bother them. Yeah, you know, that was very much the careers people were. You're going down engineering, and again women, the late, you know, the girls, they're nursing or secretarial stuff. That's what you got pushed into.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Yeah, you did, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Whether that's a great system, I don't know, Miles. That's another podcast, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

What stories were told around around your house about the docks, the war, your neighbourhood? I mean, what give us some stories that were you know that were told to you when you were a child.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

I can remember, and it's probably never happened, it probably happened once or twice every six months, but it seemed a lot was always talking about the war. Because we were still 20 years after the war, and as I've learned things over the years, um, I think rationing we were still on rations till 1952, weren't we? Apparently, so there's still a lot of not animosity, it was just it was such a massive thing in world history, wasn't it? It was just a massive thing, and my so this is my mum's family that grew up. She was born in uh that right down in the centre of Southampton in the in the Dock area, place called Canal Walk, Brunswick Square. So she was born in 1941, my mum, and she's still with us, and my dad was born in 37 and he's still with us, so we're doing we're doing well. Doing alright. Yeah, so my my mum was the youngest of six children, and one of the photographs that's got a picture of a wedding is my her eldest brother getting married, um, and she is the little kid on the front, so he was like she would have been two, maybe three, no, maybe a little bit older, and he was 15 years older than her. So her eldest sister's in the picture as well. She was 17 years older than my mum. So there's a 17-year age gap between the eldest daughter and then my mum's the one who came along a little bit later than everyone else. And there's two elder sisters that are in that picture, and my uncle and my grandfather who I never met, is if you look at the picture, he's on the far right hand side. The family, I have to be careful. The family that my my uncle, Jack, the guy in the black suit, he married into. They were quite a rufty tufty family at the bottom of Salampton docks and stuff. So my grandfather wasn't overly impressed with who he was marrying. Um, but anyway, it all my nan's in that picture as well. You can if you look at the two guys on the far end, that's her father on the far left, and they're they got brand new hats, which are quite fashionable these days if you look at it, aren't they? I think they're like those Petey Blinder hats. My mum had been evacuated sort of slightly outside of Southampton. I mean, when you say evacuation, it was only three miles out of Southampton into a place called Bassett. The stories of um my aunties who were like so they were they would have been 17, 16, 17, 18, 19 when the GIs were all over in Southampton. Okay. Yeah, so you can imagine what they were up to, you know, in that sort of time. And why not? Because you don't know if you're gonna be here tomorrow. And then they used to have yeah, I think they're called Anderson shelters where he used to run. And one story my mum said to me, uh, I used to always be saying to her, I don't know which one it is, Auntie Rare or Auntie, Auntie Bear or Auntie Reed. The sirens are gone, come on, we've got to get down the thing, and she wouldn't be bothering with it. And then in the end, she's putting her makeup on. I go, What are you doing? We've got to get down. She'd be running down, she was running down the street, and a meshersmith had come over and was firing at her as she jumped into the Anderson shelter or something like that. She's trying to stick her lippy on as she was going, she was going out later. So that's one of the but there was still a lot of, I don't, I wouldn't even say bitterness going back to the stories. It was it was very prevalent in my memory. Not all the time, but it was talked about a lot. I couldn't tell you what it was talked about, but the suffering probably and the bombing of the docks and the probably the bloody Germans, stuff like that, 20 years on was still quite raw.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Well, I think exactly as you said, I mean, you know, the war ended in obviously in 1945. Um it it was recent to anybody in the 60s and the 70s. Yeah. Um like again, comparing it to us just to the beginning of this century for us, you know, back to the you know, yes to two to 2000, 1999 or whatever. It's that sort of same distance.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and my uh my one of my cousins who sadly passed away, he's only about four years, he was only about four years younger than my mum, because the older kids had kids. So my cousins were all slightly older than me. I said to him what someone's funeral a few years back, what was it like growing up in the 50s? And he went, brilliant. Because he was a bit younger, so he missed the war. He was probably born in 45, so he was 10 in 55, and he said it was lovely, you know, there's everyone is like a big sigh of relief, and there was hardly any cars on the road, you can do what you want. It was just nice as a kid going around the bomb sites, and just really, really, and obviously, things then you start to get into rock and roll and Bill Haley, and then all the music comes in. But he thought for his for him, he thought the 50s was a fantastic time to grow up because it was just like a new beginning after the horrors of that unfortunate, you know, six years of battling and stuff like that. Yeah, so and in my now, she was a right rogue, you know, black market flogging this, flogging. Oh, yeah, she I think she punched a copper down the bottom of town in Southampton once. Yeah, she's a right. If you see the picture of her, she's a right hard nut, and um, yeah, no one messed with her, and um, yeah, so she'd be uh you know, selling stuff to the GIs or getting stuff off of them because the odd their house was right in near the docks. Um, so yeah, she was a bit of a character apparently. But Southampton was rough as well. There's you know, like any port, isn't it? There's a few boozers down the bottom of Southampton, they're not there anymore, but it was it was a you know, you're gonna be quite tough to get out get by down there. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. So she was a bit of a wheel of dealer, mind now, bless her.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah, it's quite funny because you think you we obviously were all aware that London was bombed, but and I suppose, and again, I've spoken in the previous podcast about Cardiff being bombed. Uh and of course, Savams is it is a huge it was a huge dock, it's the biggest dock, isn't it? Around it.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Probably Pompey got bombed as well, I would have thought. Um yeah, it was she was quite fierce and to be.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Is it on your mum's side or your dad's side?

SPEAKER_00 15:59

This is all my mum's side. So their family name, my mum's family name is Lansley, um, which is her dad's name, obviously. But I never met he died when she was I think she was 11 when he died. So I never met him.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

That might explain something. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Yeah. I'm obviously not a I'm a Lansley, so I consider myself Lansley as well as my dad's side of the family, which is a completely another story.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

In what way?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

So he was born in 39, 37, his mum, uh, so he was born as they went back, it's been saying back then out of wedlock. His father, biological father, disappeared fairly sharpish after he was born. He was English. He won I mean, this is 37, so pre-war. So his mum's left with little baby, needed to get on and you know, no one it was like horrendous back then, isn't it? Born born without you know, not out of wedlock and all that lot. So, what what she did is she started to she was became a housekeeper uh for a chap whose wife had died and he had kids, and she ended up marrying him, so then my dad had a stepdad. So I haven't really that side of our apart from his sister who's now sadly gone, that was uh that's not as big a family unit, and we did I didn't even know his stepdad really. I think I met him, might have met him once. Obviously, his mum, my my two grandparents when I grew up were my my dad's mum, grandma, and my mum's mum was my nan, and they both died in mid-80s. Mid 80s, about 80-ish or something.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

And you've got clear memories of them both.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My my mum's mum came over to our house in Charners Ford. My mum used to buy her and her friend, our auntie Ada, uh a bottle of whiskey and two bottles of Guinness every week for them to drink because that's what they like drinking, funnily enough. They used to smoke uh wood bines, so that would be cigarettes that haven't got filters, if you know what they are. I definitely do. And um, so when my nan used to get a cup of tea, my mum used to make it and give her a cup and a saucer. So I'd have probably been about 14, 13, she'd go, yeah, go and take this out to your mum. And in the saucer was two wood bines for me to go outside and have a cigarette. That's my nan giving me wood bines at 14 years. 14 years and we'd be out around the back of the house somewhere having a smoke on these horrendous cigarettes, weren't they? No, no filters, you know, at 14 thinking you knew what you would, you know, thinking you were it, because your nan, and your nan's giving you bloody, you know, giving you the giving you the cigarettes, you know, Jesus Christ. You know, five years earlier I'm rummaging around in her bag looking for smarties. Five years later, I'm trying to get see if I can get some woodbinds out of her and have half a bottle of Guinness, you know. But yeah, she was a yeah, yeah. Invariably they like to tipple guys, smoke and drank all their lives and ended up she passed away when she's about 88, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Yeah, so and your mum's your mum's alive and well now.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mum's ticking over. Yeah, unfortunately, all her siblings are gone, so she's the only one, she's a head of the family at 84.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

And you've got a you've got a granddaughter.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

I've got a granddaughter. So your mum's got a great granddaughter. Granddaughter, great granddaughter, yeah. Mum and dad got a great granddaughter. My my daughter, Rebecca, is um, this is quite frightening because she's 40 this year. Um that's a bloody where did that time go? And she's got a and my my grand, because there's all sorts of there's lots of eclecting what's sort of what's lots of different names that kids get now these days, aren't they? So my daughter's decided to call my granddaughter Gypsy. Okay, yeah. So we we've come to know that's a real name or something. Yeah, it's a real name, no, that's a real name, yeah, yeah. Gypsy. That's her name. We're like, okay, that's brilliant. I'll just call her Gip. She's five now, yeah. She'll be five in July. And uh yeah, so uh how she'll deal with that throughout her life. It's it's quite funny. There's all sorts of names in there these days. Kids are getting things, you know, funny names. But yeah, so that her name's Gypsy.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Does she wear it well?

SPEAKER_00 20:05

She's brilliant, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

She's good, yeah. I think of Cher when I think like gypsies, traps, yeah. She'll be fine. She'll be right.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

She'll be she'll be alright, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's great, yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

So you does she get on well with her great grandma?

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah, she got yeah, so my yeah, and my grand and my dad, she loves my loves my dad. Yeah, she's always over there drawing and talking, ordering him about and all that lot, yeah. So yeah. So it's good. Yeah, we've got some, yeah, it's good. She's got a good name. Just glad we're we're, you know, they're with us still, which is brilliant, and they're all right, so that's a good thing.

Family, Grandparents And New Names

Anxiety, Panic Attacks And Coping

SPEAKER_01 20:38

That's a good thing. Okay, cool. Right, I've known you 20 20 plus years. When did you sort of like first realise that you suffered from anxiety? Now I know we didn't have a I don't think we had a word for anxiety back in the day, so we we may not have known it as anxiety at the time, but when were you when did you first come aware that you you I didn't really come aware of it till I was 35?

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Probably well well, just had some panic attacks with the life I was leading due to the life I was leading, working hard, stressful relationships, but this is back in the like mid late 90s.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

So, did you think you suffered from anxiety but you just didn't realise you were younger or you just have anxiety at 35?

SPEAKER_00 21:20

No, no, when I was younger, but rarely, very I look back at a few things, like it's like anything, you go. I want I wouldn't even I think it's just a general anxiety for and I'd probably probably if I was saying probably brought on by different types of stress. It's like when you when when you sit exams at school, you'd be nervous, wouldn't you? So everyone would be nervous. And there was other times I look back at little things and I think you'd be going to like you're invited to someone's 14th birthday party, and I'd be going there and I'd be a bit nervous, but that probably happened once a year once every couple of years, and you just put it down to you were nervous because you were going so and maybe it was. I don't know if it was what you would call anxiety, but certainly, and other kids might have felt the same. I don't know. I never you wouldn't talk to anyone about it, would you?

SPEAKER_01 22:08

No, we didn't, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

You just got on with it. So nervousness, but probably as I got older, towards late 90s onwards, I've become more aware of it. And I've had spells of I you just like anything, you've got to deal with it. You know, I I come to the conclusion over the last whatever, it's not going to kill me. It's just like having asthma, it's a thing that comes on. Just get over it, deal with it, do the right things, relax, take yourself away, have a chat with yourself sometimes and go sort yourself out, get things out of your life that may be causing you stress, which then transpires to anxiety. And that's sort of been up and down probably since like I say, '95, probably 30 years.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Was there any any particular people in your family, any person that may have intentionally or accidentally helped you with anxiety?

SPEAKER_00 23:00

What it what triggered it, you mean?

SPEAKER_01 23:02

No, not triggered it, not triggered it, no, um realised that you had it or Yeah, yeah, all my family are aware of it.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yeah. My mum, my mum and dad, my sisters, my mum and dad are aware of it. Uh my partner, she's a yeah. It doesn't, it rarely causes me a problem. Rarely. So, but it's there. And uh probably the biggest thing that it's I think that has caused me a problem is I am dreadful at flying now.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

At flying, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Flying.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

I used to love flying, and as I've got older, I am very much against flying. I don't really like it. And I know, having been in engineering, that it is the safest form of transport you can get. Yeah, I still just I don't like going to an airport, sitting there for three hours with loads of people about. Maybe that's just an age thing, Miles, as you get older, isn't it? Sitting about, getting in a tin, a tin tube with a load of other people and thinking, hmm, yeah. And yeah, I don't like it. So I keep away, I keep out of that, so I don't I don't get stressed, and then I don't not enjoy what I'm gonna do. So if we so I'll probably never go to the States again or Canada because I can't get on a plane. I might go over it one day. It's that's probably more of a focus.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

You have to get on a plane with me, I'll I'll hold your hand.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Yeah, yeah. It's it's it's and now so now if I go away, and I actually quite I like it, is we go through France and Germany, we'll drive, so we'll have drive, we'll have road trips, yeah. We stop here, yeah. Brilliant. And I've because I don't like flying, but you just see so much more of what's going on. Little villages in France, when here and now let's go here, let's do that. Whereas if someone said to me, we're going to book you a week in the world.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Is it total to fly? It's not even short or no, I can do short stuff.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

If you do short if you had to get it, if I had to do a long one, I could probably manage it. Yeah, I'll probably funny thing is, I've said to people, what do you do? Because loads of people are scared of flying, and it's idiotic. We all know it's idiotic. I said, Well, I take some Valium, and I'm like, Really? And I think, well, maybe I should just take some. I've never done that yet, but maybe I should take some Valium and knock myself out. And and I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

I fly every week up to Yukon. It seems like every week. I don't think anyone likes flying, really.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

I used to like it, yeah. But I yeah, I've always liked it. But and then it's sort of suddenly it's changed as you've got older. Maybe that's just an age thing where I don't like being around big groups of people at times. I'm quite sociable, really sociable. But sometimes I think, oh, I can't be bothered with all this. I'd rather just sit on my own, you know, watch a bit of TV. But that's just that's sidetracking slightly. So I'd just say if you need any help about it, just go and talk to someone because actually, funny thing, Paul Merson was on social media recently, and he suffers with all sorts of that fella, doesn't he? Poor chap. And he said, uh, you're not alone. So there's a few things over my life that I've picked up, and some of that was something I thought, yeah, you're not alone. Talk to someone if you are.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

No, I think I mean, like I said earlier on, we didn't really have a word for it back in the 80s or the 70s or whatever. I think you just gotta talk, I mean, you just gotta talk to the people around you about anything that you've got concerned or worry about.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Yeah, I've I've been when it first when I first sort of felt had panic attacks, if you like, and I didn't know what they were. I then went and saw the doctor, and they sort of you've got some you know anxiety, and went to a couple of meetings with some uh psycho people, you know, and they said, What's your lifestyle like? Well, I'll do this, you know. So you're working 50 hours a week, you're getting up early, you've got, you know, I was with a partner who had three kids, and we were looking at, you know, my daughter, so it's a full-on life, you've got to slow down. And that was, and really, that is it. It's it's that that was the problem, and that relationship was a bit up and down, like some relationships are some of it was good, some of it was bad, so that would have triggered it. I learnt from then about it will it will go away. What you're feeling will go away if you get yourself sat down and just relax, and it does.

Flying Fear And Asking For Help

Advice To Your Younger Self

SPEAKER_01 26:58

It does. Oh, good. If you sort of like think back and think yourself as a young boy growing up in Southampton, I mean if you could just talk to yourself at the age of I don't know, 10, is there anything that you would any advice you would give yourself? Yeah, yeah, what would that be?

Risk, Reinvention And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Enjoy this is probably to anyone, any age really. First of all, I think you need to enjoy yourself. I you know, I've we you know I had a heart attack 15 months ago. Luckily, it was in a it was in a I was looked after brilliantly in hospital, had a stent, and I'm back to fully functioning. And that sort of says to you what we not it wasn't a massive earth moon, you know, life-changing thing, but you look back and you go, what would you do? I'd say to people, first thing is make sure you're enjoying yourself. And if you can enjoy yourself every day doing something, you should do it because we ain't here a long time. Treat people with respect is another thing you learn. Try and try and walk in other people's shoes because we don't know what people are going through, and if you can try and get they might they might be having a bad day and let them rather than giving them a load of rubbish because you think they've been rude, they might have something going. I know it's difficult. Don't surround yourself, surround yourself with people that are positive. Don't don't be around drains, keep away from the drains because they don't help you, they drag you down. Do you know looking at life and looking, you were saying earlier about what did you do when you, you know, where were we funneled when we left school? I was an engineer and I'm working for British Aerospace, building aircraft, but this is a similar sort of path that you took as well, financial services. And a friend of mine said, Oh, you should come and work in financial services, like they did in the 90s. Uh no, I don't want to do that. And then after a while, six months later, I took voluntary redundancy, so I gave up final salary pension for those who know what they are. Uh sick pay, steady salary, permanent job to go to an environment where you had none of that, and you had to get off your backside, talk to people about life insurance pensions and mortgages, and you were trained to do the training I had was brilliant. To do that, my dad was mortified because he had always had steady good. I mean, he was in the navy, he was in the merchant navy, he's a bright fella, really, really bright bloke, worked for IBM for 20 years, so he's a clever bloke, and he couldn't quite understand what you're doing. But it was the best thing I ever did. The best thing I ever did because I then worked for myself, and I'll tell you there's been times where I've gone to a cash till in the ATM for people who don't know what that is, and there's been a tenner in there because I've got no money, and then there's been the other side where I've been doing really well, and luckily that's been steady now for 15 years, so it is a bit of a baptism of fire. So I would say to people, if you want to do it, take the plunge and do it. Have a go, you'll never regret it, and it's but it's hard working for yourself at times. But yeah, my advice is do what you want to do, enjoy yourself, treat people with respect.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Well, thank you, Dos. Thank you for your time today. We've been sitting in this very noisy pub in Petworth, but uh I thought I'd like to thank you for um taking the time out and uh meeting me hot at the halfway bridge.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Halfway bridge in just outside Petworth. We can we can recommend the fish pie and cream potatoes inside of seasonal greens because on the menu. We won't say how much it is though, no, bring a big wallet. All right, thanks a lot, Miles. A shake of hands, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Well then, mate.