My teacher kept me safe | Raymond Antrobus

Transcript

Raymond Antrobus  00:00

Oh, you're going to kill me? Well, give me a roast, apple crumble and custard, and I'll go to the grave.

Holly Newson  00:10

Oh hey! Welcome to Kind. I'm so glad you're here. I'm Holly, and I'll be chatting to guests about the times people were kind to them and how that changed things for the better. This episode, you'll hear how replying to an eager, earnest and entitled MySpace message managed to shape a whole career. By the way, you're one of a kind. Right, let's drop you straight in. My guest today is poet and author, Raymond Antrobus.

Raymond Antrobus  00:43

Good afternoon. Great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Holly Newson  00:46

So I wanted to ask, what do you think it means to be kind? What does it mean to you?

Raymond Antrobus  00:55

It's a kind of selflessness, because kindness is being able to give- I mean, I think kindness can also be receiving well, but yeah, yeah, being able to give or receive without conditions. You know, it's not, it's not a, it's not something you're doing for your own motive.

Holly Newson  01:19

So when a guest comes on the show, I ask them to have a think about three times people have done something kind for them, and this was the first thing Raymond wanted to share.

Raymond Antrobus  01:29

The most recent example I can- that's kind of come to mind, just because it only happened a few weeks ago. I was making a new friend, playing chess with him, and suddenly we get into this conversation about chocolate. And he's like, "I love chocolate. You know what, I've got is this stash of chocolate," talking about all the different kinds of chocolate that he loves. And then he's like, "Oh yeah, actually, I do have some chocolate." And he goes, he goes and gets it out, and then realizes he's only got like, a few pieces left. And after all his talk about how much he loved chocolate. He just, like, broke them all apart and just gave them all to everyone else. And I was so moved by that, just because it, because he'd already explained what, what it meant to him. So, you know, he would have loved to have that chocolate, but he gave it- he wanted to share it. And then the fact that he clearly enjoyed people enjoying his gift, his- you know. It's a really small thing, but it really stuck with me, and I've been, I've been trying to keep, like a kind of gratitude journal, kind of, you know, little notes,

Holly Newson  02:40

Yeah.

Raymond Antrobus  02:40

about when I experience little, kind of profound things that really stay with me. Just again, because for him, his name is Joel, he- could you, could see it was completely selfless. It meant nothing really to him to just to just give. And he enjoyed giving.

Holly Newson  03:00

So paint that picture for me. So Joel's there, what are you doing? And how does he start talking about his love of the chocolate?

Raymond Antrobus  03:09

Well, this was at a residency called Civitella Ranieri. It's a castle in Umbria in Italy, and so I lived there for six weeks with 14 or so artists. Some of them were writers, some of them were visual artists. There was an architect, and then there was a- quite a few musicians as well. Joel is a painter, a visual artist. We'd sat together at dinner in this gazebo out in this very idyllic, beautiful garden, which faced the castle. And when I say castle, I mean this is like a legit, you know, 10th century like castle,

Holly Newson  03:55

It's got turrets?

Raymond Antrobus  04:02

It's got everything. It's just got the got the castle stuff going on.

Holly Newson  04:07

Did it have a moat?

Raymond Antrobus  04:08

It used to! No, it didn't have a moat. It was landlocked. It's all landlocked. So that's, yeah, living, living in there, I kind of also got to interacting with the ghosts of that space as well. And that was, that was interesting. So, before I met the ghosts, I met the people. So, Joel, yeah, we just, you know, just kind of got talking about, "Oh, you know, we've got six weeks of time. How about we go to the library and play chess? Remember chess?" I was like, "Oh, how do you play chess again? What all the moves, what all the roles? You know there's so much... and so, yeah, I mean the fact that we'd already had, like, a whole day of work, and we go into the library, he places out the chess pieces on the board. You know, let's play chess. I'll remind you of the rules. We're both here in this place that is alien to both of us. We're both going to navigate this. Just like this kind of feeling, just a feeling of someone wanting to spend that kind of time with you when they don't know you, and they're willing to give you that generosity, energy, faith. Because they don't know if you're a good person or not.

Holly Newson  04:08

Yeah!

Raymond Antrobus  04:08

Well, you know.

Holly Newson  04:08

And so he mentions his love of chocolate. He brings out the chocolate. What sort of chocolate? Is it a dark chocolate? Is it-

Raymond Antrobus  04:32

It's a dark chocolate. I can't- I can't give you names. I know I'm really bad with, like, brand names.

Holly Newson  04:38

Do you remember what the wrapper looked like?

Raymond Antrobus  05:43

No, because he held it and it was like, he had wrapped it himself. It was just, it was already, like, in the foil bit, sort of, sort of, so the main wrapper bit had come off,

Raymond Antrobus  05:53

but it was special chocolate, and it was delicious.

Raymond Antrobus  05:57

Joel, you are correct this, this is good, you know?

Holly Newson  06:02

Yeah.

Holly Newson  06:04

And how is your chess now, after?

Raymond Antrobus  06:06

Better.

Holly Newson  06:07

Yeah?

Raymond Antrobus  06:08

Better. But not, do not enter me into any competitions, my chess and my pool as well, my my, there was also a pool table next to the chess board and table football and ping pong, and I got really, I think that's, that's the activity that I probably increased my skill in the most was the ping pong. I think I, yeah, I got pretty good at that.

Holly Newson  06:33

So you played ping pong for four weeks in a castle. That sounds like a nice time.

Raymond Antrobus  06:38

Good times. Good times. Send me back. So I'm freshly back from that, so I'm still kind of digesting my time as a castle dweller.

Holly Newson  06:48

You now get to call yourself, for a period of your life, a castle dweller!

Raymond Antrobus  06:53

Yeah, I recommend it just for a short time. Unless you already have a castle then it's just whatever to you. But yeah, that was my first experience like that. And you know, you're being cooked for every day, you've got a maid coming in to clean your room. Like, yeah, it was truly living like a king. I think I said to you before we started recording that, I now know what it what it must be like to live like royalty or an aristocrat, where just things are just done for you, and how it just lightens your life, and you just kind of float around in a little bubble, you know, shielded from the from, the from the cracks and the grit of what it is to actually, you know, live life and be with people. And a lot of that is in the, the maintenance work. A lot of that is in, you know, the cooking, the cleaning, the shopping, the just having to deal with, yeah, and that's, that's what living is, you know. It was like a calm before the storm, because I'm about to go on a book tour as well.

Raymond Antrobus  06:56

So, yeah, I've kind of started writing this whole new thing now. So, my head's there. And this book that's coming out, The Quiet Ear, is a book I've been trying to, you know, kind of been in the process for about six years so, and now it's finally a real thing, bounded, a physical object that people can read and talk to me about,

Holly Newson  08:22

Yeah!

Raymond Antrobus  08:23

which is, which is, which is wild. I've totally gone off on this tangent, though, because you asked me about kindness. And, um,

Holly Newson  08:28

We are going to come back to The Quiet Ear. One thing I want to ask, outside of castle life, what's an everyday act of kindness that means a lot to you? Is there something, like when someone just drops you a message to check in, or you know, someone - I don't know - like makes you a drink, or whatever it is, is there something that means a lot?

Raymond Antrobus  08:56

Well, the thing that I think means the most to me, no, not the most, but something that means a lot to me, is when someone cooks for you. That's really profound. And again, I mean going back to like living in this castle,

Holly Newson  09:16

Haha

Raymond Antrobus  09:17

Civitella, where we would sit every evening, around this table with all these, again, other artists, but it's the food that we're there for. It's the food that has brought that together. It's food that is, like this kind of key ingredient of the curation, of the conversation of that. And I had so many conversations with different people there who said the same thing, who were like, "I want to do this every day. I've been missing doing this. I haven't sat with the people I love and ate a meal like as consistently, you know, as I am now, and I need to integrate that into my life," and I had the same at the same feeling.

Raymond Antrobus  10:03

I'm very much on the go. I'm a freelancer. I'm doing I'm teaching, then I'm reading, and then I'm doing a million other things. But family is something that, yeah, that really means a lot to me. And I think my grandma was the most kind of stably traditional, loving person who was in my life. And she she would cook, we would sit at the table. She was also congregational Christian. So there was even, you know, everything was very ritualistic, so in saying grace. And there was just something profoundly comforting about that. And-

Holly Newson  10:51

What would she cook for you?

Raymond Antrobus  10:52

Oh, it's a range of things. So I've been thinking about, you know, being half English, growing up British, been thinking about this a lot like, what are the things I really value about my Englishness? And it's got to be the roasts. The roasts! So my grandma did a roast, it was a good day, no matter what else was going on. You know? I mean, we're talking about the gravy. We're talking about the brussel sprouts. We're talking about the Yorkshire pudding. We're talking about, you know, sometimes a nut roast, sometimes a turkey and then, and then, to top it off, apple crumble and custard.

Holly Newson  11:38

Yes!

Raymond Antrobus  11:40

You don't- like, that's my death row meal right there.

Raymond Antrobus  11:42

Yes.

Raymond Antrobus  11:43

Oh, you're gonna kill me. Well, give me a roast, apple crumble and custard, and I'm- I'll go to the grave.

Holly Newson  11:53

Apple crumble is a massive weakness of mine. I feel like I, I cannot have one, one bowl. If there is any left, I will be there scraping the edges of the dish.

Raymond Antrobus  12:07

Preach! I see you. Yes, yes, same, same.

Holly Newson  12:17

And so in the cooking of that of that roast, of that meal - and you said it, you know, it's always a good day when that roast is coming to you - why does it change anything else that day for the better? What is it about that act of someone doing that and you sitting down that, that changes things?

Raymond Antrobus  12:37

Well, I think it's the fact that someone's put so much time into it, and you just you've seen them like, you know, and sometimes you participated in that, like you cut the carrots, the tomatoes, the onions, you know, you maybe you you've had to get some of the ingredients, you know. Like, it's the team, it's the family. Like, it's sort of that, even, even if you, you know - thinking about myself as a kid - even if I haven't done anything to help prepare, I've just, like, kind of been waiting for it to cook. It's the, like, anticipation of it. You're in the other room, like, you know, you might be watching something or reading something, you know, you're just kind of in your own world. But then you're like, oh, food is going to come and it's going to be-. And then I mean, the smell, you know the smell from the kitchen when a meal, when a good meal is being cooked, man. And the yeah, my grandma and my dad were the two people who gave me the best, most beautiful, nutritious meals I think I'll ever have in my life. So I kind of feel like that's already-. So now my role is to pass that on and try and give that to my son.

Holly Newson  13:45

Yeah.

Raymond Antrobus  13:46

So just last night, since being back in the UK, I've been, every night I've had my son, I've cooked for him. So last night I made ackee and saltfish with rice and peas. I mean, I try and did a little, kind of mixed it up a little bit, though. I didn't, I didn't, it wasn't saltfish. It was cod, actually. And usually I do use saltfish, but I went for the cod this time, and I did something controversial, which was I put -

Raymond Antrobus  14:15

and people who know about the traditional kind of ackee and saltfish dish - I put some broccoli in it, and it really worked. And I know that, you know, people will be like broccoli in ackee and saltfish. Are you mad? But it worked. So, you know, because I'm thinking about how to make a dish my own, and this was something my dad also taught me as well, because I will never make ackee and saltfish as good as he made it. He's like, don't worry about making it as good as what I made it. You got to find a way to make it how you make it.

Holly Newson  14:46

Raymond's ackee and saltfish.

Raymond Antrobus  14:48

Raymond's ackee and saltfish has - and I'm not apologizing, I'm just anticipating the response of anger and confusion - it has broccoli in it. Bits, little bits, like, like, not big, not not the big, like, I cut up the broccoli and put it in there with the tomatoes,

Holly Newson  15:07

The big round floret, or the tenderstem?

Raymond Antrobus  15:11

I had a big one, and I just cut it up, into little, little pieces, little, little, tiny tree pieces.

Raymond Antrobus  15:19

Now, did my son eat it?

Raymond Antrobus  15:23

He had about three bites, and then I had to make him boiled eggs. And then he ate the rice, but without the kidney beans, without the peas, he had- he wanted the plain rice. So I know he's, he's not even four yet. So, yeah, he will, he will hopefully appreciate what it is to make a meal.

Holly Newson  15:47

Yes.

Raymond Antrobus  15:48

Because that took me two and a half hours. Yeah,

Holly Newson  15:50

I don't know what age it is that you come to where you suddenly realize the effort that a parent or a guardian is putting into the food that they're feeding you, I but there is some somewhere, there's a switch where you suddenly go, Oh, they're actually putting quite a lot of work into feeding me every day.

Raymond Antrobus  16:13

Yeah. No, that's true. That's true.

Raymond Antrobus  16:18

Yeah, that age when you I don't know. I mean,

Raymond Antrobus  16:20

I wonder if I did appreciate it, appreciate that as a kid. Probably not. I think that, because a lot of my I think, yeah, I think I can say this. I think a lot of the trauma that I'm still kind of working through as an adult, it's quite a lot, quite a bit of it is based around food, because I don't think I feel like as a kid, generally, I was underfed. And I had to go, it took me, like, almost two hours to go to school. When I went to school, Fortismere in Muswell Hill, and I live in Hackney, I had to get three busses, you know, just all of that, you know.

Raymond Antrobus  17:08

And then to try and save money, I would try not to have a lunch, because then I get £2.50. And then I would save up that £2.50. And I knew that if I had, if I skipped at least three or four lunches, by the weekend, I could buy a CD.

Holly Newson  17:24

Yeah.

Raymond Antrobus  17:24

You know, so, yeah, I spent a lot of time going hungry. My parents had their own stuff going on, so it was like, yeah, a lot, a lot of time alone on that in the house. And then I would rely on, like, my friend's parents to feed me and blah, blah, blah. So I'm still like, yeah, food is really at the center, I think, of having a stable, communal, peaceful life.

Holly Newson  17:59

Yeah.

Holly Newson  18:16

The question is - we'll go with you first - if that's all right. What's your name?

Jasper  18:19

Jasper.

Holly Newson  18:20

Jasper, can you think of one thing that, one kind thing that someone's done for you could be recently, could be ages ago?

Jasper  18:26

He's bought me food.

Holly Newson  18:27

He bought you food. What food did he buy you?

Jasper  18:31

I can't remember, just food in general, just all the time.

Holly Newson  18:33

And what was your name?

Lucas  18:33

I'm Lucas.

Holly Newson  18:33

Lucas, what's a kind thing that someone did for you?

Lucas  18:38

He bought me vape liquid the other day.

Holly Newson  18:44

He bought you what?

Holly Newson  18:47

Cool.

Lucas  18:47

Yeah, thank you.

Holly Newson  18:48

Thanks very much. I love that they're about each other. That's really sweet.

Lucas  18:48

Vape liquid?

Holly Newson  18:48

Oh, nice.

Lucas  18:48

It's very, it was very thankful. I was very happy. It's very helpful.

Holly Newson  18:58

Have a great day.

Lucas  18:58

You too.

Holly Newson  19:06

As part of what you sent me before you came here, you sent me some stories of kindness, and one of them was about teacher in particular, Miss Walker.

Raymond Antrobus  19:16

Oh, yeah.

Holly Newson  19:17

Would you tell me about her and what she did that was kind?

Raymond Antrobus  19:22

Shout out, Miss Walker. She's still a teacher of the deaf. She was my support teacher when I was 15 years old at school. She was in my sociology lesson, so she would sit next to me and she would help me take notes. And after each lesson, she would relay with me, you know, to ensure that I'd understood. She was very she was young. I think she was like 22 and so her energy was very youthful. I remember she was quite easy to relate to. We were, we were talking about some films and some music that she liked, that I also liked. I was like, Huh, okay. And I could, like, be a bit silly or tell a joke or something, and it wouldn't be like, "Oh, you!" you know. So there's also a kind of suspension of judgment, I guess, in around that, like I could be, I could I could be a 15 year old, basically, and, yeah, I don't know I could be. I could be seen.

Raymond Antrobus  20:43

But the thing I think I really remember about her is her patience, and I could tell that she expected a lot of me in a way that I didn't feel like my most of my other teachers did.

Holly Newson  20:58

So expectation, in that sense, is a really positive thing for you?

Raymond Antrobus  21:00

Yeah, yeah. It was. At this point in my life, I am in a deaf school, and I'm also part of a hearing school, a mainstream school, so all the lessons I have in the mainstream school are, you know, supported with- I have the support. And it's kind of funny, because the deaf school was, like this building that was kind of hidden in the bush, that's like, literally walk into a bush, literally a pathway up there, in contrast to this, like, bigger, shinier mainstream school.

Holly Newson  21:39

So the two schools sort of interact, and you have some education in both.

Raymond Antrobus  21:43

Yes, yes, I have some education in both. So, yeah. So I'm learning British Sign Language and how to lip read, and you know how to be a deaf person in the bush, in the bush, then, and then I come out of the bush into this mainstream school where I'm pretending to be a hearing person, and like, Okay, I've done all of my speech therapy, and I've done, you know, all of all of these, like, all of this sensibility training, and now I'm ready to act like a hearing person, which- so that people can think I'm quote, unquote normal. So Miss Walker was someone who had seen, I think, the compartmentalization of me, because she's seen me in both spaces and my academic performance was bad, and she was someone, and a few other teachers, clearly knew that I wasn't stupid, that I wasn't incapable.

Raymond Antrobus  23:04

Of, you know, of what was being asked of me, academically?

Holly Newson  23:10

Yeah.

Raymond Antrobus  23:12

She just knew that I was missing a lot, and I had a lot of things going on in my life. And it, like I said, it was, you know, it's for almost four hours, like traveling every day, like going to school and back. And I then the kind of stuff I was seeing on the way to school, to school, and the way, the way, way back is kind of a wild time, but still, like,

Holly Newson  23:36

What sort of things are you seeing on the way to school and on the way back?

Raymond Antrobus  23:39

Just madness, just like, I don't know, like, you know, violence. You know, there were different-. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's how again, tangent king, I'm kind of overwhelmed with stories I could tell you about things I've seen on the on the W3 bus, on the 236 bus, on the W7 bus, on the 144 bus. Every one of these busses has some horrific stuff I've seen and survived. I mean, and that's not- that's before you get to Hackney. When I'm in Hackney, and then there's some other stuff going on. So, so, yeah, it was, it was, um, treacherous at that, at that time for me. So, so I remember feeling really, um, on edge about a lot of that stuff, a lot of stuff that's going on. And so what Miss Walker knew is that if I left school, I wasn't going to do my homework after- when I got home, I was going to go home, I was probably going to eat one meal. I mean, I was going to go to sleep. I mean, I was going to get up next day and come back, right? So, or I go and see a friend or something I don't know. So she knew if she could get me one on one, because one on one, I was really good. She was like, Oh, when I'm speaking to you one on one and I'm telling you, you know, we're discussing the lesson and what's expected of you. And I'll leave you to do it. You do it. You know, you're writing these sociological reports and analysis of you know? And yeah, so she could see I was capable. I just needed that support.

Holly Newson  25:39

How did you feel about staying back after school?

Raymond Antrobus  25:42

To be honest, it was safe

Holly Newson  25:44

Right.

Raymond Antrobus  25:44

It was safe. And that's why I think you know I was, yeah, again, I was 15, and I still remember it, because not only did she want- the dimensions of her support and her help was that deep. It was like, she wants me to get the grade she thinks that would reflect my intelligence. And she recognized and saw some of some of the some of the things that were going on outside of school. And I think, yeah, I think it was like, a way to be like, Okay, well, if you're with me and we're inside and we're doing the work, then you're safe.

Holly Newson  26:32

Yeah.

Raymond Antrobus  26:32

For that time. Yeah. And I felt that. And she went beyond her pay grade, because I know she wasn't getting paid for the for the after school time, which is something that's- that I think about, and have thought about in terms of my own time teaching. Oh, yeah. Remember, remember what Miss Walker gave you, yeah, give that back.

Holly Newson  26:58

Yeah.

Raymond Antrobus  27:00

You know, give that back. Keep giving that back. And that's the thing with kindness. It's a is a currency. When you receive it, give it, give it away.

Jade  27:20

Jade.

Holly Newson  27:21

Jade, lovely to meet you.

Jade  27:24

Well a few days ago, when I tripped over, broke my foot, and people helped me up, and like helped like take me back to my front door, and then I've had friends who dropped everything and brought, because I lived quite high up, brought me food and stuff like that, and done a lot of things, which was really nice. And I've come back, and my mom's looked after me for the past few days, and it's been lovely and, well, yeah, everyone's really stepped up.

Holly Newson  27:58

Everyone's rallied around.

Jade  27:59

Everyone's rallied around, which was really, really nice.

Holly Newson  28:07

I hope you heal very soon.

Jade  28:08

Oh yes, yeah, I think it's like eight weeks. But yeah, everyone's, everyone's been really, really kind.

Holly Newson  28:14

There's another story you sent me about a poet called Jacob, and you said that he did something very kind for you.

Raymond Antrobus  28:29

Yeah.

Holly Newson  28:29

Could you tell me about that?

Raymond Antrobus  28:31

Yeah. So Jacob Sam-La Rose, shout out, Jacob Sam-La Rose. I was 19, and I wanted to find out how to get into poetry. I'd been doing a couple of slams, which is like competitive poetry. Again, competitiveness comes up and like open mics. I was going to a night called poetry unplugged, hosted by Niall O'Sullivan. I was doing Farrago slams, hosted by John Paul O'Neill, and I met loads of poets. I met like Holly McNish and Keith Jarrett and Kae Tempest. And like all of these, became people who I was around at that time, and kind of gave me this, this, this avenue into this whole other world of poets and poetry, but I didn't know how to actually make a living as a poet. Where you, you know. So a name that kept coming up was Jacob Sam-La Rose. And this is the day of MySpace. So I look for him on MySpace, and I find his profile, and I write him. This really, just, I don't know.

Raymond Antrobus  29:43

Let's call it entitled, immature email. Just, I don't know, like, just like, but also like, very eager and earnest and just naive, all of these things. Yeah, because it was, like, an overly – it was a massive overshare, like, all the stuff that's going on, how what poetry means to me. Like, all this stuff.

Holly Newson  30:08

How long was this message?

Raymond Antrobus  30:09

Ah, it must have been, like, it was, like a letter, just just, you know, it was going to take his time to read it, you know, so, so anyway, I kind of impulsively sent it, and about two days later, he actually responded to it, and he responded to it with such graciousness. And again, this is only as I've gotten older, and I'm looking back and now, because now I'm someone who gets a lot of messages from young writers, young poets, you know, and so I have to channel my Jacob, my inner Jacob, sometimes, because sometimes I get messages and I'm like, I cannot believe you're asking me this!

Holly Newson  30:52

What sort of thing?

Raymond Antrobus  30:56

I think the most common thing I get at the moment is, because I have poems on the GCSE syllabus, so I get lots of questions.

Raymond Antrobus  31:06

So, so this line, what does this mean?

Raymond Antrobus  31:08

You know, I've got a assignment of you- of this poem due, can you tell me this so that I can get this and I mean, this is, this is very common. I can't, yeah. Anyway, I get lots of those messages, and then I get sent, you know, people write poems, and you know that their own stuff. Anyway, I think I did also send Jake a poem, a poem as well, oh, my terrible poem. Anyway, whatever, the point is, Jacob graciously responded to me, and he said that he could tell I was hungry and eager and interested in poetry. So he met up, he arranged to meet up with me. And again, talking about, like kindness, being something where there's nothing in it for you, there's, there was no- this is a very busy person. There was so many other things he could have been doing. And he gave me an hour of his time. And then, you know, had this, we had this whole conversation, which is amazing. And then he said, I'm going into a school next week, come in and shadow me, watch what I do in the classroom. And that one day I spent with him going into all these different classrooms, assemblies. I mean, it changed the route of my life. I have my life now because I was shown a path to it by Jacob extending a branch to me. So I am forever, yeah, you know, grateful, and in a way, in debt to that, and that's something I'm trying to give back, you know, to as many hungry, naive, overly earnest, slightly entitled poets that I come across. You know, it's a, it's a, yeah, it's a different world now, but like, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Jacob, yeah, yeah. That's yeah. That's a really, really, a very grounding example for me of how to how to live through poetry, with poetry, you know, generously, graciously.

Holly Newson  33:41

Yeah, and we've talked a bit earlier, mentioned, The Quiet Ear, your book. So tell me about The Quiet Ear, What are you looking forward to the audience experiencing about this book that you said you worked on for six years and is now going out into the world?

Raymond Antrobus  34:01

Yeah, I'm not sure. So I haven't spoken to many people that have read it yet, but I know. I know. I know the whole time I was writing it, I knew I was writing something that was gonna impact a lot of people, like it's gonna speak to a lot of people. And the way that I knew that was because, again, of how much time I spend going into schools, how much time I spend teaching, talking to other teachers, how much, how often I meet people who are secretly deaf still, or, you know, hide their hearing aids, or they have cochlear implants, and they, you know, they pretend that they're they're hearing because they don't think the deaf world will embrace them or accept them, you know, like again, almost on a weekly basis I was, I have these interactions, and I'm and I hear myself kind of telling the same stories again and again and again to all these different people. And it's just like, I need to write this down. This needs to this needs to be in a place.

Holly Newson  35:16

Yeah

Raymond Antrobus  35:17

You know when people ask you, like, oh, what's the thing you think people will look back at like, in this time and be like, Oh, I can't believe they did that, you know? And there's two things that come to mind. One of them is, I think people can look back at this time and be completely miffed by the fact that, like, the internet is so irregulated. It's not regulated. I mean, it's like, you know, we're just starting to do that. So, oh, cool, you let your kids have 15 hours a day screen time. You know, that's, that's like, yesterday's cigarettes, know what I mean? But also, I think the way that we talk and think about disability will be something. It is so painfully juvenile and undeveloped, the way that we think about disability and disabled bodies.

Raymond Antrobus  36:16

It's just woven, it's woven into our into our language, into, into our way of being. And like, you know, the default culture is an ableist culture, yeah, and I believe that we're going to grow up and grow out of this. You know, if you think recently around, you know, the disability cuts that happened in the UK, but then the pushback to that has been, has been incredible, and it's, it worked. The government had to

Holly Newson  36:52

Yeah

Raymond Antrobus  36:53

Had to back down. And they're reconfigured it. I mean, it's still terrible. I mean, people who you know, the existing benefit claimants are okay, but you know ones to come. But it's, you know, I think that there was a real misjudgment there in the belief that people do not really care about people with disabilities, and the culture, the pushback has disproven that. You know what I mean?

Holly Newson  37:28

Yeah, I think it's, I think it's like, I don't, there are so few people who do not have some level of disability, or know someone with disability, and yet, as a society, society behaves like, Well I don't, it doesn't impact me, and it does impact you or someone you know, for almost everyone.

Raymond Antrobus  37:55

Yeah.

Holly Newson  37:56

I was saying to you, before we started recording, that your book had a really big impact on me, because my mum was deaf, and there were lots of, there were lots of parts in it where, well, I spent a lot of the time reading it thinking, God, I wish she could read this, because there's a bit that you write about forgiveness, and I don't think she ever forgave the world for how she was treated. And I don't think she ever forgave herself for her perceived lack that the world told her that she had. And, um, and hearing someone who actually grew up in a really similar circumstance, my mom grew up in Hackney. She, like, really near to where you grew up, like she was deaf from birth, but people didn't know until she was like, think she was like, seven or eight, and she was told she was- people to start with, just, oh, you're stupid, you know, just getting things wrong. And just to read that there is someone in a life experience that has some similarities to hers and is finding that forgiveness was like the warmest thing for me. So thank you.

Raymond Antrobus  39:23

Oh, that's a really beautiful thing to hear and to receive. Thank you.

Holly Newson  39:30

Sorry. I didn't mean to get emotional like the grief is still, you know, it's bubbly. To finish, I wanted to ask you, what is the kindest thing you have ever done for yourself?

Raymond Antrobus  39:50

The kindest thing I've ever done for myself.

Raymond Antrobus  39:57

I'm like- I struggle with the idea of like doing things for yourself, of being selfish and selfishness have has a negative connotation, but that is a necessity, to selfishness and I'm, I really,

Raymond Antrobus  40:33

I really don't want to sound grandiose, so I'm just like, really trying to keep it like,

Holly Newson  40:39

You can start grandiose!

Raymond Antrobus  40:40

I'm trying to I'm trying to recover from my own grandiosity, because I don't really think it's good for me, but like I think that, I think that the time that I kind of pulled away from the world and just kind of focused on wanting to be a poet. And for some reason, I had this really intense belief and feeling that this was the thing that was going to save me. This was the thing that was going to lead me to live a richer life on my own terms. And the fact that I did that, knowing that there was almost no one in my life at that point who would understand that or appreciate that, you know, I had to, like, cut off a lot of people to because, yeah, because I knew it wouldn't make sense to any of the people I was around. And I think, I think I was being kind to myself by trusting this kind of gut instinct I had to do. that.

Holly Newson  41:56

You were being true to yourself.

Raymond Antrobus  41:58

I think so.

Holly Newson  41:59

Yeah.

Raymond Antrobus  42:02

So when I think about, you know, again, like this 18/19 year-old version of me that did that, like, I'm like, Thank you, because now like that I'm where- I quite like where I'm at. I quite like who I am and who I become, and I couldn't, couldn't have done it without that angsty, self absorbed kid.

Holly Newson  42:30

Amazing. On that fantastic note, Raymond, thank you so much. It's been so great to chat to you.

Raymond Antrobus  42:35

Oh, thank you for having me. Appreciate this.

Holly Newson  42:46

Thank you so much for listening. Your presence here and your support means so much to me.

Raymond gave me a huge hug after we finished recording this episode, which was the absolute kindest thing to me. But thinking of the whole chat. It just makes me marvel at all the teachers or mentors or people who take us under their wing, and how much those actions can shape a whole life or career. Shout out to Dr Fit in my primary school, who made me really enjoy maths, but also just give me confidence in what I can achieve. And so this episode is dedicated to them. Maybe share this episode with a teacher in your life or someone else who might love it.

I would also love to hear a story from you about a time someone was kind to you. So send that in at kindpodcast.com or email me holly@kindpodcast.com and I will feature some of the stories on the show.

If you like the show, hit subscribe to the channel. It helps me a lot. It was great to spend time with you. Speak soon!