← How To Fail With Elizabeth Day
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- [00:00]
Elizabeth Day
Hello, this is Elizabeth Day from the how to Fail podcast. I wanted to share something I'm genuinely excited about. One of my favorite UK wellness brands, Ancient and Brave, has just launched in the us. I've used two of their products in my daily routine and they've made a tangible difference. The first is True Creatine Plus. With added taurine, vitamin D and magnesium, it supports physical performance, energy and cognitive function. It's easy to take at home or on the go, whether I'm working out or or not. I also use their clinically studied True Collagen, a pure, potent and powerful staple that supports skin elasticity and hydration as well as whole body health. It's EU sourced, so free from growth hormones or antibiotics, plus it's neutral in taste and dissolves effortlessly into coffee or smoothies or a cup of tea. I would say that as a Brit, wouldn't I? Ancient and Brave are proud members of 1% for the planet, meaning that 1% of their sales go to environmental causes, wellness that feels good and does good too. Go to ancientandbrave.com planet and use the code howtofail. That's howtofail. No spaces or one word for $10 off any purchase. Masterclass is the streaming platform that makes it possible for anyone to watch or listen to hundreds of video lessons taught by more than 200 of the world's best. Whether it be in business and leadership, photography, cooking, acting, music, sports and more, Masterclass delivers a world class online learning experience. The classes that excited me the most were the ones on writing, so there's a session with actual Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and the Tipping point. He's done 24 classes on how to find, research and write stories that capture big ideas and it's totally inspiring. I love that you can turn your commute or workout into a classroom with audio mode so you can listen to a Masterclass lesson in anytime, anywhere. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership@masterclass.com fail. That's 15% off@masterclass.com fail masterclass.com fail welcome back to how to Fail. This week we're talking about family, the first relationships that shape who we are and our understanding of love. My first guest is fashion designer Bella Freud, founder of the iconic Bella Freud label, celebrated for its witty slogan LED knitwear. She's also the great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud. Bella speaks with extraordinary honesty about the devastating experience of losing both of her parents to cancer within a week, her complex childhood and the responsibilities she carried as the eldest sibling, then we hear from the legendary Danny Dyer, who reflects on growing up on a council estate in East London with a single mother and the trauma of discovering his father had another family, and how the absence of love in his childhood shaped the parent he is today, one who's determined to give his children what he didn't always receive. This episode aims to offer reassurance, validation and some insight into family dynamics that are often considered bit of a taboo. First up, here's Bella.
- [03:31]
Bella Freud
My father was dying of cancer and we were all expecting him to die. And then a week before he died, my mother went into hospital for some tests and she'd come and stayed with me, which she didn't do very often, but she'd been to stay with me a few months earlier and said she'd forgotten her painkillers, and she wasn't someone who took painkillers. And I noticed that and thought, God, that's strange. And she said, I've had some pain in my back or something. She went into hospital, they did some tests, and then they said, you've got a week to live. And she did die a week later, and my father died on July 20th and she died on 24th. So it was so, so strange.
- [04:23]
Elizabeth Day
That must have been horrendous.
- [04:24]
Bella Freud
Yeah, it was so abstract that it. And in a way, because she was. She knew she was going to die and this doctor had told her exactly what, you know, what would happen. And it was very. It seemed to be very peaceful. And I remember. And also it made it possible to ask her things or say things like, ask her if she had a will. Say things like, I'm gonna miss you and not. And that was completely normal. I remember saying that to her and she said, I feel strangely detached from what's happening to me. It was kind of wonderful in a way, because there's nothing. I mean, I don't suppose anyone else would want a long, prolonged death but her more than anyone. She was a very immediate person. And they discovered she had cancer in three places, and it was completely everywhere. You know, we'd made our peace, and I thought we were going to be at the beginning of some other phase in our lives of begrudging acceptance of each other. And we sort of were. And then that was it. She was gone. It was like a racehorse, an outsider horse, streaking to the front. And she said, oh, I'm sorry. I'm just sorry I won't be able to come to Dad's funeral. And then we just laughed and it was great. And in some ways, you know, even though it was unbelievably shocking, I'm so
- [06:10]
Elizabeth Day
sorry for what you and Esther must have gone through at that time. Did you have an opportunity to say to either of them, I love you, or were you not that kind of family?
- [06:24]
Bella Freud
I did say to my father once I'd done some sort of self help course, and I said, oh, this is the bit where I tell you I love you. And we just laughed. And I think it was really nice and I'm sure he appreciated that. And I tried that a bit with my mother and in a way it was more about gestures and I was so glad that she'd come to stay with me because we kind of wound each other up and we had a really nice. She stayed for two or three nights and we had a really nice time together. And I remember we went, because she lived in Suffolk, and we went to the Latitude Festival and we went to see Nick Cave and then we went to see Blondie. And when we were sort of rocking out, we looked at each other and I thought, yeah, this is, you know, this is where we're. She just was like a rebellious teenager her whole life. And when I was together with her and that, we got on really well and we had things out and some were successful and some much less so. But I suppose there was some kind of acceptance of each other before she died, which was a peaceful thing.
- [07:56]
Elizabeth Day
Did your father say I love you back?
- [07:58]
Bella Freud
No, I don't think so. He didn't really use that language, but he showed it in many ways, so that didn't matter at all. I wasn't. My intention was to say something that was potentially embarrassing, but I wanted him to know anyway, and so he knew.
- [08:20]
Elizabeth Day
Well done, you, for your courage in navigating your relationship with your mother. Your second failure, seamless link, is not joining the circus.
- [08:35]
Bella Freud
Oh, God.
- [08:37]
Elizabeth Day
So was this actually an opportunity?
- [08:39]
Bella Freud
Yeah. Okay, tell me this story. I think I was 19 and I. I was going through a phase of trying to be an actress or vaguely entertaining, like being in a band or being an actress, being a performer of some kind. And I used to get the stage and look at the adverts and I saw there was an advert for something or other. I don't know if it said. Anyway, I went for this meeting and it was in the middle of Shepherd's Bush Roundabout where there was this circus and I was going for a job. Transpired of being the girl that dances on a ball, you know, when they'd have an enormous ball and there would be someone who somehow stayed on it. And I. I went for the. For the audition and I got the job and then.
- [09:32]
Elizabeth Day
Wait, so in the audition, did you have to stand on the wall?
- [09:35]
Bella Freud
No, she just sort of checked me out.
- [09:38]
Elizabeth Day
How old were you?
- [09:39]
Bella Freud
I was 19. Okay, 18 or 19. It was the first part of the job. I'd have to go and live in Birmingham in a caravan on the site, and I wouldn't be paid for anything at all. No living costs, no food. And then after a month, I think. Or I would then get my living costs. And then when I was in the circus, I would get sort of minimum wage, and I just didn't do it. And I stayed home and I always regretted it. And I actually. I mean, in some ways, I think if I had joined the circus, I might still be in it. So in some ways I'm glad I didn't do it because my life took me in a different direction. And it was one of my fantasies as a child to be in the circus. I loved all the people in it. I always loved people in that type of world and outside, you know, an outsider life with a lot of pride. And it's something that I still think, oh, God, you know, I wimped out.
- [10:55]
Elizabeth Day
You do look like you'd be a great addition to any circus.
- [10:58]
Bella Freud
I mean that as a compliment. Yes. No, I take it as that you
- [11:02]
Elizabeth Day
mentioned there that when you were younger, so sort of six, you were the one who felt you had to be responsible in the absence of adult responsibility.
- [11:13]
Bella Freud
Yeah.
- [11:14]
Elizabeth Day
And then in your teenage years, that switched. And I wonder how that affected your relationship with your younger sister Esther, if at all.
- [11:22]
Bella Freud
Yeah, no, it did. I. Cause when we were children, she was the person I trusted. And I don't know if it's an oldest child syndrome that she was so important to me, but I also felt like, you know, I was looking out and she was behind me, so she gave me this moral support, but I was the soldier on the front line. And, I mean, whether I was or not is neither here nor there, but it's. And I don't know if other eldest children have that feeling of slight loneliness, of, we're the ones, we also get the love because we're the first one, but then we lose it and we get the first. We're the ones that are the experimenters, as it were. She just was such a great ally, and she always believed in me and believed me more than anything. And, you know, as a teenager, people all. It's the time where you get dismissed and Very much so in the 70s. And she believed me. And that was such a big thing. I was always grateful and still am for that.
- [12:52]
Elizabeth Day
Yes. What's it like today?
- [12:55]
Bella Freud
That's more important than ever. There's some kind of thing in some. I can't remember how it exactly goes about resilience. And it's something to do with trauma. When it's not witnessed, is a catastrophe. But trauma, when there is some sort of witness, that is, someone believes what happened to you makes it much easier to recover from. And when your experience is denied, it's just this kind of. You can get stuck in this thing for your whole life of proving or just disappearing because what everyone saw, you're being told, didn't happen to have that information so that it's not dismissed and notice it in other people.
- [13:55]
Elizabeth Day
Thank you. It's so rare, I think, that we talk about sibling relationships, and it's rare on this podcast, too. And I really value having the chance to talk about it as one of two sisters myself, and I'm the younger sister, and I completely agree with you, by the way. I was so grateful to my older sister Catherine for being the experimenter, the kind of bulwark, the first defense. And it's just a very interesting relationship that completely shapes who we are and our character. And I really appreciate how much attention you pay to family when you do your podcast. Fashion Neurosis. You do it sitting on a chair that was your father's chair in his studio, this sort of battered, beautiful, painterly armchair. And of course, the act of what you're doing is. Is psychoanalytical, as your great grandfather was the founding father of it. And I just wonder what your relationship is with the Freud name.
- [14:58]
Bella Freud
My whole relationship was with my father. He never talked about his grandfather. There was no reference, hardly at all. He made a few jokes about him, and it was really about what you do yourself. And he was the model for that. So we didn't use that as a kind of blanket. I felt that would be a bit tacky to just, you know, in the end, if I don't do a good job of whatever it is I'm doing, then who cares if I then use that as some sort of magic carpet? That's the worst thing I can imagine. So we were never brought up with a thing about Freud at all. But my father, there he was, he was everything to me. And I just. What? You know, he was just such a powerful person in my life, and he was. And I looked up at him and how he dealt with Life. And he seemed to deal with life by painting through any problems.
- [16:30]
Elizabeth Day
You know those times late at night when you're scrolling and you see something online that you've been looking for and you just need to buy it right there and then you click on the link, you add it to cart before hitting checkout. But then that sinking feeling as you realise you don't have your card anywhere near and don't want to get out of bed. But that's when you see it. That purple pay button that has all of your information saved, making checking out as simple as a quick tap of your screen. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and has so many benefits. You can set up your own design studio, use Shopify's AI tools that write product descriptions and even enhance your product photography. You can get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. See fewer carts go abandoned and more sales go. Sign up for your £1 per month trial today at shopify.co.uk fail. Go to shopify.co.uk fail.
- [17:40]
Danny Dyer
I'm Craig Melvin.
- [17:41]
Bella Freud
Cheers. Cheers.
- [17:42]
Danny Dyer
Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy, and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who shared their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges, their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows, you might just come away with your own Glass Half Full.
- [18:04]
Bella Freud
Search Glass Half Full with Craig Melvin
- [18:06]
Danny Dyer
From Today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts, you know, obviously come from a family of, you know, of some sort of criminal fraternity. I really started to really feel that when I went into the theater world, wasn't so much with the TV world, but definitely when I started to, you know, be around fear and nuts, as you'd like to call them, I was well out of my depth with just dialogue in general, especially when you do a plane, then afterwards you come off stage and then, you know, you've got sort of people in the bar waiting. I didn't quite know what to say to these people, really, and I felt that there was always a class thing going on, but give me a drive and an ambition, really. I've never been to drama school. I don't want to lose who I am, the essence of who I am, because I. My theory on acting is that my toolbox is me and my traumas and my, you know, my truth and So I have to dig into my box to, to find certain emotions and feelings and, and, and so I, I wouldn't want to become a blank canvas, which is what you're taught at drama school. Lose the accent and then going back to the pint of thing. That's what happened with Harold. Harold was from East London, but Harold was told, I suppose he was an actor during the 50s and the 60s. So therefore you, you know, working class people shouldn't really be on the television. Interestingly, I've just heard a stat that in the arts at the moment, there is 6% of working class people.
- [19:31]
Elizabeth Day
Wow.
- [19:32]
Danny Dyer
It's at the lowest it's ever been. Something that needs to change, I feel.
- [19:36]
Elizabeth Day
Tell me a bit about your. Your childhood and that idea of being rooted in where you come from, but not forever defined by it. You were raised by strong women?
- [19:46]
Danny Dyer
Yeah, I was raised by strong women, absolutely. My dad left when I was quite young, so I had no real role model or a father figure around me. I mean, my mother brought up three children, you know, on her own on a council estate and always did it with a smile and always had a cuddle. And that's what our. As children, actually, it didn't matter that we had all it was about our currency as children. And I noticed from having children myself, quite privileged kids is affection and love and security, you know, So I didn't have my father for that, but I did. My mother was always there. She was a great talker, a great listener. I had a matriarch in my nan, Nanny Polly, who said a lot. Right. So this was a word that was around me a lot again, going back to the classes and thinking it was only later on when I was at dinner parties and I'd use that word, you know, I realized that maybe if you look at the broader society, it's quite rare, that word. Yeah, in particular. But, you know, I always felt safe around me.
- [20:48]
Elizabeth Day
Now, do you remember that moment when your mum found out that your dad had been having this affair and had another family?
- [20:55]
Danny Dyer
Yeah, I do, because she was on the phone, she got a phone call from. From the woman that my dad was having an affair with and. And she just sort of dropped to her knees crying and she had my sister in her arms and I think she knew. I think she knew anyway. But, you know, it was like this really dramatic moment of, you know, it's a tricky one with me dad because obviously I just made a documentary and I was worried about maybe getting a bit of backlash from maybe women's groups and Stuff because, Because I felt that the timing of trying to make a documentary about how men are struggling is probably bad timing because everybody's struggling anyway upset me dad because he, he, he Googled me name and he hadn't watched the documentary yet. And he, and, and the press had said that. I said, violent man. He was never a violent man. He was just. He was just a bit. And it was my brother's truth, you know, it really affected me when he left me brother. Not so much. He was a bit more, you know, logical about the whole situation. And even though he was younger than me, realized that dad not being around meant it was going to be a calmer, happy house, whereas I just wanted me dad about, you know, I didn't understand why he wasn't there. And I sort of blame your mother for it because she was in front of me.
- [22:04]
Bella Freud
Yeah.
- [22:04]
Danny Dyer
But all these traumas that I had as a kid, I think it just defines you as a human being, you know what I mean? I wouldn't, I wouldn't go back and change anything. I suppose this was the way it was meant to be and I think it shaped me as a father myself, you know, and try and do the right thing. And, and I did speak about my dad's upbringing in the 50s, which was really difficult for him. He's born in 55, so. And it was a very strict upbringing, you know what I mean? And so he didn't quite know how to be affectionate with his own kids. There was one moment when he was going to cross the road and he said, nah, I went to oldies. And he went, no, we don't do that anymore, boy. For some reason that stuck with me.
- [22:39]
Elizabeth Day
You are very warm. Kindness kind of emanates when you meet you. That's my experience as a woman. So how did you learn how to do that?
- [22:47]
Danny Dyer
I broke the mold in a sense of. I thought, well, I'm not going to do. I'm not going to be the way me dad is. I'm going to change it up a little bit and I'm going to actually probably go over the. The top with affection and love. And I think, I think because my mother was so cuddly, I was brought up with it. So I've made sure that I cuddle my son a lot because I know it makes you feel inside is important and I think it's okay to be a very masculine man, but also let people feel safe around you. I'm really glad I've got my mum's sensitive side, you know what I mean? Yeah, quite happy to cry and stuff. I will do it.
- [23:22]
Corinne
Sabrina.
- [23:23]
Elizabeth Day
Corinne.
- [23:24]
Corinne
I have been listening to a new show from the binge called Fatal Fantasy. I am obsessed.
- [23:30]
Bella Freud
Oh my. Wait. I need to know more. Tell me. Tell me everything.
- [23:33]
Corinne
I will. It's very shocking. It's this like ultra weird crime story of a murder for hire plot that. Yeah, wait for it. Leveraged the dynamics of the underworld and underworld being a medieval fantasy game.
- [23:47]
Bella Freud
Wait, so it's live action role playing gone wrong?
- [23:50]
Corinne
Horribly wrong. And you can binge all episodes now.
- [23:53]
Bella Freud
Oh my God, that sounds so good. I know what I'm doing on my drive home today.
- [23:56]
Corinne
Search for Fatal Fantasy and subscribe to the binge podcast channel on Apple podcasts or@getthebinge.com and then once you're done, you can listen to one of the over 60 true crime and investigative podcasts a part of the channel while you wait for the next month's drop. I really need to know what happens. Selfishly, you do, so that we can talk about it. So whenever you listen, search for Fatal Fantasy and hit subscribe to the binge to get all episodes all at once ad free. I want to tell you guys about a podcast that is near and dear to my heart and I cannot believe it already came out a year ago. And you can all go listen to it ad free by subscribing to the binge podcast channel.
- [24:35]
Bella Freud
What podcast, Corinne? Tell us.
- [24:37]
Corinne
Oh, it's called Blink Jake Handle story. I created it about a man named Jake who I met who is the only survivor of a terminal brain injury illness brought on by heroin use. But there is a lot of mystery and medical malpractice and true crime elements that are very shocking and surprising and even some supernatural elements.
- [24:59]
Bella Freud
So this is definitely an amazing story
- [25:01]
Corinne
and it's very unique.
- [25:03]
Bella Freud
Did such an incredible job telling the story and sharing it with the world. So if you have not listened to it yet, my goodness, where have you been? Because Blink is so freaking good.
- [25:12]
Corinne
Thank you. Search for Blink wherever you listen and subscribers to the binge will get the entire season ad free. Plus you'll get exclusive access to the over 60 other true crime stories on the binge podcast channel. Hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts or head to getthebinge.com.