My Dad talks about his life [978]

Summary

Luke's ENGLISH Podcast Episode 978: "My Dad talks about his life"

Release Date: March 2, 2026
Host: Luke Thompson
Guest: Rick Thompson (Luke’s Dad)

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Overview

In this heartfelt and engaging episode, Luke sits down with his father, Rick Thompson, for an intimate conversation about his dad’s life. Continuing from the previous episode with his mother, Luke explores his father’s upbringing in post-war Britain, his experiences during the transformative 1960s, his education and career choices, the discipline of family narratives, and reflections on aging and parenting. The aim is to capture family history, encourage listeners to ask questions of their own loved ones, and create a record of authentic British English conversation for learners.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Importance of Family Conversations

Timestamps: 01:26 – 05:56

• Luke introduces the episode, reflecting on feedback he received after speaking with his mother and emphasizing the value of cherishing time with parents.
• Quote:
  “Make the most of your time with them. And this sums it up very well actually. That is the whole idea, in fact, of that episode and indeed this episode.” – Luke (03:07)

2. Early Family Life & Chores

Timestamps: 05:56 – 09:14

• The talk opens with the present: Luke and his dad sitting together for the weekend. Rick shares how Luke helps with physical chores around the house.
• Memorable moment:
  Rick explaining double glazing and spider webs with typical British humor.

3. School and Parental Discipline

Timestamps: 09:14 – 13:42

• Rick discusses childhood school reports—anecdotally comparing Luke’s lack of discipline with his own stricter upbringing.
• Quote:
  “It was extremely frustrating for your mother and father, especially when you got a bit older and you were moving towards exams, which were quite important.” – Rick (10:08)
• He recalls being made to finish homework before watching TV and the value of firm, but loving, parenting.

4. Childhood Mischief and Reminiscence

Timestamps: 13:42 – 16:33

• Rick shares early stories of getting into trouble, such as accidentally hitting a car with a piece of wood at age six and running home in terror:
  “I was absolutely terrified of this man coming after us.” (15:10)
• Discussion turns to the regret of not asking more questions of his own grandparents.

5. The Baby Boomer Generation & Music

Timestamps: 16:33 – 23:41

• Rick offers a vivid description of post-war Britain, detailing how the baby boomer generation experienced more freedom, better food, and social mobility.
• He describes the musical transition from the rebelliousness of Elvis to the more “acceptable” Beatles era.
  “There was a bit of a reaction to that in Britain because there were mods and rockers… they used to have fights on the beach at Brighton.” – Rick (19:28)
• Family musicianship is explored—Rick’s mum as a talented pianist, and Rick himself playing in bands, starting on a “rough old drum kit.”
• Tales of a strict old piano teacher, Miss Lambourne, who would hit knuckles for mistakes:
  “She was like something out of a Roald Dahl film… if you got your scales wrong, she would hit your knuckles with a ruler.” (23:20)

6. Rick’s Parents & World War II

Timestamps: 24:06 – 32:33

• Rick shares the story of his dad (Luke’s granddad), a self-made civil engineer who served as a major in the Royal Engineers during WWII.
• Details vivid, lesser-known aspects: Building airstrips in Iceland and the remote Cocos Islands, and adapting to radically different climates.
• Quote:
  “He was evacuated not to Dunkirk, but westwards… he was then assigned to doing major engineering work connected with the war.” (26:39)

7. Education: Oxford and the Power of Interviews

Timestamps: 33:44 – 43:44

• Rick recounts his academic journey, his brother’s surprising path to Oxford, and the stress and structure of applications in that era.
• Discusses the contrast in opportunities between the generations, the value universities placed on character, and memorable, eccentric Oxford interviews.
• Quote:
  “I managed to get through that experience. I found it quite amusing, really. I remember coming out thinking, ‘They’re mad, but they were both very brilliant.’” (39:04)

8. Work Experience: From Petrol Stations to Advertising’s “Swinging London”

Timestamps: 43:44 – 47:13

• Rick’s vivid recollections of working at a garage, accidentally selling a car, and then switching to a role in a Soho advertising agency during London’s cultural revolution.
• Anecdotes about producing TV commercials as a teenager and learning the ropes in a fast-changing industry.
• Memorable ad campaigns, including a toy train with a “boomerang switch” and a rather dull fridge commercial—plus, rubbing shoulders with musicians who had just worked with Dusty Springfield.
  “They wanted me to go along to a sound studio… and supervise the recording of the music… It was Dusty Springfield! They’d just heard that they were number one.” (61:02)

9. Choosing a Path: Journalism Over Advertising

Timestamps: 47:13 – 56:58

• Despite early successes in advertising, Rick chose not to pursue it:
  “It’s idealism. I wanted to do something which was worthwhile… Devoting your life to selling soap powder didn’t seem to me to be particularly worthwhile.” (50:05)
• Entry into BBC News, learning on the job as a regional trainee, and the discipline of visual and radio reporting.
• Technical distinctions between radio and TV journalism—how storytelling, language, and chronology differ:
  “Radio and television are very different… On radio, you have to describe it. TV is shot, shot, shot—a linear story.” (56:25)

10. University Life and Social Change in 1960s Oxford

Timestamps: 63:11 – 68:43

• The mixed culture and class differences between state and private school students at Oxford.
• Gender segregation and the role of student activism, with protests against issues like apartheid and the Vietnam War.
• Quote:
  “There were still quite a lot of kids who came from private schools and they were in the main different… the state kids had more oomph about them.” (65:21)

11. Becoming a Father

Timestamps: 68:43 – 74:00

• Reflections on fatherhood, work-life balance, and discipline.
• Stories of Luke and his brother James dealing with school bullies and the insight that sometimes standing up for oneself is necessary.
• Quote:
  “I do think that if you're a victim, you have to be non-victim. You basically say, 'I'm not going to be a victim.'” – Rick (73:58)

12. Reflections on Aging and Mortality

Timestamps: 74:00 – 76:58

• Rick reflects candidly (and with typical wit) about the realities of growing older, gratitude for family, and the approach of mortality.
• Ends with a reflection from Shakespeare’s Hamlet on death and acceptance:
  "If it be now, it's not to come. If it is to come, it won't be now. But it will come."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On recording family stories:
  “Having a close conversation about personal things with my parents is not something that everyone can do. And I appreciate them both very much for doing this.” – Luke (04:17)
• On piano lessons:
  “She used to always have a glass of sherry ... and if you got your scales wrong, she would hit your knuckles with a ruler.” – Rick (23:18)
• On advertising:
  “At the end of the day, I thought it was all a bit ridiculous, a bit trivial.” – Rick (48:45)
• On journalism:
  “I think it's idealism. I wanted to do something which was worthwhile.” – Rick (50:05)
• On the passage of time:
  “As you get older, obviously thoughts of mortality grow. You think, how many more years have I got?... So you're kind of particularly grateful to see your children doing well and your grandchildren.” – Rick (74:22)
• On Shakespeare’s Hamlet:
  “If it be now, it's not to come. If it is to come, it won't be now. But it will come.” – Rick (76:08)

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Timestamps for Significant Segments

• [05:56] – Start of conversation with Rick – setting the scene, anecdotes about chores and mundane home tasks.
• [14:02] – Early childhood trouble story (throwing wood at a car).
• [16:33] – Rick describes baby boomer childhood and post-war societal shifts.
• [18:49] – Musical trends: from Elvis to the Beatles, and family music.
• [24:20] – Wartime family stories: Rick’s father’s military service.
• [33:44] – Applying to Oxford: school culture, interviews, and college life.
• [43:44] – Work in advertising, “Swinging London,” and first forays into professional life.
• [50:05] – Choosing journalism over advertising and joining the BBC.
• [56:25] – The craft of broadcast journalism—difference between radio and television.
• [63:11] – Life at Oxford and 1960s social change.
• [68:43] – Thoughts on having children, discipline, and parenting lessons.
• [74:22] – On aging, gratitude, and Shakespearean reflections.
• [76:08] – Hamlet quote on mortality.
• [77:08] – Conversation wrap-up and closing thoughts from Luke.

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Language & Tone

• Warm, conversational, and self-deprecating humor from both Luke and Rick.
• Frequent asides that showcase authentic British familial teasing and banter.
• Reflections are thoughtful, often bittersweet, and sometimes philosophical.

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For Further Listening

• Episode 252: Marooned with My Music (Rick discusses his life through music choices)
• Episode 638: Three Quintessentially British Things (Rick on British culture)
• Episode 372: The Importance of Anecdotes in English (Family stories and narrative tenses)
• The Rick Thompson Report: Episodes on news and UK politics with Rick

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Final Note

Luke and his father remind listeners of the importance of asking questions, preserving family history, and seizing opportunities for meaningful conversation. The chat is not only a living family document but a masterclass in fluent, idiomatic English—spiced with dry wit and British understatement throughout.

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If you enjoyed this episode, leave a comment for Rick, wish him a happy birthday, and let the Thompsons know your thoughts!

Transcript

[Luke Thompson]

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[Luke Thompson]

You're listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teacherluke.co.uk. Hello listeners. Welcome back to Luke's English podcast. How are you doing today? I hope you're doing fine. So last week in the last episode I published a conversation with my mum in in which she talked a lot about her life and I'm very glad to see that people seem to enjoy it a lot, which is no surprise really, because my parents have been very regular guests on this show over the years and also very popular guests with my audience. So it's no surprise that last week's episode was received well by everybody. There have been so many comments from listeners expressing their sincere appreciation for for the chance to listen to my mum sharing her thoughts and feelings and memories so openly. Here's just one of those comments from Paola. Paola wrote, you're lucky because you can still talk with your parents. Make the most of your time with them. And this sums it up very well actually. That is the whole idea, in fact, of that episode and indeed this episode. While we're still able to spend time in conversation with our parents, we should try to ask them plenty of questions about their lives and then listen to them carefully. Listen to everything they have to say because one day we won't have that option now. This is true of everyone, of course. We have to take time to appreciate our loved ones and to listen to them, you know, our close friends, not just our parents, but everyone in our lives. We should take the time to listen to them and appreciate the people we have and ask them things and talk to them as much as we can while we can. And that's what I wanted to do recently when I was staying with my mum and dad for a few days. And I just thought I could also make several podcast episodes that work not only as hopefully interesting episodes for you to listen to, but also a kind of record of them and their experiences. Luckily for us, luckily for me, and luckily for you too, my parents are both open enough and willing to be part of a podcast project like this. So after interviewing my mum last time, it was my dad's turn, and I pretty much planned to have more or less the same conversation with him as I had with my mum. But of course this ended up being quite different as we followed the story of my dad's life, his upbringing, moments when he finished school and applied for a place at the prestigious Oxford University and then began his career, and the sort of choices he made about what direction he wanted to go in in his career, and then his interesting experiences working in advertising at first and then broadcast journalism, which is what he did for the rest of his career. Plus some thoughts about being a father of two boys. And so, yeah, a similar intention I had with this conversation, but obviously the results are quite different because, you know, my dad is a different person. Yes, what a surprise. Now, I'll let you notice the differences between my dad's personal experience and my mum's. Not that this is a comparison. Anyway, I'll stop this introduction now and I'll let you get into my chat with my dad. All I want to say is that I am very lucky to be able to do this. Some people in the comments of the last episode said that for one reason or another, they couldn't do the same thing, either because of health reasons or because of issues in a relationship, or obviously because the parents are no longer with us. So I feel like I'm very lucky. And I'm mindful of that fact that having a close conversation about personal things with my parents is not something that everyone can do. And I appreciate them both very much for doing this. There's a PDF for this episode with a full transcript of this conversation, which you can check later if you want to. If you want to consolidate your learning either simply by reading it or by searching for words and expressions that you will hear. The link for the PDF is in the description, so I will chat to you again at the end of this. But now, without further ado, here is my conversation with my dad, Rick Thompson. And here we go. Hello, dad.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Hello, Luke.

[Luke Thompson]

What is this situation? Right now we're sitting together. What's the general situation?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

The general situation is you're in our living room, sitting in front of the fire, though the fire isn't actually lit. And you've given me a microphone and I'm holding it.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, exactly. And I'm here for the. For the weekend, basically.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Indeed. You came over from Paris for a long weekend here, which is great. Lovely to see you. Always good to see you. Particularly useful. And you've been doing all the jobs that I can't do.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Really useful indeed.

[Luke Thompson]

Like what?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Changing light bulbs that are difficult to change. Removing the double glazing so we could clean behind the windows, which these are heavy.

[Luke Thompson]

Double glazing.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah. Two sheets of glass in the window. Two give insulation.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And keep things quiet.

[Luke Thompson]

But crafty spiders managed to find their way into that space.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

They do. How they get in is very difficult to see because these are tiny, tiny cracks between the double glazing and the window. But they get in there and then they spin their little webs and when the sun shines in through the window, you can see all these spiders webs in there. So you've been removing them.

[Luke Thompson]

The whole big piece of glass has to be removed. It's quite a physical job. And then you get in with the vacuum cleaner and get rid of all of the cobwebs and stuff like that. Yes.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Exciting, isn't it?

[Luke Thompson]

Very skilled work. Yes. I was just saying to Mum because I recorded the conversation with Mum just earlier and I was saying that I got a comment a few years ago on an episode that I did with Mum where we chatted in the garden about this, that and the other. And the comment from a listener called Nika, Nika three years ago said, oh, I love listening to your podcasts with your family. I love them all. And it doesn't matter what you're talking about. It's just great to hear a natural flow of your conversation. Thank you so much, Luke.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, that's a good thing because I don't know what we're going to talk about, having this faintest idea.

[Luke Thompson]

I don't really know either, because one of the great things about doing a podcast, maybe doing this podcast, is that we have the Freedom to just kind of go wherever we're, wherever we want. And I think what's interesting for listeners, although you always need to be convinced of this, is that people genuinely love listening to us.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

They don't mind us rambling.

[Luke Thompson]

No, that, that's, that's what they like. That's specifically what people like.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I can hear them out there going, nah, it's boring.

[Luke Thompson]

Well, those people can just go and listen to something else as far as I'm concerned. There are plenty of people, and I know this because they write to me time and time again who say that this is exactly the sort of thing that they would like to listen to.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Okay?

[Luke Thompson]

So you can take it from me that people are enjoying this. I get lots of comments like that Nika said, it doesn't matter what we're talking about. And that is true, but I do have lots of questions to ask you. But we'll see where things go. Childhood, growing up, being an adult, different phases of your life, family history. These are all fascinating things, I think deep things. As Mum was saying in the, in the conversation I had with her, I helped her get some large boxes from a high cupboard and in it were lots of photos and albums and letters and things from the past.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes. Yeah, they're absolutely fascinating. Some of them, you know, going back into her great grandparents time, you know, into the late 19th century and some great old photos and lessons. I have to tell you that Luke's school reports from when he was aged eight are in there from the Lady Catherine Levison Primary School.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, there was that. There was the reports from my primary school and then reports from pretty much every year in secondary school, including the last year of secondary school.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes.

[Luke Thompson]

Which is when I was about 15 or 16 years old. What do you think of the reports?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Not surprising, really. I mean, you know, they all say he's a nice enough boy, but he doesn't work very hard and underachieves he ought to do better. Well, we heard this before.

[Luke Thompson]

So you remember that from the time, do you?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Oh, yeah, we. It was extremely frustrating for your mother and father, especially when you got a bit older and you were moving towards exams, which were quite important. Yeah, it was immensely frustrating that, that you wouldn't apply your time to doing your homework, for example, and you seem to think that you would just get through your exams by some kind of magic process.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, there was a lot of mistaken sort of. I don't know what, how do you describe it? Is it hubris?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I suppose it is.

[Luke Thompson]

Is that it?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, yeah, kind of overconfidence yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

Or an assumption that I would just find somehow the results would just be on a plate. I don't know why I thought that. I just sort of had a sort of. Yeah. Weird misplaced confidence in. In myself, I suppose. Or it was laziness or something.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It was laziness, actually. It was. Wasn't that. It was because you were too busy doing all sorts of other things, you think? I think so, yeah. And. Well, I don't know, you, you, you already get into a bit of music and playing music with your. With your friend.

[Luke Thompson]

That was my A levels. Yeah. When I was 7, 18 sort of age. Yeah, definitely. I was totally distracted then.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

When you were younger, there probably wasn't much excuse.

[Luke Thompson]

You should have didn't know.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I don't particularly want to do it.

[Luke Thompson]

No. I wasn't particularly mentally disciplined, I suppose. But you did very well at school, didn't you?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I did okay. I mean I could have done better, but I did okay. I think my parents were. Were probably fiercer than we were, you know. I should have beaten you.

[Luke Thompson]

But they didn't beat you. They didn't beat, did they?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

No, they didn't. But my mother in particular was fairly fierce and you know, I wasn't allowed to watch the television until I'd done my homework and you know, all that stuff and they, they were quite encouraging. But you couldn't possibly go back to school the next day without having done your homework. That wasn't absolutely impossible.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've said before that you were even not. I don't know if locked in a room with your homework is. Is the right way to put it.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It's. I don't know whether the lock was actually turn, click. But I was certainly put into what was then the back room where we lived and the door was shut and I didn't. Wasn't supposed to come out until I finished my homework. And of course that's helpful discipline because you can just get on with it.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And it doesn't take all that long.

[Luke Thompson]

And in the back room you didn't really have any distractions.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Nope.

[Luke Thompson]

It was just you and a table and that's Right. Work. Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

It's very important.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Anyway, so. Yeah, well, enough of this subject. I mean, I think most, most people would say I could have worked better at school, don't they? But certainly you and your brother, you were. You were not the best at applying yourselves to your schoolwork.

[Luke Thompson]

No. Were your parents strict?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Fairly strict, yeah. I mean, they were very good. You know, my mum and dad were really, really good parents and my brother and I appreciated that. But they. My mum in particular, expected us to do this, expected us to do that. And, you know, we had to behave and we had to. I don't know, it was. I don't really call it strict or whether it was just firmness. I think they were firm about things.

[Luke Thompson]

Did you ever get into trouble?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Oh, yeah, we all get into trouble.

[Luke Thompson]

Like what?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Oh, I don't know. How far back do you want to go?

[Luke Thompson]

No, just don't know. I just want to. I'd love to know about a time when maybe your mum and dad got really angry with you and punished you just because.

It's a good story often.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, I can go all the way back to when I was really small, you know, when we lived up in. In Leeds in the north of the country. And one thing that I. That sort of lived with me was the fact that.

[Luke Thompson]

What kind of age is that then?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I think I would be about six or seven.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And cars were quite unusual in that part of the. Of Leeds anyway. I mean, it wasn't the richest part of the world. And cars coming up and down our quiet road was quite a qu. Something.

[Luke Thompson]

We're talking about the 1950s here.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

We are talking about the early 90s.

[Luke Thompson]

We're not talking about when cars were invented.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

No, we're talking about the 50s, but there weren't so many. And when a car came up the road. On one occasion, I had a piece of wood in my hand.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And as it came past, I tried to throw the piece of wood underneath the car so it would come out the other side. Unfortunately, it hit the car and of course, you know, I ran home, but the driver, you know, followed me and knocked on the door. And your son has been throwing things at my car. So I was in trouble.

[Luke Thompson]

Was the car damaged? Do you remember?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Can't remember. I doubt it. It wasn't a brick. It was a bit of wood.

[Luke Thompson]

Right. So you weren't throwing. To be fair to you, you weren't throwing wood at the car.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Explain that to the driver you were

[Luke Thompson]

trying to throw it under. Yeah. This furious driver. Yeah. And so how did you.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I can't remember. But they were. They. They sent him away and Lady Da. And I was in trouble, but I can't remember any more than the fact that I was absolutely terrified of this. This man coming after us.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

You know.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

What else when I was in trouble? I don't know.

[Luke Thompson]

Stuff like that isn't like that. Yeah. That's interesting.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

No, I was very small.

[Luke Thompson]

So yesterday, because we had this conversation after having brought down some of those boxes and we looked through some. A lot of it's like my mum's stuff.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes.

[Luke Thompson]

Her dad. It's stuff that we got from my granddad, from Dennis, when he died. So we got a lot of his old photo albums and his diaries and pictures and letters and stuff like that. So a lot of it's my mum's stuff. But we did have this conversation about what it made us think about. And one of the things that you both said and you have said numerous times is, why didn't I ask my grandparents? Why didn't I ask my parents and grandparents?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

More definitely, yes.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. Which I'm sure is a common thing that everyone thinks at different times. You know, you look back and you. When someone is gone, you regret not having asked them various things. Why do you think we don't ask people. Why don't we ask our parents and grandparents these questions?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I don't really know. I think we. We are wrapped up in ourselves when we're growing up and there is a generation gap. You're into whatever you're into. The parents are simply there and have to be kind of appeased. They provide the food. I'm not really sure why, but I don't think you're mature enough to put things into perspective. I was a baby boomer. You know, a baby boomer is the generation born quite soon, the Second World War. And there was a boom in babies being born, for obvious reasons. I once saw a graph of the. Of the number of kids being born, and I'm right at the top of it. March 1947.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And as. As a baby boomer, we had a particular separation between our generation and our parents generation that we were born into. This period where the food was better, rationing was finishing. We had free education, free health care. The National Health Service was launched in 1947 and we were very, very fortunate. And the parents wanted the best for us. They'd gone through six years of war. Terrifying, really. And I think that this generation may have been a bit indulged in, or a little bit spoiled, if you like, but we had a lot of freedom and things changed quite rapidly. So we. We got into the 50s, late 50s. Rock and roll arrived. What on earth is rock and roll? Thinks my father, I imagine.

[Luke Thompson]

You know, do you know how he felt about.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

He was very supportive of us. We loved. We, my brother and I both like music, but we didn't really get into the Elvis Presley thing. We got into the 60s, early 60s,

[Luke Thompson]

the British sort of 60s British pop scene.

The Shadows.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah, definitely. Cliff. Rich in the Shadows. And then it was the Beatles, big time. And Rolling Stones and all the other bands and everything else. And all the kids wanted to have guitars. They all wanted to play in bands. And of course I did.

[Luke Thompson]

So what's the difference between that and the other whole Elvis thing?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I don't know. I think the Elvis thing was. A lot of the parents seemed to be a bit hostile to it.

[Luke Thompson]

It was rebellious, wasn't it?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah, it was. And they didn't like the sexuality of it.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Overtly sexual, I thought. He was. He was. Was a bit unsavory. The girl screaming at him, waving his legs about and that and that. He was followed by the rock and rollers who thought they were quite hard.

[Luke Thompson]

You know, it was a bit violent, wasn't it?

Because they were Teddy boys. That's right, Teddy boys. It was a sort of a subculture in the late 50s. And they wore these sort of Edwardian frock coats and had their hair done in that 50s rocker rockabilly style they did. There was a lot of tough guys.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

There was a bit of a reaction to that in Britain because there were mods and rockers. The rockers wore motorbikes and more leather. And the mods wore sharp clothes and road scooters.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And they became. They used to have fights on the beach at Brighton. Mods and the rockers. But the mods were the people who supported the who and. And they. They. I think the parents probably were much less worried about the bands like the Beatles, because they were. They were sort of nice and amusing and quite good to listen to, and they appealed to everybody. And I think it was a kind of a wave of good feeling which was reflected by all the other stuff that happened in the 60s, the colorful clothes and it was a lot of freedom that our parents and their parents could never have experienced, really.

[Luke Thompson]

So your dad was really supportive of the fact that you and your older brother liked to play music, and you. You got into bands that were playing guitar music. And your dad was pretty supportive of that?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes, he was. It was mainly me. I mean, I. I got into some bands when I was really quite young, and he would load my drums into his car and take me off to this to practice or to a performance and then come and collect me in the evening. I mean, it's very nice of him, really.

[Luke Thompson]

You had drums? You had a drum kit?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes, I did. I. I collected drums that I could afford. It started off being a real rough old drum kit.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

With one of those big bass drums. As opposed to the little ones.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Because I couldn't afford the little ones. They were the new ones.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And a snare drum and. And a couple of the high hat and a cymbal. And that was it to start off with. But I started accumulating a better drum kit.

[Luke Thompson]

Well, that's good. It was nice that he was supportive.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah, he was. And I mean, my parents were both very musical. My mum was a very good pianist. Not a classical pianist. She. She just. I think she was probably self taught or taught by her mother.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Like, more likely. And she used to play popular. Popular songs of the time and did it really well with a lot of feeling and touch.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And she used to perform a lot, you know, with things like the hockey club and the Women's Institute and things like that. They. She was called Olive. Play us a tune, Olive. And so she'd sit at the piano and go. When the red, red robin goes.

[Luke Thompson]

She could do the bass part with her left hand. She would do the other chords with her right hand. Yeah, she was great. And didn't she have perfect pitch?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes, she did, which is quite clever. It means that if you asked her to sing a certain note, she could do it.

[Luke Thompson]

I remember her being in the living room and I would be in the other room with the piano and I'd play a note on the piano and she could tell me what it was exactly.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I mean, she was. Came from a very musical family. Her two sisters were musical too.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And. And I think it's great to have music in the family. And you know that because you are very musical and both your kids like music.

[Luke Thompson]

Yes, yes, that's right. I want to try and encourage them to play music.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I. I learned the piano with my older brother, me, who both had piano lessons when we were small. And the piano teacher was really horrible. I mean, she was like something out of a Roald Dahl film, you know, she had sort of warts on her nose, you know, and was not very good looking. And she used to come to the house to give us our piano lessons. She was called Ms. Lambourne. If you're out there, Ms. Lambourne. I haven't forgotten. And she was, she.

[Luke Thompson]

Was she young?

Old?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

No, she was. Oh, she felt very old. Yeah, to me, because, I mean, I. I was learning the piano when I was six.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And she used to always have a glass of sherry, really, when. When we were doing our piano lessons. Yes. And maybe it Was ginger wine, but was a little glass of this was presented to her and if, if you. If you got your scales wrong, she would hit your knuckles with a ruler.

[Luke Thompson]

Oh, wow.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Wonderful way of teaching you.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, not really instilling a love of piano playing.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And we moved. We moved from up north down to London and we both refused to continue with our piano lessons because of the experience we'd had with Ms. Lambeau. No, we're not doing piano lessons anymore. Now that's a regret really because I would love to be able to play the piano.

[Luke Thompson]

Yes, you did continue to play music. We'll. We'll maybe talk about that in a moment. Let me just ask you about your mum and dad. Though they lived through World War II.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Indeed.

[Luke Thompson]

Your dad was in the army, is that correct?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

That is correct.

[Luke Thompson]

Because I know less about. I know less about him really because I never met him.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

He died early, folks.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, he was 56. Yes. Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Anyway. Yes, he was pretty much a self made man, my dad, his father who lived with us for a while, my grandpa Thompson.

[Luke Thompson]

Frank.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Frank. Frank Barley Thompson. It's a good name.

[Luke Thompson]

From Leeds.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

From Ripon.

[Luke Thompson]

Ripon in North Yorkshire.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

He had a very strong Yorkshire accent And, and he. He had a tailor's shop in Ripon and before that did various things I think connected with the countryside. I think he worked for a blacksmith for a while and the butchers for a while. Anyway, my dad went to the grammar school. He qualified in certain things and finished up being a planning officer. He was an engineer.

[Luke Thompson]

Civil engineer. A civil engineer, which means someone who, who plans roads and towns. Infrastructure.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

That's right.

[Luke Thompson]

Infrastructure in towns.

And.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And of course at the time there was a lot of building going on. This. The bombed cities needed new homes and they were building flats and council houses. And he was busy doing that first of all up in Yorkshire. And then he moved down to London to work for the government in. In the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Start off with. And planning new towns and then the Ministry of Transport planning motorways.

[Luke Thompson]

That's after the war there was a

lot of rebuilding going on so there would have been work for him. But then during the war he was. He. His skills in civil engineering were used, weren't they?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes. He went into the Royal Engineers.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And he, he was commissioned as a. As an officer most of the war. He was a major. Major Thompson.

[Luke Thompson]

Major.

Really.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Wow. But he finished up being. At the end of the war he, he went into the Territorial army. The part timers as a lieutenant colonel. He was Colonel Thompson.

[Luke Thompson]

Oh, wow. I didn't know that.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

Gosh.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Anyway, unlike your mother's father, who was a frontline infantry. Infantry regiment.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

D Day landings and, you know, fighting their way towards Berlin. A horrible experience. My dad was sent to France when Germany declared war, and when they overwhelmed everything heading for Paris, he was evacuated not to Dunkirk, but westwards.

[Luke Thompson]

A lot of British soldiers who initially went to France to fight against the. The Nazis and then had to escape.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Indeed.

[Luke Thompson]

Because they got pushed all the way back to the north coast until they got to Dunkirk. Then they managed to find their way

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

back to famous evacuation by lots of civilian little boats that went to collect.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. And then later, a few years later, the Allies then invaded France again on D day. That's right. So. But your dad was in France in that early on.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

He was evacuated west, I think. St. Lazare. Is that the place On. On the west coast somewhere. Got onto a warship and was brought home.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

But he was then assigned to doing major engineering work connected with the war. And the first place he was sent to was Iceland.

[Luke Thompson]

He went to Iceland?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah. The island of Iceland.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And there was censorship on what you could say to your family about where you were. And he sent a letter back to my mother saying it's C9, not R, because he thought he was either going to Ireland or might even go to Iceland.

[Luke Thompson]

Oh, I see. So it's either Ireland, meaning the Republic of Ireland, or it's Iceland. And he wrote C, meaning not army, Ireland, but it was Iceland. Okay.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And the reason he went there was that the. The Allies needed to have a military base there, and he supervised the building of a military airstrip at Reykjavik. The capital is still there.

[Luke Thompson]

Wow.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

So having built the airstrip at Iceland and the conditions must have been pretty chilly, he came back to, I don't know, do some stuff.

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[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

For a while, he was seconded to the artillery unit, Royal Artillery. And I know he had two ties after the war, the artillery tie and the engineers tie.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Depended on what function he was going to, which one he would actually wear. So he. He did work with the artillery for some time. I'm not quite sure why. I don't think he was trying to pop at Luftwaffe planes over London, but he may have been manning defensive positions somewhere else.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Anyway, before long, he was sent off to build another airstrip, and that one was in the Pacific.

[Luke Thompson]

Wow.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And the Cocos Islands.

[Luke Thompson]

Where's that?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Cocos Islands. Well, that's good. Good question. Miles from anywhere in the Pacific.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And the reason for that was that they knew they were going to have to fight the Japanese and they wanted to have a. An air base on the Cocos Islands.

[Luke Thompson]

Wow.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Not many inhabitants on the islands.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, so I can tell you where it is. It's kind of off the coast. Far off the coast of Indonesia.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

Basically, go from Jakarta and head kind of south west.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It's a dot in the middle.

[Luke Thompson]

Right out into the middle of the Pacific. Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

So that's quite a contrast with Iceland. And, you know, he. They. They slept in hammocks and. And under the palm trees it was hot and. And all that. And so that. That was not the hardest war.

[Luke Thompson]

It's Indian Ocean, technically.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Is it?

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

All right. Anyway, yeah, so that's. That's pretty much as much we know. And obviously it wasn't quite as horrendous as Jill's father's war, but he was away a long time and. And it must have been strange coming home.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And my brother was born during the war.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

So he was conceived on leave, obviously, as many of them were.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

He was born in 1943. And it must have been weird when this bloke in uniform came home in 1948, I think it was really.

[Luke Thompson]

So he was five when he first.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

No, no, no, not 48, 46. I think it was the year after the war finished.

[Luke Thompson]

He would have been three years old when he first met his dad.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

That's right, probably.

[Luke Thompson]

Gosh, that's amazing.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

So I would have liked to have asked him about that. You mean that's what you were saying, that. What. What would you have asked him? Lots of it. I would have liked to have asked him much more about what you did in Iceland. What was it like? What did you do in the. How did you get there? How did you hear about where you were going?

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. What did you see? Because.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

What did you see?

[Luke Thompson]

Because that would have been an extraordinary journey to go out to the Cocos Islands.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes.

[Luke Thompson]

In the middle of the Indian Ocean. He would have seen all sorts of incredible things, like even just animals and stuff.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, they had rats on the island. Must have been obviously brought in by Europeans, Sailors.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

But they. They used to poop off at them with their rifles.

[Luke Thompson]

Oh, yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I don't know much. He came home with a collection of exotic shells. Beautiful shells.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And a wooden sailing boat made by one of the indigenous people there. Really nice. Which obviously he'd bought. And then he, you know, went back to work. And my. My mum was a teacher and Human fact. She was a teacher at the primary school I went to in In Yorkshire teaching piano as well as anything else. Yeah, a few other things, being a class teacher. And they were very, very nice to my brother and me. We're very fortunate.

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[Luke Thompson]

Parlor to Francais Parli Italiano.

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[Luke Thompson]

When you left school, you then went on to do A levels, which are qualifications.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I did it while I was at school.

[Luke Thompson]

You did them. Okay. You just continued at school. Did your A levels at school?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes.

[Luke Thompson]

And then it was time to try and get into university.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

What do you remember about that time?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, my older brother had, amazingly enough, gone to Oxford. Top, top university.

[Luke Thompson]

Why you say amazingly enough?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Because he wasn't particularly academic and he didn't get very good A level results. And I've always suspected that they, they took him in on the basis of the interview because in those days they interviewed everybody who'd applied and he would have been good in an interview. And he had a very interesting teenage life, you know, writing plays and being as a senior scout, as a troo and one thing, another all a natural leader. And he, he was very good at sport. So he, he played football for the best school football team in the country, and he played basketball at a very high level. And all these things made the fact that his A results weren't very good less important in those days. And that's what, you know, Oxford did put a lot of score on the individual's character, what they were like.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Particularly this college. This was the St. Catherine's College, which was a new college invented by a historian called Alan Bullock, who was also a Yorkshireman. And it was built in that period when Danish design buildings, new type buildings, were being built around the place. And it's a fantastic building to this day. And the principle was that it would take more kids from state schools as opposed to private schools, and it would have a broader curriculum. And in fact they did engineering, amongst other things. So it's the kind of college that would have Peter, they would like to have Peter there. So him having gone there and I went to visit him as a schoolboy,

[Luke Thompson]

I should say also that he was

the first person of his family ever to get into Oxford, of course, but university too. Did your dad go to university?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

My mother's sister went to university.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

She was very clever. And now that was it on certainly on my father's side. Yeah. I mean, in our family. Yeah, he was that one.

[Luke Thompson]

Was that not a big deal?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes, it was quite a big deal.

[Luke Thompson]

Were they. Were your parents incredibly proud?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes, they were. I'm sure my dad would. Was really pleased. And so did you, did you.

[Luke Thompson]

How many years older than you was?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

He was three and three and a half years old. Three, three and a bit years old.

[Luke Thompson]

Did that.

Did you feel like you had a lot of pressure to follow in his footsteps or did it make it?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

But I put the pressure on myself, yeah. You know, I thought, well, if he can do it, I can't.

[Luke Thompson]

So you're competitive?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes, yes.

[Luke Thompson]

So did it make it easier, though? Well, because you thought he's already done something. So I just kind of just do the same thing.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Right. So. And the system then was that you took your A levels and then if the school approved, you would stay on for one term and do the joint entrance exam for Oxford and Cambridge because they were the elite universities and they had their own entrance exam.

[Luke Thompson]

This is what you had to do now?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

This is what I had to do, yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

So just before Christmas, before I did leave school, I took that examination. Okay.

[Luke Thompson]

This is before you even got your A level results?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

No, after I'd got them.

[Luke Thompson]

You got.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

You got my other results, stay on for a bit to do their entrance exam.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

I see.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

If they like the look of you.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And they think you've written something interesting, they invite you for an interview.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And I went through my interview.

[Luke Thompson]

So this is just to be clear, this is. You also went for an interview at Oxford university.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah. At St Catherine's College, Oxford.

[Luke Thompson]

Same college. Same college, same college brother went to and they took you in for an interview. Your A level results were a bit better than your brother's, though.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

They Certainly were. My hairs were rotten.

[Luke Thompson]

What do you mean?

Do you remember what he got?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

He got two A levels. Only two?

[Luke Thompson]

Normally people get three or four or four. Right.

He got two.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

He just got two. And neither of them was an A or a B.

[Luke Thompson]

Wait, he got to meaning the third one.

He did. Did he take a third one and fail it?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes.

[Luke Thompson]

So he got like F and the

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

other two, I think they were the equivalent of a C and a D. Okay.

[Luke Thompson]

Well, it's surprising that Oxford took him on.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It is rather.

[Luke Thompson]

Is that by today's standards that's a dismal failure.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

But anyway, the, the, the fact is they did okay and my results were better than that.

[Luke Thompson]

Do you remember what you got?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I think I got. I think I got bcdd I think

[Luke Thompson]

so you took four?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes.

[Luke Thompson]

Do you remember what they were?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I do. English, French, Geography and art.

[Luke Thompson]

English, French, Geography and art. So you got a, like a B or something at French A level?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

Wow. Okay.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Can you believe.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, I can.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I know. You forget everything. Anyway, I went off to this interview which was very bizarre because the, the, I was interviewed in a room with two the English professors and they were both rather eccentric, say the least.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Were they, you know, like, like, what

[Luke Thompson]

do they look like?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

One was slumped in his chair. It was his room and he had snow white hair and, and chain smoked Kensitus untipped. I remember cigarettes.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And had a habit of letting the ash drop on his front. So he had a lot of ash down his front.

[Luke Thompson]

Is he an old, really old guy?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah, he was quite old, yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And the other one was a bit younger, was sort of stockily built, had wispy hair and didn't sit down? He walked about all the time. Paced about, paced up and down.

[Luke Thompson]

Did you get an impression they were sort of, what's the word for intimidating? Frightening characters or were they friendly or.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, I don't know. It was a. Was a bit intimidating because every now and then the one who was walking about would spin on his heel and fire a question at you. What do you mean by melodrama? You know, and, and so on. You know, I managed to get through that experience. I found it quite amusing, really. I remember coming out thinking, they're mad, but they were both very brilliant. And so then I had to wait until the following September to go to university.

[Luke Thompson]

So it took you a year just to apply, just to go through the application process. Right.

An academic year.

Right. Because you finish your A levels in, let's say in the summer, May, June of the one year, Then you had your summer holiday. Then in September, you started preparing for the application process for Oxford, and then you had your interview later on that year, and then you had to wait until the following.

What?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, the. The year academic year started in. In, I think, beginning of October, end of September.

[Luke Thompson]

Oh, I see.

So you didn't have to wait a full year.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

No. But you left school at Christmas.

[Luke Thompson]

But yeah, you left school at Christmas

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

because after I'd done the entrance exam.

[Luke Thompson]

Right, right.

Okay. So, yeah, sorry to bang on about this, but I'm trying to work out the timeline.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

You.

[Luke Thompson]

You finish school with your A levels in the summer, you get your results during the summer holidays, then in September of that year, you start preparing to take the Oxford entry exam and all the rest of it, you take that in December. December of that year, and then you

have to wait until the following September,

October, to actually start at Oxford.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes.

[Luke Thompson]

So what did you do with the rest of that time?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, that's the point. I mean, first of all, I decided to earn a bit of money by serving petrol on the forecourt of the local garage.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay, what.

What was that like?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I seem to remember the. The jet petrol was four and eleven a gallon. Four pounds, four shillings and eleven pence. That's just nearly five shillings, which is actually a quarter of a pound.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. 25p shilling was about 5p.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

That's right.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

So 25p a gallon. A gallon, not a liter. Anyway, I. I then cleaned the cars in the showroom. Then I started driving their Land Rover to. To collect parts. You were in the garage?

[Luke Thompson]

17, 18, 19. 18, 18.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And then I sold a car.

[Luke Thompson]

So they sold cars at this garage?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Oh, yeah, they had a showroom.

[Luke Thompson]

How did you sell it? You just accidentally.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I was cleaning the showroom.

[Luke Thompson]

You're cleaning lunchtime? Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

The salesman was on his lunch break and this guy came in and looked around the car and I started asking me questions about it, you know. So, you know, what, what's this like? I said, oh, nice little car. It was called a Hillman Imp.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And it had an engine at the back. It was rather unusual.

[Luke Thompson]

British car.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah. Not a very good British car. And so I chatted him up and everything else.

[Luke Thompson]

And look, he's got four wheels.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes. I can't remember what I said, but the end result was that he said, well, put me down for one. Then I said, fine, the name and address, wrote it all down, the forms, and I said, if you come back tomorrow, we can have one ready for you. Dali. Dali. Dal Dika. And the salesman came back from his lunch break and I said, oh, I've sold a car.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And he was rather cross.

[Luke Thompson]

Really?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes.

[Luke Thompson]

You took his commission?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

No, I didn't take his commission. He took the commission.

[Luke Thompson]

Right, okay. But why was he crossed?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I don't know. Really. Well, you would have thought he'd say, well done, Richard, but he didn't. He said, you shouldn't be doing. That's my job. Blah, blah, blah.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

Okay.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Anyway, after that, I was delivery. Driving new cars.

[Luke Thompson]

Delivery. Driving new cars.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Getting. Getting them from a wholesaler, bringing them to the garage or taking them to the customer.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And then getting public transport back.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

So just driving new cars around.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

One of them was a great big Jaguar. A Jaguar Mark 10.

[Luke Thompson]

Chad, you were a Jaguar Mark 10.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Right. It was huge. And so I did that for a bit. And my father was instrumental in saying, well, you should use this time better.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And he knew somebody who worked for the Times newspaper, and he asked him if he could take me on as a trainee of some kind. No, they didn't do that. But he knew somebody else who knew somebody else. And. And I finished going into London to be interviewed by an advertising agency.

[Luke Thompson]

Oh, yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

They were called Clifford Bloxam and Partners, or otherwise known as Bloxhams. And this was in 1966, and it was in the time when it was Swinging London, you.

[Luke Thompson]

In Soho as well.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And it was right in the middle of it, just off Carnaby street, along up St. Martin's Lane.

[Luke Thompson]

How exciting.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And it was. It was exciting. And they asked me to write some stuff based on advertising, which I did. And then they took me on for just under six months before I had to leave and do something else.

[Luke Thompson]

And Oxford?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, I. I had a little adventure with my brother before that, in the summer holiday. Yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Anyway, I found the advertising agency thing very, very interesting. And again, I was lucky. I keep being lucky about these things in that I was attached to copywriters for six weeks at a time, three of them. Copywriter being. They have a system in advertising. I don't know whether it's the same now, where you have account executives who look after the clients and you have copywriters who were, in effect, to the account executives, the creatives, they have to offer up what they. The campaigns and what they think the product should be presented.

[Luke Thompson]

Writing the text for the advertisements.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah, often.

[Luke Thompson]

And maybe, you know, including descriptions of what imagery images would look like in posters and things, but often writing lines of text or even writing quick phrases and things.

Like that?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes. The written stuff, you know, in newspapers, magazine, specialist magazines in particular, and then posters, you know, on the street. Hoardings.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And that kind of thing. And this company decided it wanted to get into producing TV commercials. And I was working with this copywriter, offering up suggestions for commercials. They were very good if you were very young. They thought this was a good thing. It was the time when, you know, being young was good. You can relate to young people. So.

[Luke Thompson]

Yes. Richard Thompson.

Right.

So you're. How old are you? Nine? 18, 19. Jolly good.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Right. Jolly good. Yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

I'm sure that you're perfect. Perfect. Write us a advertisement for, you know, blah, blah, you understand young people. Yeah, You're a teenager. Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

That kind of thing. That kind of thing. And anyway, the bloke I was working for fell ill when they'd arranged everything for a TV commercial. And so they said, well, you know what you're doing, you go and produce it. So I went off to this house in Richmond in Surrey, where they filmed this commercial with a rather horrible little boy. It was a Triang train for toddlers.

[Luke Thompson]

A toy train.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

A toy train.

[Luke Thompson]

That was the product.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It was called the Big Big Train.

[Luke Thompson]

The Big Big Train.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

The Big Big Train. Because it was quite big. And it had a feature where you didn't have to build a loop of track because it had, listen to this, a boomerang switch on each end. And so the train would go along and when it reached the end, it would come back again. So you could keep doing up and down, up and down, and you could go and have your tea. Anyway, so the commercial had French windows in a garden. In a pond.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And. And the track went up to the pond.

[Luke Thompson]

The track went out of the house through the. What we call French windows.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

Which is basically doors with windows in them that open out into the garden. And the track went out of the house, through the windows, through the garden, to the pond.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

To the pond.

[Luke Thompson]

And then it. It.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

So then it had a boomerang switch. So it didn't go into the pond, it came back again.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And the commercial had the little boy setting it all off, following the train. And then, oh, it's good to go in the pond, but no, if a boomerang's back, great. Isn't that brilliant?

[Luke Thompson]

It's a good advert.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Anyway, having produced that, they. They accepted my storyboards for two more, so.

[Luke Thompson]

But did you storyboard that commercial, then?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Not that one.

[Luke Thompson]

You just produced it. But you understand. Understood how this, how it worked? Yeah, yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

So this was the The Toys account. Trying were a big maker of toys and they had the Trying account. And I did another one about a product called Trick Track and then ended in another one.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. So, but you liked advertising then, did you?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, yes and no. I had a very good time and they gave me lots of responsibility and it was amazing, really. At the end of the day, I thought it was all a bit ridiculous, a bit trivial. At the end of university, the sort of careers advice people suggest where you might apply for work and everything else.

[Luke Thompson]

And you did a degree in English literature. Yeah, yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And they. They said, oh, well, you know, you've got this experience, got a portfolio. I had. I had a big folder with all the stuff I'd written in the newspaper.

[Luke Thompson]

Great experience.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And I had two cans of film are my commercials, you know.

[Luke Thompson]

Oh, my God.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

So they said, oh, well. And I was sent off to the big advertising companies. Not. Not jwc, but Benson and Bowles. Snh. Benson and. Can't remember another one.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

To go through their interview process. And I. Indeed I got offered a job, quite a decent job.

[Luke Thompson]

This is when you graduated, so three years later.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes. But I'd also applied the BBC trainee scheme and I finished up being a regional trainee in BBC News, working in Birmingham for very little money indeed. But I didn't want to really go into advertising.

[Luke Thompson]

What was.

So what. Why was working for the BBC for not very much money more attractive than advertising?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I think it's idealism. I wanted to do something which was worthwhile. And it may seem a bit ridiculous, but devoting your life to selling soap powder or toothpaste didn't seem to me to be particularly worthwhile. And the BBC seemed more interesting.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And I also didn't like some of the people in advertising. I was probably rather arrogant. Arrogant teenager. I bet I was. But they seem to me to be useless, some of these people, and they also seem to be very unwilling to go out on a limb and try something different.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I don't know whether your audience is interested in all this stuff from a long time ago. I mean, I'll give you an example. They had. They had quite a portfolio of different clients. And one of them was Florida orange juice.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Now, Florida orange juice. This was American. They had orange juice in the States. It wasn't traditional in our country to have orange juice in the morning, so people had to be introduced to the idea of orange juice in the morning. And these things came in little concentrated orange cans.

[Luke Thompson]

Yep.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Florida orange juice.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And, you know, you just diluted it and had Your morning orange.

[Luke Thompson]

You opened the can, poured some into a glass and then added some water to it.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Exactly, yeah. So they were doing the usual thing. They used to have, you know, put. Put it out amongst the staff. We need. We need ideas, you know, and I was included in that. I would stick my ideas in.

[Luke Thompson]

This is when you worked in advertising?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

When I was working for Bloxhams.

[Luke Thompson]

Okay. Oh, this is back in.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah. When I was working before I went to university.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And I had this idea that you could do a big poster campaign and that the first. First of all, the posters would appear and they'd be all orange, and in the middle of it, it would say, think orange.

[Luke Thompson]

That's very modern, isn't it?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And then you just leave them there. Intriguing. And then after a couple of weeks, you put posters over them saying, think Florida orange.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

With a picture of the product for a fresh start.

[Luke Thompson]

Oh, that's great. I mean, that's. That's very. That reminds me of the sorts of campaigns they do these days where they drop in some sort of viral thing that makes you curious and then.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah, I thought it was a good idea.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, it's a good idea. Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And no, no, no, they didn't take it. No, no, we don't do that. No, no.

[Luke Thompson]

Because the idea of spending that many

weeks with just think orange on a poster, they. Because for them, you can't spend money just putting that without the name of the product on it.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I think it must have been that. I can't quite remember, Luke. It's a long time ago, but I was rather frustrated by the fact that advertising was full of people who didn't have any imagination.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, I could see.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

But anyway, I'm sure it's changed a great deal because, you know, the 60s shook everything up and art became much more radical, music became more radical, and. And I imagine the advertising agencies got more creative at that time, as opposed to, you know, housewives holding up a washing pad and saying, sir, forget your washing paper. Whiter. Yeah, it's changed a lot since.

[Luke Thompson]

It's changed a lot. And it's also become a lot more sophisticated in the way that it uses all sorts of psychological techniques to get what it wants, you know, to make people buy things. But. Okay, so you chose to do.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I went into BBC News.

[Luke Thompson]

BBC News. And did you have a specific idea of what you wanted to do?

What was your.

Because these days, when you get a job or when you. You are being appraised in your job every six months or something like that, you know, you talk about having a five year plan. Did you have any sense of a five year plan? Did you know how you wanted your career to progress?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

No, I don't think so. I just got thrown in there and it was very much. Even though you're called a trainee, there wasn't really any training and I was chucked out on the street in my first week at work with a camera crew and a tape recorder over my shoulder to do a report.

[Luke Thompson]

And a microphone.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes, yes. I didn't really know how it worked but fortunately the cameraman who became a friend talked me through it and told me how to write a script that would go with the pictures and, and all that.

[Luke Thompson]

So you went out to do a report and you interviewed a couple of people and then you had to take the footage and the audio footage back to the BBC to create a report.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It was film, there was audio on the film. It was called comma, combined magnetic tape. And it was a bit difficult to edit because the sound and the picture were out of sync. Two different tapes, but the tape recorders, because I was doing it for radio as well. So I had to learn how to edit radio tapes, quarter inch tape and everything else. So it was quite a tough learning

[Luke Thompson]

curve and a lot of it. The challenge is to write a report that fits the video footage if it's for TV video footage as well. And it has to be a certain number of minutes. Similarly for radio, you've got to do your report in a certain number of minutes.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes. Or seconds.

[Luke Thompson]

Or seconds.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Maybe a news report on radio might only be 45 seconds.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

So it's really in terms of language, you have to be. You've really got to work on a lot of control and choosing your words very carefully and, and being clear and being able to communicate with the general public and stuff.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I've obviously over the years I've learned this technique and later on after I'd left the BBC, I was training young journalists and coaching them and how to do it. But it is interesting language wise because radio and television are very different. For a start, you consume radio through your ears and the overwhelming attention on TV is through your eyes and the images are very powerful. There's been experiments about that. How much of your brain, people getting wired up, how much of your brain's attention is on the visuals and how much is on what you're hearing. Visuals dominate and so your commentary is almost like a caption to a cartoon. Right. So you can imagine the cartoon shows Lois Lane in trouble on the top of the skyscraper. Help, Help. And then you have Superman saying, I hear you, Ellis, Lois. And then the next one is, he's flying on, you know, on my way. And then, oh, thank you, Superman. Well, the, the captions on a, on a film are shot, shot, shot, shot, shot. What do we need the audience to know on this shot?

[Luke Thompson]

Don't necessarily say what they can see.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It doesn't have to be a sentence and it certainly doesn't have to describe too much. So you can say, you know, things like dawn and the tanks are on the move. You can do captions to the pictures as opposed to a narrative in. On radio where you have to describe it. Yeah, but the other thing is that you can, you can break with chronology. And radio. And radio, like in newspapers, they very often start with the. The key thing. Yeah, it was in the last minute that so and so came up with the equalizer.

[Luke Thompson]

That's the most important part of the

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

story, and that's the way I start. Yeah, but if you did that on tv, it would be all the wrong way around, you know, like here he is scoring the equalizer. Earlier, this happened, you know. Yeah, well, TV tends to be a chronology. And I used to told them, people don't break the chronology.

[Luke Thompson]

Keep it linear.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It's a linear story.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And I think that's fairer as well, because if you have a riot or a demonstration and it all turns nasty at the end, you might think, oh, those are the best pictures, we'll start with them. But it's not fair. The story is. It was a peaceful march and then some people broke away and it got a bit nasty. That's what happened.

[Luke Thompson]

But a newspaper report or a radio report, as you said, tends to start with exactly what happened, happened, and then it breaks down the details.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

They start with what they think is the most grabby, exciting moment.

[Luke Thompson]

It's more like importance or relevance first. And then you get into slightly more unspecific.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I'm afraid that happens too often because I think it, it means you're not in context. You. You want to understand what you're seeing in context.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting.

It's very interesting.

You know, we're getting into talking about communication and visual communication and how the medium affects the way that we communicate and stuff like that. So these are all things that you learned and that you got really into because, I mean, you can see that there's. That's relate that that happens in advertising, but somehow the reason you're doing it is not quite as satisfying as working in news which has this sense of a civic. Sense of civic duty to it, that you're providing a genuinely useful service. And there's something.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I mean, the process was. Was fun. I enjoyed it.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

But I didn't think I wanted to spend my life doing it.

[Luke Thompson]

Advertising.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Quite. I must tell you another anecdote about advertising like this one. This is when I was working for Bloxons just after I'd left school and before I went to university, and how they seem to think it was really good to have a schoolboy amongst their ranks. Because I understand. Understood young people. Well, the. The. I told the guy who fell ill and I took over producing his TV commercial. The same. Same guy had lined up another TV commercial which was extremely boring.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And it was for a fridge and it was called Cold Space. And the big attraction of this cold space refrigerator by GEC was that it had more cold space. Now talk me through that one. Does it mean it's bigger?

[Luke Thompson]

Just more. More fridge. More fridge.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And that's what they did. The commercial showed the fridge and it had graphics showing dairy products on the top shelf and, you know, other stuff here and milk in the door and everything else. And the commentary was saying things like, gec, cold space, refrigerator. More cold space. More space for your dairy products. You know.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

I mean, I get the idea that

more cold Space, it tells you that there's more space and it also reminds you that this is a refrigerator.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It was really, really dull. Anyway, they wanted me to go along to a sound studio in Dean Street.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And supervise the recording of the music that would go with this.

[Luke Thompson]

Oh, wow.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Okay.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And 28 seconds.

[Luke Thompson]

And this is like a little orchestra

or something like that.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

A collection of freelance guys who were very talented playing. And they. They booked a leading musician of the day who did lots of backing tracks for pop singers. And over the stuff called Johnny Arthy and Johnny Arty's Band were there in small numbers.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

So I turn up and they are drinking champagne and I. I say, oh, this is the way it is. Is it? And they say, no, a special occasion. We've just heard that we're number one. And I said, what's that? And it was Dusty Springfield. They really. Dusty Springfield.

[Luke Thompson]

I wonder which. They did the backing music for that.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

Wow. And they were drinking champagne because they just.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It was going to be number.

[Luke Thompson]

It was number one. Okay. So then you had to deal with a half drunk.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

No, they were all right. They were fine. And then he sits down at the piano and it says, well, I just. I thought it would go like this. And he said, by GEC and you can't go wrong. Right, by GEC and you can'T go wrong.

[Luke Thompson]

It's not bad.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And then it went into a fugue. So it was because there were only lyrics. Like a food and finished. And I thought, well, that's pretty clever. So I had this conversation with the great Johnny Arthur and I said, really good, but it sounds like Bach. I mean, it sounds too much like Bach. It could have been a bit of Bach.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Why don't you try a saxophone in there? He said, right, one of his blokes put. Put down his, whatever it was, flute and picked up his saxophone and they did it again and it went down the saxophone. It was a completely different vibe.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah. So I had a great time, yeah. Doing this stuff, but I didn't want to do it for life.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. Then you went to university, went to Oxford for three years at St Catherine's College between the years of 1966 and 1969. But even before. Or eight. And even before nine. 69. And even before that though, you went on a trip hitchhiking with your brother through Europe. And you, you have told a story on this podcast once before about how you ended up in Italy and you hitchhiked and you got picked up by a dodgy driver.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Dodgy driver in Italy.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

We tried to steal my brother's guitar, but we got across to. To Greece and then we got down to Crete and it was hot and we managed just to get back in time for me to go to university. It was a close run thing.

[Luke Thompson]

How did you feel going to Oxford then? Did you feel intimidated by the fact that there you were like going to this place where there were. Admittedly St. Catherine's College was a lot more modern.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It was.

[Luke Thompson]

Oxford probably also had a lot of very old fashioned and let's say upper class people associated with it.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It did. I mean, I didn't feel intimidated at all. I mean, I'd visited my brother there on several occasions, so I was familiar with the buildings and the layout and everything else. I must admit I thought that I would be surrounded by people who were much more brilliant than me and studying English. The fact is that all my contemporaries had read much more than me and, you know, that really was a little bit worrying that they could talk about Saul Bellow and talk about this and talk about that and I hadn't read any of it, you know, so they were more academic and, and just pretty clever. But there were a lot of things which are changing and I'm glad they did. There were still quite a lot of kids who came went to private schools in St Catharines and certainly across Oxford.

[Luke Thompson]

Of lots. Lots of them, yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And they were in the main different from the state educated kids, particularly those from north of England.

[Luke Thompson]

You were a state education.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yes, absolutely.

[Luke Thompson]

Kid, you didn't go to a private school.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I did not.

[Luke Thompson]

You just went to a state school.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Thompson]

So what was the difference?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I may be exaggerating, but a lot of the private school kids were privileged and uninteresting. So the, the, it was the state kids that got into the theater group and produced and were the prime movers in the student union and, and things like that. They had more oomph about them and obviously they wanted to take the opportunity, grasp the opportunity. The whole institution was very old, very traditional.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

The colleges were segregated. There were no mixed colleges. There were five women's colleges and all the rest were men's colleges.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And there were lots of, you know, social change going on. People who were interested in politics and world affairs would be demonstrating about the Vietnam War, there would be people demonstrating about apartheid in South Africa. And these were very much the state educated kids who are into all that stuff. I mean, there were a lot of things that, that changed around that time, not least voting age and that, that was a big change. And, and the age of majority, as it was called, changed from 21 to 18 in, I think in 1969. You can look it up. But it was around that time and of course it changed the status of the students. The relationship between the college and the students before that had been that they had been looking after children on behalf of their parents.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I called it in in loco parentis. But suddenly when the age of majority changed, young adults were coming to the college and we didn't like things. We, we thought the course was wrong and we didn't like being locked out at midnight because you. There was a lockout at midnight. It had to be in college by midnight.

[Luke Thompson]

Did they think you were all a bunch of upstarts or something or were they quite open to letting you have.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

No, I think there was quite a lot of resistance existence. But in, in St. Catherine's the master was, was pretty good, but it took a lot of effort to get them to change. Yeah, there was graffiti in those days. It was a bit of a. I'm not a great fan of graffiti, but this was political graffiti. Quite interesting really, you know, and the, the ancient college of Balliol College One of the original colleges was where the graffiti would pop up. It was witty. One of them was about the fact that the deans or disciplinarians of the university could fine you or send you down, which means throw you out. So one of the bits of graffiti on Bailey was dean's spelled D, E, A, N, Z. Dean's means finds, which was a parody on a famous advertisement for Heinz Baked beans. Beans. Deans means Heinz.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

So Dean's. Dean's means fines, and a lot of people refused to pay their fines. And. And there was a movement about mass staying out late and all sorts of stuff was going on.

[Luke Thompson]

It wasn't to the same extent as it was in Paris.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

No, it certainly wasn't. 68 in Paris was violent. 68 in Oxford was passive resistance.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I fast forward?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah. This is going on a long time.

[Luke Thompson]

I know.

Yeah. We're gonna close before too long. Okay. I just want to fast forward to a period that I talked to Mum about, which is. So you. You've left Oxford, you joined the BBC, you met Mum at the BBC, you got married and then you had kids. What was it like having kids? Was that. Were there any? Was. Was it as you expected it to be? You had a James and a couple years later you had me. Was it. Was it what you'd expected or was it.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I think so.

[Luke Thompson]

What did you expect?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, I don't know. That was it. I was pleased to have two boys because that's where I'd come from. My older brother and me, we were comfortable with two boys.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And you were super. It's your mum that brought you up. Because I was working very hard.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I was into, you know, a phase where I had some quite responsible jobs and they were unsocial hours.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

You know, the news is on in the evening and I wouldn't get in until midnight and all that kind of stuff.

[Luke Thompson]

Yes, yes.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

So she had the. The bulk of. Look, bringing you up and you were delightful boys. Super boys.

[Luke Thompson]

All right. Didn't we ever get into trouble? I don't remember that many times.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Not seriously, Jay, I think James got into more trouble than you one way or another.

[Luke Thompson]

I don't remember anything.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Seem to remember him having his phone stolen or something and he got into a fight.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Go to a fight. At school.

[Luke Thompson]

At school. But you. I think you weren't that disappointed because he was standing up for himself.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Absolutely. I was actually rather pleased. I shouldn't say so, but, I mean, I. I remember talking to you both about it, so What? Say that you will get bullied at school. Yeah, because we stand by you. Will do.

[Luke Thompson]

We moved because When I was 9 and James was about 11 or 12, we moved from West London to the West Midlands and we both started at a new school and I started at the primary school and then I started the secondary school from year one, but James joined the secondary school in year two, which is difficult because, you know, suddenly the new kid in this big school with kids who are teenagers and stuff around you and. Yeah, he ended up getting into a scrap in the playground and he, he was being picked on and he, he, he hit the guy back. He punched him.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah, I think.

[Luke Thompson]

Or hit him or something the other kid did. Yeah, this is the one who'd been bullying James and then James ended up in the headmaster's office. James remembers that he thinks that he was going to be caned because he would have been one of the very last kids in the country to have been threatened or given the cane, which is a listeners, it's a form of punishment that involves being hit on the hand with a wooden stick, with a whippy stick, like a thin whippy stick that smack on the hand or something like that. And it was. The cane, I think, was banned at the mid to late 80s in England. And so this, we're talking about 1986, 1987 when this happened. And James remembers being told he was going to the headmaster's office and he would be given the cane and the headmaster essentially showed him the cane and I think even just touched his hand or didn't. He just gave, he caned him because he had to, but he didn't actually hit him, he just went tap, like that. And I think James was probably crying because he had his hand out and the teacher was like, tap, there you go. Now don't do it again. So he got away with it. But yeah, I mean, fair enough, he was standing up for himself.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

James told me that the headmaster knew whose fault it was and it wasn't James.

[Luke Thompson]

Right, okay.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Because he knew a little bit about their characters and he probably been briefed by one of the teachers.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Anyway, yeah, I mean, it is partly my fault because I remember saying to you both, but certainly to James, that you will get teased. You've got a London accent, you'll get teased. Yeah, just ignore them, laugh it off, use your wear. And if you really get seriously bullied, don't be bullied, fight back. And of course, I didn't be expecting to suck somebody in the jaw, but. But I'm Quite pleased he did. And he didn't get bullied again?

[Luke Thompson]

No, he didn't.

No.

Fair enough. Yeah. I managed to have pretty much avoid. I got picked on, but I never really got bullied. I didn't fight back. But I also didn't really respond.

No, just.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It's pathetic. And if you don't, you don't respond. They get tired of picking on you.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, that's true.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

But I was very small when I was at school, when I went to grammar school, physically I was really quite short, quite small.

[Luke Thompson]

What do they call you?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Titch Thompson. Titch Thompson.

[Luke Thompson]

Because titchy is a sort of slang word that means small in English. Titch Thompson they called you.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And when I was in the second year, I was still one of the smallest boys in the school.

[Luke Thompson]

Yes.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And I got picked on, but I soon discovered that if I flew at them like a wild cat, they didn't, they didn't pick on me again. I mean, that's boys, boys in the playground and all that. And, and I do think that if you're a victim, you have to be non victim. You basically say, I'm not going to be a victim.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, there you go.

[Luke Thompson]

Let's finish with this.

So what about now? How do you. I mean, there's a lot of stuff we skipped over. We can't possibly cover everything. But how do you feel right now at this time of your life? We've obviously we spent most of the time talking about your late teens and your university time and stuff and then whoosh, all the way back to now

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

here, and it is a bit of a whoosh because as you get, get older, obviously thoughts of mortality grow. You think, how many more years have I got? It might not be very many. And so you kind of particularly grateful to see your children doing well and your grandchildren, special relationship with grandchildren.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And you know, we've got three beauties. And the, the other thing is that I just don't like getting old. I really don't.

[Luke Thompson]

Stupid question, but why not?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, I don't know, it's kind of creeps up on you. You say, I can't, I can't be this old and, and you can't do things like you used to be able to do them and you get tired and, and you, you know, you groan when you get up from a chair and all that, like people do.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

And, you know, I just don't like that. I'd. I'd rather be bouncing and still fit but afraid. Those days are gone.

[Luke Thompson]

I don't know how to end this.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Well, I'll end with a bit of Hamlet for you. I mean, Hamlet's contemplating death.

[Luke Thompson]

Shakespeare's Hamlet, indeed.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

The context is that he's determined to kill his uncle, who is now the king.

[Luke Thompson]

We can all relate to this.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Yeah. But he knows that if he does, he'll be killed himself.

[Luke Thompson]

Yes.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

So that's his problem, you know, to be to be alive or not to be to be dead. Yeah. And he says about his death, if it be now, it's not to come. And if it is to come, it won't be now. But it will come.

[Luke Thompson]

If it's now, then it's to come.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

If it's now, yes. I die now.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

That's the end of it.

[Luke Thompson]

Right.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

I'm not waiting for death. That stopped. If it is now, it is not to come. If it is to come, future. If it's going to be happening in the future, it isn't now, but it will come.

[Luke Thompson]

So if it's now, then I don't need to worry about it coming. That's right. Is that what that means?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

That's it.

[Luke Thompson]

It's like, if it's the end of

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

the trepidation and anxiety, at least I

[Luke Thompson]

don't have to worry about it coming.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

That's right.

[Luke Thompson]

Whereas if it's not now, then it's still going to come and that's inevitable. So. So whatever. In any case, it's going to happen. Yeah, of course.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It's all just a way of saying it's going to happen.

[Luke Thompson]

You have to just accept it. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think much more needs to be said then on after that. How who can improve on Shakespeare?

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

Indeed.

[Luke Thompson]

Yeah. All right. Well, dad, thanks for talking to me about all this stuff. I hope you haven't minded me kind of sitting you down and, you know, making you talk about everything.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

No, I haven't minded. I repeat what I said at the beginning. I just worry about your audience or whether they. They have any interest in this rambling on about the old days.

[Luke Thompson]

You're joking. I'm telling you, the people who love it, of course, will be really happy

to listen to this.

Some people won't have survived, but, no, it's a long.

[Rick Thompson (Dad)]

It's a long episode. But I hope it's helped in listening to some English being spoken.

[Luke Thompson]

Well, the idea is that if people are really riveted, if they find what they're listening to just genuinely gripping and interesting, then their acquisition of English is much more likely and much more effective.

And easier.

Right? That's the theory, anyway. But also, you know, people can pick apart what they're hearing and take out bits of language and stuff like that. But in any case, those people who've listened, I'm sure until this point, have really enjoyed listening to you. So thank you very much.

Okay, so there you go. That was my dad talking about his life. Thank you very much for dad for being up for doing this. As always, he's made plenty of contributions to this podcast over the years, and I'm very grateful. So if you are too, I mean, if you're grateful too, to my dad for doing this episode, then show your gratitude by leaving a comment in the comments section to say thanks and to show your appreciation. Also, listeners, you can wish my dad a happy birthday because it's his birthday this week, just a few days after this episode is being published. It is his birthday. So wish my dad a happy birthday in the comments. Okay, so just some thoughts at the end here. Just like with my mum, I feel like this conversation could have gone on so much longer and I'm obviously still curious about so many things, and I think I probably always will be listening back to this conversation. While I was editing it, I did think of plenty of other questions which I actually didn't get to ask my dad, mainly because, well, like, mainly a conversation goes in different directions and you just follow it wherever it leads. And you can't always branch off into all sorts of different directions all at the same time and sort of explore different angles all at the same time. You know, you just follow a conversation where it leads and you don't have time to focus in on every single detail in just one episode, one conversation for an hour or something. But other things I could have asked my dad, and perhaps I will ask him next time I get the chance, are, first of all, you heard that he talked about his dad. That's my grandpa Eric. He died quite young when he was in his 50s, and I never knew him. But I wonder how my dad felt when he lost his dad as a teenager. I think it was when he was at university. I've asked him about it before, but I'm always curious about what kind of effect it had on him. I have to say that it didn't seem to hold him back very much because my dad and his brother were both very successful, as you could hear from this episode. They were both very successful, both had great careers and I think had generally happy and good lives. Have had. Continue to have happy and good lives, both at home. And at work. But it must have been quite a blow to lose your dad just as you're becoming an adult. Unanswered questions, which, I mean, I have to be fair. I've talked to him about it before, but it's always the sort of thing that comes to my mind also. My dad was in London during the days of the swinging 60s, and not just in London, but working at that advertising company in Soho, which is a district in central London. And Soho is known as being the kind of heart of that kind of scene in fashion, music and culture in the 60s in London. And 1966 was the kind of pinnacle. 66, 67 was the sort of pinnacle of that scene, which is called Swinging London, with all its boutique fashion shops and bars and clubs where all the coolest, hippest people could be seen. And I wonder if he saw any particular examples of that in terms of things like fashion trends or certain people or anything else. What was it like in central London in Soho in 1966 Also, coming of age in the mid to late 1960s must have been fascinating. We think of this as a time of sort of partying and free love and all that kind of rock and roll legend. But was that just a small elite group of people who actually did those things? You know, like the rock stars, a certain cultural elite? How did the 60s cultural movement impact my dad's life specifically, or the life of my mum, who was living in another part of the country? Did the whole 60s thing impact most ordinary people, or was it just something that the cultural elite were doing in certain areas or circles? You know, like we read these books about the Beatles or indeed any other rock band, whatever, and there's always so much stuff about the significance of the cultural changes that happened in the 60s and the lifestyles, the way their lifestyles changed and stuff like that. It was quite a radical change for a lot of those people.

But what about for just.

Just other, let's say, more normal people also? My dad worked as a journalist in his career. And so what are some of the moments he was part of when he worked as a journalist? What things did he see and experience? Bear in mind, he was foreign news editor at the BBC for years during the 70s and 80s. I think during the 70s, definitely in the early 80s. And then he worked on the evening BBC news programs in the 80s and 90s, the six o' clock news and the nine o' clock news, the sort of national news programs. He worked on those as well. And so, you know, he must have been part of Some pretty interesting historic moments and also traveled to some interesting places. He must have been in the newsroom when certain big breaking news stories happened and they had to decide how they were going to cover them, which stories they would cover. You know, it must have been absolutely fascinating and I'm curious about what that was like. And also some of the interesting places that he must have traveled to when he worked as foreign news editor. I mean, again, I have actually asked him those things and only recently he told me about his time, the time he spent in East Germany and East Berlin during the Soviet days when the Berlin Wall was still standing. He actually took a trip to Berlin and was allowed to visit East Berlin during that time. Also he took a trip to Moscow as well. And so I'm endlessly curious about those things. Why am I mentioning these questions that I didn't actually ask my dad during the episode? I don't know, maybe this is stuff for a sequel. Similarly, I could do a similar thing with my mum. You know, there's always room for, for a part two for these sorts of things. Anyway, I've got lots of other questions, but there's only so much time and I expect there will always be unanswered questions and moments when I will suddenly be curious about what feels like large swathes of my parents personal experience that I don't have information about. And ultimately maybe it's none of my business, you know. Anyway, in the end I'm just happy to have the opportunity to chat with my parents. Whether it's all about family memories and stories or just even chatting about more trivial things like what's happening in the football at the moment. Leave your comments in the comments section if you enjoyed this conversation. Put my dad's doubts to rest because he had doubts, as he always does. Are you sure that your listeners are going to find this interesting? Surely they're all going to be bored to death by this. Put my dad's doubts to rest by letting us know in the comments section that you enjoyed the episode, that you listened to it all the way through without becoming a skeleton with headphones on and wish him a happy birthday. Tell my dad that actually his ramblings were interesting to listen to. And thanks for doing it now. If you want more of this kind of thing, if you want more chats chatting with dad, you could listen to a few other episodes. So here's a selection of other episodes that you could check out in the episode archive. So there's episode number. Episode number. What? What episode number is this? Episode? Episode number 252 was called Marooned with My music, in which my dad chose various favorite pieces of music and then talked more about his life story, including the story of how he met my mum and other things like that. So there's a sort of musical storytelling. I mean, life story with musical choices as well. Also, I did episodes a few years ago called quintessentially British Things, and I did one with James, one with Mum, and one with dad. The one with dad he talked about, I think it was, three of his favorite aspects of British life and culture. And we recorded it on New Year's Eve 2019 at more or less midnight. My mum had gone to bed. We were still up. We recorded the podcast there. And then it was on the stroke of midnight, actually, that moment is recorded in the episode. So you can join us as we move from 2019 to 2020. 2020. And we. Yes, the year of the COVID pandemic. We had no idea what was in store for us. But anyway, you can listen to that moment that my dad and I shared together at the stroke of midnight, New Year's eve. That's episode 638 called Three Quintessentially British Things that you might not know about with dad. As I said, there's also similar episodes with my mum and my brother as well, which you could find. I think they are the previous two episodes. Also, episode 372 was called the importance of Anecdotes in English. That was recorded at the dinner table with my mum, my dad and my brother. And we told some stories, some anecdotes, some funny, strange or frightening stories from our lives, including this story which was briefly mentioned by my dad in today's conversation that you just heard. That's the story about when my dad was hitchhiking through Europe with his brother and they were tricked by an Italian. I think it was an Italian. Was it Italian? It doesn't matter. They were tricked by a taxi driver who tried to steal my Uncle Peter's guitar. And they got into a kind of a dramatic situation. It was a misadventure and one of those exciting things that happens when you are a teenager. And one of those things that you always remember. If you want to hear the full story, listen to episode 372, along with the story of how my mum met. Was it the president of Burundi or something like that? What was it? What happened? Oh, God. What were the funny anecdotes? Meeting the king of Tonga. My mum met the king of Tonga. Now, if you listen to episode 372, you will have to listen to, or you'll get the enjoyment of listening to me. First of all, talking about how we tell anecdotes in English and giving you an English lesson about how we tell stories and the narrative tenses, the verb tenses we use to do them. And then in the second half of the episode, you actually hear some real anecdotes from my parents. Mum's anecdote was meeting the king of Tonga. Tonga is a Polynesian kingdom of more than 170 islands. And my mum met the King of Tonga and he was very keen to talk to my mum for some reason. There's James famous anecdote, infamous anecdote about a misadventure he had when he travelled to Hastings and he ended up missing his last train home and he had to find somewhere to stay and he ended up staying crashing out on someone's sofa and things got a bit weird. So that's my brother's Hastings story. Hastings is a town in England. And then my dad's anecdote was about hitchhiking in Italy, as I mentioned. And then there's my anecdote, which was a pretty frightening experience I had when I lived in Liverpool. So if you want to hear those stories, you can listen to episode 372. We're nearly finished here, listeners. I just wanted to mention something about the Rick Thompson Report. You might wonder about episodes of the Rick Thompson Report, which, if you don't know, is a series I do or have done with my dad, where we talk about news and politics, particularly UK politics. It's a very popular series. Most of the episodes focused on Brexit. We did most episodes of the Rick Thompson Report during the whole Brexit saga. So you might think, Luke, when's the next Rick Thompson Report? Well, I mean, basically my dad is retired now, you know, and believe it or not, I mean, he's got a semi retired. He still does various other bits of work and he writes a lot these days. He writes books. He's been on the podcast to talk about the three books that he's written. He's working on a fourth one at the moment, but he's otherwise, in terms of his journalistic career, he's more or less retired these days. And believe it or not, I think it is quite demanding to do episodes like the Rick Thompson Report. And bear in mind that I have a relatively large audience and it's kind of a big ask to regularly get my dad to come on and explain and talk about all the Most complex current stories in the news today. It's quite a big thing to ask him to do. Also, the news these days, particularly internationally, is so incredibly charged and sensitive that it's not all that much of an attractive prospect to wade into it all and to talk about it all. And yeah, so, I mean, as I said, my dad is more or less retired now, so I don't want to impose on him too much, basically, but never say never. Maybe we'll do something. It's not like I've, it's not like he's, he's absolutely put his foot down and said, no, that's it, no more. I've just kind of stopped asking him because I started to realize that it's probably, probably quite a lot to ask. You know, he's, it's, he's doing me a favor every time I ask him. But, you know, maybe we'll do something at some point. But I just wanted to kind of let you know what's going on with that. The last time we talked about politics, my dad and me, or mainly the last time my dad talked about politics, because in those episodes I don't really need to do much talking. The last time was about, I think it was after the latest UK general election in which the Labour Party and their leader Keir Starmer came back to power. Things are pretty complicated for Starmer at the moment. Maybe if there is a big change in the UK at some point, like for example, a new leadership contest, we can talk about that. But otherwise I think that the Rick Thompson Report is probably off the air for the time being. I hope you understand. But anyway, I'm happy that I did this recording today with my dad and also last week's one with my mum. Happy birthday to dad. Thanks also to mum. And thank you again for listening to this episode and for commenting. I'm away on holiday next week. My family and I are taking a break and doing the thing that French people do at this time of year, which is essentially go east and head to the mountains for some fresh air and some snow and maybe some skiing. We're not actually going to ski this time, my wife and me, but my daughter is. She'll be doing some skiing and. But my wife and me are going to just hang out with our little two year old son.

Hold on.

No, sorry, I mean my wife and I are going to hang out with our two year old son. Right. I just needed to make that correction. I couldn't let that one go. That was a little slip. You don't say my wife and me are going to hang out. It's my wife and I are going

to hang out because you wouldn't say

me is going to hang out unless you're Tarzan. But anyway, my wife and I are going to hang out with our little two year old son and it's his first time in the snowy mountains. It will be his first time enjoying proper snow up in the mountains and it should be fun. I think we're gonna do some sledging. I think he's gonna absolutely love that sledging. That's like a thing you sit in and it slides down the side of the mountain or the hill on the snow and he's gonna love that. So that should be fun. There will be an episode next week as well which I've already recorded. It's a short story episode. I hope you enjoy it. But otherwise, until next time, I'll just say goodbye. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. If you've been watching the video version, don't forget to like and subscribe and tell your friends about Luke's English podcast. Have a lovely morning, afternoon, evening or night, wherever you are in Lapland, okay? And be excellent to each other and I'll speak to you next time. But for now it's just time to say goodbye. Bye bye bye bye. Thanks for listening to Luke's English podcast. For more information, visit teacherluke.co.uk.

[Farnoosh Tarabi]

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[Warby Parker Advertiser]

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[Luke Thompson]

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[Luke Thompson]

If you enjoyed this episode of Luke's English Podcast, consider signing up for Luke's English Podcast Premium. You'll get regular Premium episodes with stories, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation teaching from me and the usual moments of humor and fun. Plus, with your subscription, you will be directly supporting my work and making this whole podcast project possible. For more information about Luke's English Podcast Premium, go to teacherluke.co uk/premiuminfo.