← Strangers on a Bench
Strangers on a Bench
EPISODE 52: People Were Scared of Us
00:31:21
Tom Rosenthal talks to strangers on park benches, often leading to surprising revelations.
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- [00:04]
A
Hello. Sorry to bother you. Can I ask you a slightly odd question? I'm making a podcast called Strangers on a Bench, where essentially I talk to people I don't know on benches for 10 or 15 minutes. Are you up for that? Do you want to give it a go? Is there a day of the week you favor?
- [00:50]
B
No, I think the days of the week are individual. And it's good to do what you think is a good thing to do on any particular day. Don't put it off because it might be the weekend or you might be going to work.
- [01:12]
A
Beautiful. What for you is a very good day of being alive. If you could take me from waking up, I know he's a naked man. How do you feel about running naked men?
- [01:26]
B
Well, I think there are lots of things that make a day, so I don't think there's such a thing as a good day or as a bad day. There are just events that happen and some things can be good. I mean, if, for instance, you like to spot naked running men, that's a good moment, but it's not the end of the day.
- [01:57]
A
So can you take me through a day, you know, a pleasant, happy day for you?
- [02:04]
B
So waking up. Usually the first thing that's on my mind is whether or not I've got any pain from my juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, which I've had since I was seven years old. I'm going to be 20. I'm going to be 76. I'm going to be 76 tomorrow.
- [02:26]
A
Oh, well, happy birthday for tomorrow.
- [02:28]
B
So I've had a lot of years of practice of rheumatoid arthritis. If my shoulders and hips hurt, then I usually have a hot bath as soon as I get up. And then if I wake up and I feel pretty good and I don't seem to have any pains in my joints, then I get on with whatever I've got to do that day and actually stop working. When I was 71, and I'm quite lucky in all the jobs I've had three important careers, I've had a lot of satisfaction. If I've got the day off, I might do something like today, which is to come and sit on this bench looking over the fields and over London and thinking about my friend. She died in 2021. She was 80, she had cancer. And we had a last meeting on this bench.
- [03:40]
A
On this particular bench?
- [03:41]
B
Yes, this is where we sat.
- [03:43]
A
What do you remember of that encounter?
- [03:46]
B
Well, in fact, I've written it up as a tribute to my friend, and it was published in the Count and New Journal and it explains what we talked about because that was the last time we expected to see each other and it was really rather wonderful. So a good day today is for me. I'm kind of worried about things. I'm moving to Ireland next week and I needed some time to think about things and coming up here and thinking about my friend. She was very important to me. We were both delegates, Socialist Health association delegates to Hogan and St. Pacris constituency. So she lived just here in Highgate and I live at King's Cross.
- [04:48]
A
What do you think she would think about your move to Ireland? Would she approve?
- [04:51]
B
Oh, absolutely, yes. Well, she in fact was born in Ireland, coincidentally, but she had a very upper class English accent.
- [05:01]
A
Do you remember the last thing she said to you on this bench?
- [05:05]
B
Well, the last thing she said to me was when she was walking to her home just off the Highgate Road here, which was lots of love.
- [05:20]
A
It's a good last three words. What about yours to her?
- [05:26]
B
Oh, I can't remember. Isn't that funny? I mean, obviously I reply obviously. But the thing is that she said that first so, you know, those words are her last words. My repeating it was.
- [05:43]
A
Still a nice.
- [05:44]
B
Gesture but it was a. It was a really lovely conversation and that's the reason I'm sitting on this bench.
- [05:55]
A
That's wonderful. Why are you moving to Ireland? So to be with your partner, you said?
- [06:15]
B
Oh yes, we've been together for 21 years but we've never lived in the same place. Although he was living in London when I met him. But he moved to Ireland to be with his family. There was one point where we thought he might come over here and then sort of more recently we had Brexit and then the pandemic. The pandemic was awful because we didn't see each other for over two years but now, you see, he's still at work, he's a bit younger than me, so I'm free to go over there and he's got a huge Irish family and I know all of them and they're great. But it's a very big move for me because I was born in Islington, I went to school at King's Cross and I live in Kings Cross.
- [07:00]
A
So what made you do it now? You know, I've been here three quarters of a century and now it's time to leave.
- [07:07]
B
Well, the most important thing is my partner and I are living together but there are other aspects of why I'm going there and I'm really Not happy with culture and society and politics in London. I think it's very hard on people who are. Who are poor or who are living in deprivation. And I sort of feel it rather that we should be ashamed of how life is and also how, you know, globally, it seems that the only thing that is important is about businesses making money. I think that life is to do with a lot more than just that. So I think because globally, it's such a frightening time, it's better if I'm not living in a capital city.
- [08:19]
A
Is there anything personally you've tried to fix of the problems you've just mentioned previously?
- [08:28]
B
I suppose so, because I started off in the campaign for homosexual equality and I carried on doing all sorts of things in that area. And that's another reason why it's a good idea to be with your partner and your family when there's a horrible global anti LGBT attitudes. Russell T. Davis was writing in the Guardian saying he was scared and I think he's right to feel that. I don't mean to depress you. I'm just. I'm just trying to answer your question.
- [09:16]
A
That's okay. Has there been fear attached to homosexuality for you as a younger person? I mean, are you feeling like feelings that you felt previously kind of come back?
- [09:29]
B
Something that puts my perspective on this is my age. Homosexuality was a criminal offence until I was 18 years old and it was only partially decriminalized. The age of consent was put at 21. Now, that was terrible because it meant that you couldn't tell anyone, you couldn't tell your brothers and sisters, you couldn't tell your mother or father, you couldn't tell your doctor, you couldn't tell your teachers, you certainly couldn't tell anyone who was giving you a job interview. And also you knew there was no prospect of getting any kind of social housing. So at least it's not like that now. Yeah.
- [10:15]
A
Do you remember a time when you couldn't tell anybody?
- [10:18]
B
No. It was a criminal offence. It's too dangerous to sort of think about sex or love. So what's happening is that I'm going to have a new chapter.
- [10:35]
A
Yeah.
- [10:36]
B
But there are certain things that I need to do and I'm here to have a conversation with my friend who died. I mean, not out loud.
- [10:47]
A
Maybe you should have it out loud.
- [10:48]
B
But just to explain that I'm moving.
- [10:54]
A
One more question about homosexuality, if I may. Who was the first person you eventually did tell when you could?
- [11:02]
B
I don't think it worked that way. I think that somehow I went To a pub, and I met another young man. So the first thing wasn't actually telling anyone, it was doing something.
- [11:21]
A
Okay.
- [11:22]
B
Which is what heterosexuals have always done. They haven't actually said to say anything I'm heterosexual. To say to their parents I'm heterosexual.
- [11:32]
A
Exactly, Exactly. Did he keep in touch with this person? No, but an important player.
- [11:42]
B
Well, I think.
- [11:44]
A
Well, it could have been anyone. You mean?
- [11:45]
B
I think it's. I mean, you remember Gore Vidal, what he said when he was being interviewed by this journalist who was supposedly interviewing him about his writing, but really wanted to find out whether he was gay or not. So he said, tell me, was the first person you had sex with a man or a woman? And Govidal replied, I was too polite to ask.
- [12:18]
A
That's very dear. What are you sad to leave behind when you go? What will you miss?
- [12:38]
B
I think that, you know, a lot of people that I knew who were very important to me, I miss those, but I already miss them anyway because they're dead because of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, you know, people are no longer with us.
- [12:55]
A
You can miss them anywhere.
- [12:57]
B
So I don't think I'll miss much. I think. I think lots of people have. I think lots of people have become very complacent, which we weren't complacent when I was a young man or even when I was in my 30s or 40s.
- [13:20]
A
What were you not complacent about?
- [13:22]
B
We weren't complacent about politics or society. But if you remember, in the pandemic, a lot of my neighbors would say to me, oh, just get yourself a Netflix subscription, as though doing that is actually going to help solve all your problems. Everyone got completely distracted with the idea that it will all go away. And we were very lucky that it did, because it could have been awful. It was awful. It could have been much worse. Many more people could have died.
- [14:02]
A
How did you get through it then, while you're coping?
- [14:05]
B
Well, I was still working, don't forget, and I was running an HIV treatment information phone line. Because of my age, I had to run that from my home. And then, of course, I phoned the doctor and the charity and I said, I'm too stressed. I can't do this. I'm on my own in this little flat in King's Cross and I can't see my partner. And so I've always read. I got through everything with doing a lot of reading. I packed up my books to take to Ireland.
- [14:41]
A
How many?
- [14:42]
B
Well, I've got eight and a half Boxes of books, those big Ryman's archive boxes. And I've sorted out the ones I'm not taking with me. I've given those to the second hand bookshop around the corner.
- [14:54]
A
Are they happy to see you?
- [14:55]
B
Yes, they. I saw some of the books on the. On display.
- [14:59]
A
Oh, lovely.
- [15:00]
B
Yes.
- [15:01]
A
That's a nice feeling, isn't it? They'll be going to new homes.
- [15:04]
B
Yes.
- [15:05]
A
Is there anything your partner said? No, don't bring that or you're not allowed.
- [15:10]
B
I spoke to him yesterday and I have an illuminated globe. I said, I don't know whether to bring the illuminated globe. He said, well, you know, with all your things in the spare room, do you think there'll be space for it? So I said, no, that there's good reason for me not to bring it. So I'm taking that round the charity shop around the corner.
- [15:29]
A
How often do you spin the globe around? Are you a person that stares at it?
- [15:33]
B
Well, I used to work at BBC World Service, so my desk there, I had a globe. It's very important that I knew what I was talking about because I worked in the marketing department in communications. I had this silly title which was called Senior Creative because basically I was an art director. But you can't have the title director in your job description at the BBC unless you're a director of the BBC.
- [16:01]
A
I see.
- [16:02]
B
So they called me Senior Creative, which I didn't really like. So I had the globe because I would have to go into meetings and people would mention capital cities and things. So I was constantly looking up places on the globe and the one I had at the World Service was a beautiful one. It was huge. I thought they might give it to me when they made me redundant. They didn't. No. They bought me one, which was kind of cheap, but it's been very useful since because I still look up places. It's important to look up places on a globe rather than to think about places in an abstract manner. So, you know, if Donald Trump is going on about taking back the Panama Canal, you just spin your globe around, your illuminated globe around and say, oh, yeah, that's where it is in relation to Donald Trump. Yeah. So it's good for that and a.
- [17:00]
A
Good source of light as well, I guess.
- [17:02]
B
Yes. It actually looks very nice.
- [17:14]
A
I was meaning to ask, when you mentioned it before, what, what was it like living through the. The AIDS crisis? And it sounds like you were quite kind of. What, you were quite involved as well.
- [17:28]
B
So when it started in London in the early 1980s, I had a Boyfriend. At the time we were living together and for all of us it was very. It was nerve wracking because we didn't know. No one had actually spotted it as a virus. Everyone was saying that it was our lifestyle because we drank too much and we took recreational drugs. And so it was very worrying. And then I remember one friend who wasn't living in London, but I heard that he. He'd gone blind because of HIV, aids. And I was just so horrified. I couldn't contemplate that because I've always been a book designer and illustrator. So it wasn't something that you read about in the newspapers, it was something that you actually experienced. And then of course, we had to look after some of our friends who were dying, who were coming out of the hospice to die at home. And we had no idea, I had no idea what I was doing, really. I had no understanding of palliative care. You know, I mean, we did our best, but we had to make it up.
- [18:54]
A
So you weren't given any help at all with.
- [18:58]
B
Well, don't forget people were scared of us. So sometimes people didn't want to have someone with AIDS close by because they thought they might be able to catch it. But yes, I mean, you know, we knew what to do when people were at home, but we were too young, you know, we were too young to have had that experience of death.
- [19:46]
A
What are your kind of abiding memories of those times of being that palliative nurse suddenly from nowhere. What stayed with you?
- [19:56]
B
Well, I suppose really going back to your, you know, your life per day, life is made up of so many different things that you have to carry on living your life despite what might be happening, say, to your friends in those days, in the AIDS epidemic, you know, when there's war or destruction or something, then I think that people who have children, I think that they understand exactly what that means is that you've got to carry on doing what you do because the children don't understand it. So I know it's not a similar thing, but you see what I mean. You can't just say, this overwhelming horror means that I'll give up. So another reason not to have a Netflix subscription is that you've got to make sure your kids are all right and other people around you are all right, but still have those things that make life enjoyable, to make life have a meaning. You know, I don't mean a grand sort of meaning. I just mean a meaning where you feel as though you are comfortable with your actions and behavior.
- [21:26]
A
Did a Different, you emerge the other side. Do you feel like it fundamentally kind of changed anything in you?
- [21:34]
B
I don't think so. I think it was just a continuation of a struggle that we had. We had the experience of those of us who lived in big cities of campaigning for homosexual equality and that just sort of went in to the AIDS epidemic. So it was more struggling for equity, I don't know, fairness. It felt terribly unfair that this virus came along. We did find out eventually it was a virus and then it had so much stigma with it and that was just. It seemed to be carrying on from the stigma of being lesbian or gay is what we used to talk about mostly then, I suppose really it was. We were one of those generations who understood a bit more about mortality. But then I think in say In World War I, World War II, I think younger generations understood mortality then because so many young people die in wars. So a continuation of the struggles. Yeah.
- [23:06]
A
I meant to ask at the time, but there's lots of things popping up. But you've had your rheumatoid arthritis since.
- [23:12]
B
Seven, did you say? Yes, it came on very quickly. That was the severe version. It's called Stills disease. And moment I thought I had a sprained ankle, but then the other ankle became inflamed and swollen, so that ruled that one out. Mum took me to the GP and the GP sent me to the hospital and the hospital kept me in. And then I was there for nine months. Nine months the first time. And when I came out, my fingers looked like this, except they were puffy then they're not puffy anymore, they're just well deformed and stiff. I mean, they don't move as they should. But I was able to come off the drugs when I was 19. That's when they could get me off the corticosteroids. And then I have had various flare ups over the years.
- [24:15]
A
What do you remember? Being seven and spending nine months in hospital. That's a long time if you're seven, isn't it?
- [24:21]
B
Well, I don't remember the first months very clearly because apparently I had a terrible fever all the time. Part of the symptoms that you get these daily fever spikes. But then I suppose I do remember Christmas. Four months, I think, after I went in and then I don't really remember much until Easter and we had this big Easter egg. I was able to get out of bed and then I was able to practice walking, so muscles had atrophied and didn't have enough strengthen my legs so the nurses would hold me Up. Walking up and down the ward to begin with. And then I started to do it on my own. I missed a lot of school. I didn't really go to school.
- [25:14]
A
What was that? What did that mean?
- [25:16]
B
It means that my education is very. It's got holes in it.
- [25:21]
A
Maybe they're not holes, maybe they're. They're mountains. As in, you know, you might have learnt things in that time which your classmate didn't.
- [25:30]
B
Absolutely.
- [25:31]
A
Could that be true?
- [25:33]
B
Well, I think if you don't pay, you have to check on the slip and sign it. So I was. I wasn't very communicative. I wasn't allowed to go to school for the first year. I think this was primary school then, just mornings. But I was able to go full time when I was at second school. But that was. It really wasn't very good and I didn't really like any. Anybody. I mean, I was still taking these quite strong drugs and I still had pains, but I didn't like to talk about it. So eventually, in my teenage years, I used to sit in the bedroom listening to Radio 3. So that's how I got my education.
- [26:21]
A
The best education, my dear.
- [26:23]
B
I lost my working class accent in hospital and that was a trial coming out of hospital, not speaking like my mum and dad and my brother and sister.
- [26:31]
A
How did you. Well, because he's talking about the doctors, you know, how did you do the.
- [26:35]
B
All the doctors and nurses in 1956? Which is when it was. They spoke like the Queen.
- [26:42]
A
And so you just. What kind of. To have just picked up their accents.
- [26:46]
B
Yes. Yeah.
- [26:47]
A
I suppose you're seeing them that much. I mean, that's.
- [26:49]
B
Yes, how funny. But I was quite pleased that visiting was only an hour a day, really.
- [26:54]
A
So your parents could only come in for an hour a day?
- [26:56]
B
Yes, but I didn't mind that. I thought that was fine because obviously your parents are going to expect you to be a bit better. I wasn't getting any pressure and I couldn't think of anything to say and they look so worried.
- [27:16]
A
And did you form any particular relationships in this hospital with doctors or, you know, that you. That you've kind of remembered, I mean, you know, or old fellow patients.
- [27:25]
B
I remember the cleaner because there was a wooden floor and she came around, it seemed like every day she come around with this wax which she put on this broom and it had a lovely smell. I remember that. I don't know whether it was lavender or something. I think her name was Esther and she was English, of course, but she was black African. She was really nice. I remember her. She never asked me if it hurt, but everyone else asked me if it hurt, and I always said no.
- [28:05]
A
Did it hurt?
- [28:06]
B
Yes. Now I'm getting a bit cold and I need to go to the pub to have a drink.
- [28:13]
A
That's absolutely fine.
- [28:14]
B
Is that all right?
- [28:15]
A
That's absolutely fine. May I ask you just one more question? It always ends with the same question. You kind of half answered it, but what are you going to do next?
- [28:26]
B
Well. Well, I'm going to the pub, which is just here on the Highgate Road, which is just around the corner from my friend's house where she lived, the one who I was sitting on the bench with. So after my conversation with her here. Well, I'd obviously have to come up again, won't I, Because I've been talking to you. Although in a way, it is a conversation with her, I suppose. I'm going to have a drink in the pub. That's what I'm going to do after this.
- [28:54]
A
What kind of drink?
- [28:55]
B
I'm going to have a pint of bitter. I can't remember what it's called now, but it's a very nice one. Then I'm going to walk home, put my dinner on.
- [29:06]
A
Fantastic. Thank you so much for your time. It's been wonderful. I think it was meant to be.
- [29:14]
B
Well, I wondered why I came up here. I thought it was. I was going to talk to Susanna.
- [29:19]
A
And you ended up talking to me?
- [29:20]
B
Yes.
- [29:29]
C
Looking up places on the globe. Tracing a line all around you. A new chapter is there and I'm ready to go. The books are packed in an order. A day is made up of so many things. Hard to pinpoint with a stranger. But my love is waiting Crossing ocean Packed and ready to leave. Love and pain they are no strangers we can get through anything. It's how you go about it. It's how you carry yourself. It's how you go about it. You just carry on, my love waiting on an island I'm there, I need to go. Times are tough and they're only getting harder about everyone left and I know. But it's how you go about it. It's how you carry yourself. It's how you go about it. It's how you carry Sam.