Tom Gerken 0:00 Hello, welcome to our dad's and I did meet some and me rich. We've got an amazing guest this week Mr. Tom Ward at Tom Woods comedian on Instagram.

Rich 0:08 Yes, Tom is a superb comedian. I remember I first saw him before I ever started doing comedy at up the creek on a Sunday. He was the opening act. And he blew me away. And I've been lucky enough to get to know him a bit over the years that have passed and I've started doing comedy. We've worked together a few times. And he's he is he's there's no one else like Tom really, he does superb comedy, but in a very unique way that is distinctively Tom Ward. And he brings that to this episode.

Tom Gerken 0:39 When we started with the recording of the episode. We were just chatting beforehand, we make some sort of oblique joke like a side thing. And he sort of had a pause and when he went, Oh, it's that kind of podcast is it? And it yeah, there were moments where he would say things and I wasn't sure where it was. It was so funny. It's like his mind was operating at a completely different level. It's like he could see all the different conversational paths. We might go there. He's so smart about comedy. I was really blown away by how quick witted he was.

Rich 1:14 Best hair we've had on the podcast as well. Directing by far the best house so far. Yeah, we've had some good hair. We've had some really good hair to be fair, but she'll brace you might have something to say about that. Some good hair. I mean, Sean's got great hair as well. Shout out here as well. My it's not bad. Mine is distinctly average. But Tom's is. None of that. Not even close.

Tom Gerken 1:40 So yeah, the best man

Rich 1:47 to start with, could you tell us about your dad?

Speaker 3 1:52 My dad would be 77 Today. Today. So that's the first thing? Yes, his birthday today, July the 11th 1946. And what is his name? Timothy Paul Chism ward.

Rich 2:07 Happy birthday. Chisholm ward. So it would have been his birthday today? Yeah. Wow. How does that feel? Does that is that something that does? Like dates or anniversaries and stuff? Does that affect how you feel at all? Or is it just another day?

Speaker 3 2:23 Does this year doesn't every year? I don't know. When did your dad die?

Rich 2:28 2014.

Speaker 3 2:30 Right. So mine was 2006 I find that the grief is sort of come back recently for some reason. I don't really know why. I think maybe because the cricket song. And he likes cricket. Right. And the last summer that he was alive. There was a big game between England and Australia and England won in 2005. Like a huge, epic summer of cricket. Yes. And everyone was watching it and talking about it. And then he died the following summer. So I think every time crickets on between him and Australia, I was thinking him so maybe that's why I'm Yeah, I found that it's,

Tom Gerken 3:10 I mean, that is what's your dad cremated? No. I was gonna say because if so the ashes would have taken a real different meaning there.

Speaker 3 3:18 It would have done thank you for your nice gentle line of inquiry. That's my girlfriend was recently suggesting that we dig up my dad. And apparently there's new tests they can do to find out if someone's autistic posthumously, because my sister was saying that he had autistic tendencies. So my girlfriend was suggesting that they could save him through a machine. Yeah. And then they could tell us once and for all whether some of his difficult character traits were because of autism.

Rich 3:48 Right? And would do you think you've got sort of sort of balanced the pros and cons there of? I guess, knowing that he's autistic. And let's be honest, the horror of serving him through a machine but with a piece of that brought be worth the experience.

Unknown Speaker 4:04 I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced.

Rich 4:07 I'm not convinced either.

Tom Gerken 4:08 I I'm not convinced that I'm going to struggle to keep a grasp on what's real and what isn't in this podcast now. I think this there's gonna be a real tenuous link to reality and our listeners just gonna have to decide what's the real thing what is

Speaker 3 4:22 what's it called when you get when a body gets dug up is exhumed?

Rich 4:25 exhumed? Yeah, our friend

Tom Gerken 4:27 Victor Sweeney, he came on the podcast before does that professionally?

Rich 4:32 No. The opposite. He's a mortician and he so he resumes in zooms I don't know what the word he buries them

Tom Gerken 4:41 just the fact he does it the normal way around. Yeah, humans Humes them doesn't mean he Humes, Humes, right the present tense, precisely. So

Rich 4:55 would you I mean, would would it bring you any peace to know The old dad was autistic. Did you have other sort of weather issues in the relationship? And things left unsaid? And?

Speaker 3 5:10 I mean, yeah, yes, for sure. I was 24 when he died, so I don't really feel like I got to experience him as a proper adult. So I guess a lot of the adult stuff was left unsaid. And the him seeing me in my element, him seeing me becoming who I am and who I want to be. He didn't he didn't see that. And I didn't get to see him mellow out either because he was high like intensity, bipolar, I think bipolar, just all looking back all the traits of depression, depression, at least. And anxiety and just in his head, and just miserable, and over analytical and all this all this stuff, I would have liked to have seen him, you know, mellow out in that way that people can do when they get get older and closer to death in a natural way. Yeah, and being taken when they're 59. So I guess the onset is, is the is the is the sort of the thing that should the natural progression was denied. That we were we kind of dealt with a lot of the stuff that was between us,

Rich 6:30 I really well, while he was still alive.

Speaker 3 6:33 Yeah, but it was just just lots of like loving contacts without necessarily having deep and meaningful because his brain tumour meant that his brain wasn't cohesive in the same way. So we couldn't have these kind of reconciliatory chats, but we could have very nice time together. And I would massage his head with cream and take him out in the garden for some sunshine and generally be there you know, so that was part of the loving contact. As part of the the reconciliation if you're not my dad

Tom Gerken 7:05 had cancer as well. It spreads throughout his body, and it did get to his brain, they did remove parts of his brain. But I think even even if maybe he was a little bit slightly different to how it was before, I think he was broadly the same person, if a little bit more interested in conspiracy theories, although again, I don't know how much of that has to do with him just becoming, you know, obsessed with YouTube by the end, and the algorithm. But, but what you were describing there sounds, I mean, quite different, really. I mean, you know, what, what was he like, at the end? You know, you talked about taking him out into the garden, you know, did you sort of have to provide sort of some degree of care

Speaker 3 7:45 when he was in hospice. And so towards the end, he became very fragile, and incoherent, he couldn't really he became unable to communicate verbally very well. He was confused. He sometimes said things that didn't fit the context. And the last thing he said was to me, but he called me his wife. So because I looked maybe a little older, my mom so maybe that was it, but we woke up he hadn't he hadn't been awake for a few days. And then he just suddenly woke up and looked straight at me and said, my wife, and I was like, ah, nearly you know, but that was the last thing he said. So in a way that was nice for my mum, she wasn't there but but he was a bit muddled and a bit needed, you know, needed to be walked to the toilet, and I remember him picking his nose while he was sitting on a toilet and just holding his finger up and I was like, I really don't, Dad, come on. I have some have some class. Not I mean, we can all just sit on a toilet pick our nose. taken advantage of my my good nature, you know? Yeah.

Tom Gerken 8:49 Get away. But at that point, there's not much you can say at that point. To be fair,

Unknown Speaker 8:53 yeah.

Rich 8:54 But if you were if you were in that situation, would you not also sit on the toilet and pick your nose? I think I would. If it was getting near the end, I'd think share what

Tom Gerken 9:05 I've never had your hands on for right? Precisely.

Rich 9:08 If I want to put my nose on the leaf, I'm gonna put my nose on the loo.

Tom Gerken 9:12 You don't pick your nose on the loo. I mean, I mean, come on.

Rich 9:17 It's the one place that I don't.

Speaker 3 9:20 Mm. On is a very principled man Richard is every bodily function should be done in isolation.

Rich 9:28 Precisely. And I have rooms for each and my house.

Unknown Speaker 9:32 Honest process

Rich 9:34 always have always will have said

Tom Gerken 9:43 no, but what what you just saying? No. Hello, what you were just saying before that was you talking about? The tumour there. I mean, it's so is that, you know the was it just sort of a brain tumour is that and How'd he find out? How did you find out? You know, could you sort of walk us through?

Speaker 3 10:05 Well, he found out from the doctor and I found out from him nice. So that he had a seizure in his office, his office was in the garden, because he was always he was a kind of struggling accountant, who had his business had gone from kind of like 15 people in the early 90s to eight people in the mid 90s, to three people in the late 90s. And by the end, it was just him and his secretary Yvonne, who hated him. And they were she also in the she was in the garden with him. He would be in the garden a couple of times a week, right? clewd it clearly didn't like him. And that was his life. And then she wasn't in one day, and he was in in his office. And he, my mom heard noise and went in and he was having a seizure. So just took into hospital. And then they did some tests, and they found a tumour that they said they couldn't operate on, so too big, and it would have killed him if they tried to take it. So Oh,

Tom Gerken 11:01 my God. So they discovered it. And it was terminal. That was it. Yeah. So

Speaker 3 11:05 then he had six months and months to live from the diagnosis. Not for me. It's very quick, very quick.

Rich 11:14 And was he in a hospice that whole time or did he have time at home and then as he got

Speaker 3 11:19 home for a while he was in hospital kept falling over. It's kind of black eyes and stuff and falling over when he was having seizures. So in the NADA put him in hospice for the last maybe couple of months. We would go up and down the motorway to see him in Weybridge, I think right bridge. Yeah. We listened to a lot of Leonard Cohen in the car. That's quite fitting.

Tom Gerken 11:42 Well, yeah. Anyway, why not lean into it? Yeah.

Rich 11:48 Was he a Leonard Cohen font or was that

Speaker 3 11:51 he was into the shadows and Buddy Holly. And Christian. Classical Guitar Music.

Rich 12:00 Right. Okay. Eclectic. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 12:07 Clean music, you know, nice sweet music.

Rich 12:09 Yeah. Good music made by Good boys. Bit of Enya. Like to be around. Yeah, lovely.

Unknown Speaker 12:15 Well, who doesn't? Simon?

Rich 12:17 So you're you were 24 When your dad died? 24 When my dad died? Your dad? Yeah. What'd he say was 5959 might have 55 in similarities or what? What

Unknown Speaker 12:32 did your dad die off?

Rich 12:34 He had meningitis. So he was dead quick. Literally. He, he was. I mean, I've told the story on the podcast before so I'll do a very quick version of it. He felt ill one evening, went to bed, had a fever the next morning, went to sleep, woke up at midday said call an ambulance then said don't call an ambulance and then died. And that was it. So it was a real fast turnaround. I wasn't there at the time. So I I found out I was at work and found out so at the end of the day, by which I'm had been gone for quite a while. So a different experience, but a lot like similar age. And I sort of relate to what you said about him not seeing you in your in your pomp. Yeah, person that you ended up having become? How much of an impact did it have on you at that? It's quite a formative age, I think early 20s, mid 20s You're still figuring out who you are and how to be and then you lose. I was here was your role model to you? Or was it? No

Unknown Speaker 13:53 definitely not.

Speaker 3 13:56 I mean, he was a he was charming, you know, one on one, but he was complicated. And he was very religious. So that was right, kind of got in the way of us bonding after I left the church, you know, so I was in the church and then I wasn't and that he definitely wanted me to be a Christian. So there was a natural gap. But he was a charming guy for sure very ladies loved him. But yeah, he was a Wally. Socially, it was an absolute Wally. In what sense, who just deliberately be jarring or daft or try and embarrass me or the way talk the way dressed. It's just I couldn't stop cringing all the time. As a kid, yeah. Um, yeah, he was just he just thought he was an outsider so he could just prank everybody just he just was willing to make everything uncomfortable just for his own entertainment. And partly also because he was judging everyone as a sinner. So he was kind of this weirdly serious guy who was obsessed with everyone salvation. And then also, this kind of wali who just wanted to, you know, slightly make everything uncomfortable for his own entertainment. Right? Strange.

Rich 15:21 Yeah, it's an odd mix of of people. Yeah. Christie and prankster.

Unknown Speaker 15:26 Yeah. So no, he wasn't a role model.

Tom Gerken 15:28 I mean, some say that the original Christian prankster of course, was Jesus.

Rich 15:34 Yeah. I mean, many.

Speaker 3 15:36 Some do say that. MC revised in revised versions of the Bible that are targeting the youth of a newspaper. Hey, kids, you like pranks? Well, then you might like Jesus.

Rich 15:53 Yeah, it guy faked his own death. But you'll never guess what happened three days later.

Tom Gerken 16:01 Like you as the

Rich 16:03 YouTube version. So it wasn't it wasn't a role model to you. He was in terms of

Speaker 3 16:10 he was a how to not do things wrong. Right.

Tom Gerken 16:15 Right. Presumably, you still cared about him very much. I mean, I guess, was he an antihero type character?

Speaker 3 16:25 antihero to me? Yeah. I mean, I think I learned from him I learned quite, I learned this sort of natural cynicism from him, because he didn't really buy into things because of the religion. But also, probably because he was sort of a little bit broken himself. So he, he kind of encouraged a certain attitude of not buying into the world not buying into materialism, and not being too attached to idols as he called it in. So he kind of II kind of encouraged me to be outside all the time, looking in, which is useful for for the job now. wasn't useful for making friends. For the first 30 odd years of my life, I'd say I couldn't really work out how to do it. How to how to just relax and be calm in a situation. He kind of, he kind of taught me how to be highly strung and hypersensitive and just uncomfortable with my own feelings. He kind of pathologized all of them as sin. So I kind of had to unlearn all that. Right. Seeing of oh, I so I am okay, you know, not, not everything I do is a sin. Yes, I do is wrong. So you have to unlearn a hell of a lot of stuff. Wow.

Rich 17:58 How was that process in the sort of immediate aftermath because one of the things that we've we've talked about a lot, is the experience of kind of guilt. And it is, I mean, I'm not from a as religious family as you but I was brought up in a Christian family to an extent. And that, that sort of old Catholic guilt really sticks around no matter what you believe. So it's quite, it was quite a big part of, of my experience of grief was was guilt. And then, you know, when you said yourself, there's the idea of having feelings that he would have thought of as a sin. That sounds like it's all quite a recipe for a really tangled experience after after he died. How was that experience?

Speaker 3 18:41 Yeah, I just wanted to ask you what you would get what your guilt was about.

Rich 18:46 I mean, literally, everything I had, for about a year and a half after after he died. I mean, the the standard guilt of I didn't talk to him enough, I didn't appreciate him while he was there. I didn't spend enough time with him. And then that kind of really snowballed into kind of a pathological guilt that I then felt about things I'd done 10 years earlier, and three years earlier and two months earlier, and I would think about them obsessively for 24 hours a day, and that went on for a good year after he died. In what I like to think of as my little sort of quite small mental breakdown, like a like a little controlled explosion that went off in a flight in Doncaster for about a year and a half. I didn't do any damage to anyone else, but I really felt it.

Speaker 3 19:38 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And internalised controlled explosion. Yeah. Yeah, that's funny. Quite quite enjoyed the idea of people feeling bad to describe the breakdowns as breakdowns. In case other people come at them and say you don't know what to break down is

Rich 19:55 a Yeah, exactly. And apparently psychologists don't like the term breakdown That's the thing I've heard. therapists will always say, well, we don't we don't like the idea of breakdowns. We talked about breakthroughs. But I didn't break it. There was no breakthrough there. That was definitely heading down.

Speaker 3 20:12 Yeah. I kind of find it quite annoying being told what I'm allowed to call my own. meltdown, break down whatever I want to call it.

Rich 20:20 Yeah. All right.

Speaker 3 20:22 I was pretty dysfunctional for a long time. Yeah.

Rich 20:26 Yeah, you can tell people how it feels. Yeah. How was the experience in the aftermath of your dad's death? And the kind of unlearning of all the things that you needed to unlearn?

Speaker 3 20:42 Well, I'd already started the unlearning when I was about 15, but that took time. I think it kind of, I don't know, I think the fact that he wasn't there anymore. Took away an element of the initial the embodiment of this conflict or the split is complicated, is I don't know if his death in any way affected the process. But I do think it made me aware of quite how unhealthy his life had been run, the decisions he'd made. And the sacrifices he'd made against himself. That was a kind of like a very clear to me. And the fact that he died from his brain somehow felt relevant to the whole, the whole narrative that he'd that he'd worn himself down, and then his own brain had. And that's obviously a neat story, but it feel relevant. Yeah. Right. And it seemed, it seems strangely appropriate or right, that he would die young, based on how he how he was, right, how he ravaged himself with his own, you know, beliefs. And so it was more of a case of, oh, okay, that's in my family that's in my jeans, potentially. I need to be wary of this. And follow my absolutely follow what I want to do unquestioningly.

Rich 22:16 But was that like a Damascene moment? Or was it something you gradually realised over time,

Speaker 3 22:20 I think I've probably always been quite single minded. And because he encouraged a kind of abstinence, I was able to withstand the temptation, I didn't feel peer pressure in the same way necessarily. So I didn't feel ashamed by being a loser. I mean, low low status jobs for years and years, didn't bother me. Didn't didn't, it did bother me, but it didn't make me feel like I wasn't surrounded by high flying 30 year olds who were all in finance and getting married. You know, my, my friends and my, my, the people in my life were all disparate. Weirdos, so I don't feel like it was it was ever not there. But think in your mid 20s. You really do start going right? Come on. What's it going to be? What are we going to do? Yeah, sees you start going for stuff, potentially more after a death. But yeah, I think I was all really quite single minded. Yeah, it definitely made me aware of what can happen if you get stuck in the wrong story? That's really interesting.

Rich 23:33 In terms of, because I mean, you said that your dad almost it sounds like was, in many ways, an example of how you didn't want to have your life go. And in terms of sort of masculinity, I think that's kind of the kind of the theme of this episode as you know, what it's like being a man and dealing with grief and dealing with the grief of the loss of another man. In terms of talking about it, is were you able to we use someone who is good, because men famously apparently aren't very good at talking about their feelings. Is that something that you experienced? Or was that something that came naturally to you to be able to talk about this loss?

Speaker 3 24:22 I don't think I was particularly bad I think I think I felt it definitely felt stuff. I didn't repress it. I cried a lot. And took time out from work. I was dysfunctional in quite an obvious way at work. And so like, it was there, it wasn't, it wasn't something I was just shoving aside or anything like that. I don't I don't think I've ever really struggled with being emotional. I don't mind if people see me emotional. Isn't it doesn't bother my pride or I don't feel like I've got that much to lose. I haven't got like a tough guy, persona or anything. And I feel like maybe it's harder for those men who are really bought into the idea of straightforward, you know, masculinity and, of course,

Rich 25:18 why me? Yeah, I struggle with it.

Speaker 3 25:22 So yeah, I don't, I didn't struggle to feel it. I didn't always necessarily have anything to say because grief is quite hard to describe. Yeah. Sometimes you just want to be like, bawling your eyes out with your sister or you're having I was having like, she had soup? No. The one with the needles. Acupuncture, acupuncture. Yeah. And then I just started crying. And she got all weird, which was really? Yeah, I think maybe because I was dribbling on her on her mat.

Tom Gerken 25:53 Remember, the can't be the first time somebody's crazed during acupuncture? Surely, that's a common response to being stabbed?

Speaker 3 26:02 I think also, especially especially stabbed in your energy points. Yeah. Where my energy was likely to be, you know, full of grief.

Tom Gerken 26:10 If those are key points, you don't want to be stabbed in the old energy points.

Speaker 3 26:14 Well, I mean, she, she gave me a discount because I was young and broke. And I think she didn't bargain with the fact that she, you know, be dealing with twice the emotional load as well as half the fee. So I think she maybe found that a bit annoying.

Rich 26:31 Whereas you got an excellent deal. Yeah.

Speaker 3 26:33 I got a great deal. A lot of catharsis, though didn't feel held in the space. So I don't think it really helped. But because a lot of it is about space being held.

Tom Gerken 26:48 mystery person, I think, according to your Instagram videos, I was going through your your bed says sort of, sort of sort of see some of the stuff you've done. I thought the I want to talk about some of the array Winston once.

Speaker 4 27:04 I'm an actor. Sure. But first and foremost, Ahmed Giza, I've done films for 40 years. Man made Dan may not my proudest moment. Come on. Now, where Stan? If I cut final night, you know

Tom Gerken 27:24 that that is a funny voice, which I like anyway, but I just wondering if there's something in re WinSun because he sort of feels like quite a dad figure to me. Hmm. You know, I mean, if you were going to talk about dads for for whatever reason, very winsome, gives real dad energy.

Speaker 3 27:41 Yeah. And he's a very proud dad. He's got three daughters. He loves being a dad. I've just read his biography for the role. Because I'm about I've just started a new podcast where I play him and me and Tony Soprano interview people. And Joe Jacobs plays Tony Soprano. So I've been reading about Ray. He loves his wife. He's been married since he was 21. And he's got three daughters who he adores, and whenever he does a film, he hates it if it lasts long, because he misses them so much that he often flies home when he's got a day off, or flies them in. He hated filming Cold Mountain, because it was six months away. So yeah, he does a very bad vibes.

Tom Gerken 28:27 Wow. Actually was such a good debt. You weren't?

Speaker 3 28:31 I don't know if he's a good dad. I think he's into being a dad. Whether he's a good dad, not for us to say. Couldn't say that. You're already re his youngest. I'm sure he's a very good dad. He can I like to think he is. I like to think he is paternal. Warm. Harsh about those that have wronged his girls. Yes. Absolutely. Menacing offers to rough them up. If needed. Yeah, the aggressor, not the daughters. Of course.

Rich 29:10 Of course. He'd be an intimidating father have a girlfriend to meet. But I think a lot of that would be would be for show. I think as soon as you want him around as soon as he trusted you. Like he'd refer to you as his son. I think.

Speaker 3 29:23 I think one of his first questions would be where are you from? Yep. And then he and he'd look out to check that you don't? You're not pretending to be from the rough side if you're not because the geezers they hate it they always spot a soft boy that's pretending Where are you from? Wandsworth Oh, yeah. Whereabouts Wimbledon Park. Oh, that's not exactly a one's Oh, well. No, but when my dad died young and I you know I've not had an easy one. Oh, Okay. Sounds pretty crucially whatever parks

Rich 30:08 do you think there's, you're attracted to Ray Winston as a character because of his fatherly aura.

Speaker 3 30:15 I just think he's very, I think he's very enjoyable because he's, he's a cat. He's a cartoon. I think that's mainly why like Ray Wednesday is a cartoon and he's proper old school. He just feels like an old school geezer. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 30:32 In them almost like archetypal. And his voice said, His love his voice. It's so ridiculous.

Speaker 3 30:42 So I, I don't I don't know if he's his fatherly, like, what to me? Like, is there some sort of self soothing going on here? Is that what you mean?

Rich 30:52 I wondered. I mean, it's fine. If the answer's no, but perhaps you are the character of the Father. That you long for?

Unknown Speaker 31:01 Oh my god.

Tom Gerken 31:02 It's interesting that he just seems to be such a loving father figure. And you know, you've recounted several stories of ways in which he is a good father. It's interesting that you seem to have accounted him so much you're now planning on a podcast your where your head

Speaker 3 31:18 and if it's dad stuff, no, it's it's very it's a very good question. It deserves a an in depth and fascinating response.

Rich 31:26 It's but it is okay for the answer to just be nope, not really.

Speaker 3 31:30 Don't. I mean, I used to do impressions of Jools Holland and I don't really want him to be my dad. Yeah, that's fair. And I did impressions of Michael McIntyre. Definitely don't want him to be my dad. Can you imagine he'd

Rich 31:44 be hard work nice. Also, I'd imagine growing up and Michael McIntyre's

Tom Gerken 31:49 yeah probably big Jools Holland again I would have thought very large house. Yeah, we're just going by square footage, I would have thought

Speaker 3 31:59 I think it's the flavour within the house I think is more important than the size though.

Rich 32:05 This is true

Speaker 3 32:07 and Jools Holland being my dad I've seen it'd be quite jarring every time we spoke. I just I think a Titan. I

Tom Gerken 32:15 leave your shoes by the door. That's good. But it's good. Now.

Speaker 3 32:20 We're going to the PA. Very good. Night Cream. If only had one today, darling.

Rich 32:28 Yeah. So it's the link is less about Robinson, being a father and more just that you can do quite a good robot. It's an impression, I think. Yeah, I've read too much into that.

Speaker 3 32:40 His heart as well. Which I'm not. I like the idea of a heart, man. I like the idea of being fearless.

Rich 32:47 Being tough and knowing not to use it. I'd like yes there

Speaker 3 32:50 if you need it. He was a boxer when he was young. Yeah, he ain't fights a wings. He's got it in him. If he needs it. He's not afraid. That's a nice to get that's a nice thing to have. My dad was scared person. So maybe that part, like the idea of people that I like the idea of not being scared. That was my that was one of the things my dad gave me just being scared all the time start going, I don't wanna be scared.

Tom Gerken 33:18 It's quite interesting. It's sort of getting getting into this sort of almost schoolyard pay your dad would do in a fight almost, isn't it? Sort of vibing that territory. It's just kind of like that, because my dad I he used to play football. And he would, he would remind you of that. I mean, he never played professionally. He's played at university, but he would remind you of that, and he was very good at it and you know, sort of giving that kind of impression he was a skinhead. So given that kind of impression of being capable of x, he went to university in Liverpool as well, the sort of Northern I think there was a flair, there was certainly a taste of that. It was there if you need it.

Speaker 3 33:53 Yeah, that quality and someone that little bit of slightly you can see like serene, lurking violence. But they're a gentleman so they don't use it. Yeah. They don't want to use it. They're not an idiot. They use it sparingly. It's never the go to That's it. That's the beginner's mistake, or the idiot or the young person's way of approaching violence but a proper proper geezer doesn't use it.

Rich 34:20 They never lose their cool, do they? That's the thing that's just not fighting out of anger. They're fighting because that's the best thing to do in that scenario. Which I think I mean, my dad has a fighter. He had a he had a records once headbutted a man, which he really was very, very ashamed of. I've never told you this. I don't know. It's not. I can't give any of the details because it wasn't I didn't like headbutt a famous person, but he was it was at an event and he was goaded by a man. And I sadly wasn't there. I wasn't even told about it. For years afterwards, I only found out after he died, because I think he was very ashamed of it afterwards and it was a bit drunk, but he headbutted a man who was a good few inches taller than me was quite a short man, my dad, and he apparently jumped and headbutted this guy wrong. And then was dragged out of the building. And yet he was really ashamed, and I still think is one of the coolest things I've ever heard.

Unknown Speaker 35:28 As amazing,

Rich 35:29 he didn't. He didn't have the, the sort of serene, lurking anger, the lurking violence, he had the angry outburst, a sudden, just out of nowhere bang, down. But yeah, he was, I would say he wasn't a man who was afraid I'm a lot more afraid than he was. I think he was probably a braver man. And a more capable man. I think. That's one of the strengths. Just generally. I was thinking the other day about the could we, Tom and I talked on another podcast about things in films you learn from your dad, and they tell you about shaving and that kind of thing. And one of them was DIY, I never really learned he was he was very good at DIY. I didn't learn any of that from him, not because he didn't teach me I just wasn't interested. And then I would quite recently thought, If I ever have kids, I'm going to make sure that I do, even if they're not interested, I'm going to make sure that I pass on the skill of DIY that was like you don't have the skill of DIY. can't pass on. So you don't have

Speaker 3 36:37 you're saying to come in and teach them DIY? Well, you're,

Tom Gerken 36:41 you're competing against YouTube really, aren't you? I mean, it's Yeah, every everything they need, they'll find that unless I suppose you're sort of seek you've cribbing it on the phone like this, watch a YouTube video on how to change a plug. And they go, Oh, no. And the green goes, green, and brown connects to the green? And you know,

Rich 37:00 yeah, I mean, more likely, is that my partner is a lot more capable of that stuff than I am. So she can teach them and teach them the skills that I have, which are to write, I'd say three solid jokes a year.

Speaker 3 37:18 That's a good skill, though. Because your writing is super.

Rich 37:22 Well, thank you three times a year.

Speaker 3 37:24 Super. You know, I wish lots of comedians only did three jokes a year, and never did them publicly, quite frankly.

Rich 37:32 Yeah, tough way to make a living on those in it.

Speaker 3 37:35 It is, yeah. So how did what was the immediate period after your dad's death? Like did it? Did it change your trajectory? Or did it give you a it changed what you wanted from your life, or?

Rich 37:52 I think it I did have a kind of crisis of self, I guess, for a bit that was related to the sort of the idea of, you know, being a man, I felt like I was at an age now where I should be able to, I kind of had this thought of like, Oh, my dad's died, I'm going to step in, I'm going to take care of everything. And I'll be the man. And then very quickly realised I couldn't do that. And in fact, I needed help to just sort of carry on. And I wasn't very forgiving of myself during that period. And, and so it's, I think it did for a long time made me feel like I wasn't the person that I thought I was. And I wasn't I wasn't the person that I thought I was then. But I at least now know who I am. And I liked myself more for that. But I do wonder, you know, what, how different would I be if if my dad hadn't died? And? And also, what would he have thought of me now? And I don't really know.

Speaker 3 39:01 I guess Yeah. It's very hard to tell what you what the difference would be in the person you would be if they were still alive. Yeah, hard to know. But I kind of assumed that there's a lack of depth of sensitivity that you get out of a profound depth, profound loss. Yeah, any sort of losses I've experienced, I think have made me softer, more kind more aware. Definitely. That's what I think that's what pain does. So

Tom Gerken 39:34 this conversation is making me feel like I'm a sociopath. This applies to me, it's all I don't I don't think anything changed at all. Really? I think he died, but I don't think it changed the path I was on. I don't I don't consider that it's softened to me. It's all I think. Maybe it's just too recent. You know, he only died three and a half years ago. So Maybe it's simply that it's too recent for me to actually be able to, you know, take on board any kind of change like that I still feel like a bit. As far as the show joke goes, like the emotionless husk who just pops up, laughs at things inappropriately and then just sort of disappears, to watch some television, so I can have an emotional reaction to it. I just just seems that I don't feel that I've softened in that way. Maybe I was always so soft at the starting point. You couldn't really go see, give me you can't soften a sponge as the

Unknown Speaker 40:37 soggy sponge can't

Tom Gerken 40:39 soften that. Can you? Oh, so I do I do. I do wonder Yeah. But

Rich 40:44 do you think do you think your that just hasn't happened? Or do you think there's an element that you're resisting? The softening the crease softening the great suffering that comes to us all? Do you think that in fact, you're you're maybe fighting against that? Because that's, I don't know. That's a that's a part of accepting the grief?

Tom Gerken 41:09 Maybe I don't, I don't feel I just don't really, I mean, I feel different. But the difference that I feel is a lack of ability to really have emotional responses to things. But you know, this is well documented.

Speaker 3 41:29 This Yes. Since that's a change that has happened since would you say totally,

Tom Gerken 41:33 I mean, I might even change? I would say the change would be a hardening. If there were a change, it would be a hardening. I don't, I don't cry as much anymore. I don't, unless it's a popular culture thing that's intended to make you cry by using some sort of cheap trick. Like, suddenly, the episode was all about a dead father, you know? Or, look, actually, in this Marvel film, we're going to kill these animals. Ah, gotcha. You know, guardians of the galaxy that's reference to, unless something like that happens, I don't seem to have real life responses to things. So maybe there's a bit of a hard thing. Maybe I don't quite care as much anymore. But I don't really know. Too much to begin with.

Speaker 3 42:23 It's tricky, because it's not like one or the other. I don't think because when I say suffering, I don't mean that there's been some palpable thing where you can say oh, before he died, I was this and then after but I just kind of think with certain types of pain, there is an awareness that you get. You may not you know, I don't mean softened, has enough become gooey, and like, hippie ish. And in touch with nature more. I think that that kind of stuff happens anyway as you get older, but I think maybe, in other ways, yeah, you can, you can harden as well, because you have to have your own back and you realise how brutal life can be. And the reality of death is quite chilling.

Tom Gerken 43:11 Does it sometimes just feel like you don't really care too much. You know, I mean, like, just sometimes it just feels a bit like, yeah, my dad's dead, but

Speaker 3 43:21 yeah, for sure. For years for years on and off. That's been the case. And I was surprised by it. And then sometimes I'm just like, randomly sad, randomly, like, I feel it like, the grief is like, you know, when you go into like a derelict building, and you get that weird like, oh, this place used to hold so much significance, maybe a building that used to play in or live in or just a derelict building, they have so much feeling and you get a sense of what used to be there and absolute abandonment is quite sad to be around. Yeah. And I feel like that's what grief can be like years later, you just kind of, it's almost like going into a derelict building, and there's no one there is completely left. It's left to rot and you're just kind of going into it and experiencing what, what life is like when there's no one there to look after it or move through it or inhabit it.

Rich 44:22 Yeah, it sort of feels a bit like the experience of going to a grave. I think either. Is your dad buried? He wasn't there but it

Unknown Speaker 44:29 is very low. Do you have I don't know my mom didn't crave.

Rich 44:38 There isn't. There is no grade that you go to visit?

Speaker 3 44:40 No. And I wouldn't want to think Kingston. I want to go to Kingston. Do you not? I mean, yeah, that's for the world. You moved in Kingston. My mum lives in New Malden. So that is not racist.

Rich 44:56 Yeah, that experience that you were saying there about the going Wear something used to be that sort of because my not to show off my dad does have a headstone. Yeah, sorry. But that's sort of sometimes how it feels going there is you're going to wear somebody isn't. And that's quite an odd thing. Like I'm gonna go and see my dad, but he's not. I mean he is he's physically still there. Well, like 50% of them still there. But nothing happens. You just go there. And you look at it, make it go away again. It's sometimes it feels profound that other times you just like, just standing in a field.

Unknown Speaker 45:40 Yeah, loads of other people's dead people. It's like, yeah, and

Rich 45:44 they keep adding real ones and you like this? God? People keep dying, don't they? All the

Speaker 3 45:49 times I contact with other people that are grieving is that yeah, want to deal with your stuff does. I mean, I'm the only person in the world is grieving right now you fuck off?

Rich 45:59 Yeah, that's how we should feel.

Tom Gerken 46:02 When I went to Japan, there are a lot of graveyards, there is quite a big thing is this lobby, that's massive in Japan, def speak in Japan, who really love it. I think certainly, I think burying people is big in Japan. And so you do sort of end up if you go to a shrine, you'll end up going to one of the attached cemeteries is just as a thing you do and you'll go with shrines because that's so much of the history you see when you go there. And I have to say, walking around a couple of them, I did get quite a feeling of something. Like there's a kind of a spiritual kind of connection, even though you know, you're talking about rich, you know, you just go to a cemetery. It might be anyone elses. And I think there's some truth in that, but I think there might be a flipside truth, where if you go to any cemetery and walk around, there is something in that that's a connection there. I wonder?

Speaker 3 46:53 Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're, they're innately loaded places, aren't they? How can they not be loaded? You're in the presence of the most brutal reality of life. Surrounded by? Yeah, so it can't. It's hard for it not to affect you. Or to pick up on some where, where are your dad's sister?

Tom Gerken 47:22 Where's his dad? Yeah, we mostly in an urn, which is by the fireplace in my stepmoms who remarried in her in their flats, still, Liverpool Football Club emblem on the urn, and that's just sitting there. We still know what to do.

Speaker 3 47:44 With. Yeah, it's hard to know what to do, isn't it? Yeah. But give them to cherish or maybe

Rich 47:52 Antiques Roadshow via money? Yeah,

Tom Gerken 47:55 you could go to them in a charity shop I suppose. I mean, he loves charity shops this this to me he couldn't get it would always be when we were kids walking around charity shops. I don't know what that what he was looking for. I still don't know the answer.

Speaker 3 48:10 Well, that's that's the nature of charity shops. You're not supposed to know what you're looking for.

Tom Gerken 48:16 Love to surprise the charity shop tells you add car boot sales as well so many I think I've said this before my dad loved a bargain like more than anyone else in the history of the world has loved a bargain. And so I think just the concept of getting something on the cheap was enough looking at these things are getting a deal over what you would buy maybe a 50 P book or something very much

Speaker 3 48:42 relate to that. I relate to that. You could you could charter a one of those little planes that football fans charter when they want to send a message to the owners on the back and and what you could do is you could charter a little plane and then you could sprinkle the ashes over again and field Yeah. And get and try and eight if they're playing Everton, you could sort of try and aim for the Evanson and yeah, so fans are all

Tom Gerken 49:16 penalty like land Yeah,

Speaker 3 49:19 that's right. Laser beam in the eyes but yeah, exactly. From the skies

Tom Gerken 49:26 ashes from the sky guys. Sounds like a David Bowie song.

Speaker 3 49:30 I'd contribute to the plane that higher

Rich 49:34 yeah we could do like a GoFundMe or something like that. I'm sure the light

Speaker 3 49:40 that might soften your heart your hardening your might bring the soggy sponge back to your

Tom Gerken 49:46 i don't know i think if it's if it got any nicer the item keeper So Salah scored a penalty. I think that would cause the hardest thing

Speaker 1 49:57 I think it's just the one thing I really did want to ask about today is about male role models. Because we, we've sort of touched on it or tried to in the podcast in the past, it's a really hard thing to sort of Express really, I suppose for me.

Tom Gerken 50:16 But just what it's like because you're in your early 20s, and suddenly you've lost this very important male role model, at least if if television is to be believed. I'm the one who's meant to show you how to do things and how to get by. And I was wondering if there was a sort of, if if you felt a gap, or a loss of that figure who could sort of tell you how to be male? Or how to be a man?

Speaker 3 50:45 Well, as I was saying, earlier, I don't, he didn't really teach me the traditional ways of being a man. I think, I don't know, I think there's a whole cultural stuff isn't there with with how to learn the bread, how you learn to be a man is a kind of incremental, cultural, subtle deluge of various things. Kind of you got the sort of girly indie bands were the boys are sort of pretty and androgynous. And that's one then you got, like the sexy kind of lone wolf character in a movie who kind of just goes about his business and hardly talks to anyone and somehow manages to get a lot done, even without talking. That acquire type. So I think cult like, culturally, I was always aware of men and what kind of man I wanted to be based on like watching River Phoenix in movies when I was a kid, or like musicians and how they were Johnny Depp and just his cool pretty men, and then Billy Idol, you know, being sort of like a caricature of punk. But I knew it was a joke, but also also very serious to him as well that he wanted to look sexy. So like, you're just watching cultural figures and going, okay, that's the kind of guy is the kind of man I want to be. More so than my dad, really? So I don't he didn't. He was. Yeah. About emotions and wants, but he wasn't, it wasn't masculinity that he was teaching me.

Rich 52:28 That's interesting. Because, yeah, emotions and warmth, tend not to be words you associate with masculinity. But I would I'd also say that I learned both of those things from my dad. Did you learn those by example, by the sort of the way that he was with you? Like you said, you're quite good at talking about your feelings and stuff. Was that something that that he kind of exemplified, or he was all about? I was

Speaker 3 52:52 always talking about his feelings. Yeah. Always we, you know, he will open up to us as kids literally tell us his secrets. Tell us about his dad secrets. Well, my dad wanted to my dad was like, really into the lady. So he'd be like, I want to, you know, I want to be with other women, son, and I'd be like, 1011 12. And so he'd be telling me that sex was a sin. But he was also the following week, you know, it'd be like, Oh, I snugged a woman on a business conference. And you know, he get a little look in his eyes, and they'd be like, Nah, but I'm not proud. You know, I'm not it's not good. It's not good. Don't tell your mom and I'd be like, Oh, wow. It's so weird place to be put in as a kid, you know? Yeah. But you definitely love the ladies. You love the ladies so much. And I get Yeah, he was a top shagger before my mom. And I usually had a lot of affairs before he became a Christian for the first few years. So there was he was always kind of slightly bragging about how what handsome young man he was before my mom, but he wanted me to know that he was, you know, I had an eye for the ladies side. Don't you worry about there's a man about town back in the day. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe, you know. He kind of the honesty would come through in one way or another. And then the guilt. Yeah. That'd be the next thing. You know? Yeah. I remember him. He showed me in the Reader's Digest. Magazine, there was a shocking article about Madonna's new sex book. It was called Sex her book and it was pictures of her being living out her fantasies in various sexual ways. In a photo shoot, and he's like, this is pornography anyway.

Unknown Speaker 54:41 But about an hour, my dad saying how wrong it was. showing me that

Speaker 3 54:47 this is not right. This shouldn't be in here. Like yeah, we should. Yeah. He said, I'm gonna write a letter to the Reader's Digest. I was like, Yeah, this is disgusting. Absolutely. Hideous. This is so I just was getting this weird on my dad's obsessed with these things. This this this thing is wrong. It's so wrong, but why are we giving so much time to it?

Speaker 5 55:08 You couldn't like hide every part of it, you know, taking you through picture by picture

Rich 55:18 the whole of the internet, and that shouldn't go in there. She shouldn't be doing that to this.

Unknown Speaker 55:23 We're not married. That's his stepsister.

Tom Gerken 55:29 Can you imagine that in size genre?

Rich 55:34 Yeah. Now page two that shouldn't be in there.

Speaker 5 55:40 The only man to ever go past Page five on Google images ever. Oh

Rich 55:51 there we go. Tom woods on our dad's died. Really enjoyed that episode. I really enjoyed talking to Tom. He's a very funny man. Very insightful man. And as we've just established, fantastic air, just superb hair,

Tom Gerken 56:06 stunning hair. Speaking to him, I really genuinely got this feeling when we spoke. I didn't know what he was going to say next. If you've just listened to that, we're going to be putting up clips on the Instagram do follow it at our dads died. I'm going to put few video clips on this episode up over the next few days. If you listen to this in the future, scroll back through to find some of them because there's something about him. I don't know. There's a couple of moments where he laughed and I just made me feel so good. That he's got such an infectious laugh and you know, a really, really, really appealing guy.

Rich 56:41 Yeah, very, very, very funny as well. I believe we've got your I

Tom Gerken 56:47 made myself laugh by describing him as appeal areas. A

Rich 56:50 very appealing guy feels like you fall in love with Tom Ward.

Tom Gerken 56:54 But there was something very nice about that there was something very nice about him which, which really, which really struck a chord for me. I'm not quite sure what it was. He had a bit of a dad vibe, I think in a weird way because he sort of was also like maybe our age but you had a bit of a dad vibe about him. I felt like Yes, an authority or you had a real authority but Ray Winston

Rich 57:16 Yeah, possibly. And I mean that is that is the definition of authority.

Tom Gerken 57:20 We had a clip in the episode they're taken from his Instagram page at a mod comedian. That's the if you scroll through you'll see one which says bet 365 on the image. All of his Ray Winston clips are funny but that one particularly really made me laugh.

Rich 57:37 So do give give Tom a follow Tom Ward that he's given him Tom Gergen to follow if you want to give Rich voting a follow up. We're all we're all there. We're all gagging for a follow. Also, Tom

Tom Gerken 57:49 is our dad's died, doo, doo,

Rich 57:52 doo follow up on as well,

Tom Gerken 57:53 if if that one, that's the main one.

Rich 57:55 We do want to put out more and more stuff online to kind of engage with the people that listening a little bit more. Twitter is you know Twitter's dead. That is there's no point in that anymore. It's just I exclusively use Twitter for unsubstantiated transfer rumours. And then you have to scroll past like four videos of someone getting killed to try and find out who will enforce get a sign. That's how that works now, but follow us on Instagram. And we'll be putting some more stuff out. Hopefully. And, Tom, I think you've got some sort of Tom Woods dates written down. Yeah, he's

Tom Gerken 58:31 he's coming up with he's playing in. If you're listening to this on the day we air then you'll be able to see him at Leeds. If you're in Leeds. Other than that, you know, you can go on his website, Tom Ward voices.com. He's playing Margate, London, the vegan Comedy Festival in London on the first of October. I am not in London. He said he's playing in Bournemouth coastal comedy on the seventh of October which is quite lovely. Because that's where I'm from. And that's what my dad spent the majority of his life so you know, maybe a little nod to my dad who knows?

Rich 59:05 But that's probably why he planned it that way. Yeah. But yeah, do go see Tom honestly, he is a superb comedian and and fully deserving of your time and money quite frankly.

Speaker 1 59:18 Indeed. So do that. Give them a follow give us follow and keep on listening because next week we've got a just me and rich episode talking very silly stuff. And the week after an episode we've just recorded Yes, very cool dead dad themed guests that you are not yet once.

Rich 59:39 We can't give it away. But I mean, there's similarities also great hair. Also.

Tom Gerken 59:45 Believable hair. Also a vegan so the vegans now outnumbering you dramatically here rich. Yeah. Also unbelievable moustache. And yes as

Rich 59:55 well. That's enough close enough close clues for staff

Tom Gerken 1:00:00 detach. That's all you need. And until then, thanks so much for listening and remember, but we need to remember rich,

Rich 1:00:08 the death that comes for us all. That comes to you first. The next week

Transcribed by https://otter.ai