The Third Half

Mike McGrath went from street fundraising in London to leading Air Ambulances UK without a predictable corporate ladder in sight, and he still calls himself an ‘accidental CEO’. We talk about: * Two summers in South Africa that pointed him towards charity work * Leading the campaign for Childline’s 30th anniversary in 2016 * The question from his trip to Japan that guided his path * Why the UK's a...

Alan Gaw spent his first career in medicine and pathology now he's an award-winning novelist and poet behind the Jack Cuthbert mysteries, set in the world of 1930s forensic pathology. In this episode of The Third Half, host Scott Hamilton talks to Alan about his fifth Jack Cuthbert novel, The Last Gifts to the Dead, the years he spent self-publishing before winning the Bloody Scotland Debut Novel...

After years spent playing other people's music, first with Cirque du Soleil, then alongside artists like Sinéad O'Connor and Skunk Anansie, and now as part of The Wedding Present, Rachael Wood has released her debut solo album. It's called It's Not The End Of The World, and it puts her somewhere she admits still feels unfamiliar: front and centre. In this episode we talk about starting out at eigh...

What happens when you stop worrying about finished art and rediscover the freedom to play? Fyfe Dangerfield joins The Third Half for two and a half wonderfully formless hours spanning Guillemots, “punk schmaltz”, The Stream, unfinished music, perfectionism, Spotify, albums, success and becoming creatively “waterlogged”. Fyfe still believes in albums. There is simply room for both form and formless...

Britain is quietly losing its grassroots music venues. And with them, the places where every great artist you love first learned to play. Mark Davyd, founder and CEO of Music Venue Trust, has spent most of his life in and around live music. His relationship with school was complicated. Music gave him somewhere to belong and eventually a direction in life that could easily have gone the other way....

Alex Montgomery from Generation Soil shares how to build a meaningful venture. See why his approach stopped Scott Havelton from scrolling. In this episode of The Blueprint, Scott Havelton sits down with Alex Montgomery, the founder of Generation Soil in Bristol. They discuss the philosophy behind his work and the specific mindset required to create a business that genuinely captures attention in a...

There's something contradictory about discovering a punk band because Facebook's algorithm decided I should. But that's how I found The Indestructibles.

Scott likes cheese. Quite a lot. So getting an actual award winning cheesemaker on The Third Half was probably overdue. Julie Cheyney, founder of St Jude's Cheese, is one of those guests who starts talking about one thing and somehow ends up saying something profound about everything. In this conversation Julie opens up about: How St Jude's Cheese started and the realities of cheesemaking nobody t...

A homeless man in Glasgow got a 3000 pound grant, bought a second hand laptop, some bibs and balls, and knocked on doors. 17 years later Street Soccer Scotland has supported over 30,000 people. Heather Manson has spent the last few years as their Director of Fundraising, raising millions, building partnerships, and now taking the mission to America.

Ken Deeks had an idea. Twenty-eight years later, he's still sleeping on the floor. I should say upfront, there's no impartiality here. I sit on the Glasgow committee for Boycott Your Bed, and I want more people to get involved. So rather than making the case myself, I asked the man who started the whole thing to make it instead. Ken Deeks. He's funny, self effacing, one of the best storytellers I'...

On The Turntable: Ian McNab — Rock Never Dies This month's Musician of the Month is Ian McNab, best known as the voice behind The Icicle Works. Scott sits down with Ian to talk about his new solo album, 65, and the honesty that's gone into making it. Ian opens up about why he still has to "blow his own trumpet" to sell records without a label behind him, the vanishing art of sequencing a proper al...

Historian. Educationalist. Former Master of Wellington College. Biographer of Prime Ministers. Sir Anthony Seldon joins Scott Hamilton on The Third Half for a wide-ranging conversation on what's actually broken in Britain today, and what might fix it. From the state of the nation and the churn of recent governments, to why he believes Britain's education system was built for a century that no long...

She wanted to fly fighter jets. Her eyesight said no. So she went and joined the organisation that builds them instead. Scott Hamilton sits down with Tina Wilson, Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel for BAE Systems International Business, working across Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia Pacific for a conversation about being shaped by challenge, leading through ambiguity, and...

matt full episodeMatt Knight got called an eco-terrorist on social media. His crime: planting trees. Matt is co-founder of Freely Fruity, a Berkshire charity that started with three mates, a pub, and one of them saying "there needs to be more fruit trees" for the hundredth time. They nearly became the "Banksy of the tree world," sneaking out at night to plant trees — until they found out that's te...

He wrote Pinball in 1974 in a bedsit in London with no money, no work, and a broken relationship. 50 years later Paul Weller covered it. Morrissey was a fan. So was Noel Gallagher. But Brian Protheroe is not living in the past. In his 80s he has released 4 albums in 4 years. In this conversation Brian opens up about: Writing Pinball as a diary entry in a London bedsit with nothing to his name How...

Tanishq Jain family recycles decommissioned ships for a living. He grew up walking through engine rooms and captain's quarters. So when he spotted a massive flaw in how sustainability data was being measured at the London Stock Exchange, he quit after 6 months and built something to fix it. In this conversation, Tanishq Jain — founder of Dash, an AI Chief Sustainability Officer for businesses, ope...

She came to London for a master's degree. She needed a visa to stay. So she pitched a wild idea — turn food waste into kimchi — and accidentally started an award-winning business. In this conversation on the third half, Rebecca Ghim opens up about: Why she started a business just to get a visa — and never expected it to work Growing up in Korea, leaving at 15, and building an empire as an immigran...

He wore a high-vis jacket cycling to the office by day and wrote music by night. 25 years later, Bruce Soord is selling out tours worldwide without chasing a record deal. In this conversation, Bruce opens up about: - Writing his solo album Ghosts in the Park alone in hotel rooms on tour - How losing his father to dementia shaped every lyric on the record - The moment his mum — non-verbal for years...

Three jocks on a Friday afternoon. What could possibly go wrong? That was my genuine warning at the top of this one — and I meant it. Gillian Docherty is Chief Commercial Officer at the University of Strathclyde, Chair of CodeBase, and former CEO of The Data Lab. But what really drew me to this conversation is the story underneath all of that. Twenty-two years at IBM. A recruiter who refused to ha...

In this conversation, Michelle talks about how her eight-year-old son managed to ground her after what she called a crap day, and in doing so, articulated what financial services is actually for better than most boardrooms ever manage. She walks us through how she got into her career - economics degree, bars and clubs in London, a break that came through a personal recommendation rather than any r...

TTH Blueprint Episode 20: Bhavin Visavadia

TTH Blueprint: On The Turntable — Marseille

Peter Sandberg — Blueprint conversation Hundreds of millions of streams. Music featured on Stranger Things. And yet… a quietly grounded, thoughtful human being behind it all.

Chris Brocklesby is Chief Technology Officer at the British Heart Foundation. Before that, he’s spent his career running technology in organisations millions of people rely on — airlines, telecoms, retail, national infrastructure.

In this conversation, Trevor shares his own story of stepping away from corporate life, and what he’s learned from working with hundreds of senior leaders going through the same transition.