Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy

My guest this week is Justin Pugh with whom I went to school in the 1980s. Justin recalls those days of playing cricket at lunchtimes and the two of us reflect on our years at the Bishop of Llandaff Church-in-Wales High School in Cardiff. Justin talks about how Cardiff has changed since the 1970s when it had a much lower profile, and how since the 1990s Cardiff suddenly became cool, and Justin ref...

My guest this week is Emma Astra, based in Leicester, who is writing a Diary of a Disabled PhD student. We talk about pilgrimage journeys and the notion of doing a PhD as a pilgrimage journey. Emma talks about her chronic illness and how it impacts on her ability to travel to places. We learn about her three wheelchairs and all the different makes and models she has had to navigate, and Emma talks...

My guest this week is David Mannion, weightlifter and astronomer, who often gives cruise ship lectures on astronomy. He was a teacher for over 30 years, and Head of Physics at a grammar school in Kent. We find out how David got into astronomy, and he reflects on whether we will ever go to Mars and we learn about his specific driver for space interest, as well as about how we calculate the age of t...

My guest this week is Dr Nikolaos Karydis, Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Kent. Nikos and I have a twin passion for cinema and radio, and we begin our conversation by talking about the way architecture is represented in movies and why films tend to present alternative architect lives to what happens in the real world. Nikos grew up in Athens before moving to the UK, and we he...

My guest this week is Wendy Dossett, whom I have known for around 30 years from when we were both based at the University of Wales, Lampeter. Wendy is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Chester, specializing in Buddhism, and has more recently been studying Addiction Recovery Spirituality. Wendy grew up in Hastings and we talk about what it is like to return to the place...

My guest this week is Joanne Pettitt, Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Kent. Jo and I begin by talking about the art of teaching and the feeling of history that one gets from reading a physical book and the nostalgia of children’s books. Jo comes from what she describes as a typical British working class background in Nottingham against the backdrop of the miners’ strikes. S...

My guest this week – and for the second time – is Nichola Zacher, a children’s story writer from Ontario, Canada (see http://marleysdream.com/ ). Nichola talks about her English roots and how her father worked on the railroad and her mother was a secretary for the Teachers’ Federation. When she was born, Nichola had an operation and she was written off and told she wouldn’t be able to go to school...

My guest this week is Linda M. James, an author, poet, screenwriter and creative writing tutor, originally from Swansea. Linda (who explains the significance of the initial M) tells us why she is nomadic and about to make her 48th move. Linda has been running writing classes for 20 years, and we find out about her MAs and her historical novels set in the Second World War, especially involving Spit...

My guest this week is Chris Hamilton, with whom I went to school in Cardiff over 30 years ago. Chris is a full time professional (and award-winning) musician and composer who started his career as a lawyer, having gone to Oxford to study Law and worked in the City for a big corporate firm in London and New York. We talk about having gone ‘full circle’ as Chris learned the piano when very young. We...

My guest this week is James Kloda who works at the University of Kent in technical support, where he has worked since 2011. James has a background in live events (technical management) and, as we discover, cinema has always been a part of his life. James talks about how he went to the University of East Anglia to study Drama and English, where he managed to direct his own play. James reflects on t...

In the second part of my interview with Irene Williams, Irene talks about how the family moved to Cardiff, and how to begin with they had neither a house nor any money. Her father helped them with a deposit and Irene decided to go out to work, managing to secure the first job for which she applied. We also find out about what was the hardest nine years of Irene’s life. We learn whether their son M...

My very special guest this week is Mrs. Irene Williams, a centenarian. Irene is an inspiring lady with a wealth of history and experience in terms of the development of Religious Studies at Lampeter and a considerable amount of international humanitarian work over many decades. We will hear more about these dynamics in the second part of this interview, to be broadcast in the next episode. In this...

My guest this week is Anne Watkins, who came to Lampeter in 1985, after originally expecting to work for the Civil Service, where she studied Philosophy and Ethics in Western Thought. Anne recalls hearing the sheep bleating on the hills and knowing that Lampeter was the place for her. We talk about long friendships especially with the overseas students and about how Philosophy helped her to think...

My guest this week is Jonty Stern, who works at the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. Jonty ran the Doctor Who Society at Lampeter and we learn about his encyclopaedic knowledge of the series and the impact it has had on him over the years. Jonty did Welsh Studies at Lampeter and focused on Celtic languages. He was the only student in the UK doing Middle Breton at the time, and we find out how he...

My guest this week is Craig Braddick, a British born race caller from Arizona who I have interviewed previously in this podcast series. Craig is a specialist on the history of TV sport and here we focus on various sporting events in the monochrome era from 1948-1966. We begin by discussing the way in which sport has always been on demand and has united people in a community. Craig talks about pre-...

My guest this week is Ben Marsh, Reader in History at the University of Kent, and very well known for the Marsh Family musical videos which inspired so many people during and since lockdown. Ben talks about how people have been craving something authentic and we learn what it was like to perform live on Comic Relief, meeting (nearly) Richard Curtis and being watched by people one has constructed o...

My guest this week is Rianna Patterson, an accredited coach, social entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, mental health advocate and founder of the Dominica Dementia Foundation. She has also done film work for an NHS client on the importance of music for people with dementia, and in the interview Rianna talks about the importance of celebrating older people. We find out why Rianna became involved in this re...

It was a great pleasure to meet José Moreno Carbonell for my latest Nostalgia Interview. Our paths may have once crossed in Lampeter where we were both students in the 1990s. José lives in France but comes from Spain and works as a high school Spanish teacher. José has just had a novel published called A la sombra de la glicinia - https://www.amazon.es/sombra-glicinia-Antonio-Moreno-Carbonell/dp/B...

Marion Stuart turns the tables on me for this week’s Nostalgia Interview. I talk about my earliest memories which involve having my hair washed as a baby and listening to Pinky and Perky at nursery (obsessively) and how my children don’t have the same musical tastes as me. I talk about what I was interested in outside of music, and my obsession with TV or radio schedules. This helped me at univers...

My guest this week is legendary broadcaster David Hamilton. David’s career goes back to 1959 when he joined the British Forces Network radio station in Germany and was there at the same time as Elvis Presley. He was the last person to present Housewives’ Choice and did one of the first TV interviews with The Beatles. David talks about his stint on Radio 1 and how the station evolved from the pirat...

It was terrific for this week’s Nostalgia Interview to meet Lyle Young. Lyle is a research and innovation coordinator for the University of Kent and was formerly a student at Kent where he studied English for his degree. Originally from Hertfordshire, Lyle talks about Canterbury being his adopted home and we learn about his love of literature and of being a novelist. We learn how he came to work i...

It was a huge privilege for this week’s Nostalgia Interview to meet Nigel Nelson, the longest serving political editor in Fleet Street. Nigel works for the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People . We recorded our interview on the afternoon that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer received fines from the Metropolitan Police for attending a party in Downing Street during lockdown. Nigel...

My guest this week is Heide Kunzelmann, German Culture & Language Coach for International Knowledge Workers - largely qualified migrants and expats - based in Vienna. Heide left the University of Kent in 2020 and she discusses transferable skills and how to use them to make a living. Heide talks about her Austrian background and how she left home to study at the age of 18. She talks about memo...

My guest this week is Dan Clark, e-Learning Manager at the University of Kent who begins the interview by talking about the power that technology has in learning and teaching. We talk about our experiences during lockdown of rapid change and how technology can make things happen. Dan discusses how and when he is able to stay away from technology because it is a massive part of his day job. We talk...

My guest this week is Iain Dale, radio presenter, commentator, blogger, publisher, author and former Parliamentary candidate. Iain talks about why he turns down many TV invitations these days, why he hates the ‘gotcha’ style of interviewing and why the long form interview is back in vogue. He also reveals how he has gotten people to open up to him in a way that they haven’t to other interviewers....