Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy

My guest this week is Jacqui Double who works in Student Support in the School of Arts at the University of Kent. Originally from North Wales, Jacqui grew up in the Potteries. Her father was a fireman, we learn that she was an inquisitive child, and her parents were Mormons. She especially remembers buildings from her childhood as well as walking to school from the age of about 5. We learn about J...

My guest this week is Andy Crome, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at Manchester Metropolitan University. We learn that Andy grew up in St. Andrews and studied Theology and Ancient History at Lampeter. We talk about dialects, accents and early memories, including about the history of Lampeter and the people who embodied the place and gave it a sense of continuity. We find out about Andy’s w...

My guest this week is Martin Bloomfield (aka ‘Dodgy Shoes’) who is studying towards a PhD in Philosophy at the University of York and who, like me, studied at Lampeter during the 1990s. Martin explains why Lampeter was a ‘collection of caricatures’, and we also find out about the range of schools he attended when he was young. Martin remembers the birth of his younger brother, and Martin reflects...

My guest this week is Dawn Llewellyn, Senior Lecturer in Christian Studies at the University of Chester, who I first met nearly a decade ago when Dawn had just completed her PhD. We learn that Dawn’s father is a professional golfer and her mother is a retired nurse, and we discuss the vocational dimension to our respective jobs in academia. Dawn talks about the importance in her life of Open Water...

My guest this week is Victoria Mullen, a University of Kent alumnus, who works as a school lay chaplain in Nottingham and whom I taught a decade ago. In this really insightful interview Victoria talks about how she went from managing a restaurant in Canterbury to studying Religious Studies and tells us how she ended up at Kent and what it was like to be interviewed by Robin Gill. Victoria was born...

My guest this week is Sarah Blackman, a University of Kent alumnus, whom I taught a few years ago on the BA Religious Studies programme. Sarah told her mother at the age of five that she wanted to be a primary school teacher, and three decades later she has fulfilled her ambition. She tells us what initially stopped her along the way from realizing her dreams. Sarah is from Ashford and she shares...

It was a privilege this week to interview Jeremy Carrette, Dean for Europe and Professor of Philosophy, Religion and Culture at the University of Kent. We learn how Jeremy came to Canterbury because of love and why he had to demote himself in order to work here, as well as about his links to the Huguenots and the improvement in rail services over the years, and we find out what happened when Jerem...

It was a huge pleasure this week to interview Janet Neilson, former school teacher in Swansea, who talks about her educational background and the differences in career advice given in those days compared to today as well as about her parents’ military experiences during the Second World War and about the days when married women were not allowed to teach. Janet was a junior school teacher who speci...

It was an immense privilege this week to interview Judith Francis. Judith was born in Radnorshire in 1935 and we talk about various Church or Sunday School trips she remembers making as a child and about the different modes of communication that existed compared to today. Judith has snapshots of the past and relays some of her childhood memories, including her time as an evacuee during the Second...

My guest this week is Dani Shalet, one of my former PhD students at the University of Kent. Dani is originally from Pennsylvania and we find out why she doesn’t consider herself to be culturally American any more. She once wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a lawyer and we find out why her father advised her not to follow that path. We also learn about Dani’s background in marti...

My guest this week is Fran Beaton, Senior Lecturer in Higher Education, who, like me, has been at the University of Kent since 2004. Fran also studied for her first degree at Kent in the 1970s in Modern Languages, and we talk about the differences between Kent now and then. We learn that Fran was brought up in East Anglia and that there was a strong Welsh dimension to her childhood, also. We talk...

My guest this week is Peter Stanfield, Professor of Film Studies, at the University of Kent. Peter talks about why coming to work at Kent amounted to a form of renewal after his previous job and we find out about singing cowboys and the relationship between teaching and research. Peter works in American popular cinema from the 1930s through to the 1970s, and we learn why it was that the 50s resona...

My guest this week is Gerard Loughlin, Professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Durham who, like me, has published in the field of theology and film. We also have a shared background in Lampeter where Gerard studied English Literature and Theology in the late 1970s, and we learn who it was that awakened his interest in philosophical theology and literature. We find...

My guest this week is Donna Timmiss, a Durham schoolteacher who has followed her dream of going into teaching, and who specialises in looking after disabled children and those within social services. Donna was the first in her family to go to university and in this very candid interview Donna talks about how her parents, who had experience of the care system, valued the importance of education and...

My guest this week is Professor Douglas Davies, Professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. We learn about his Welsh background and how he has been in Durham for a total of 26 years, including the time he was there as a student. This interview takes a different form to most of the others in this podcast series in that it has less of an autobiographical dimension and...

My guest this week is Vivian Asimos who recently achieved her PhD on theology and virtual storytelling at Durham, with ‘Slender Man’ as her main case study, and we begin by talking about blurring the line in horror between fiction and reality. Born in Florida, Vivian reveals how she has to give different answers to the question of where she is from as she has been living in Durham for several year...

My guest this week is Katy Hanrahan, who is originally from Teesside, works in special needs education and went to the University of Wales, Lampeter, in the late 1990s to study Religious Studies. We talk about Teesside, growing up against the backdrop of an industrial region whose heritage has now gone, being the first in her family to go to university, and Katy’s keenness from a young age to lear...

My guest this week is James Newton who is a filmmaker and lectures in Film Studies at the University of Kent. We talk about making the transition from being a student to becoming a member of staff and around the pitfalls of meeting students in pubs and the changing culture around drinking beers and coffees, and James explains why pubs are today a gentrified space and an indulgence. Originally from...

My guest this week is Michael Hession, an American lawyer and documentary maker who has recently completed a film about Revd. Brian Hession (no relation) – a cancer patient who fought in the 1940s and 50s against the stigma of illness and who had also been a filmmaker (and whose work I cover in my own Religion and Film teaching and research). Michael tells us how his study of Brian Hession reignit...

My guest this week is Todd Mei, Senior Lecturer and Head of Philosophy at the University of Kent. Born in California, in an environment that was a hotbed of Republicanism, Todd tells us about how his main passion when growing up was rock climbing and why Heidegger’s ‘Being and Time’ comprised the rebirth of his interest in Philosophy. We learn that Todd has made a film and worked for an insurance...

My guest this week is Helen Brooks from the School of Arts at the University of Kent. Helen is Reader in Drama and a specialist on theatre in the First World War and she tells us how it was the case that her students precipitated this research area and we learn why she prefers to watch rather than read plays. Helen grew up in Kingston, Surrey, and we discover that one of her earliest memories is c...

My guest this week is Srivas Chennu who is based on the Medway campus of the University of Kent where he works in the School of Computing. Srivas does cross-disciplinary work on consciousness, and in this really insightful interview he talks about how we are today able to ask questions that the ancient Greeks could not. We discuss how his research intersects with my own work in near-death experien...

It was a great pleasure to interview Lawrence Jackson for this week’s Nostalgia Interview. Lawrence is Head of Film Practice in the School of Arts at the University of Kent, and in this wide-ranging interview Lawrence discusses how he came into his profession from the film, radio and TV industry. He has taught screenwriting and Lawrence tells us why he especially relates to the protagonist in the...

My guest this week is Clive Marsh, Head of the Vaughan Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of Leicester. Clive, who was born into a Liverpudlian working class family, shares his earliest memories, which include playing with bricks on a floor and eating a rotten apple. We talk about how different it was to grow up in a pre-student loan world where we received grants to go to university,...

My guest this week is Francis Stewart, Implicit Religion Research Fellow at Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln. Francis was born just outside Belfast and we learn how she had to leave Northern Ireland in order to study World Religions. She moved to Scarborough where Theology and Religious Studies were taught at different campuses, and we discover the reason why she and her fellow students di...