Eternity Leave is a wry, semi autobiographical novel about being a stay at home dad, and the author, Simon Kettlewell, joined James and Ian to talk about his inspiration from over 20 years as primary carer to his four children. It's story that had extra chapters added in Lockdown as older children returned home and his 16 year old son struggled with remote learning.
We learn about his path from NHS clinician and manager via working in mental health services in Eastern Europe to a rural idyll in Devon, where he combined novel writing, growing vegetables and raising chickens (with varying degrees of success)
In his own words on LinkedIn:
"Wrote 1 best seller and dried up. Looked after 4 children for 20 years so wrote a novel about that. People seem excited."
We talk about the joys of going "somewhere else", exchanging Christmas presents in the carpark at Stonehenge and Ian finds joy in dabbling in Crypto.
Plus we explore the one-dimensional portrayal of fatherhood in "mummy-lit", the importance of conversations about equality and childcare before children arrive and more lessons from "How to disagree respectively" by Ian Leslie, James is current favourite book!
Tips include
Lessons in masculinity from Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Mediation in the sun
Dads, put the time in now, reap the benefits later
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