Longtime Ago People

The Valleys, the Island, and Everything Between

• M I L E S • Season 2 • Episode 7

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0:00 | 34:24

Sheila & Alan - Sarah 1973
 
parents/daughter 

A quiet house is not the same as a silent life. In this episode, I sit down with Sarah, who invites me into a world where her deaf father dances by feeling the vibrations through the floor, her car‑loving mum measures affection in late‑night lifts, and a Welsh childhood filled with open doors and louder music becomes the blueprint for building chosen family on the Isle of Wight. It's a warm, funny, and surprisingly fierce journey about identity, community, and the kind of courage that grows when you put your hands to work.  
  
As we talk, we travel from the valleys to the island, comparing cultures and expectations, and sitting with the hard truths of post‑mining Wales - what gets lost, what endures, and why mobility still matters. Cars become symbols of freedom, from minis to "Sheila's Wheels," and family reveals itself as a practice rather than a pedigree. Sarah shares how volunteering with Cats Protection helped restore her confidence, how a white lion's roar reset her nerves, and how the Wildheart Animal Sanctuary turned awe into action. Her fundraising stories come with real gusto: abseiling the Spinnaker Tower, shaving her head, and rallying a community to help rehome ex‑circus tigers.  
  
There's local colour everywhere - village legends, chip shops named after dart scores, cakes that "fall off the back of a van," and even a Gavin & Stacey quiz night raising money for cats. Pop culture threads through her memories too: Teletext subtitles, the magic of the first VCR, and a lifelong obsession with Jaws that's grown into a dream of cage‑diving with great whites.
  
If you love human stories with grit, humour, and heart - plus cats, conservation, and a cracking Welsh accent - press play. Subscribe too, thank you.

Gavin & Stacey: Essex and Wales collide when Gavin and Stacey fall in love, bringing their friends, family, and baggage with them. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0908454/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Joe Calzaghe: The "Pride of Wales" famously fought in Las Vegas on April 19, 2008, defeating Bernard Hopkins at the Thomas & Mack Center to win The Ring light-heavyweight championship.

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Memory is Fragile

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SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, listen to Miles. This is a long time ago, people. Now, today I'm joined by Sarah. Sarah, where am I talking to you from?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, Mars, I am on the sunny Isle of Wight.

SPEAKER_00:

You're on the sunny Isle of Wight. Now you haven't always lived on the Isle of Wight, have you?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I haven't lived on the Isle of Wight. I've been here now since 2002. So I'm coming into 24. This will be my 25th summer on the Isle of Wight. Previous to that, you might not hear it from my accent, but I am Welsh. Um and I was I was from the deepest, darkest valleys of South Wales. And I lived there until I was 21 and a half, and then I moved to Oxfordshire. So I lived there then from 1994 until well, until I moved to the Isle of Wight in 2002.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so what took you from Oxfordshire down to the Isle of Wight?

SPEAKER_01:

All to do with work and men.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, sorry. So what are we gonna talk about today?

SPEAKER_01:

Right, okay, so how many CDs do I need to have on this desert island? I'm on desert island discs without the music. So I'll probably say it's about, I mean, it's really interesting growing up in Wales, certainly in the valleys, because the Welsh are they are very friendly, very, how can I say, they have no filters, there's no boundaries either. So your front door, your back door, as we used to call it, that was always open, there was always people in your house. Um, and you treated your friends or your neighbours, they were just like family. And then when I moved to Oxfordshire, that certainly changed because I have to say, you English, you're a bit different. You really are um a bit more aloof, a bit more reserved. But then moving to the Isle of Wight, I have found now I'm here, even though I've got no family here as such, apart from my husband. The people that I know, I do treat them like my family because they are my friends and I have chosen them. And as you know, you can't necessarily choose your family. It's like going back to Wales, even though I'm not in Wales. When my parents do come over to the island, I try to sort of have them over four times a year, only because they're in my mum's early 80s, my dad is late 80s, and they love coming here. This might be a world um exclusive, but allegedly I was conceived on the Isle of Wight.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh right, it's all coming out.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I've come back to the Isle of Wife. So, you know, and all my friends come over and they always ask, how's my mum? and how's my dad? Sadly, at the moment, my mum now, unfortunately, has had to give up driving um due to health reasons. But she said to me, Well, look, do you want to take my car? And my mum's name is Sheila. So, for those of you that watched the car insurance advert about 15 years ago, I now have Sheila's Wheels on my driveway.

SPEAKER_00:

You do have Sheila's Wheels.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'm driving, not only am I still driving my mini that I absolutely love, I now have a red hip panda and we call it Sheila's Wheels. So I am now a two-car person. But my memories when I was probably about seven, I think, and my mum worked for what was then NCB, which is British Coal, and she worked in the head offices in our local sort of town. And unfortunately, because they were moving things, she then had to go to Cardiff to work. And years ago, I can remember it was£600, so that was a lot of money back in I'll probably say 1981-82, and she got that money to go and work in Cardiff. They said, But look, you can do your same job, but you're gonna have to do it in the head office, and um, so with this£600, I always remember she went and bought a little mini for me. Yes, I was an only child, but there wasn't many, certainly in 1981-82, having a two-car family. So all my friends, everybody knew that my mum, certainly in the village, she was the only person that had another car because my dad was always out working, he was a painter and decorator, and me and my mum, we went everywhere. And I I always used to watch her when she was learning to, you know, when she was driving. I was thinking, when I learn to drive, I'm gonna I remember the gears, and and I always felt, especially with the mini being so low, always felt like she was doing about a hundred miles an hour.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

When I then eventually learned to drive, I I said, I ain't having a mini, they're really embarrassing because she'd had about three by then, and she'd actually moved up, we'd upgraded, she had a Ford Fiesta. But I remember for me, my memory, I said to my mum, Well, when I learn to drive, I need to choose what driving school. I don't want to use who you suggest, I want a certain driving school. And the driving school I had to have had a red Peugeot 205, and that is and John who taught me, he was like, Oh, you know, how did you get my details? I was like, I saw your red 205. So I knew then that I always wanted to have some connection with cars, but I think that connection with cars actually came from my mum because my mum was always no, it went from my dad. My dad was interested, but I think it was more my mum, what was the driver. Um, she always went everywhere, yeah, and she loved driving to actually then get her, and sadly, to say, look, you know, you need to sort of give us your keys kind of thing. She was like, Oh, but my independence is going on because we went everywhere. She never, she never not took me anywhere. She always, if I went to school, discos, um, if I was going to netball matches, playing tennis down in Newport, which was, you know, a good 40 minutes from my house in the old days, especially with the roads without motorways. But she never, it was never a problem of oh, we can't get there. Always drove everywhere.

SPEAKER_00:

But it was obviously well before the M4 was uh completed.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, definitely, definitely. But yeah, that's my my memory, and certainly of my mum, is from making me the car person. Not that she's but she did like, she loves fast little cars.

SPEAKER_00:

Fast little cars, okay, cool. What about on your dad's side, which is sort of like first memory of your dad?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, my dad, I don't, I mean, because my dad was always working, so he's a painter and decorator for the local council, Momothshire Council, County Council, should I say. I think we still got some teaspoons with MCC written on them, which allegedly we shouldn't have. So he was always painting the local schools or the police stations. No, anything to do with the local council he was always painting. I remember he used to start at eight o'clock in the morning and finish at half four. And he had a lovely friend that worked with him, Graham. Graham used to pick him up, he had a Ford Capri, I remember that. Used to pick him up and drop him off, and then in the evenings, my dad would go out then and do some private work. And usually the private work would either be headmasters from the schools that he painted in. Or it would be probably say like inspectors of the police station, that kind of thing. And then certainly at Christmas time, because if my dad, because for some mad reason, people always want their houses painted before Christmas.

SPEAKER_00:

What's that all about?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know. So then what would happen was certainly just coming up to Christmas, my dad would be really, really busy, and then they'd all buy Christmas presents because it they'd say, Well, you know, have you got any children? Oh yeah, I've got a daughter. Well, and I'd have like random presents off people. So I was very, very lucky in that sort of sense of always having things off people I didn't really know, but because they knew my dad or they knew my mum, they'd give me presents. Yeah, so I'd probably say I didn't really see I only ever really used to see my dad, possibly on the weekends or when I was going on holidays. And that was to the Isle of Wight.

SPEAKER_00:

To the Isle of Wight. Hence you've you've ended up there. You but you must have jumped at it when they said to you when you were in Oxford. No!

SPEAKER_01:

Do you want to go to the Isle of Wight? No, I was like, I don't want to go back. And then when I found I can remember phoning my my mum on the way back from because my partner at the time had the interview, and I can remember coming back on the ferry, and and I think it was on Cecilia, and I was sitting there, I can remember the the sort of like the interior of the seat I was sitting on, and it was very similar to the old trains, the old British Rail trains, and it was like that sort of value-y, you know, very strange pee. And I could remember sitting there crying and saying, I don't want him to take this job, I do not want to go. I'm a mum says, Oh my god, loads of holidays on the Isle of Wight. I thought, oh no. If you move to the Isle of Wight, oh, for the first two years, you're everybody's friend. They all want to come and stay. Yeah, that is so true. Eventually, and then eventually it's tallies off. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and event eventually they don't want to come because they don't want to pay for the ferry or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

They're not tempted to move to the Isle of Wight now in their old age. They that they're comfortable where they are.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they're fine at the moment, and they've got lots of friends, lots of family. My mum's still involved with the church because I was brought up in the church as a Christian. So the church community, they are so good with my mum. Um, and my dad takes her up to church, and then one of our friends then brings her home. So and they celebrated their 60th anniversary last September. And the church they did a little surprise tea and service for my parents, which was lovely. And I got them a card from the king. So oh, they were over the moon.

SPEAKER_00:

So your dad, is he fully deaf?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, he's he's he's completely deaf. Yes, because of course you've met my dad, haven't you?

SPEAKER_00:

I have met your dad, yeah. I just you can so how old were you?

SPEAKER_01:

Has he always been deaf in your lifetime, or was he uh my my dad has always always been deaf. So my dad is now 87, and I think there was, I'm almost certain there was a epidemic or pandemic, whatever it was, in the late, yeah, it must have been mid-4 1940s, and a lot of children caught meningitis. I'm almost certain he had viral meningitis. Basically, he need he did nearly die. He was in a coma, and his mum and his nan, my great-grandmother, nursed him. I think he was, I think he was probably unconscious for about six, seven weeks, from what I've been told. And eventually he came round. Now I know a lot of people certainly that have meningitis, they've lost limbs. You know, there's been some really horrific stories. But whereas with my dad, he lost his hearing um and he lost his voice. The one thing he probably misses, because I have asked him before, he misses listening to birds.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

So his life is completely silent. We did go to because some some people, when they meet me, especially if I am with my dad, they'll um say, Oh, sorry, my dad's deaf, and they go, Oh my god, I can do sign language. And I'm like, Oh, right, okay. And I think my dad, he gets used to people talking to him. But if someone's really excited and just constantly they're so impressed that they've actually met a real deaf person and they know sign language, they'll start like over. I know they were constantly signing and they're talking to him. We were at a wedding and this person met my dad, and he said to me after about 10 minutes, Oh, can you let her go? She's a bit too much for me.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like she shouted but in sign language.

SPEAKER_01:

And I was like, okay. And I said, Oh, I said we'll come back later. I said he wants to go. She was like, No, no, that's fine. The one thing that's fascinating, and I don't know whether you did watch um strictly, two years ago when um Rose Right, yeah, so I can tell you, so I can tell you now, Rose. My dad is a very, very good ballroom dancer. So people from back that knew my dad growing up, they said, Oh, he was a very good dancer, because he would get to feel um the actual vibration on the floor. So he's always been very, very good at dancing, and he can do a mean genre volta Saturday Night Fever.

SPEAKER_00:

All good stuff, all good stuff. So as a child, at what age did you realise your dad was deaf?

SPEAKER_01:

Was it something that did was there a moment when you thought, oh, you know, I'm my house is different than other people's or Um, I'd probably say the one thing that I knew was well certainly my mum. My mum's my mum loves singing, my mum loves music. Like most being brought up in Wales, a lot of the culture, well, years ago was that the men went out to work down the pits or wherever, and then they would, because it was quite a very tough manual job, they would come home, they'd rather sleep on the sofa after they'd had a shower, wherever, had dinner, go down the pub or the club, and then come back. But children were to be seen and not heard. Kids weren't really the children that I sort of knew the dad would be sleeping on the sofa and oh, you can't have music on or you can't have the telly on. Whereas in our house, because my mum could speak, we had music playering all the time, and my dad was oblivious. Um, so from that point of view, uh yes, I probably did feel I feel my friends used to say, I like coming up your house because you can make as much noise as you want, because nobody could hear it. Um, but I do remember, I think the special thing for me, and I it's not a bragging thing, but I did then realise because like people used to pretend to talk to my dad, they'd sort of like do this, and I'll say, Well, he can't understand that. Probably if you've got a disability you and you've grown up with it, to me, my dad is my dad. He's not oh my dad, my dad's the deaf person, because he's not, he's my dad. I've always known him. I probably say I was probably about four, because I've I don't ever remember not talking to him if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00:

So I've always did you have your own did he have his own gestures for you personally?

SPEAKER_01:

Probably yes. And he can say my name. Oh wow. So he can say my name, and and he used to be able to call my cat as well. So the way that my mum, how he would do it, was he would get us, he'd put his hand under my chin, and then I'd say my name, and then he'd put it under his chin, he would do it, and then he would know the vibration, and then that's how he got around it. So he can say my name, and he he used to be able to say the cat's name as well. So yeah, it was quite good. And when I got married, he did when they said who gives the bride away. I then had to quickly nudge him, and then he went like that. So yeah, it was quite sweet.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, uh amazing. I I I'm fascinated by the vibration thing, it's just uh incredible, isn't it? Um especially feeding it, obviously dance if you're feeding it through your whole body, not just under your chin, sort of thing. So talking more about Wales, is it is there anything you miss about Wales?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I certainly don't miss the rain. I was home there last weekend, last week, and my mum is just always shocked, it's raining again. And I'm like, Mum, you live in Wales, it's green, what do you expect? Um very I am there is no place like home. Wales will always be known as home. I I mean I got married in Wales, I wanted to go home. I do love Wales, I love the people in Wales. I get frustrated with their mentality, I have to say. Um, because sadly the pits, the collieries, I mean, they've all closed. It's been now nearly 40 years. Yeah, a long time now. And I'm not gonna get political, but you have, you've got a history now of families. I mean, much to the disgust of my certainly my mum. I mean, when I had my GCSE results, I ran away from home for the day because I had no, I had nothing above a D. And my mum was like, you know, I've taken you here, I've taken you there, I've taken you, and I don't know, this is the way you repay me. And I get it now because she knew that I could have done better and I could have, but I never, I always knew and I was always it was always instilled in me, if I wanted nice things, I had to work for it. It was as simple as that. And I think unfortunately in Wales at the moment, certainly down the in the valleys, there are there's a certainly in a certain area that they don't have a work ethic. So they're very much, oh well, we got nothing to do now. I mean, I had to travel on the train exactly the same as my mum, and I'd start out at quarter to eight in the morning and I came in at six o'clock. Simple. But I work, I f I feel at the moment Wales to a degree is slightly broken because nobody, they're still waiting for something to replace where their infrastructure from a working point of view. Now the mines have gone. Well, they've been gone 40 years, so you've got two generations of family that are still complaining there's no work there, but they were never there in the first place. And you do have to, and sadly as it is, you need to get off your bat and go to find work. I mean, you know yourself. Um, I know where you you travel to Newcastle, you're there, everywhere. You have to, you can't just expect work to be on your doorstep. You have to move around. And and certainly these days, people, a lot of people now these days are working from home. Um, and that's fine, but yeah, we'll we'll leave it there for now.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we'll leave it there for now. But again, I think even working from home, that should open up opportunities, you know, um, which weren't there before.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, you know, I I know people that yeah, working home will can can change things dramatically for you if you get it and cut travelling down. So yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah. So um talk to me a little bit about what you do now with with your your link to, as I remember it, Sandell Zoos.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, okay. So I um so I took a break in, let's just say, I took a break from work. I had a bit of a euphoric moment and thought, so I basically I'm not putting up with this boom any longer. I'm out. So I took some time to reevaluate my life. I it sounds weird, but I really do think I had a calling. I felt a bit like I did when I was in Wales. I felt I was part of a team, I felt I was part of a group, and the local branch of the Cats Protection were just there. They nurtured me and they got me back to feeling my 100% that I was. And then I was very fortunate at the same time as joining the Cats Protection. One of my old customers, a bit like you, Charlotte, she actually was the owner of the Isle of White Zoo. And she said to me, Look, why don't you come along? Animals are great healers. And I said, Well, I'm with the cats at the moment. I don't think I can do two things. She said, Look, just come along, come and have a cup of tea, it'd be lovely to see you. Um, and you can just come over and see some of the animals. And I thought, oh, not really happy with zoos, because there are some bad zoos, but there's also some good zoos, so I thought, oh, well, I will go along. And I remember the first day I got in there, I think it was in uh February or March, and I'd actually taken my dad, and my dad was over. We went down to see Casper, the white lion, who sadly is no longer with us. And I'd never seen a lion so close up. I know I'd been on safari, but I'd never seen a lion so close up. And he started roaring. And of course, I didn't understand the whole thing of uh why animals were certainly lions roar, but I remember running off. And my dad, I'd forgotten about him, he's just standing there looking at this lion. And I He doesn't know he's roaring. I mean, he was luckily he was also keeping in, but I was thinking, oh my god! And I came back and I remember saying to Charlotte, look, you know, oh, that terrified me. But I I felt that there was some kind of connection. And she said, Well, look, why don't you start doing a bit of gardening? So I did the gardening, and then of course you start knowing the animals and especially cats. I do have a thing for cats, and it all just sort of progressed from there, really. And then I started doing some fundraising, and because the first lot of fundraising we had, which you've always been very supportive of my fundraising, so thank you, was bringing in five ex circus tigers from Spain. They'd come from a travelling circus, and yeah, that was mad. And I did an ab sale down the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, and luckily got a group of what was it, 12 fine ladies going down the Spinnaker Tower. Um, and I have to say, I've done it, I've ticked it, I never want to do it again.

SPEAKER_00:

Never want to do that again.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'm still with the Wild Heart Animal Sanctuary, bit of a plug, and I'm still with Alo White Cat Centre, which is now the Cat's Protection. So, yes. I am actually in the process at the moment for the Cat's Protection. I am doing, well, it's your local pub, your old local pub, the Binsted Arms. I'm actually doing a Gavin and Stacy quiz party theme night.

SPEAKER_00:

And you're running that yourself with your accent. Very good.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, oh, hang on, hang on, hang on. Oh, oh, oh, what's occurring? Oh, yes, I'm trying to come.

SPEAKER_00:

I've got a friend who lives on Barry now. He's uh Really? Yeah, he's moved there. He literally lives, he can see Gavin and Stacy's house.

SPEAKER_01:

I do have a bit of a claim to fame because um somebody that I know, it's actually his parents' house that was used as Mick and Pan's. So I have actually got so James, if you're listening in Australia, he has kindly lent me, because to advertise this quiz, the Cat Centre said, Well, look, we can't use any of the photographs. To advertise Gavin and Stacy because they're all owned copyright by the BBC. Yeah, yeah. I went, I think I can come up with someone. So luckily, James has given me all the photographs of the first series when they were all filming in his house. So I've got something for promotion and using in the adverts. And then with the uh the Wild Heart Animal Sanctuary, now there's no more fundraising going on because I'm not jumping out of an aeroplane and I'm not doing a bouncey jump. So there was no way, I mean, I've been naked.

SPEAKER_00:

My hair I was gonna ask you that one. You shaved your head.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, shaved my head. Um I'm done. So I'm now looking after all the group bookings and coaches. So if you know of a group of 15 or more people, contact me and I will look after you.

SPEAKER_00:

Have you got anything else you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_01:

But if I think back, the one thing I always remember, and I did used to think, oh, I'm so lucky, was my nan lived in a local uh a village about sort of two villages up the valley, and um, which is probably about, I don't know, five miles from Merthitville, which is quite famous for its iron age and all that kind of thing. It was quite big within the Industrial Revolution in Wales. And her friend, Auntie Mayer, across the road, because we all had aunties, even though we weren't related. Auntie Mayer. Right, she she used to come over every night because my nan used to buy the Daily Mirror, and Auntie Myred used to have the sun, and then they'd swap papers that evening. So Auntie Mayr would come over about seven o'clock after she'd had her dinner, and she she was um a widow, but she worked in the local chocolate factory in Mercer Tidfield, which was called OPs. I don't know what it stood for, but O. P's made all the chocolates for Marks and Spencer's. Right? So for Easter, me and my cousin, who was an only child as well, my mum's sister's daughter, we would have literally a sack of chocolate because Auntie Marge would get some chocolate. Auntie Anne, um, my my nan's friend next door but one in the street, she would have it. All the neighbours would buy us all chocolate. Um, but we never we we were just basically given it and we would just eat it. Christmas oh, sorry, Easter Day, we'd just be eating chocolate all day. I'd go to church, come home, I wouldn't eat anything, I wouldn't have an Easter dinner, I'd be eating all my chocolate. So for me, when I think of Easter, I always think of the Macintosh. My one auntie always purchased, she always bought me the Macintosh caramel eggs. I think they used to be Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the little ones, but then the rest of it, all the chocolate came from OP's, AE, Marks and Spencer's. So that was my memory of my childhood definitely eating lots of chocolate. And that's probably come back from my mum.

SPEAKER_00:

Still worried about your mum driving, not driving, so she's okay up there. That they got all the shops around them and everything.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well, you see that the the great thing is now, so in our village where I'm from, Markham, we used to have um, well, he I think he lived there. His dad certainly lived there, and his grandparents lived there, but we had the world famous boxer. Now, can you remember who it is? I can't know. The Welsh famous boxer.

SPEAKER_00:

Put me on spot now, Sarah. Put me on spot.

SPEAKER_01:

And um, well, he he certainly I think he played in Vegas. I'm almost certain he had a match in Vegas.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. What decade are we talking about?

SPEAKER_01:

No, this is like 2000, and I'll give you a clue. He was on strictly and he was crap. Well, anyway, I'll leave you with that one. See if you can guess who it is. So he was famous, but he was from my village, and my dad and his dad were very good friends, Enzo, because they used to be down the bookies all the time. So see if we can work out where that is. But the other famous person we have now in the village was the world famous darts player, as my husband calls him, Guerin Price. And it's like, no, it's Gedwin. Anyway, Gedowin.

SPEAKER_00:

We we do struggle with most names, that's English.

SPEAKER_01:

You do, don't you? So Gedowin, who just happens to be one of my old school friend's cousins, he had um the local cafe. So we did a little cafe in the village and he called it cafe 501. But subsequently, that has now closed because my mum wouldn't let me go down the cafe. She said, Okay, you're not gone down the cafe. People think I can't put so me and my husband never got the opportunity to try the food in Cafe 501. But since then, Gedwin has gone and opened a chip shop now called Chippy 501. We're allowed to go there. Genius. If you spend so much, you get a raffle ticket and you get put into a drawer to win one of his dart shirts.

SPEAKER_00:

It's all it's all it's all happening.

SPEAKER_01:

So, yes, so um we have two famous people from our village. Yeah. It's it's it's all good, it's all good.

SPEAKER_00:

It's all good. It's all good.

SPEAKER_01:

So, yeah, in answer in answer to my parents are fine, my dad still goes to Aldi's for food, they go down the chip shop. I think I've uh rumour has it they've been down there twice a week.

SPEAKER_00:

Twice a week already, even though she didn't want you to go there when it was a cafe.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's because it's a chip shop, it's different. Um but I try to I try to go home sort of every three weeks, so I stock up with their food, and I've got an amazing cousin who is brilliant, and she's checking in on my appearance every day, who just happens to now be going out with Kedwin Price's dad.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we are.

SPEAKER_01:

So it was all going on in Wales.

SPEAKER_00:

This is like an episode of Gavin and Stacey right here.

SPEAKER_01:

It literally, well, it's it's funny you should say that because when I went home last weekend, one of the neighbours I said to them, My mum's just bought you some Jaffa cake, she's been shopping. And he went, All right, okay. He said, Uh, do you like cake? And I was like, I'm a woman, yes. And he went, Come and have a look at this. And he opened, and I'm not, I'm not gonna mention the place, but he opened the side of his van and he had two big sacks. He went, take your pick. And he had all his birthday celebration cakes. And I said, Well, what have you got in there? He said, I got chocolate, I got sponge, what do you want? And I went, Oh, oh, come on, then I'll have that sponge cake. And I took it out and it was vegan. I thought, oh well, I'll have that. And he said to me, Oh, he said, That's Wallace and Gromit that is. I was like, Oh, tidy, thanks. Anyway, took it and today is my fr well, tomorrow is my friend's uh birthday, and she volunteers at the Wild Hot Animal Sanctuary, and I took this cake to her today, and I said, Look, I'm gonna be perfectly honest, I have not bought this cake, it has fallen off the back of a lorry.

SPEAKER_00:

Or fallen out the side of a lorry fan. So yes, when you do your Gavin and Stacey Noah, are you gonna be dressed as Ness and are you gonna be in character?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm a I'm a bit too thin for Ness and I don't have a tattoo.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, you could you could you could pad yourself out and put a wig on and because you've definitely got the voice.

SPEAKER_01:

I will probably well, what I've said to them is that if you come in, if you dress in character, you will certainly be earning bonus points for your team. So it is four pounds per person, um, up to a team of six, and it is March the 3rd at the Binstead Arms at seven o'clock. And all proceeds to the Isle of White Cat Centre. So it should be a good night. And hopefully, I don't know whether they're listening. If anybody's listening from the Isle of White distillery, I would like another bottle, please, of your mermaid gin for our lovely Cockney Raffle.

SPEAKER_00:

It's very famous that gin now. It's uh I see it all over the place. It is in Newcastle.

SPEAKER_01:

It is the best. But have you tried? They've got the new winter gin. That is not tried that one. Yeah, very nice, very warm in. But I think that's gonna be limited, but we'll have to wait and see.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so you're gonna you are you putting the questions together for your quiz? But have you got it all sorted?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I'm gonna have to now binge every episode.

SPEAKER_00:

But you are instantly.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that that would be.

SPEAKER_01:

That's gonna be hard, isn't it? That's gonna be hard.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, I think we'll be it's one of those sort of shows that you put away and then you have to get out every few years and watch a game because it's so good.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Well, normally if we're going to Wales, if my husband's coming home to Wales with me, and because of like the technology these days, you've got Bluetooth in the car, he'll say to me, Oh, can you put on the Christmas episode of Gavin and Stacey? And I go, Okay, then. And I'll quickly go on iPlayer, and then I just sound it over to the car, and we're sitting in the car, and then it's coming through the the music, is it's coming through the radio.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, the sound's good, but you know it so well.

SPEAKER_01:

So you you can you And and like when when they go, Stacy Shipman, Stacy Shipman, Gav, did you get the job? And that is my local Mark Suspensers at Culverhouse Cross, and I'm like, yeah, and I can remember me and my mum, we went Christmas shopping one year and we'd gone up to the till to pay for something, and Mariah Carey was in the background sing you know, obviously, you know, in the music, and it was like an episode of Gavin and State. I love it, I love it.

SPEAKER_00:

I absolutely love it.

SPEAKER_01:

When I was seven, so we were I was very lucky. My dad was the first one in the village to have a Teletext TV for subtitles. So we had the whole village come round, people literally just coming in and looking at it because we had a proper remote control, didn't he have subtitles? And then um uh I don't know, a couple of um months later he went and bought a video. We didn't even know what a video was, and I can remember, it was a bit like the episode of Only Fools and Horses. Well, how does he know when you're on holidays? She sends it a postcard, that kind of thing. And my dad said, no, it's 14 days and he can record and we'll never lose anything. A few weeks later, I think Jaws was on ITV and I recorded it. I think we were going out or something, and because I'd never seen it in the cinema, I was too young then. As soon as I watched that film, it was like, oh my god, this is the best film. And I was obsessively just watching it, watching it, watching it. And in the end, I was coming from school, I put the video in straight away, and I'll be watching yours. And my dad said, like, that's it. And he actually put the video recorder up in our attic because he said, You're not having it anymore. And even now he says to me, You still love that film, and I go, Yeah, I just everything about it. And I did say to my husband, Please take me there. So for my 60th, we're either gonna he doesn't know it yet, but I have said, I either want to do South Africa and I want to go down in the cage, or I just have this fascination with great white sharks. I it's just uh unbelievable. And I uh at the moment out in Hollywood, um, the actual Academy Museum at Hollywood, they've actually got the Jaws exhibition at the moment. And you know, you get to see Bruce the Shark. I have a we have a list of places that I want to go to. Um, Gavin's top list at the moment is of course Japan.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, it's lovely Japan. I'd love it. I could live there if it wasn't so bloody far away. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01:

Didn't didn't Josh live? He he went up to Japan.

SPEAKER_00:

No, we've yeah, we've only Japanese. Yeah, no, you speak of Japanese. We've only just come back. We went we went there in um in November. Um, and it it's so cheap out there, Sarah at the moment, because the the the yen's at an all-time low, so it's so, so cheap out there at the moment, and the people are so nice, the cult the culture's so nice, it's so safe, it's so tidy. Everything about it is is absolutely amazing. The transport is incredible, they just got everything right. They work from whaling. Yeah, apart from wailing, yeah. Apart from wailing, they got everything right apart from wailing. All right, girl. Do you have thanks for this? Bye. Bye, bye, bye, bye.

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Miles

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