How persuasion over pressure saw her greatest success

Sports leader, author, journalist, teacher and academic. Before she passed, Marie Weir graciously shared her 90 years of life experience with me and boy, had she filled her life with success.

Marie’s "tough but fair" leadership style led to a historic victory for Scottish hockey. Replicating the tactics she saw in football Marie led Scotland Women to beat England in 1972 for the first time in 39 years!

This is a thoughtful reflection on leadership styles, empowering the individual to build a better team and the enduring power of true self confidence.

Marie’s reflection on the core of leadership remained rooted in respect, listening, and love.

This is a beautiful episode that reminds us of the real values that good leadership requires.

Music: 'Spirit of Fire' - fiftysounds.com

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Don't forget to follow us on Become Unmuted on Instagram and Facebook for even more from Unmuted.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And the war was 1939. And so um uh we waited to see what was happening because my father then had a job in Ready, and we had to spend every night in a near aid shelter.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Hello, I'm Gary Robinson. Now, this latest episode of Unmuted was recorded way back in 2016 before Unmuted was even thought about, to be fair. Uh, but I had the pleasure at the time to meet a Lady called Mary Weir, sadly no longer with us, but hey, what a life. And I cannot underestimate enough that if you're interested in learning about EQ, emotional intelligence in leadership, acknowledging learning from those who've gone before us andor simply enjoy a really good life story, don't go anywhere for the next 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

My mother went to see her eldest uh brother and sold her shares in the business.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

In this conversation, I was privileged that Mary shared stories about her early life.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

One thing we did have was our gas masks. We had to carry them about with you, so that was a reminder constantly that we were at war. Thoughts on leadership. When you go when you first meet the team, is to um respect that they have something to say as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Those darker times in life.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

That was a major dark spot, which was interestingly looking back on it, coped with silence. We didn't talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

And her proud achievements.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Another one was my PhD, I suppose. Uh that was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

When did you when did you study and achieve that?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

I was um about uh 60. Okay. Because um I did the master's first.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Mary Weir was born in 1926 and certainly lived life to the full. She was a teacher, an author, a coach. Mary revolutionized uh Scottish women's hockey by pioneering the application of football tactics to the hockey field. Her fair but tough approach wasn't always popular with the hockey establishment, but it was vindicated with uh an historic first Scottish win in more than 39 years over the home side at Wembley in March 1972. Mary inspired self-confidence in others. Her mantra of You Can and You Will was repeated often in numerous family and coaching situations. And as a committed Christian, she was compassionate and she was kind. She documented her life in a final book entitled The Times of My Life, which gave a unique insight into her experiences from childhood to the age of 90. Mary passed away at the age of 95 in 2022. But here is Mary in 2016 talking to me about the times of her life, and firstly, who or what inspired the book.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yes, well, one of my own family suggested that uh should write a a story of my book because it was a hist history uh over the period of ninety years as a history. So uh I started and I had uh picked up references and stories as I've gone along from various people who influenced me in my uh journey through life.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

And the book is called The Times of My Life with a a lovely picture of you. May I ask, did you go through the the photo archive a lot to get the memories? Because there are some photos in the front.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

I have a daughter who is interested in photography and all aspects of photography, and she's taken over the photographs and we collected photographs as a family. So she sorted them out and copied them in and did all the things that you have to do as a photographer, and she's um maintained uh reference to um all the the the pictures that um we've used in the book. She and I together looked at them, but I I'm slightly handicapped at the moment uh uh was eyesight problems, and so uh I was necessary to rely entirely on Sally.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Well, let's take the listener on on your journey and take me on the journey as well, because I'm looking forward to this. So tell me tell me a little bit about your childhood from what I've read so far. I'm not all the way through the book, but what I've read so far it was predominantly a happy childhood.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

It was a very happy childhood. I was uh born on a farm to a farmer's and uh m my mother was a towny, but uh they uh set up on a farm and I was born there near Perth. And were both parents Scottish? Both parents were Scottish and my father played cricket uh for Perthshire, and our Saturdays were made up of uh looking at cricket matches in various parts of Perthshire. Uh cricket was a big uh idea then because you got as many as ten thousand on the North Inch, uh which uh every Saturday.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

And and just for the people that aren't aware of the the area that we're in, uh the Inch is a is a large, large expanse of playing field, isn't it, in Perth in Scotland.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

There are two. Well that's a joke. Uh Perth is the to the town between two inches, uh and that's the size of it, because there's a north inch and the south inch.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

And there would be literally thousands of people going to watch cricket every Saturday, which was a big, big day for your family.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Oh, it was, because uh uh dad was a very good cricketer up to Scotland level, and um he spent a lot of his time in his thirties and twenties, um in on the cricket pit. You did so I was introduced to sport very early on.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

I was going to say you did say uh before we started recording, maybe he played a bit more cricket and not too much on the farm, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yes, although it was a very good farm and it's still in operation today, um and he got to it too young to manage it properly. But then the economic situation of the 30s also had its effect. And uh farmers didn't do too well at that time, and so he lost his job uh on that farm. That farm was taken back and then sold off uh by the uh owner. It was a tenant farmer we had.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

And then that subsequently meant that you moved to England with the family.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Well finally Dad got us a job and it was in Reading. And uh this was a total shock to my system because I would be about seven, eight. Um and one morning at breakfast, uh Dad announced that we would be leaving. And I had thought we were on the farm for life. I thought that's what people did, that it didn't move farmers in particular it didn't move. But we did.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

So how how I I know the the news must have been a a shock, but can you remember how you reacted that morning?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yes, I d I can remember it very well, because uh I was drinking milk at the time, and I was sure that the milk turned sour in my mouth when he said it, because I couldn't believe it. I just could not believe it. And moving to the south of England was even more of a shock because uh I had to change schools, we had to change neighbors, we had to adapt to a different way of life altogether. And we did. And was Reading quite welcoming to the family? Yes, Reading was very I went to a very good school, which is still in operation, and um uh they set the kind of set of values that my parents were looking for for me, and I'd come from a good school in Crief, and uh but it wasn't the same as the one in Reading, and so the one in Reading was the major part of my middle school career, and the main uh saving grace that there was was um I learned to play hockey.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

I was reading um a little bit as well, and you didn't realize how tough it was for your parents in terms of finance until you inherited your mother's letters some years later.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Yes, that's quite right. Um a long time later, because um uh money didn't come into it as far as I was concerned. We were on a farm, it was well to do uh in terms of money, you you just lived. And um you didn't think about how you lived, you just did it. And um so I I was dealing with the fact that we were moving, that was enough. And it was only later that money came into it when I was going to college in Bedford as a PE teacher, and uh I had to uh pay for that of course, and um uh where would the money come from when we didn't have any at that time, but I didn't know we didn't have any. It was only when I was an eighteen, nineteen year old going into college that we went to see um the the other side of the family business, which was in Bathgate, and it was um a big super first supermarket, I should think, in Scotland, because it uh occupied the whole of one street in Bathgate with groceries and veget vegetables, uh anything that you needed in a household. Uh they had uh was it on your mum's side or your dad's side? My mum mum's side. Right. My mum had a family there at all and um they uh str strolled uh throughout um West Lothian because they had twenty-two uh outlets in West Lothian. Wow. And so it was a big business and uh there were five children uh of my grandfather who started the business and they took over four sons and two daughters, six four t sons and two daughters. And uh my mother went to see her eldest uh brother and sold her shares in the business against her father's wishes, but she got her money to educate me and my brother, both through college and through school. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

That's a f and that's that's another story altogether.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

And that is another story. It is another story. The Walker story would be something that I have in mind, which I have actually, because I've already written the biography of my mother before she was married, and my father before he was married, because they both did interesting things. So that is still to come.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

So reading Reading is where your love of of of your beloved game of hockey came about, is that it's a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Well we had we had d um sport i in the school, it was uh made quite important and therefore it helped to integrate m this Scottish incomer that I was, uh, in the classroom as well, which was a great help.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Did you feel that there was a divide when you went down? I mean you talked about you you mentioned the phrase Scottish incomer there. Did did you feel that there was a divide between north and south at that point?

SPEAKER_00 12:55

No, the the uh atmosphere was very welcoming and the teaching was excellent. Um but the w the uh I had made friends quite quickly m mainly uh in my own class or in the senior classes where I was put in the first eleven and uh came around to sport again, um and a mixed with uh seniors then. And so I uh kept uh friendship with some of the people that that I met then for as children, now, which is quite a good record.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

We'll come back to hockey in in just a moment because I know that when we ask about um your achievements, there's a certain there's a certain achievement that um that brings a smile to my face, but we'll come back to that. Right. But if we can if we can fast track slightly, uh because I want to take the listener from Reading, what brought you back up to Scotland?

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Well, uh what brought us back up to Scotland was the war. Because uh 1935, 36 w it was getting that's when we went to Reading, and the war was nineteen thirty-nine, and so um uh we waited to see what was happening, 'cause my father then had a job in Reading, and we had to spend every night in a near aid shelter, and it uh was becoming a dangerous place to be, because although Reading wasn't particularly zapped by the Germans um entirely, uh it was uh when London was bombed, Reading was bombed too. So um my father they debated both of them, mum and dad, whether we should go to America, as a number of people that we knew had b uh evacuated to, uh or whether we should stay put, or what we should do, because he was conscious of it being a very dangerous place to stay and he wanted us to have a life. So he um looked into all these options and then he uh made up his mind what it was that we were to do and we were to s we were to go back to uh Barsgate and stayed there until he got a job in Perthshire. So we went back and uh he got a job in Crief.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

And you for many many people of of of a younger generation, uh I'm sure uh 'cause I certainly can't fathom what it would have been like on a dark night with bombs dropping, being in a shelter, c you know, covering, you know, covering yourself uh from the from the enemy, you living on rations. Because all all we see really is sometimes a romanticized version on films. Um and I'm sure it wasn't anything like that, the romantic version of of the way that it's being portrayed sometimes in films for us.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

It wasn't particularly frightening. Um we were uh told by the school we kept our one thing we did have was us was our gas masks. We had to carry them about with you. So that was a reminder constantly that we were at war. And then the uh planes that were shot down were posted up in number every day in the school, so that you knew how many planes had been lost in the Battle of Britain. On both sides? Mm-hmm. Both sides. And um so we knew what was going on, but we had a life as well. Well I r I remember going to a shop in in Reading because it had a chocolate ration deposited there, and we could go and buy a piece of chocolate if we wanted to.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

So so was it was it mum and dad that kept that normality? Or was it something that was driven by the government propaganda machine at the time?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Um probably. Uh films, for example, um would be propaganda past, if you like. Uh and but we didn't know that. There were just those. Mrs. M Minova. Oh yes, yes, yeah, I've seen that film. Yeah. That was a film which just springs to mind. That that that's what my memory does for me. I'm lucky. Considering my handicaps, I'm lucky, to have a very clear memory of what happened. And all the m the the um episodes in the book are come straight out of my head. I didn't do any research at all for Andwritten, of course. And it was handwritten, and um it's strange uh because what the s the stroke that I suffered has left me with is uh eyesight deficiency. Um I can see some things but not all. And writing um I could write, but I couldn't read it back to myself. Um that sounds a strange thing to say because I couldn't then edit it. So I have another daughter, Sally, who has been brilliant in editing, in d doing the seeing things that had to be done, in having a laptop and having you know, uh all those things. So I couldn't have done it without her. But I'd always written uh anyway beforehand, so uh maybe it was punched into my memory.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Well Sally and Shona are through the glass there just keeping uh keeping a watchful eye on me, uh making sure that I behave myself. Um so we're back in Scotland. What did Mum and Dad do when they got back in terms of a job?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Well, they di they d they didn't do anything really. Uh Dad did, he had a job. That was the norm that the r moneymaker in the family uh had the job, that the wives, the women had no job because that wasn't the fashion. And when I got married in nineteen fifty it was still like that. Um moved into I moved into a uh uh Dunfermland which I didn't know before. And uh uh they th my the expectation of me as a newly married bride in nineteen fifty was stay at home. I didn't want just to sit there and be a bride. I wanted to sit and do something. So um uh I did what I could, which was um various friends of mine who were at full time jobs and uh when they were single would invite me to take classes in the school and uh augment their staff for the time being, and then I I was going to have a family and that was the end of any work. My uh um work time was uh taking up was looking after the children and I had five of them and it was great. But I had um uh help as well. It wasn't all hard work. By any means it wasn't hard work, and it's been brilliant ever since.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

And all the while while you were bringing up family, were you still pla I know you're a very sporty family, but were you playing were you still playing hockey at the time?

SPEAKER_00 20:29

No, I stopped playing hockey dead. I stopped it when I was uh still in the team. I was uh I w I was in the team when I was nineteen and I stayed until I was twenty-two, twenty-three.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

And and you were part of the team that that beat England in No, I was not in the playing team.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

I was in I was the coach.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

And therefore I was in control and the coach had uh uh well had to make it your own because I hadn't been a coach before. And I had uh ideas uh that I wanted to uh exploit.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Because this was this was uh this was a particular high in your life, wasn't it? That tea uh beat you it was Scotland, the team that you were coaching, the hockey team that beat England for the first time in what, forty years? Forty years.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

That uh was uh the sort of aim for uh people who were in employed as internationalists, th that was the big one because sixty-five thousand children or mainly children, um were at Wembley and Wembley was the peak. And so if you were um in a t team that was being looked at um for uh international duty, um then you wanted it to have uh name And the coach's job is to spell out the aim for the team, and they must all be uh working together.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Now this is really interesting because there you are at Wembley, Scotland, the coach. Yeah. And uh the the the English think that they're going to get their way and beat Scotland.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Um but you had a you had a plan, you had a trick up your sleeve. Yes, I have. In terms of how to play the game.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

Tell tell us, share that 'cause I love this story. Share your strategy with us.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Right. Well, my strategy was to look at other games. In initially, um I had to review what my targets would be as a coach when I was offered the post. I didn't actually apply, they offered it to me. Um partly I think, sorry, this is a digression, partly because I wrote for the s for a paper for the f ten years. For the Scotsman. Mm-hmm. The Scotsman for ten years in the sports column once a a week. And so I could say what I liked and I did. And so I was coaching and saying what it was I was aiming at at the same time. So the the team also was a a a dream team before it I could see the potential in the team.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

But you decided to look at other sports and apply that to a new way of playing hockey, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 23:36

For for example, when I was appointed and I accepted it because it was a prestigious posting, really, in my eyes, and it was a position of authority and I could make changes, although they were not altogether popular with administrators who wanted the status quo and uh wanted to just dodge long, especially in England, because they'd been successful. Why would they change? But uh in order to break it up, I had to change Scotland considerably. And it was in uh in keeping with the European ideas as well. It wasn't entirely my own thought, but this was in football. And so I wrote a book about it.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

So so it's a basically you'd said to their team and and and coached the team to apply the same tactics a football team would play for that of hockey. And England England had no idea what to do. They they did not know how to fend you off.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

No, they didn't know what to do in that particular game because you were adjusting your coaching tactics to the game that uh they played. So uh playing against Holland, playing against Germany, playing against England were all different. And so you had to carry your it was a much more interesting game than just the same uh hit and run, which it was.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

And while we accept that the game of hockey has changed since then, and probably since then again, it is fair to say that your strategy changed the face of the game not only in Scotland, but in other parts of the world. Don't be modest.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Well, um I think that is the case because if I watch a game today, I recognise what they're doing, because that's what I would have done too. Uh now that's a long time ago. So it's probably needing an overview now, as it did then. Um perhaps they've overdone the change of rules, perhaps they've gone too far in the strategies that they had. But um Scotland could do better. That's an the other thing, of course. You want to get the players to play to their best ability, not just go on the field and play. You had to do better than that in my book.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

So I th this is where I I want to get to with this, because m you've hit the nail on the head. As as a coach, you're a leader, and this the the the theme throughout this series of twelve podcasts is around leadership. Yes. And about the qualities and the skills and the attributes that one needs in order to be a good leader. W what what do you think they are? Because I doubt they've changed over the past forty years.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

No, I don't suppose they have really, because it works well. People are people and are interested in themselves. The hockey uh any team game we could talk about team games as well. Um any team game has is made up of individuals and so you've got to apply to the individual before you can get the collective. And once you've got them uh interest in them y you uh make sure that they will take praise as well as criticism. You don't go marching in and knock the heads together. You might feel like it, but you don't do it. And um so the uh basic uh phenomena, I suppose, when you go w when you first meet a team, is to um respect that they have something to say as well. You're not necessarily going to change to it, but you can listen to it. So as a coach, you're a listener as well as a talker. And you don't just shout at the odds at your team from the sideline as some of the football people do. Um and th that it doesn't get through to players who resent being shouted at anyway when they're playing their best and they don't know what to do next because the coach hasn't prepared the way to do what she's shouting about now.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

What what about when people aren't playing at their best, whether that's in sport or in business? What does what does one do to change that performance of that individual and then subsequently the team?

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Well, it's quite difficult because if they're underperforming they're usually dropped from selection altogether. If the coach is any good uh she wouldn't include them and perhaps um she doesn't agree with that and so does dissension. I think you the the coach has to remind all the players that um there is a team here, not just you and you can contribute to the team off the pitch as much as not as much, but you can contribute to the well being of the team in the atmosphere and how you take it because all the players are watching each other's reactions and if you have managed to instill a cooperation between the players, then your quids in Are you a tough person?

SPEAKER_02 29:26

Are you a tough leader?

SPEAKER_00 29:28

No. I I think I could honestly say no. I persuade. I try and reason. I try to uh see the other side of the coin so that um it's two sides to one issue.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

But you've m you've made unpopular decisions in the past, so maybe maybe I should ch change the word from tough to resilient.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Well, I had g I particularly i in view of this interview, which is brilliant by the way, um I have uh noticed that my early life has been involved in constant change. Now at the time I was a toddler, I was a middle school and so on, I didn't notice it. You did what mum and dad did. You didn't think of question you might have been upset by what they did, but you wouldn't necessarily uh rebel against it, because after all they were your mum and dad. That was your respect and teachers you respect and professors even when you get to university you respect. Um and so that governs how you manage things, I think.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Do you know, I've got to say, Mary, there's a there's a whole series we could do with you, but I'm trying very hard to keep on track. No, it's not you, it's me, because I've got 101 different questions going through my head. So it's me, uh, but I'm gonna go back because there are other stuff that I would love to ask you. Right. But I I really get the leadership stuff, and and I think there's a lot that you've spoken about there that can be equated to to business leadership as well. Absolutely. One of the the toughest questions w I've asked of of all my guests so far, and there's just a few more questions I want to go through, uh, if you don't mind, Mary, is Um We all go through dark dark times. Doesn't matter who we are. There are times when we hit a dark place. And I just wondered whether you would be happy to share with me and the listener a time where you've you've you've been in a dark space or place and how you've come out of the other side.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Yes. Well, I've been very fortunate in my life that there haven't been very many dark places. But inevitably, um th th events that happen affect you. And um I suppose the dark place was when my cousin was killed in the war. The cousin I had had um a very close relationship with in Bathgate during my childhood and he was three years older than me and he was killed in the war. And uh that was a major I I couldn't believe it. And we didn't even know how he'd been killed for a long time, not until years later when I visited his grave in Belgium. But um that was a major dark spot which was interestingly looking back on it, coped with was silence. We didn't talk about it. Uh I was at college at the time and um came back for a holiday uh in Christmas the Christmas break and found out when I got home uh that it had happened and his parents, one of them, would t uh talk to adults, not me. And so that set the scene on how you were to behave because you had to respect how they wanted it, because they were the nearest. Nobody looked at me except the cause if you didn't d look at it, it wasn't really happening, was it?

SPEAKER_02 33:41

And and w was that a typical coping mechanism of the time, do you think, or was that just Oh, I think it was.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Yeah. There was no counselling, there was no discussion, there was no um until we went to Belgium uh that much later, and then it was, I suppose, safer. You got used to it yourself.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

And when you went to Belgium and you saw your cousin's grave, was there a what was what what went through your mind? What was the feeling?

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Well, it was always uh uh disbelief really. Uh he'd been home on leave and then had gone back and uh was actually killed in a motor accident was British officers, which made it worse because it wasn't in in war, as it were.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Do you think that if if it had been spoken about, spoken about at the time, would acceptance of your cousin's death become would it would it have would e would acceptance come sooner or or have you never accepted it?

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Oh yes, I think I have accepted it, but um maybe in the room next door, you know, that kind of feeling. It comes up or uh from time to time, probably in connection with other deaths and funerals and things like that. Or the his birthday and you know. Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. We're gonna cheer things up now. Oh good. We are gonna cheer things up, and we're just gonna talk about a time where on the opposite side you've had a time that that was dark, but a time that you've been elated, a time that you went, wow, does it get any better than this?

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Well, there are so many because as I say, I had a a happier life. Um I suppose we'll we'll skip Wembley because that was certainly a high. I mean, that was a a big achievement in a lot of people's books. I mean there were seven sixty-four thousand there, those uh who would go away and remember it because it was an unusual ending. So that was one. Um another one was my PhD, I suppose. Uh that was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

When did you when did you study and achieve that?

SPEAKER_00 36:07

I was um about uh sixty. Okay. Because um I did a master's first. Uh my college um principle uh was uh the things have uh in in my life I have discovered that everything falls for me. I don't have to do anything, I just sit there and it happens, which is amazing. And everything I've done, m the sort of things that you might not do at that stage, uh have fallen right and have been quite good, good for me, and perhaps hopefully good because there was the counselling bit, which I went into and was twenty years on the college staff as a student counsellor. And um that uh was an achievement too over a period because um they hadn't got student counsellors when I started. I was the first one again.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

So is this seen as a new fandangled thing? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Wow, okay. So um it was great because in a way I I could see where the principal was coming from because I did have a PE connection being a graduate. I uh was a games player, therefore I understood about the students' games. I'd done a c counseling course and uh done uh various ch uh positions uh that demanded counselling and so on. So um those are the sort of high points really, because um I found that every ten years of my life was different to the previous one. Um and um that was easy to write the book because it fell naturally into decades.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

And same with decades. Uh one of my standard questions for my guests, we talk about technology, and the question usually goes over the past 30 years, technology has changed dramatically. Over the past 90 years, I would imagine that it's been mind-blowing. So d you know, for the future, does the does the growth and the rise and the popularity of technology does that worry you for the future, or is it something that you think is we should grasp wholeheartedly and just run with?

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Well, I think it's a bit of both. I think that you can go too far in technology and it cuts out the personal input. And in this life it's people that matter, not things.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

Um we're going to come on to your chosen tune in just a moment. Um And as I said, we could probably do a five-hour podcast with all this. However, time is tight. Um The fact that you're here is invaluable for me, for the podcast, and the fact that somebody's listening to this. You are without doubt, and and it is a fact, you know, the the most mature person that we've had on the series, and probably with that brings a wealth, a wealth, a wealth of experience. If you could give one bit of advice, either personal or professional, that you have acquired or learnt over your 90 years, and something that you we we could benefit from, what what would it be, Mary? It's a toughie. It is a tough hit, but I'm sure I'm just you know, the ultimate.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Recognition of well what I've just said, really, recognition of people's uh reactions, their point of view, all these sorts of things. Um love, in fact. We haven't mentioned love, and love is a big deal in in my life.

SPEAKER_02 40:13

So ultimately, what we're saying is don't lose sight of love and respect.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

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