JCIP #369 - David Harper

In episode 369 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with David Harper. 

David is a freelance journalist, presenter, producer and reporter.

David is currently host of LBC News’ Saturday Breakfast Show, and is a regular presenter of the BBC’s World Business Report.

Growing up in the small North Wales village of Penyfordd, David left his state comprehensive at 16 years old with very little qualifications and no idea what he wanted to do with his life.

In his words, he fell into community radio, when he got a job at a radio station in South Flintshire.

In 2005, he then left local radio and landed a job at BBC Cymru Wales based in Cardiff, where he worked as a producer, presenter and reporter for over 14 years. 

In 2019 he went freelance and has gone onto host a range of roles at broadcast organisations including ITN, Global and BBC News.

We chart this journey, how he developed the skills to be a newsreader and television host and making the transition from local radio to national radio.

For industry issues, we discuss social mobility, and the decline in state-school journalists from working-class backgrounds in the industry. 

For David’s mental health journey, we discuss his diagnosis of Bipolar, which he obtained around 12/13 years ago.

In 2023 he spoke publicly about his mental health for the first time and from there, he has become an advocate for greater awareness of the condition.

He was also diagnosed with ADHD in 2025 and we discuss this latest development, how he feels now having this dual diagnosis and moving forward with his life alongside them.

As always, #itsokaytovent

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hi Venters, welcome back to another episode of the Just Checking In Podcast. I'm your host, Freddie Cocker, and this podcast is brought to you by Vent, a place where everyone, but especially men and boys, can open up about their mental health issues, break down stigmas, and start conversations. In each episode, I check in with a special guest. We have an atta and a chat about all things mental health, as well as anything and everything else they are passionate about. If it helps that person with their mental health, we discuss it. My special guest for this episode is David Harper. David is a freelance journalist, presenter, producer, and reporter, and we connected through our membership as professionals for the state school membership club, the 93% club. David is currently host of LBC News's Saturday Breakfast Show and is a regular presenter of the BBC's World Business Report as well. He also works for two national TV news networks too. Growing up in the North Wales village of Pennyford, David left his state comprehensive at 16 years old with very little qualifications and no idea what he wanted to do with his life. In his words, he fell into community radio when he got a job at a radio station in South Flintshire. In 2005, he then left local radio and landed a job at BBC Cymru Wales, based in Cardiff, where he worked as a producer, presenter, and reporter for over 14 years. In 2019, he went freelance and has gone on to host a range of roles at broadcast organizations including ITN, Global, and BBC News. In this episode, we chart this journey, how he developed the skills to be a newsreader and television host, and making the transition from local radio to national radio. For industry issues, we discuss social mobility or the increasingly, sadly, lack thereof of it in the industry, and the decline in state school journalists from working class backgrounds in the industry, and how the financial challenges of the industry might be putting off those who might be great journalists but either can't get in or don't have the financial privilege to pursue it long enough before getting their big break. For David's mental health journey, we discuss his diagnosis of bipolar, which he obtained around 12 or 13 years ago. In 2023, he spoke publicly about his mental health for the first time, and from there he has become an advocate for greater awareness of the condition and has done lots of work with the charity Bipolar UK. He was also diagnosed with ADHD in 2025, and we discussed his latest development, how he feels now having this dual diagnosis, and moving forward with his life alongside them. So this is how my conversation with David Harper went. David, welcome to the Just Checking In Pod. Thank you for coming all the way to my flat in Northeast London. Absolutely. And coming straight from on air as well. You're suited and booted, the listeners can't see it. We connected through our mutual membership of the 93% club, an excellent state school club, basically, for professionals like us and students who are doing excellent work. We have finally got this date in the diary. Thank you for being patient because we had to line up diaries and we had to line up my diary. Yeah, yeah. I probably cancelled it once already. How are you on this Saturday morning, mate?

SPEAKER_02 3:36

I'm alright. For a guy who's been up since 3am, I think I'm doing pretty well, actually.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

I did offer a water and a coffee, but you turned it down, you wanted to power through. That's all right. I've got my bottle of water, it's all good. You literally talk on radio and TV for a living, mate. So I know you're gonna love a chat, but I know you're gonna be media trained as well. So we're gonna go into tangents and some bits, we're gonna go very deep in others. Without further delay, are you ready to start the show and talk all about your wonderful journey? Let's go through it. We're gonna start your podcast, mate, by talking about your journalism journey first. So take me back to the beginning if you can. A fresh-faced 16-year-old David. You leave school in North Wales, very little qualifications, you don't know what you're gonna do with your life. The world now seems very, very big when before it probably was your school and very, very small. Tell me how the journey started from here.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Well, uh, I think you can kind of split kids up into groups, can't you? You look at any high school, and there's always the kids who are mad into football or sport and are always out doing that, and then there's the ones that are a bit more, I don't know, maybe music obsessed or art obsessed. And I would there was a bit of that with me. But I was left to my own devices at home. I was always the guy who was writing stuff and thinking of stories and things. So I suppose there was a bit of a Creative Yeah, there was a sort of seed of it there, but I never, you know, obviously the thing about broadcast journalism, radio and TV is that everybody knows about it because everybody's seen it. Nobody goes, oh, I didn't know that existed. But I never really thought about doing it. I don't know whether I didn't think that I'd be able to or I'd be any good at it. But it happened completely by accident. I had a Saturday job at a computer shop in Mould, a small town in North Wales, which sounds quite impressive. It mostly involved picking up boxes and carrying them to people's cars. That was pretty much it. I don't think they even trusted me with the till that often. But I got given something to deliver to this local community radio station and ended up meeting one of the guys who worked there. And I turned up in their newsroom, and this place, I'd never seen anything like it before, because it, you know, you get used to a quite a bit of something like that. Well, it wasn't it certainly wasn't a spaceship. I mean, this was this. It might have been to you though. It was to me, maybe. It was more, I'll tell you what, it was more at the speed at which stuff was going on. It was it wasn't that people would think about something for three days before doing it. You just like all around me, there were people recording adverts, or going out to get something for the news, or getting the next bulletin ready, or they were presenting their next program, so they were going through piles of CDs and stuff because CDs were what it was in those days. So everyone was just busy and there was all this stuff going on, and that was really interesting, this idea that this hive of activity was going on. And so I kind of didn't leave. I think that was basically how how did I get into it? I just hung around. And, you know, this was a community radio station, it was called South Flintshire Radio, which doesn't exist anymore, sadly. It lasted a long time and then it kind of died off. But it was great, and actually, I didn't realise it at the time, but as community radio stations go, it was really professional. It wasn't just like a couple of guys in a back bedroom, it was there were a lot of ex-professionals there who'd worked for the BBC or worked for the local commercial stations and whatever. So they really were kind of a notch above, and I learned an awful lot from these people. Some of them, you know, were semi-retired and had been doing this for years and years and years. And some of them were like me that were just in their teenage years and had just come into it. So it just all picked up from there. And I think with any place like that, if you just hang around long enough, they'll give you something to do because you're free labor. So after a few days of hanging around and just talking to people, eventually I got given a travel bulletin to read. We used to get sent travel by fax. Yeah, I know, it's maybe sound very old now. We used to get sent faxes with the travel stuff, and I'd go through it and work out what to do, and then go and do that on air, and then and then I got let loose with news and started going out and recording bits for that and doing bulletins and stuff, and then eventually ended up presenting shows as well. So it just sort of happened by hanging around because nobody told me to go away.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

You said to me on fair, nobody comes out of the womb a great presenter. So when you were starting this journey, like you said, you're doing the travel bulletins, you then got proper big stuff. How did you develop that skill set? Was it just winging it or was it something deeper?

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Well, let's be brutally honest to begin with, I was terrible. I mean, really, really bad. Exactly how you'd expect a 16-year-old on air for the first time. Hello.

unknown 7:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Now look at the M6 is really bad, the M6, oh dear. There are probably still some tapes or minidiscs in existence of that. I hope there aren't. But I was helped out by a lot of people. You know, there were at least two or three people in that station who were really, really nice and you know, really simple stuff like knowing how to operate a mixing desk, which you kind of had a vague idea, but the idea of, you know, queuing things up properly and keeping an eye on the meters properly and and making sure that the times worked out and you hit the news at the right time and all that sort of stuff, which is, you know, it's all new skills to learn. So I learned a lot from those people. Any one particular mentor? Um I mean, to be honest, I wouldn't like to single out a lot of the I knew you're such a journalist answer, I love it. Just because everyone goes, we should mention me. I mean, there was a guy called Ron Jones who was there, and actually, he was a Londoner, he was from West London. Another tangent we're going off. I remember this blowing my mind because he was talking about growing up in Notting Hill and around Labrock Grove. And I knew that area quite well from having friends down there and stuff. And he was talking about it being a really rough and terrible area, and I thought, hang on a minute, I've seen the film Notting Hill, that's not rough at all. That's where Hugh Grant lives. This isn't, you know. And I learned how much London's changed. Yeah, and the race sites and everything. Yeah, I mean, he'd predated the Notting Hill Carnival and all that stuff. He'd moved up to that part of the world and he'd worked at the local commercial station in Wrexham for years at Marcher Sound, as it was called then. And so, you know, people like him had, you know, and he had an in an insanely large record collection, filled an entire garage. I think it was like 86,000 tracks or something. Sounds like my dad. And he was the one place we did differ. He was very big on country music. And I'm I'm not a big fan of country music at all. But he had all sorts of stories. I remember him talking about interviewing Johnny Cash years ago for the station he worked. George Strait and all the things. Yeah, yeah. And the story he trotted out so many times I remember is turning up to interview Johnny Cash, he brought his wife along, who wanted to meet Johnny Cash, as you would. And there were only two seats. And Cash said, Oh, you can't just stand there while we and they did the interview with his wife sat on Johnny Cash's knee. Which the image of that is just amazing. So yeah, he'd been around a long time, and there were many, many other people there as well. There was a guy called Paul Higgs who was the program controller there. He was the first guy who put me on air for a show for the first time. He's responsible for a lot of things. And actually, most of them, sadly, Ron isn't around anymore, but most of them are still connected with radio in in some ways. Paul's still on a station in Liverpool. It's one of those things, actually, especially if it gets into you early. Even if you're not doing it professionally, you end up doing something music or radio related for the rest of your life, really.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Obviously, it's a constant learning process, but was there a moment during that peer where you felt I'm starting maybe to get the hang of it?

SPEAKER_02 10:07

I, as you said, I left school. I mean, a talk at length about my school days, I didn't enjoy school at all. For reasons that maybe became apparent later in life. So I did not want to go back and do A-levels, that was it. I wanted to get out of that door as quickly as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

I'd have nightmares of going back to doing A-levels, mate.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

So I kind of got forced to enroll at the local six-form college. I was told I had to do something. But in the period, so I thought I think I'd signed up to do like physics and electronics and stuff, which I was amazed they would let me do it given my poor GCSE results. But it's interesting, isn't it? I think so many people go through a bit of a period in that summer when you're 16 after leaving proper school. I remember starting at college, and so many people I'd been in school with had changed completely. They'd changed their whole image or their style or they got into something new. And with me, it was the radio thing. So you were the radio guy? Yeah, kind of, because in the course of that summer, having never really thought about doing it seriously, I'd suddenly become dead set on this. So by the time I turned up at college studying physics, it was like, I don't really want to do this anymore. And it was too late to change to something like English or media or so. I mean, I don't think I got a good enough grade in English to do English, to be honest. So by that point, you know, I had no interest in doing it whatsoever. And I lasted in college, I was gone by Christmas. By that point, I'd finished and just didn't want to be there. I was spending a lot of time when I probably should have been in lectures, either in the pub or at the radio station doing stuff. That was kind of it, and it had just taken over. So whether I was any good at this or not, I decided at that point I wanted to do it. I was with South Lynch Radio for a while, at least a year or two, and then developed stuff. And I and I had a few flirtations with some other commercial radio stations who paid me to do bits and pieces. This is one guy who was instrumental in all of this. There was a chap I happened to meet, a guy called Alan Dolby, who I met him completely independent of the BBC via some other means, but he was a producer and and presenter at Radio Wales in their base in Wrexham. They had a very small office and one studio above the library in Wrexham. And I got talking to him on various things, and then he said, Well, actually, we're about to start a new Saturday morning show. Do you want to come and work on it? And I naturally said, Well, yes. And they paid me very little money. And that was the first thing I did for the BBC, which was almost exactly twenty-five years ago this month, I think. So that's 2001. 2001, yeah. And I was and I was only 18 then. So that sort of started, and that was great because I, you know, I was kind of on air a bit as part of the show they did, but I obviously wasn't the presenter. But because it was such a small place, and actually I I recommend this to anyone, everyone did everything. I was gonna say, yeah. You know, I would go into the studio and do a link with the presenters on, I don't know, the TV review or whatever I used to do. And then as soon as the mic was closed, I'd be back out in the office answering the phones as people called in for the competition, and and then we'll be doing all manner of things. And then they did other programs as well. They did more featury stuff, so I'd go out recording what we call packages, news reports for those and bits for programs, and and just because it's so small and because there were only a very small bunch of people, you just did everything. And so it's a great way to learn stuff. They started a program around just a few months after I started there called Mousemat, which was a technology program. And that's how I became a technology reporter the first time around. And it was a really it was a really interesting program, and it was a really interesting time because whilst the internet had been around for a while, this was when it started to become a thing for, you know, normal people, not just tech geeks, really. And Radio Wales, they did an awful lot. They looked into a lot of older people who started, you know, people who start to get online to go and speak to their grandchildren in Australia or, you know, start booking holidays and stuff. So it was a really interesting time to be on this, and I did all sorts of things all over Wales, really. I had um by this point a battered old Land Rover that was older than I was, and I used to just bomb around North Wales going out recording stuff for the BBC and various other people. It was really great. I mean, I earned next to no money from doing it, but it was really good fun.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

In 2005, you moved to the big smoke, as we call it, in Wales of Cardiff, and you stayed there for 14 years. You were basically a BBC lifer at this point. Yeah. What made you stay for so long?

SPEAKER_02 14:00

Well, I mean, it the move to Cardiff, to be honest. Do you know, this is a story I've heard amongst the BBC and other broadcasters so many times, is that I went there for what I think was a a three-month part-time contract. There wasn't much work going. Some of the stuff I was doing was dried up, and I saw this job and I thought, oh, I'll do that for a bit. And I thought, well, I'll go to Cardiff, I'll do that for three months, I'll speak to a few other people, make a few contacts, and then come back. And then that turned into 14 years. And it was purely because I went there as a as an assistant producer, and I was doing, again, lots of other bits and pieces, but my main job was making trailers and jingles and stuff. I've always been into music and stuff, so the I, you know, editing up all those little bits and making that, you know, I really enjoyed that, and that was great, and worked with some great people there. And then that job sadly didn't last because they shifted contracts around, and that job came to an end, and I couldn't carry on doing it. And I'd found this team of people that did-I don't think I'd ever really click that there were people in Wales doing this, doing TV continuity, you know, the people in between the programs say, This is BBC One Wales, now the BBC News with, you know, whoever. And I had no idea how any of this worked, and I saw it. I think we polloined one of their announcers to go and voice up a trail for us or something. And it was fascinating because it was basically like radio on the tele. It was completely self-operated. There's no kind of technical assistance. You were the director, the announcer, the script writer, everything. You sat in a room surrounded by TV screens and were just left in charge of a channel all night. And I saw this and I thought, I really like to do this. This looks like fun. You know, you get to be the voice of BBC One or two.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

You're kind of like God in a way, in a little bit when you're watching it on TV.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Who's this guy or girl? It's a really weird thing because you're like people sort of half-recognise your voice, but they've got no, you know, walking through the tent, they've got no idea who you are. It's a great, it's a great way to stay anonymous. So I sort of set myself on doing that and start again, started just hanging around till they told me to go away. And then, you know, a few people helped me out and and showed me how it all worked, and I started to learn how it was. And and strangely, I had a meeting with the boss there and who said, you know, I'd kind of was mostly trained by this point, but didn't have a job, and said, Oh, look, we've got to lose people, we're making cuts, there's no work here. Sorry, go away. And then I think it was literally the Monday of the week after I had a phone call saying, Someone's just gone on long-term sick. Can you come and help us out for a few months? That's a very BBC story, by the way. Gone from being, we really don't need you at all to we absolutely need you right now. And I said, We have no money, we have found some money. I called him back and I said, Well, when would you want me to start? He said, Well, could you start this week? So I think it was like within a few days' time, I was back in Cardiff again. I would have been 23 at that point. That would have been a year like about 2006, and I was left in pretty much sole charge of a television network at the age of 23. I would absolutely not have trusted me with something like that at that age. And there were, you know, occasions where it didn't go that well, but mostly it was all right. And it was great because you basically, you know, you were left to your own devices, you know, say you're on BBC One one night, there'd be somebody else on BBC Two next door. So sometimes you were talking in between programs that came from London, sometimes you'd have your own programs you'd be playing out, sometimes you'd have to record something to play out later, and there's all this complex stuff going on, and you know, it's still tapes being thrown around and stuff recorded on server and all this. And you were just left to get on with it. And actually, when I think about now how people scrutinize every word that goes out on air, if we sort of had a script and you thought, I don't like that, now I'm gonna change all that, and we just did. It was great. And you know, sometimes you'd be in the talking over-the-end credits of a program and you'd have like pre-scripted something to read, and then they'd say something funny in the dying seconds of the program, and you think, Oh no, I'm gonna change that completely and just pick up off what they say. And you could just change your mind at a second's notice.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

It was brilliant. Before we move on to when you went freelance, obviously it's a lot to condense in 14 years here, but what were some of your favourite stories to work on? And what stories were you most proud of as well?

SPEAKER_02 17:52

Um, well, I did all sorts of stuff, and I and I in that period it it kind of spread out because I started working as a TV director as well, which is a long and complicated story, but that sort of was bolted on to the other TV work, and that was great. You know, you just worked across all sorts of stuff, and we we did uh a big relaunch of one of their big news programs, and I and I worked on that, and I got to work on some of the Welsh language news they do for S4C as well, a program called Noidion, and they were a really great team to work with. I'd worked with them for a bit as well and got the chance to do all sorts of things. But I mean there were all sorts of stories. I do remember when I was directing, and again, it's not it's not an uplifting story at all, but there was a a mining disaster, the Glycyon, I think it was called, over near Swansea, and it was a drift mine where some miners had kind of got stuck with rising waters and stuff, and it was and it was almost a bit of a weird throwback in Wales because there's obviously a long history of mining and and that sort of stuff, and there'd been some over the years there'd been horrific stories relating to that. Obviously, everyone knows of Abba Van, but there had been many years previously a disaster in Gressford near where I grew up, and those kind of things. So it was a bit of a strange, almost a bit of flash of history, really, and and I was working that day when it all unfolded and and we had, you know, lots of extra live bulletins put together, and we were all doing that, so that will stick in my mind forever as you you know you go live to the press conference where they announce what's going on. Yeah, and there were a lot of that. I mean, and there were more uplifting things as well. I mean, I it's an interesting pub quiz fact that the first event of the London Olympics was not actually in London. It was a football game at the Millennium, as it was called then, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Which was Team GB, right? Uh I can't remember actually who was playing. It was one of the sort of group stages played. Let's say Gray Bellamy. Yeah, back in those days. And I introduced that on air. And I remember I introduced the inauguration of Obama when that happened. And again, it's a sort of weird thing. It all it's complete chance. It's whether you happened to be on shift and in the chair when these things happened.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

That's what I say often to people when I worked at the Bee, even though I was only there for 18 months, and I said I was like, people say, Oh, what did you like working on? I was like, Well, I was on late shift when this happened and this happened. They were like, Wow, was that was that you? And I was like, Yeah, it was a long night.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

We had I mean there was election nights and all sorts of extra stuff. I mean, I I would just get involved in anything I had the chance to, because I just love new projects and all this sort of stuff. And then I I was still, you know, did bits for radio while I was doing this as well. I carried on doing things for Mouse Mat and all sorts of other bits and pieces. I mean, they were remarkably open to ideas. If you said, I remember we had some really tenuous connections to technology that we did. Like I realized and I only found out about this because my mum had worked on it when it was a building site. There was a bridge up in North Wales, and they had installed some like special sensors on it so they could see if it was rusting away or they could see if the wind had got too high. So we went and interviewed the guy who looked after this and ended up doing an interview at the top of this suspension bridge, which I'm I'm not great with heights, and that was that was interesting. Because about your company zone, at least. But it was quite nice because I mean my parents both worked in construction, they didn't do anything media related at all. My mum had actually worked on the project to build that bridge, so it was quite nice. Quite a full circle moment then. I don't think she'd been to the top oh, did she? I can't remember. She's even worse with heights than me. She probably didn't. Yeah, it was quite nice, yeah, to actually go and think, oh, my mum worked on this, and now I'm here talking to the guy from Flincher Council who looks after it.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Let's fast forward to 2019 now. It's December. You left the Bib as a full-time staffer and you went freelance for the first time. Now, for the listeners who don't know, most people who work in TV production, the biz are freelancers for many reasons. Tell me about that decision and how you made that transition from leaving the Bib as a BBC lifer to going freelancing on your own.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

I was fortunate in a way that I'd been able to sort of phase it in because a few years prior to that. Phased in, phasing out, basically. Yeah, so well, yeah, sort of. I mean, it's it's a difficult thing, but it's a complicated story, but they'd sort of changed the way our job worked a little bit. And some of the stuff, particularly some of the new stuff that I like working on, was going off to other people and we weren't going to be doing it anymore. And I thought, well, I'd like to carry on doing that. And I thought about it for a long time. And I said that I'd like to go part time, and I thought, well, if I go down to doing a few days a week, I can then go and freelance the rest of the time. So it started out by doing that, and that was a a few years before then. I kind of went down to doing, I think, two or three days a week, I can't remember what it was now, and that freed me up to do stuff on the other side. The days, so I carried on doing stuff for news, and then that was when I first started working for ITV in Wales as well, and I started looking at other bits of radio work. I did some little bits for BBC Local Radio and bits and pieces. So I'd been able to kind of have a bit of a safety net and that I started doing it, but I was still doing my old job. But then it sort of became difficult for various reasons, but it just became difficult to schedule because I had to be committed to doing these shifts back in Cardiff as well as everything else. And by this point, fast forward a few years on, I was doing work in Salford. One of my favourite things that I've done about my entire life, I was working for Newsround in Salford. Oh. Um, directing Newsround, which was brilliant. Former guest at the Graf Menso works. Yes, absolutely. Oh, I didn't know he'd be on there as well. He was great in him a long time ago, as well. He he started when I was working there. I remember him first starting. He's doing loads of stuff with gardening now. He is now, he has his own podcast on there.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

He's so enthusiastic. It's wonderful. We had a lovely nostalgic chat about Lizzo as well. Yeah. Oh, that now that's a bit time on.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

It's before my time on there, but I remember seeing him on there. And of course, now uh is the entertainment correspondent. He is, he is indeed. Bumped into him occasionally. Lizo and Ellie, they were my they're our they're our era. Yeah. Actually, it's amazing how many there's a another woman called Aisha that I worked with there that I know quite well. She's now at Channel 4 News at ITN, and like Julie Etchingen was there at one point who's also there, and Christian Guru Murthy along when I was a little was was on there. You know, like it's sort of like a who's who are broadcasting evolves.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

So Matt Price as well, with loads of people like that.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Yeah, I'm trying to think of else. I remember. I mean, uh, there was uh a woman I worked with at BFBS as well, who was also another ex-newsround. But yeah, but they're they're everywhere. So it's it's nice to have been, admittedly not one of the big names, but just to have had a part in that because it was just, you know. You know, it's one of those things you talk about TV and radio programmes and people, oh what that. And literally nobody had anything bad to say about newsround.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

Whenever you mention the guys, oh I love newsround. Yeah, I said to DeGraft, like when I was growing up, and obviously you're looking at it through kids' lens, but it it never patronized kids. No, no, absolutely. It was almost like it genuinely felt just like BBC News, but for kids.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

That is really the challenge. And I I was in awe of some of the people that wrote and produced stories. I'll give you a perfect case. When I when I worked there, it was when the Manchester bombings happened. The uh I'd seen in Manchester M. Arena with Mariana Grande. And that was particularly poignant for me because my cousin's daughter was there when it happened. Wow. And it was a bit close to home for me.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

But I interviewed Figa Murray, who lost her son in that. And she was she's a big campaigner on the safety rules and people being able to take him valuables and stuff to arenas afterwards, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

I mean, that's a perfect example of a story which newsround, because it's Ariana Grande, newsround all age kids are going to want to know about that. They will have heard it in the news. So you have to cover that. But also, it's a horrific act of terror. You know, you you've got to find a way of writing and presenting this story that is not patronizing and gets the facts across and doesn't hold back. Doesn't sugarcoat it, because you can't sugarcoat it because it's it's a real thing, but obviously, you know, you've got to be aware that these are kids that are 9, 10, 11, 12. You've got to be mindful of that. You've got to be careful. So, and I was strangely, my cousin's daughter ended up on Newsround. I think we were doing the six-month or one-year anniversary of it. It was quite nice. She got a chance to tell her story and to one of their reporters. It's a really great programme, and and you know, I met some lovely, lovely people there, de Graft being just one of them, who I still keep running into now. He's everywhere. It's a little badge of office, though. If you can go around this industry and say, Well, I worked on Newsround, it's like you're part of that elite little club. It's one of those, even though I'm not one of the people that will be remembered from childhood, but I was there. I was well now, mate.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Right now, you work across ITN, BBC News, and Global as a presenter and correspondent. So your two main roles are LBC News, where you've just come from at Salve Recording, Saturday Breakfast Show, and you're also a regular presenter of the BBC's World Business Report. Just tell me about the former first. Obviously, there have been many times in your life where you felt on this journey, okay, this is a great opportunity, this is a great achievement. When you landed this, did you feel like I've made it now?

SPEAKER_02 25:58

There was a bit of that, actually. I I mean I LBC News is a is a really interesting station. I mean, it is the only rolling news radio station in in this country, and and a lot of people are surprised that it isn't the BBC doing that, it's a commercial broadcaster. But they do a great job of it. You know, it's not an easy thing to do as as you know, you'll be on air and news breaks and you've got to all kind of run to cover it and everything. So that as a national station, I think launched just before the pandemic. I think it was about 2019, 2020, which was a good time for news because obviously people had a real need to hear what was going on. And I joined them just after then, so I think it was about 2021. And I was just sort of filling in as and where, so I do used to do a lot of evening shows and picking up random things at weekends and stuff. You know, it was it was great because you you never really knew what you'd be doing from one day to the next. I learned an awful lot doing it because you really do have to sink or swim in that kind of environment. You know, you get into the habit of doing a lot of your own stuff and you have to be quite self-motivated and and go off and and get yourself together. And not least being able to hold together, you know, four hours of live radio. So I'd done that for a while, and then about well, it was just over a year ago. We started the Saturday breakfast thing in May of last year, so just over a year ago. And the boss said, Look, do you want to do they were having a bit of a shuffle around, they did a big change of the schedule and said, Do you want to do Saturday breakfast? I thought, oh yeah, I would actually, it's quite nice. I hadn't done much, you know, I hadn't really done anything in my diary that was a regular thing every week for a long time. So that was quite nice to have a focus, and it was nice to be able to sort of think ahead and think, oh, there's a thing coming up in four weeks' time on a Saturday morning, we could do something on that, and that. So that was quite nice. And again, it's sort of in my head, I just thought, well, it's you know, it's only what I've been doing already, you know, just that it's at a regular time. And then when they started, you know, sending me to have photos taken for the website and all this sort of stuff, I thought, oh, okay, maybe this is a bit more significant. And everyone seemed quite impressed, so I thought, okay, fine. If you think this is impressive, it's it must be. But it's been really good, and uh, it's given me an opportunity to, as I say, to sort of look at things and put my own stories into it. And and we've we've had some great guests on over the course of a year, and we were really quite lucky when the audience figures came back.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

It it seems we are doing something right, which is And you're amongst some esteemed titans, you know, Ian Dale, Sheila Fogerty.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Yeah, they're all on the on the FM side. But yeah, there's it's quite an interesting newsroom. There's quite a mix of people, everyone from different stripes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Which that's what I admire a lot about LBC. They they try as much as they can to get hosts and therefore guests from all different political backgrounds, which I do, which I think is it's sad that it's commendable in this day and age, but it is commendable.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Yeah, and it's you know, people want to hear opinions, people want to hear that view on the world, and it's a way of getting a good mix of stuff. You know, there are you know, there are people with really, really different. I mean, they had I mean James O'Brien and Nick Ferrari, for example. And I mean they've had some people who are, you know, very committed Conservative Party people. They had David Lamy as a presenter until Labour were in power. And obviously that wouldn't work, but you know, he he was there for, you know, so you've got people from all over the political spectrum. They've had, oh, conservative MPs, they had Nigel Farage at one point. Everything has been covered. And then we on the on the LBC News side, we are more like Sky News or BBC News on the radio, so we don't have a of an opinion. But then you bring it in through the guests, you bring in guests from all sorts of backgrounds, and it's your job to hold them to account, to, you know, put the other opinion to them, and and it's a really interesting job, and it's just the sheer range of stuff that we cover is is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

I want to talk about industry issues now, and I want to come back to something that we alluded to earlier in the podcast, which is your working class background. So, sociability is one I want to talk about first. And I've had some incredible journalists from working-class backgrounds, now including yourself on the show. So, for example, Georgia Cohen, Jake Hamrahan, James Blubworth. However, as you'll probably know as well, approximately 12%, just 12% of UK journalists currently come from a working class background. That's according to a 2023 survey of 1,130 journalists by Reuters Institute researchers. That feels quite grim. How did we get here?

SPEAKER_02 29:59

I mean, I've not seen that survey. That's pretty rubbish, isn't it? I mean I think it is three years old, but yeah. Yeah, but I mean it's it's you know, even if that was the case three years ago, that's still significant. And when you consider, you know, how poorly that reflects society, I think it has got worse. You see, it's difficult for me to talk about the university education thing because I I didn't go through that process.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Which again is a class thing in itself, by the way. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

But again, I think, you know, going back to people I remember working with, you know, in my early days at the BBC, there were a lot of people from similar backgrounds to mine. Especially in local radio, BC. Yeah, absolutely. And and and people who probably went to university in the 70s or 80s when it was, you know, in some ways more accessible. It from a financial point of view, more accessible. There were grants available and ways to do it. And that has become, you know, a bit more a bit more difficult as time's gone on.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

I was the first 9K generation, and now it's more than 9K now. I don't even know what the figure is off the top of my head, but it's probably far more than 9K.

SPEAKER_02 30:54

And I know a lot of people are weighing up those figures of, well, I could spend all this money, spend all this time, and I and there's still no guarantee of a good job at the end. You know, my brother did go to university, he's the clever one, and he works in the art field. He did a master's as well as as an MA, and that was a again, a thing that, you know, the loan for that doesn't start getting paid back when you start working, it gets paid back the moment you graduate. So whether you've got a job or not, and I I see how brutal it is. And actually that divide exists very much in the art world as much as it does in journalism and other areas of the economy. I think, yeah, I've noticed there is a bit of a change. Do you know what the really curious thing about it is, is I never I never really thought of myself as being particularly working class because, you know, and I'm aware that there's a some people look at me and think, oh, well, you didn't have a really deprived childhood, you know, you people were. It's not about that, though, is it? Yeah, and I think yeah, I know, that's that's not a productive, you know, conversation to have. But, you know, in the scale of things that my parents had professional jobs, neither of them went to university. Although I should say my mum did in her forties, did go manage tier the children. Oh, wow, okay. Yeah, so it's it's a weird one. My brother was the first to go to university from school, but my mum didn't manage to do it, and then she went off and worked in construction for years and did lots of night classes and stuff to be able to do that and worked very hard, and then she managed to get accepted to do a master's in her 40s, so she could go straight in with a master's because she'd had all this professional experience, and she graduated with a I think in construction management or something like that. Wow, amazing. And it was it was around about time. I was studying for my GCSEs while she was studying for a master's degree, and I went to her graduation a a couple of years later. So she did a great old job to be able to do that. But going back to a second, I didn't think I was particularly hard done by growing up. But as I've gone through the industry and I've realized what a divide it is between people who had a private education, went to Oxbridge, that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

And it and it's Or did the master's journalism degree, that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

Yeah, and I mean and it's not to say that, you know, in a in another world I couldn't have done that, and I've got lots of friends that did. There's nothing wrong with that as well. No, there's nothing wrong with it. And I'd be careful that I don't want to, you know, alienate a lot of people I work with and stuff. I think it's the choices people make. It's I think a lot of people from state educated backgrounds don't think that journalism is a possibility, certainly at kind of national levels. They look at the people that they see as newspaper columnists or they see as presenters on radio or TV. And, you know, I've witnessed it, I've got to be careful what I say, but I've witnessed it firsthand. I've, you know, I've seen programme editors and people who clearly do have a preference for hiring people from a similar background to their own. And it became apparent to me more when I came to London. It wasn't I didn't see it as such a thing in Cardiff. Yeah, it's it's a huge problem. And that's why, you know, you mentioned the 93% club earlier. That's why I've gravitated towards things like that, because I know that by talking to people who are considering it, you know, I get involved in events, talking to people who are still in school who are looking at this sort of thing, and actually just talking to somebody who's doing that for a living and explaining, you know, it's all the hidden, unwritten stuff that nobody ever tells you that you have to learn the hard way. And there's all sorts of stuff. Even now I'm picking up on things that I, you know, I never really understood. And if somebody can cut through some of that for you, it it just oils the wheels tremendously.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

I agree with everything you say, and and I think the the additional point here, and I'll come to something which I spoke about with Jake in in a second, but similar to the music industry, right? And the music industry has always had this issue, but it feels even more pertinent now in that there are just so many more posh kids in the music industry who make it. And the reason is because being in the music industry is hard. 90 to 99% of musicians, as I know, because I've interviewed a lot of them, have to have part-time jobs or even full-time jobs whilst doing music as well. But it's the time, it's the time they need to get the big break.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

And it's the networks as well. And this is really difficult because if somebody, if one of my relatives, if you know, someone I knew who had a child who was getting towards the end of school and wanted to do this sort of thing, asked for me for my help, of course I would give them help. And I always say, if somebody comes to me and says, Can you talk to me about your career? Can you give me some advice? Whatever their educational background, whatever they think, I will help them. The only criteria I have is that they are genuinely interested and passionate about it. If they're a bit nonpluss, then forget it, because you'll get nowhere. But it's so much easier, and I just think it's really it's not acknowledged properly, but it's so much easier if you know somebody on the inside. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And, you know, some people manage to get around that by, you know, I was lucky that I managed to meet some people on the inside who helped me out. And some people will go and hammer those doors down and I was gonna say that's the other thing. Hammer the doors down.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

I've had guess who've done that. You know, I I emailed 300 producers and one of them I just annoyed enough to say, I'll come in and approve yourself, blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Well, let me let me give you another story that will make me feel really old. In that period where I was trying to get some proper work in radio and doing community radio, I thought, well, I've got to go and, you know, speak to some radio stations, get out there. And I went to the library in Wrexham, where they had a big old shelf with every yellow pages for the entire country on it, every phone book. And I just went to every one to the section that said, I think it was radio and TV stations. And for some of them, I'd copy them down. And for the ones with more in, I'd photocopy them and spend the 10p that it cost to photocopy them, because I didn't have that many 10ps. And then I ended up I mean, it must have been like in excess of a hundred, just knocking off a hundred CVs, which didn't really have that much on it, and a hundred letters and saying, Look, I'm really want to do this, I'm looking for any trainee jobs, whatever you've got. And I sent them all out to pretty much every radio station and TV station in the entire country, from Radio Shetland right down to Channel Island. I really didn't care. I mean, if Radio Shetland had offered me a job I would have gotten there, you know. But you have to be like that. And I sent all of those back, and I probably got, you know, about maybe 60 or 70% of them actually replied. Most of them were just You wouldn't get that now, sadly, though.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

No, and that's that's why it's so much harder for the young kids right now.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

And about three or four said send us a tape. And the only reason I didn't send tapes to everyone is that would have cost a lot in minidiscs or CDRs or whatever we were sending out. And I got one interview at one station in Cardiff, not at the BBC, at Red Dragon, as it was called then, which didn't result in any work. And it's quite funny because my mum somewhere has got a file full of rejection letters, and it's like a little history book because it's got all these radio stations that don't exist anymore with all these names of people from years gone by. But that's the sort of thing you've got to do if you want to get on, just to make context, to get a name back and go, okay, that's the name of the boss there, right? I can go and pester them now.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Your accent is no longer very, very strong. But what I spoke with Jake about, and I'm not sure if you know Jake, he he runs an amazing platform called Popular Front, Conflict Journalism. He used to work at Vice, now he's running this amazing thing. He's got a predominantly younger audience, he's making, you know, conflict journalism and all of these kind of niche topics very accessible. He's from the Midlands, Northamptonshire. And I spoke with him about accentism he faced in the industry. And he said to me how when he was working at Vice and he was doing all of these kind of documentaries, he would consciously the colloquial phrase I'll use here is posh up his voice, right? First of all, did you experience any of that accidentism? And B, when you did, how did it impact your mental health at the time?

SPEAKER_02 37:50

It's difficult because I have an interesting background. I was born in Wales and until I came to London had lived my entire life in Wales, either in Cardiff or up north. Um my mum's family are all from North Wales. She's traced it back for hundreds of years, but my dad's family are mostly from around Merseyside. So certain things I will say, like saying Merseyside, then will suddenly come back. Yeah, you can't certain words. I know I know when I refer to me dad, it sort of comes back. So I think growing up in school, my accent was a little bit different to everyone else anyway, because I had, you know, some things I would say would sound a little bit scouse, and some things would would sound a bit different. The busies? Yeah, and it's uh it's and it's so I I've always struggled with the accent thing because I've never had a specific people don't say, Oh yeah, you're clearly from Newcastle or you're clearly from New York. Well, you know, that's the interesting point, because I thought it had. Right. Um and I always it changed because I did some work. There was a local TV station in North Wales called NW TV, and I did some work from them when I still lived up there, and I found a VHS tape a few years ago, which is another one I hope never sees the light of day. And it's me doing a news report on some cycle path that's been opened across a bridge, and there's this great big long piece to camera as I'm walking along this walkway along the side of a bridge, and I listened back to it, I thought, oh my god, I sound really scarce there. I didn't think I'd change that much, but it's interesting how it's it's a subconscious thing, isn't it? I think when you take somebody out of the environment. And also, one thing I'll say that's positive is when I started in this industry, you know, it wasn't a sort of working class thing, but they quite liked accents that weren't that specific regionally. And I think it was also if you're working across local radio, for example, and you grew up in North Wales, but you went to work in Leeds or something, they were quite keen on something like if you didn't sound like a local, at least you didn't sound like you were from anywhere else in particular. And that kind of accent, which is probably what have developed. Although I'm clearly from the north, because I say grass and bath and not grass and bath. So the thing was when I started that sort of accent that no one would instantly go, Oh, you're from so-and-so, that was quite desirable, and people wanted that sort of thing, you know, for voiceovers or for presenter work because you you were a bit more generic, really. So it's not to say that you're RP, but you know, as they say, the kind of more posh accent, received pronunciation. And now of the news where you are. Who do you think? But you just sort of not scream of being from anywhere in particular. The positive thing is now that's actually the opposite. And people have turned me down for work because my accent is too generic. And if you listen to people doing the sort of job that I used to do, things like TV continuity and radio news reading, all sorts of stuff, you will now hear loads of people who sound like they're from Yorkshire or sound like they're from Scotland. And Riley Side, by the way, great. Yeah, and that's really changed. I've been up for jobs, and it's a really mixed feeling because I've been up for jobs where they say, Oh, we thought you'd sound more Welsh, and we thought you'd have more of an accent. And of course, it's deeply annoying because it means I'm not going to get any word. But actually, on a more broad level, it's like, okay, it's nice that you're actually looking for that. So the world is changing. We would not expect somebody to change other aspects of themselves. You, you know, it would be horrifically terrible to suggest someone try and change their skin colour or ethnicity. You shouldn't have to change your accent, it's part of who you are. And why should that not be acceptable? Why should you not be able to be on Radio 4 and sound like you're from Bristol or from Wrexham or wherever that might be? And all the better for it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Radio 4 is for this whole country, and so it should sound like that. Let's reflect now on your journalism journey so far, mate. So, what's been your proudest achievement on it so far? I'm still here. Do you know what?

SPEAKER_02 41:22

A lot of journalists have told me that, mate. I don't know. I mean, it's this is a journey, and I think people who are serious in this business and who go, you know, they're always looking for the next thing to do. You know, they might not outwardly look as if they are, they might not say, Oh, I'm desperate to get some work doing this, but most people, you know, will always be thinking, or maybe I could do more of this, or maybe I could go and work for this company, or maybe do whatever. And to be honest, if you're not thinking like that, you're probably not committing yourself to it as much as you maybe could. So to be honest, everything I do is a great achievement. You know, my most recent thing is I've started working for Good Morning Britain. They've had a move and they've come within the ITN fold now. So I alongside my work at ITV News, I'm I'm popping up on that program every now and again, and that was a new thing. I didn't really know what to expect. It's a program I'd never worked on before. But actually, you know, they're a really nice bunch of people. People have been really supportive. Obviously, everywhere you work, you have to get your head around different ways of working, different ways of presenting a story, different ways of writing it. They pretty quickly latched onto the idea that I'm a bit of a closet space geek, so I ended up getting given, you know, Artemis-related things to do. I'm absolutely fine with that. I will talk about that all day, given the chance. So that's the new thing at the moment. It's been really great to get the opportunity to work on that, you know, in a couple of years' time. Who knows, it will be something else. But but everything's big. I mean, you mentioned before doing the Saturday breakfast show for LBC. I mean, that's that was great. You know, I love a new project and to be able to go, right, okay, we're gonna change this and we're gonna structure this and redo that, and we're gonna get some of this as well, you know, just to have a new focus to work on and everything, you know, you you should really put your all into everything, whether it's you know, some tiny little piece of the pile, whether it's some big thing.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

Yeah, and who knows, mate, you might end up on the uh red carpet for the June sequel. So there we go. Will the 16-year-old David have believed he could have done all this?

SPEAKER_02 43:00

Um I don't know really. I mean the 16-year-old me would be really chuffed to see me doing this. I think would probably have been a bit surprised. Why, mate? Just, you know, doing the occasional show on local radio, I'd have been pleased with that, to be honest. I've always just wanted to do stuff that interests me. The sort of technical side of it interests me, the the storytelling side of it interests me. Somebody asked me actually, as part of a project a couple of years ago, uh what you really like about journalism, about radio broadcast journalism. And actually, I think everyone has got their own little take. For some people, it's it is a sort of lie-breaking news thing, and I and I love that. Some people love the, you know, let's be honest about it, some people love being on the radio and on the tell. You know, for some people it's the writing. There are so many different things about it that can get you hooked. And I think the thing that I love more than any other is just the people you get to meet. I was saying this to a bunch of school kids a couple of years ago, is like the great thing about getting some work somewhere like LBC as a prime example because everyone kind of does a Bit of everything. You're not siloed like you would be at the BBC, where you'll have separate sports people and culture people and political people. If you're really into football and you think, well, I'd really love to make a bid to speak to some of the England side, you can go and approach them and say, I work for this radio station, can I come and speak? All right, you know, a lot of time they might say no, go away. Same as if you're into music, you stand a chance of getting a press ticket to somewhere of being able to sit and interview stars, same for film. Or the same for, you know, we've had astronauts on, we've had eminent scientists, we've had, you know, all sorts of people, politicians, and you know, as a normal 16-year-old in North Wales, you never get to speak to those people. And so it's the ability to just hear people's stories and that kind of thing. I mean, you know, whilst I mention the big names, equally applies to people in the street as well. You you talked about speaking to someone who who lost a child in the Manchester bombings. I mean, they're ordinary people with stories to tell, getting a chance to speak to them and hear that, give them a platform to tell it. That's a great thing to do. That's the thing that I would miss if I wasn't doing this for a living, I think.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

And as a final question before we move on, what has this journey taught you about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 45:08

I think let me think about this for a moment. Um you quoted a thing back at me a little while ago, talking about, you know, nobody comes out of the womb as a fully formed journalist or radio presenter. That I think is something everyone could do with knowing. I I saw a book once and it was something about the myth of talent or something. I didn't read the book, but just the idea of the It might be James Pablo's book, The Myth of Meritocracy. You've got a few of them down here. But it was actually that idea that just reading the title of that book made you think, oh, crumbs, yeah. Because it's that idea that, oh, well, only certain people have this God-given ability to do this job. And for the most part, it's rubbish. All right, okay, I was never going to be a Premier League footballer. But actually, you know, so many people probably think, oh, well, I'd like to become a doctor, or I'd like to become a journalist, or I'd like to do, you know, whatever it might be, oh, but you know, I I haven't got the skill to do that, I wouldn't be able to do that. And actually, it's amazing. When you throw yourself into something and if you put your mind to it and you go out and you do it, the talent seems to suddenly come out of nowhere. What's that whole thing about, you know, 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration? Talent is good and having a natural, I'd say passion is more important than talent, having a desire to do it. But actually, if you put the effort in and you go for it, then talent can be created.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

We've talked about your incredible journalism journey and everything you've achieved so far, mate. Let's go deeper and talk about your own mental health journey. So I ask all my special guests on this topic, this question first, to me back to early life in North Wales, teenage years, and looking back, were there any early mental health experiences? If any, who's the David we meet here?

SPEAKER_02 46:49

It sounds very deep when you say it like that. Well, at the time, obviously was aware of mental health conditions and you know, neurodivergent conditions, maybe less so they, you know, they were out there but not talked about as much. But looking back retrospectively, yeah, there were clearly difficulties there. So what I should probably say at this point is I later in life, around about 10, 11 years ago, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and then subsequently in the last couple of years have been diagnosed with ADHD. And that, I mean, I can talk a bit more about that in a minute, but actually looking back, that's clearly always been there. I mean, that's that's the nature of something like ADHD. It's it's always been there. And I've heard so many people, and this is the great thing about social media, so many people comparing their stories of of ADHD in particular. And so many people have said that every single school report of theirs said, oh, they'd be really great if they just apply themselves or they just, you know, concentrate and get on with it. And that's every single report I had pretty much had on it. And that's probably one, you know, one of the big problems during my school years is I just I just couldn't concentrate on stuff. You know, I I was I found a lot of it interesting and I'd and I'd like to think I wasn't completely thick. But yeah, I just didn't get on in that environment. I didn't deal well with that kind of place.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Did you excel in one subject? Like, for example, that I excelled in like RS, English, history, politics, all subjects I enjoyed writing. But then when it came to like maths and science, I really struggled. And if I wasn't interested in a subject or the teacher wasn't good, I just couldn't focus properly.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

The really strange thing is I really didn't like, and it makes no sense now thinking back. I really didn't like English in school at all. Oh, okay, interesting. No, and I think part of it is I've always had terrible handwriting. I've always really struggled with that level of coordination and stuff. So I would get sort of shouted at for writing illegible stuff or taking ages to read.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

So it was a shame associated with it rather than oh, I didn't enjoy reading great expectations or something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:41

Yeah, and and I think also there's just a degree of I don't really like the idea of reading a book along with everyone else in the class. If someone gives me a book, I'd rather just go ahead and read it at my own pace and do what I've, you know. So the weird thing is I've always liked reading. I'm much more of a non-fiction person. That's obviously where the journalism stuff came from. So, you know, I love reading biographies and and factual books. But actually, English, I was terrible at in school. But strangely, outside of school, I was always writing stuff and coming up with ideas for you know scripts and things that I wanted to. And you enjoyed the process. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I struggle sometimes, and that there is that ADHD thing, and I don't know if you found the same where I notice a lot, particularly if I'm on the tube on the way home, I'll I'll my eyes have gone down half a page about five times.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

My eyes have scanned it, and I haven't paid any. I can't read on the tube, mate. It's weird. I can read on a train, like a national rail train, because that's more like I'm feel a bit more sort of. And it's not stopping every couple of minutes, you're not getting disturbed, are you? And I think with the tube, I'm a Londoner, born and raised. Sometimes I've got to have my my my mirrors on as well, just in case.

SPEAKER_02 49:39

But yeah, so I mean you asked about subjects, is you know, I was much more into science and and technology and stuff, and I didn't do badly at those. So that was what your passion was then? Yeah, and I mean this is the other thing. This is the idea. I one of the things I've hated in life is this concept of pigeonholing, is that, oh, that is a person who does that, or you know, in the era where I was working more as a director, you know, people subsequently went, Oh, but I've just heard him reading the news on Five Live, he's a director. It's like, well, you can do both, you know. There are people that are capable of doing, you know, if I'm being honest, I probably wasn't the greatest TV director in the world. But and that's the thing, you can be good at science and also still enjoy reading and writing. And actually, you know, there are plenty of roles in life where we need people like that. We need people to explain technology. We need people to cross those. You know, I I often used to say when I was working on projects and working as a director, I was often like the interpreter between the engineers and the journalists because I knew enough about the tech to converse with the engineers, and I knew enough about production to speak to journalists, and I was the one person sitting in the middle.

SPEAKER_01 50:37

We should celebrate this sort of thing, not writing people off because it's well, and the best people I find, male or female, who are able to explain something very, very complex in a very, very simple way, are A, good people, and B, make for the best television documentaries. You know, that's why Attenborough's so good. That's why Cox is so good, that's why Dawkins I think is so good, because they can explain very, very complex things in a way that any man or woman on the street Brian Cox is a brilliant example. Brian Cox is amazing.

SPEAKER_02 51:04

This is a guy who's been on top of the pops with top 40 singles and then becomes professor of astrophysics. Astrophysics, yeah, yeah. And now presents there's a very idea of someone who's you know doesn't fit into that pigeon-holing idea of very much so.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

And look at naturalists, you know, my idol uh Steve Baxhall or God rest his soul, Steve Irwin, who inspired multi-generations of men and women to take up marine biology or working with animals because he he had so much passion for it and he was able to explain things in very, very simple ways. And and David Asenborough, who we've been talking about a lot, turned a hundred at time recording.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

And obviously hugely known as a naturalist and presenter of programs, but he was controller of BBC Two in the 1960s. He ran TV networks. People can have more than one skill.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

Do you know what? I also saw a clip of it, it came up on my Instagram the other day. He did um the Christmas lectures, and he had this I can't remember what animal he had on him, and the animal, he was so good with the animal as well, it was almost like the animal was well behaved for him, and he was explaining to all these children because the audience was predominantly children. I thought, wow, that's how great a man he is, because he's able to explain the animal, manage the animal's behaviour whilst he's on him, and explain these very, very complex things about how this animal works, how it smells, what it produces to a bunch of school children. That is a magical audience as well. School children's very much. I want to talk about bipolar before we really dive into the ADHD. So you were diagnosed around 12 or 13 years ago, as you said. I've interviewed several guests about bipolar, but not too many. So just explain how it impacts your mental health, your mood, everything in between.

SPEAKER_02 52:36

Um well, it's it's you're never really able to settle into yourself. It's difficult because I, you know, in terms of people who have bipolar, I'm certainly not one of the worst cases. There are people who I've got to be. Don't invalidate yourself. Not invalidate myself. I've been able to keep my life going reasonably well. And I know other people aren't that fortunate. But yeah, it's just, you know, I think people think that the depressive side of it is probably going to be the worst, and that can be terrible, and you you just can't you can't see any positives in yourself. You can't even entertain the idea of doing anything productive. It just knocks you out. Can maybe all suicidal at its most extreme. And that's, you know, how deep we get into those sort of subjects, I don't know. But yeah, I mean it's you know, suicide is a very I think is now the leading cause of death in men under 50. And for a lot of people it this is has been a fatal condition. So you have the depressive side, you then have periods of mania where you end up doing the most ridiculous things. Yeah, give me an example of that.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

Because I I interviewed my mate Dean a long time ago, amazing, great friend of them. He helped pay for this recording that we're doing now. Absolute legend of a man. And I said to him, like, how does your mania affect you? And he said, For me, my brain can tell me if I step in front of a car, it'll be like the superhero film where the car will bounce back and destroy itself and I come away looking like a god. That's how bad it's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 54:02

I mean, I think I I always think it's almost that the I'm not directly comparing the two, but the closest thing I can probably describe it to someone who doesn't have bipolar is it's like that time where you've had a few drinks and you just feel invincible and you think, yeah, we're just gonna climb that mountain or you can't. Dutch courage to the max. Yeah. It's like that, except that it can last for days and weeks. And actually, strangely, in my case, it hasn't really manifested itself in I can step in front of this bus and I'll stop it with my hand. It's more that I've got it's almost a sort of exaggeration of the rest of my personality that I'll get really hugely excited about something and end up starting these mad projects. And I started a record label at one point. And that in itself is not a bad idea. You know, there's some friends of mine with releases, and I thought, oh, I could do a better job than this. I could, you know, be the next, you know, Richard Branton Virgin Records or, you know, the next cool indie that's doing all this stuff. And I, you know, I've got friends that do that sort of stuff. But within the space of like a couple of weeks, I'd set up two limited companies and bank accounts and and started all these processes and done all of these things, spent a huge amount of money on it. And then after a while, I just kind of, you know, yeah, that was it, you know. And then there's the problem is your mood changes and you can often go into a depressive state, and then the last thing you want to do is to sort of start engaging with that sort of stuff. I've had these grand ideas for sort of film and art projects and stuff. Um sometimes I've bought loads of stuff. I've hit eBay and bought all sorts of things that I think are going to be useful, and then like a few days later, all these boxes turn up, and you think, oh, what am I going to do with this now? And you know, so it's it is almost like a different person takes over for a while. And, you know, they're some of the more broadcast-friendly things I've done. You know, there are all sorts of ways these manifest itself. Aside from that mood swing between the things that you go through, it just makes it hugely difficult to live your life because you're never quite sure what you're committed to or what you're gonna be like in a few weeks' time. This can be really, really difficult when you're dealing with work. I mean, I'm I'm fortunate that the one core thing that I've always managed to keep going is I've managed to keep turning up to work stuff. And I think in some ways that's probably saved me going through all this because it's been the one bedrock underneath it. But it also the ADHD thing came about because I I read a thing that Bipolar UK put out a couple of years ago talking about the links between bipolar and ADHD. And there is um I forget the percentages, but there's quite a strong percentage of people with bipolar also have ADHD and the other way around. They kind of bounce off against each other a little bit. Quite dangerously sometimes as well. Yeah, they they really do. And that and that sort of, you know, where you'll hyperfocus on something and and really go for it and then completely lose interest and forget it, or you'll you'll want to motivate yourself to do something, but you just never quite manage it. That lack of concentration and lack of organization can be really difficult. So together they make a pretty awful cocktail. But and again, I'd be positive about this, like when we were talking about accents. I think the world is better now. I think if I were in high school now, somebody would spot these traits and would realise that something wasn't right, and there would be options to look at treatment for both of these conditions. I was fortunate that I got basically marched to a doctor's and told to tell them about my mania and depressive states because I really didn't particularly want to go sit down, because of course you've got to go through that first stage of going to your GP before you go and see a specialist. I really didn't want to go and sit down and talk about it. A lot of men don't, mate. No, and we need to meet men where they are. And actually, there is an issue with men in this, but also it's just it's a difficult thing to explain. It's it's an it can be an embarrassing thing to explain. And, you know, a lot of people, the really serious stuff happens before they get a chance to explain it. And that's that's the sad thing. Yeah. And I like to think we're in a better place now. I do a lot of work with the charity Bipolar UK. You know, that's been an amazing thing in my life. You know, I had a chance to meet a lot of people in a similar situation, some amazing people, and also the ability to put the message out there and tell people, you know, the sorts of stuff that I didn't see when I was a teenager in my twenties, was clearly suffering with this stuff, but had no idea what it was or or how to do anything about it.

SPEAKER_01 58:02

It's very important what you say, and I think it's so important that we meet men where they are and we help them understand that it's not emasculating for them to talk about these things, and also we need to be able to reach into men, not just tell men to reach out, which is a big thing that I talk about on the podcast. Given what you said, mate, obviously we've had loads of positive change in the last 10 years and especially in the last five years. How did you feel when you were diagnosed?

SPEAKER_02 58:22

I've been asked this a few times, and the answer is always the same. It was a sense of relief. For several reasons. Having gone through all this, and of course, I then got referred by the GP to a psychiatrist. I didn't realise it at the time, but I was really lucky I got to see somebody within oh, I think it was within weeks. Wow. I've subsequently found out the mental health support there in Cardiff at that time was particularly good, and you know, there are plenty of other places in the country, or maybe more recently, where there'd be a huge waiting list to get to see somebody, and that is another big problem. But yeah, when the psychiatrist said, Oh, yeah, it's pretty clear that you've got bipolar disorder, my biggest worry was that he would say, Oh, actually, there's nothing wrong with you, it's fine. Because the only other explanation would be that I'd be like, Fucking hell, horrible. It's just weird. Yeah, I'm just a horrible person. You know, that was the end. But also, if you know what a problem is, you can then do something about it. And if you're just sitting and going, Well, why do I feel like this? You can't address the problem. So I stand by what I say. It was a huge relief. And a lot of people around me were really worried because I thought, oh, crumbs, what does this mean? You know, you think, well, actually, nothing's changed. I've had this all this time. All that's changed is that you've now officially been told about it, as was the case when I went public with it a couple of years ago. And you're much better off in a position of knowledge. I mean, about about 90% of dealing with this has been just understanding it better. And it's been the same with the ADHD, and people around me knowing as well, knowing that it's not just, you know, there isn't some, you know, he's not being a pain. He's there's clearly a change going on here, and you know, whatever. It's I think the first seed of me understanding it was there was a this was probably a long time ago, Stephen Fry had a documentary out. I think it was a two-part thing, which I think off the top of my head was called The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, which is a term we don't tend to use these days, but actually I I don't really dislike it. Bipolar disorder isn't terribly descriptive. You know, whilst I understand the sensitivities around it is quite a good explanation of what is involved. But I saw that, you know, I was obviously aware of bipolar disorder. You know, Jimi Hendrix had a track called Manic Depression before I was even born. So I, you know, but seeing that and seeing his experience and the experience of some of the people he spoke to, that was a bit of an eye-opener where I thought, oh, this sounds familiar. And I'm sure, you know, that was at a time when things weren't quite so talked about, and I'm sure a lot of other people had the same experience, but it still took me another 10 years or so to actually manage to get help, sadly. But it shows how important those kind of conversations are.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:44

When it comes to language, I've got a very nuanced take on this from my reading, my own understanding of books on autism and ADHD, which I'm diagnosed with. And for someone, a child, young person, even adult, who is on the severe end of the autism spectrum, I think calling it a disorder is still an accurate term. And I think that it does give some comfort and relief and validation to especially to the caregivers of those people. However, for someone like me, the outdated term would be Asperger's probably, I'm still classified as autistic. I think autism is fine. When it comes to ADHD, I do have a bit of a problem with saying it's a disorder sometimes. I flip-flop on it. Sometimes I think maybe we should change it to difference. Would that reduce the stigma? Would it not? Because I do have a view on something like PTSD, which I was diagnosed with uh seven or eight years ago now, and I read an amazing book you can see on my shelf called The Invisible Machine by Eugene Lipov, and he argues that we should amend the term to post-traumatic stress injury because the disorder implies that you are broken, that you can't overcome your post-traumatic stress.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:50

And it's something that's been caused by something specific. Exactly. In the same way that if you broke your leg or exactly. There's a lot to unpack. Then what's your view on this? Um Well, in relation to ADHD, I think everyone, when you're talking, you know, there's such sensitivities over language, not just in relation to mental health, but in terms of other disabilities, in terms of gender, you know, all sorts of identity, race, or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:14

That's why I don't call either my ADHD or autism a superpower. I feel that would be patronizing and insulting to people who are in such a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:19

No, and I and I do and whilst I understand that that superpower thing, I'm I have kind of I struggle with as well because I I understand the need to have an air of positivity about it that needs to do that. But the thing is, I know that a lot of things in my life have been properly screwed up by ADHD over the over the years because I've had things that I've desperately needed to do and haven't been able to do and I've done and regret and had whole days or even weeks where I've I've struggled to do anything productive and my brain's just been going around in circles. That is not a superpower as far as I'm concerned, and I'm not going to criticise anyone who chooses to call it that, but I wouldn't. In terms of the disorder thing, I mean it's difficult because I get some of the arguments around, particularly around autism, that people want to see it as a, as you say, as a difference. It's a different way of of thinking, a different way of being, and it's no better or worse than anyone else. And I do understand that. And I suppose it depends on the individual as to whether, given the choice, you would change that. In terms of ADHD, it has been a real handicap on my life. It has been something that has caused me a lot of problems, and I would absolutely obliterate it if I could. Really? Okay. Yeah, yeah. And I do understand that there are some things that some people find beneficial in it, some of the traits. But, you know, I just think back to some of the days I've had where I've really struggled with stuff. I've struggled, you know, those times where I've had a thing I've needed to read for a work thing, and I've just tried to sit down and concentrate and take in the points from this document, and I just can't. It just won't get into my brain. And I just think there's there's nothing good about this at all. So, in those terms, I think I would describe it as a disorder. But I would also say, you know, going back to what I said about the significance of language, whether it applies to this or, you know, disability, gender, race, whatever. I think as a society, we're kind of looking for one person to say, this is the correct thing to say, this is right, and everything else is wrong. Whereas actually, if you speak to a dozen people with a particular characteristic, they'll all have their own view on what it is. I talk to people about different language around race, and some people don't have a problem with some terms that other people with the same background as them really despise. So there isn't a one size fits all. One size fits all. Everyone has that yeah, everyone has their own perception of this. I saw this so often in in the aftermath of this is going off another tangent, this is an ADHD thing. Broadcasters were terrible for this on occasion in the aftermath of of 9-11 and the 7-7 bombings in the UK, where people on radio shows would get a Muslim person on, maybe an Imam, or maybe just somebody of the Muslim faith, and would say, So what do the Muslim community think? And you think, well, what, all of them? All of the millions around the world, or even the, you know, however many hundred thousand there are in the UK? You can ask somebody what they think, what their own perspective is, but there's no shared vision that everybody in one particular religion shares.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:16

You're creating a monolith. And for me, I agree with what you say in that, and this is something that Susanna Sullivan talks about in her book, The Age of Diagnosis, which had a lot of criticism when it came out, and I think a lot of people didn't actually read the book, surprise, surprise, when they were criticizing it, is that she talks to activists in the, I'm gonna use air quotes here, autism community space, and she talks to caregivers of children who are severely autistic. And those activists may form the milder end of the spectrum. And they would say, Well, we have X views on this, and then the caregivers would say, Well, actually, you're minimizing my views here. You're minimizing my experience of my child who's got severe autism, he can't control his emotion, he or she, sorry, can't control their emotions, they struggle to emotionally regulate, they might be. Mute or have selective mutism, they might never be able to hug me properly. You're minimizing my experience. So for me, it's just making room for all voices. If we are coming out and saying, there's obviously a limit, right? There's obviously a degree to say, look, I think there's things that we can all agree there's which is stigmatizing language. However, there are things, like you say, which are open to debate, which are open to conjecture. And we need to make space for that. We can't be allowing people to say, I believe this is not right, therefore this is what everyone should believe.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:26

Yeah, and there are a lot of people in all sorts of walks of life, you know, the sort of self-appointed spokespeople who say, well, this is right now. Get someone, yeah. And I do understand the sensitivities because I think people are so, or a lot of people are so worried about using the wrong language and appearing to be offensive. And I think they almost want a laminated piece of card that says these are the right ways to say these are just the ones offending. And then it isn't that simple, and that's the thing. And it's, you know, so many people have different takes on it. But actually, I think we, as, you know, in this case, people with a condition, we need to cut a bit of select. As you said, there is some language which is absolutely offensive and cannot be construed any other way. And there are some people who actually are trying to say the right thing and they're trying to be nice, they just maybe have some outdated language in their head. And there's a big difference between someone who is actually trying to offend and someone who's trying to say the right thing but hasn't quite got the right words. And they, you know, a lot of those people have been vilified for it, and they really shouldn't have been.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:22

When it comes to disclosure, I look back at mine quite fondly and funnily, because when I came out for the first time about my autism, I wrote a 9,000-word essay. Um and I wrote 4,500 words in 45 minutes. You had previously only spoken about your bipolar and especially your ADHD to around three or four people. So when you talked about it for the first time, this isn't your coming out story, by the way, for the listeners. When you talked about it for the first time publicly, how did you feel beforehand and how did you feel afterwards?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:48

Well, the ADHD thing came a bit later. That was after I'd kind of revealed the bipolar diagnosis. And it was I've told this story a couple of times before, but it is basically what happened. I I don't fully know why I kept it quiet. I think I was a bit worried about the perception people would have of me, people would treat me differently, certainly from a work point of view. And what started to tip the balance was that I, doing what I do for a living, had been in various program meetings where we talked about mental health issues and we talked about, oh, yeah, it's really important that we run this story, it's really important we have this guest, it's good to talk about it, it's good to open up these discussions, particularly in relation to men's health and all that sort of stuff, where it's maybe less talked about. And I'm sitting in the meeting going, yep, yep, that's really important we should do it. And I'm sort of sitting there thinking, yes, but you're not doing it. And it's difficult because I don't think anybody should feel obliged to be open about it if they don't want to. That's your own choice. But personally, I started to feel a bit hypocritical. And after being in a couple of these discussions, I thought, no, I can't carry on doing this. Partly because I'm the one person in the room who could talk at length about it and nobody knows, but also because I'm not helping this conversation by keeping it quiet. So I chose to be open about it, and I and I it's interesting that you talked about writing a big old essay about it. I think we all have our own ways of doing it. You know, I'm a radio and TV guy, so I it was about three in the morning on a night shift at the BBC, and I went into a a room with my phone, a very poorly lit room, actually. I look back at that video and I think, oh, it was terrible. My director hat doesn't like it. But I just decided to go, right, okay, here we go then. And I just recorded, without putting too much thought into it, recorded, I don't know, about a minute, minute and a half, two minutes of video and just saying, right, this is it. I was diagnosed with this at the time, about ten years ago, you know, and this is what's happened. And I stuck it on all of the socials. And the moment I hit post, I thought, oh crumbs, what have I done? And I think that's probably why I didn't mention it for so long. There's that fear of that thing that you can never undo once you've mentioned it, you can't pull that back in again and go, oh, can I just go back to before when nobody knew about it, please? Can't do that. But I was fortunate this, so I again posted all this at the end of a night shift when I was really quite tired. And then was on the tube home after that shift, and people had begun to notice it. And I think one of the first comments was from a former colleague of mine who was really, really lovely, and she posted something saying, can't remember exactly now, but you know, don't worry about this. I've never worried about you, it's fine, you've never done anything daft around me, it's it's all okay. I thought, okay, people are being nice, and I'm tremendously grateful to her for posting that, because that that sort of convinced me that I was all right. And actually it got quite widely picked up. A lot of people, you know, and still talking about it now on podcasts like this. But like, Daily Mirror as well, mate. You know, the weird thing was, some journalist I am, I I never noticed it was in the Daily Mirror. And it was only when somebody, oh, there was something else that linked to it about a year later. I thought, what on earth is this? And I clicked on it and I thought, oh, it's me. Oh, God. And it turned out that somebody in the mirror had picked up on my post and then written an article up about it, and I never knew. So yeah, that that got done. But yeah, and and I also got off the back of that got approached by by Polar UK, and the press person sort of got in touch and went, Oh, I've just seen this. Could we could we talk about this? And then subsequently started doing more and more work with them. So that to be honest, my and again, experiences will vary, but my experience of being open about it has only been positive. I've met people who I've been able to share experiences with. I've learned a lot more. It's made me realise how little I knew about bipolar disorder, how little information I was given by the people I saw at the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:25

I still don't know a lot about it, mate. I know sort of the basics of it, and I know what you've amazingly told me today, but I still don't know a lot about it, to be honest.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:32

And I've learned an awful lot more through some of the things I've read and some of the people I've met since. I've met some great people, I've had a chance to to share my story and hopefully help a few other people along the way. Everything about this, the process of being open about it, everything about that has been good. I won't deny that I think there have been a few maybe difficult work conversations. There is still some hesitancy in the workplace a bit. You know, I still think that it proves a factor in some people's decision-making processes. There are one or two experiences which have led me to believe, yeah, I don't see you saying that to other people. But but generally, I think I'm in a better place not hiding it. So when the ADHD diagnosis came along, I couldn't really not be open about it. So I I did the last time and posted another video about it because why not?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:16

It's really interesting you say that, mate, because I share your experience as well with different workplaces whereby the language or the support is one thing, but then when the uncomfortable traits arise, then the stigma comes back, right? And that's something that I've experienced not too much, but one or two occasions, and that does get to you. But what I want to come back to as well is is what you said about being in these production meetings and realizing that you are the story, right? In a way. I've experienced a little bit of that where I've been in sort of group meetings, and sometimes there's been a conversation about oh, how we can um support people with neurodiversity. I personally don't use that term neurodiversity, I've spoken about that publicly. I don't have a problem with people who do use it for themselves, but I don't use that personally. And then when I speak up, it's like, oh, okay, maybe it's not as simple as we thought. Maybe there's things we haven't spoken about or we haven't talked about, but because there's now someone in the room that might be putting a different conversation to the mainstream or a different opinion, what we might not expect, then the conversation changes. And hopefully for the better. Sometimes I might put people's noses out of joy about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:22

But isn't this the general thing in life that our workplaces, our social groups, all of this are at their best when we have a nice wide range of opinions and experiences. Again, you're never going to have somebody in a team that has every possible experience you might need. That's impractical. But to have a range of ages, so you've got people who understand the pop culture that people in their teens and twenties are looking at now, and you also have people who remember the 1960s. I am neither of those things. But you have people from, you know, it's one of the most amazing things about the BBC World Service is that the BBC World Service. Thank you. Well, we have such a range of people, and actually, you know, historically, when the BBC used to have a whole load of different language services in in London, you have people from almost every country in the world. And that floor was the best. Oh, I worked right next to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:12

Yeah, I worked right next to it. So I used to walk along and there'd be like a guy from BBC Kenya.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:16

They were just so it were just great. I loved them so much. And it was the ability, sadly, that because of the way things have been restructured, there aren't so many around now. But there was it was that moment where you could be on a news reading shift and you'd be there, you know, at two in the morning and a and a place name or a person's name would come up in Arabic and you think, oh, crumbs. And you just go up to the BBC Arabic service and say, excuse me, mate, how'd you say that? Right, brilliant, fine. And the food was great. The sheer range of cuisine. But I mean, that's an example. You've got, you know, on any given day, you know, think about the team that I would work with on the bulletins desk. You know, on any given day, there'll be somebody, you know, there was a guy from Finland who worked there. One of my good mates in that team is from Eritrea. You know, there's a guy from Brazil. And like you've got all these people, and you know, okay, there's no guarantee that the guy from Brazil will be there on the day the Brazilian story runs. But, you know, you've got those people, and just people you can have interesting conversations with. That's the thing, and that's there is so much hesitation around the word diversity now because of the way some people think of it and the way some people think that it's detrimental to the book. Well, it's a separate podcast. Yeah, yeah, and and and many things have been said about that. But but what it should mean is just having as many experiences. I think I've always been I use the word attracted in its loose sense. I've always found people different to me appealing. I've always gravitated to people whether they grew up in a different place or they come from a different sort of thing, or they they work in a different field, or whatever. Because how boring would this world be if you only ever hung around people who are just like you?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:40

That's increasingly getting there though, I'm just polarization, etc.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:44

But you learn so much interesting stuff. You know, I don't want to have the same conversation with the same person every day because we all have the same experience.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:50

That's just not fun. Very much so. I'm a big believer in social class diversity, I'm a big believer in viewpoint diversity. I think both of those are things we are sadly lacking a little bit in the workplace and in other parts of life. Because at the end of the day, I'm of the belief that I don't care what class you come from, as long as you own it, if you own it, I love you.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:08

And it's as much the people who try to kind of put on airs and graces, yeah. I'm I'm not criticizing anything. My private school is shit though, but it's much that as it is people who, you know, had a very privileged background who were like, oh yeah, mate, how you doing? You know, sorry. Most people I went to uni with, unfortunately. It's interesting how it's changed over the years, that certainly, you know, within the last 30 years it's become more fashionable to talk like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:30

The the upper classes cosplaying working class culture is a weird phenomenon. I think it comes down to this idea that A, insecurity, and B that they've earned everything they've got. And I'm of the belief that, like, if you own it and you say, look, I came from a privileged background, the door was open for me, but I worked hard and I took advantage of it and I stayed there. I'm like, cool. And it's on.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:52

Yeah, and it's important to say that much as we talk about you know people being in a privileged position where they might get a leg up into an industry, nobody is going to succeed in journalism or any other career if they just turn up from a private school and do nothing. You've still got to put the effort in, whatever your background is.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:07

I want to reflect now on your mental health journey, mate. So, similar question as the first topic. What has this mental health journey taught you about yourself? That's very deep, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:17

This does feel like therapy now. Should I be lying back on the sofa? Um I've learned, as I said before, I've learned a lot about bipolar disorder, and I've learned a lot about ADHD, and knowledge is hugely important, and actually that's a big part, you know, understanding what the condition is, what contributes to it, those kind of things are a you know are an important part in being able to manage it and being able to work out how to live your life with it. But I mean, there's a difference between understanding a medical condition, a mental health condition, and understanding yourself. And I think it's been great to be able to try and unpick the difference. You know, I said before how my my big worry was that I'd go to a psychiatrist and they say, Oh, actually, there's nothing wrong with you, you're fine. And then the only explanation is that you're just not a very nice person. It's really nice to be able to take those mental health conditions out of the bucket, if you like. And then you can look at yourself and you can actually, this is sounding very deep, but you can actually look at yourself and see what you are, irrespective of those conditions. Because an awful lot, and this is true of people with neurodivergent mental health, you know, whatever term you use, you know, a lot of different conditions. A lot of people's interactions with you and experience will be coloured by the condition, by whatever it is. But we're not defined by them. But we're not defined by them. And actually, and it's important to, you know, no two people with bipolar disorder are the same, no two people with ADHD are the same, or autism, or whatever. And there is a person alongside that. I was gonna say behind that, that's not fair. A person alongside that. And it does help you to understand yourself better if you can view yourself without the lens of those conditions.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:06

And as a final question, before we move on to our quick fire mental health chat, if you could go back and talk to the 16-year-old David who had just left school wondering what to do with his life, the David who was about to leave North Wales to move to the big smoke of Cardiff, and the David who had just been diagnosed with bipolar or ADHD, what would you say to him, knowing what you do now, if anything at all?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:30

Well, I mean, this is I have a lot of occasions where I speak to people who are exactly in that position, the 16-year-olds who are coming to the end of their GCSEs, and and I'm fully aware that the last thing any 16-year-old wants to hear is some grand deep life advice from someone in their 40s. I know exactly how I would have perceived that when I was 16. I wouldn't have listened at all. So maybe I mean there is practical advice, and I and I think if I could get nothing else across to myself, I would say, look, just you know, investigate the possibility of mental health issues and treatment as soon as you can. Don't leave it for years.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:07

Would you have denied it though? That's the thing the question I asked myself. Would I have rejected it? Because my perception of autism and ADHD back then was the autistic as fuck kids and the ADHD as fuck kids, and I didn't see myself I saw myself a little bit in them. Maybe that was a subconscious thing, that's why I was kind to them. I wouldn't have maybe like accepted it.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:22

I would be really intrigued, and I and I've spoken to some people, it'd be good to speak to more. It'd be great to speak to people who are, you know, maybe 16, 18 now, you know, in a similar position to you or me, and talk about the experience they've had through high school and their, you know, initial years in work because I would like it's better, mate. I would like to think it's a lot better. I'd be intrigued to know exactly how and what, because in some ways there is a better understanding and that and there is more help on offer. There's also a lot of hostility. You read a lot of things online and even in politics, talking about, oh yeah, isn't it really fashionable to be ADHD now? Or that thinking comes through into other things as well. So maybe that makes some people hesitant about seeking it.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:02

I don't know. Well, this comes back to uh Suzanne's book, uh, The Age of Diagnosis, whereby I talked about in the book review I did where it's a different mindfield now. So you've got some parents who might not want their child to have the label, it might be self-limiting or etc., but they need extra support, but they can't get the support without the diagnosis from the school because the schools will hands might be tight, they might think, well, unless we have a diagnosis, we can't give the extra support. That's a mindfield.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:25

But they don't want the kid to be diagnosed and then hived off into another classroom somewhere and taken away. I mean, I'm not saying that I'm I would hope that doesn't happen, but yeah, I get it. It's a really difficult balance. You can't have one without the other. You know, it's tough to do. I'd be keen to know more about it, but I I would like to think if I was in that position now, life would have been different. Now now who knows? You know, it's like the you know the butterfly effect. Yeah. And and it could be that if I'd been diagnosed, I'd have ended up doing something completely different. You might be watching a NASA, mate. Yeah, I could I could be, you know, I could be I could be some entrepreneur, I could be like on Dragon's Den or something with millions to my name. Or but to be honest, I would like to think that some traits would probably be the same. You know, some parts are part of your core, and whatever you do, they're still you. And and I'm st I've always been more excited about the prospect of a new project or something interesting than I have about cash. I mean, money is really there to keep you alive, but it's also there to, you know, open up new interesting things. I'm not the sort of person who you know will want to say, oh, look how much money I've got. The things I will buy will only be because they interest me. So I think, you know, given the choice between a career doing interesting stuff which doesn't pay a great deal, much as people think journalism is a is a route to multimillionaireship, I'm afraid it isn't. But yeah, I mean, given the choice between a career where you could, you know, work in the city and earn millions, or a career where you get paid a lot less, but do stuff that interests you that you want to do, I'd like to think I'd always pick that second option. I don't really want to be rich and bored.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:55

We've come to our final topic of conversation on this brilliant chat, mate, which is a quickfire chat about our mental health. Do you say brilliant to everyone you have on here? Of course. Yeah, of course. My first question is very simple. How was your mental health out of ten? Today? Uh, pretty good. I'd say seven or eight. What age were you when you became self-aware of your mental health for the first time and you realised that the feelings you were having weren't physical and they were actually in your mind?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:22

That's not an easy thing to give a quick fire answer to. Okay. I mean, I was clearly aware in school that there was something not right, but I think at that age you're not, certainly at that time, you're not equipped to really understand it and to put a kind of focus on it. So I was obviously aware back then that something was different and something wasn't right. It was only into my twenties seeing things like those documentaries that made me aware, okay, that might be what it is. So yeah. I mean, I think most people with a mental health condition will have experienced it quite early on, but maybe not understood it until later.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:56

Can you tell me about the first or the most important conversation you've ever had with someone about your mental health? So if you can remember, who was it with, what did you say, and how do you look back on it? Did it feel like the stereotypical weight had been lifted, or on the other hand, something quite easy and normal to do?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:12

That's more difficult. I mean, I'd probably discussed, you know, worries about mental health with some very close friends, a small number, prior to a diagnosis. And then it was my partner at the time who basically marched me to the doctors. I'm still quite thankful for that because I, you know, left to my own devices, I wouldn't have done it. So whilst that wasn't a conversation, that was quite important. But then obviously the diagnosis itself was important. I think some of the conversations I had once I was open about it and started talking to people at Bipolar UK and other things were maybe some of the most important because I actually started to understand at that point. I started to speak to other people in the same situation as me. I had previously spoken to other people in the same situation, I just hadn't realized it.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:54

What things do you find in life that trigger your mental health, mate? So it could be things people say to you sound, smell, taste, sensation, or have you not figured all of them out yet?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:04

Um they make themselves known occasionally. I mean, stress is a big thing, and it's yeah, you know, you know, this is a stressful job I do. You know, I know I can get quite difficult to be around when the pressure is on and I've got to get something done by a certain time while there's a lot on my mind. But then most people are like that, I think, aren't they? Even somebody with no diagnosable mental health condition will be difficult when they're under pressure. There are things that kind of trigger the ADHD a bit, and you know, sometimes I just have to get out of places because I can't stand noise or or something. But yeah. Well, we're quite normal, really.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:35

Conversely, what positive tools do you use to improve your mental health or help you feel better? Which ones have worked and which ones have you tried but haven't?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:43

Um Well, I mean, I'll go back to saying again, awareness. I think it's a hugely underrated thing. It's so difficult if you are 14, 15, 16 and you know there's something wrong and you you don't know what it is and you don't know what you can do about it. Everything I've learned about both bipolar and ADHD has been positive. You know, even if it's stuff you don't particularly want to know, just knowing it is useful. But it's also important, you know, every now and again I'll, you know, I'll I'll talk about just being offline for a day, where I'll just go somewhere and turn the phone off and just say, right, I'm not contactable, I just go and, you know, have a bit of you know, it's not being a miserable owner. It's just a bit of time to reset and a bit of time to think, you know, maybe go out and take photographs of something or just go and have a journey somewhere. You know, I don't do that often enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:24

We spoke about books earlier. So, what is the best book, or as I call it, mental health Bible you've read for your mental health? Now, it can be mental health or self-help related, doesn't have to be. It could be fiction or non-fiction.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:34

There are a few out there, but there's one in particular, and that this is written by somebody I met when I first got in touch with Bipolar UK, a woman called Sarah Owen, who isn't there anymore, but was their press person who's dealing with all this, and she wrote a book based on her experience with her sister who has bipolar called Bipolar the Ultimate Guide, I think it was called. And she gave me a copy of that, and actually reading that, I realised how little I knew about the condition, despite having been diagnosed ten years previously. It's really well laid out, it's got a lot of people's experiences in it, both people with the condition but also medical professionals and other things as well. And I would recommend that to anyone who thinks they might have bipolar disorder, but it's also hugely useful to people who are supportive, you know, friends, family. It's just a great instructional guide, if that's the right term.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:23

If there was a mantra in life that summed up your mental health, or what would it be and why? Depends what day you ask me. Give me a quote or a phrase then.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:34

Anything. Um don't make me be spontaneous whenever it wakes at three in the morning. Oh, yeah, that's my mantra. Don't make me be spontaneous whenever it wakes it's three in the morning. Very well put.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:46

What do you love about yourself? Resilience.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:50

Yeah, and uh persistence. Both of those are essential for both for the business I'm in, but life in general.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:58

And as a final question. What more do you think we have to do to ensure men from all social classes, all walks of life feel comfortable and safe in opening up about their mental health issues or just their general mental health, if, most importantly, they want to do it?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:15

We've all got to talk about it. But if we're happy talking about it, we've got to talk about it because if you're the only person in a room standing up and and mentioning a subject, it's going to be hugely potentially embarrassing, it's going to be hugely difficult, it's going to be hugely awkward. If everyone around you is talking about that same thing, it's a thousand percent easier. And this is exactly why I did it. The more people that can be open about their situation, about what they've been through, about how they can try to to help the situation, about you know their experiences with others, the more we talk about it, the less difficult it gets. You know, there are some aspects of men's health, you know, like a sporting injury. Nobody goes to the pub and hesitates to talk about, you know, a torn ligament they got playing rugby or something. Because that's a badge of honour, you know. Oh God, that amazing try, and I tore my ligaments and whatever. You know, but everyone talks about it, you know, all around, or even if you know, you just cut your finger on something, that's it's seen as a, you know, it's just a thing that happens. It's just a thing that some people have. Same as, you know, I don't think blokes would be that hesitant, or maybe some would, but not hesitant about talking about maybe diabetes or something, because it's seen as it's just a thing that you have that you have to be treated for. We should see mental health conditions in the same way. I quite often try to compare mental health conditions to physical conditions to make people realise how ridiculous some of the things that we say are. You know, when people will say, Oh, yeah, he's off work because he's got a broken leg again or something. Well, you you know, you wouldn't say that. You say, Oh, he's got a broken leg, he's off work for a week. That's fair enough. You know, we need to take that same attitude towards mental health conditions. We need to talk about it, we need to view it in the same way we would any other health issue, health problem. And if we all talk about it, it becomes a whole lot easier.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:54

That is a great way to end it. David, my man, thank you so much for coming on the Just Checking In podcast and talking to me, brother. Thank you. It's been great to be here and share this with you. Well, that's all we've got time for on this episode of the Just Checking In Pod. A big thank you to David for being my special guest and for letting me check in with him. I'll put some links to where you can follow David on social media in the show notes as always. Thank you to all the vendors who've checked in on this episode. Remember, if you've liked what you've heard, please do give it a share on social media by tagging us at VentsHelp UK or one word. Tell your friends, family, or work colleagues about us. If you're feeling generous, write us a review and give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what we're doing, please consider supporting our Patreon at www.patreon.com slash ventshelpuk, or you can make a one-off donation to our PayPal. All of those links are on our link tree. That's linktr.ee slash vent helpuk. We hope to check in with you again very soon. And remember, guys, it is always okay to vent.