160: Justin Pugh
My guest this week is Justin Pugh with whom I went to school in the 1980s. Justin recalls those days of playing cricket at lunchtimes and the two of us reflect on our years at the Bishop of Llandaff Church-in-Wales High School in Cardiff. Justin talks about how Cardiff has changed since the 1970s when it had a much lower profile, and how since the 1990s Cardiff suddenly became cool, and Justin...
58m Feb 02, 2023
58m
159: Emma Astra
My guest this week is Emma Astra, based in Leicester, who is writing a Diary of a Disabled PhD student. We talk about pilgrimage journeys and the notion of doing a PhD as a pilgrimage journey. Emma talks about her chronic illness and how it impacts on her ability to travel to places. We learn about her three wheelchairs and all the different makes and models she has had to navigate, and Emma t...
1hr 6m Jan 18, 2023
1hr 6m
158: David Mannion
My guest this week is David Mannion, weightlifter and astronomer, who often gives cruise ship lectures on astronomy. He was a teacher for over 30 years, and Head of Physics at a grammar school in Kent. We find out how David got into astronomy, and he reflects on whether we will ever go to Mars and we learn about his specific driver for space interest, as well as about how we calculate the age o...
1hr 11m Jan 07, 2023
1hr 11m
157: Nikolaos Karydis
My guest this week is Dr Nikolaos Karydis, Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Kent. Nikos and I have a twin passion for cinema and radio, and we begin our conversation by talking about the way architecture is represented in movies and why films tend to present alternative architect lives to what happens in the real world. Nikos grew up in Athens before moving to the UK, and w...
1hr 11m Dec 29, 2022
1hr 11m
156: Wendy Dossett
My guest this week is Wendy Dossett, whom I have known for around 30 years from when we were both based at the University of Wales, Lampeter. Wendy is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Chester, specializing in Buddhism, and has more recently been studying Addiction Recovery Spirituality. Wendy grew up in Hastings and we talk about what it is like to return to the pla...
1hr 13m Dec 10, 2022
1hr 13m
155: Joanne Pettitt
My guest this week is Joanne Pettitt, Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Kent. Jo and I begin by talking about the art of teaching and the feeling of history that one gets from reading a physical book and the nostalgia of children’s books. Jo comes from what she describes as a typical British working class background in Nottingham against the backdrop of the miners’ strike...
1hr 6m Nov 26, 2022
1hr 6m
154: Nichola Zacher (2)
My guest this week – and for the second time – is Nichola Zacher, a children’s story writer from Ontario, Canada (see http://marleysdream.com/). Nichola talks about her English roots and how her father worked on the railroad and her mother was a secretary for the Teachers’ Federation. When she was born, Nichola had an operation and she was written off and told she wouldn’t be able to go to sch...
44m Nov 12, 2022
44m
153: Linda M. James
My guest this week is Linda M. James, an author, poet, screenwriter and creative writing tutor, originally from Swansea. Linda (who explains the significance of the initial M) tells us why she is nomadic and about to make her 48th move. Linda has been running writing classes for 20 years, and we find out about her MAs and her historical novels set in the Second World War, especially involving ...
1hr 3m Nov 01, 2022
1hr 3m
152: Chris Hamilton
My guest this week is Chris Hamilton, with whom I went to school in Cardiff over 30 years ago. Chris is a full time professional (and award-winning) musician and composer who started his career as a lawyer, having gone to Oxford to study Law and worked in the City for a big corporate firm in London and New York. We talk about having gone ‘full circle’ as Chris learned the piano when very young....
1hr 4m Oct 22, 2022
1hr 4m
151: James Kloda
My guest this week is James Kloda who works at the University of Kent in technical support, where he has worked since 2011. James has a background in live events (technical management) and, as we discover, cinema has always been a part of his life. James talks about how he went to the University of East Anglia to study Drama and English, where he managed to direct his own play. James reflects ...
1hr 17m Oct 12, 2022
1hr 17m
150: Irene Williams Part 2
In the second part of my interview with Irene Williams, Irene talks about how the family moved to Cardiff, and how to begin with they had neither a house nor any money. Her father helped them with a deposit and Irene decided to go out to work, managing to secure the first job for which she applied. We also find out about what was the hardest nine years of Irene’s life. We learn whether their s...
51m Oct 02, 2022
51m
149: Irene Williams Part 1
My very special guest this week is Mrs. Irene Williams, a centenarian. Irene is an inspiring lady with a wealth of history and experience in terms of the development of Religious Studies at Lampeter and a considerable amount of international humanitarian work over many decades. We will hear more about these dynamics in the second part of this interview, to be broadcast in the next episode. In ...
50m Sep 25, 2022
50m
148: Anne Watkins
My guest this week is Anne Watkins, who came to Lampeter in 1985, after originally expecting to work for the Civil Service, where she studied Philosophy and Ethics in Western Thought. Anne recalls hearing the sheep bleating on the hills and knowing that Lampeter was the place for her. We talk about long friendships especially with the overseas students and about how Philosophy helped her to th...
51m Sep 14, 2022
51m
147: Jonty Stern
My guest this week is Jonty Stern, who works at the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. Jonty ran the Doctor Who Society at Lampeter and we learn about his encyclopaedic knowledge of the series and the impact it has had on him over the years. Jonty did Welsh Studies at Lampeter and focused on Celtic languages. He was the only student in the UK doing Middle Breton at the time, and we find out ho...
1hr 30m Sep 04, 2022
1hr 30m
146: Craig Braddick History of TV Sport special
My guest this week is Craig Braddick, a British born race caller from Arizona who I have interviewed previously in this podcast series. Craig is a specialist on the history of TV sport and here we focus on various sporting events in the monochrome era from 1948-1966. We begin by discussing the way in which sport has always been on demand and has united people in a community. Craig talks about ...
1hr 3m Aug 25, 2022
1hr 3m
145: Ben Marsh
My guest this week is Ben Marsh, Reader in History at the University of Kent, and very well known for the Marsh Family musical videos which inspired so many people during and since lockdown. Ben talks about how people have been craving something authentic and we learn what it was like to perform live on Comic Relief, meeting (nearly) Richard Curtis and being watched by people one has constructe...
1hr 4m Aug 10, 2022
1hr 4m
144: Rianna Patterson
My guest this week is Rianna Patterson, an accredited coach, social entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, mental health advocate and founder of the Dominica Dementia Foundation. She has also done film work for an NHS client on the importance of music for people with dementia, and in the interview Rianna talks about the importance of celebrating older people. We find out why Rianna became involved in th...
55m Jul 20, 2022
55m
143: José Moreno Carbonell
It was a great pleasure to meet José Moreno Carbonell for my latest Nostalgia Interview. Our paths may have once crossed in Lampeter where we were both students in the 1990s. José lives in France but comes from Spain and works as a high school Spanish teacher. José has just had a novel published called A la sombra de la glicinia - https://www.amazon.es/sombra-glicinia-Antonio-Moreno-Carbonell/...
58m Jul 09, 2022
58m
142: Chris Deacy interviewed by Marion Stuart
Marion Stuart turns the tables on me for this week’s Nostalgia Interview. I talk about my earliest memories which involve having my hair washed as a baby and listening to Pinky and Perky at nursery (obsessively) and how my children don’t have the same musical tastes as me. I talk about what I was interested in outside of music, and my obsession with TV or radio schedules. This helped me at uni...
1hr 31m Jun 13, 2022
1hr 31m
141: David Hamilton
My guest this week is legendary broadcaster David Hamilton. David’s career goes back to 1959 when he joined the British Forces Network radio station in Germany and was there at the same time as Elvis Presley. He was the last person to present Housewives’ Choice and did one of the first TV interviews with The Beatles. David talks about his stint on Radio 1 and how the station evolved from the p...
37m Jun 04, 2022
37m
140: Lyle Young
It was terrific for this week’s Nostalgia Interview to meet Lyle Young. Lyle is a research and innovation coordinator for the University of Kent and was formerly a student at Kent where he studied English for his degree. Originally from Hertfordshire, Lyle talks about Canterbury being his adopted home and we learn about his love of literature and of being a novelist. We learn how he came to wo...
1hr 3m May 17, 2022
1hr 3m
139: Nigel Nelson
It was a huge privilege for this week’s Nostalgia Interview to meet Nigel Nelson, the longest serving political editor in Fleet Street. Nigel works for the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People. We recorded our interview on the afternoon that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer received fines from the Metropolitan Police for attending a party in Downing Street during lockdown. Nige...
57m May 07, 2022
57m
138: Heide Kunzelmann
My guest this week is Heide Kunzelmann, German Culture & Language Coach for International Knowledge Workers - largely qualified migrants and expats - based in Vienna. Heide left the University of Kent in 2020 and she discusses transferable skills and how to use them to make a living. Heide talks about her Austrian background and how she left home to study at the age of 18. She talks about memo...
58m Apr 26, 2022
58m
137: Dan Clark
My guest this week is Dan Clark, e-Learning Manager at the University of Kent who begins the interview by talking about the power that technology has in learning and teaching. We talk about our experiences during lockdown of rapid change and how technology can make things happen. Dan discusses how and when he is able to stay away from technology because it is a massive part of his day job. We ...
1hr 13m Apr 08, 2022
1hr 13m
136: Iain Dale
My guest this week is Iain Dale, radio presenter, commentator, blogger, publisher, author and former Parliamentary candidate. Iain talks about why he turns down many TV invitations these days, why he hates the ‘gotcha’ style of interviewing and why the long form interview is back in vogue. He also reveals how he has gotten people to open up to him in a way that they haven’t to other interviewer...
1hr 12m Mar 24, 2022
1hr 12m
135: Lance Woodman
My guest this week is a playwright Lance Woodman, who has written for Radio 4 and is a theatre tour guide for the Royal Shakespeare Company.  Lance was born in Hereford but moved quite a bit while young and now lives in Stratford-upon-Avon. He has undertaken research into his family tree (Lance’s great uncle was my maternal grandfather), including most recently the 1921 census. He talks about ...
57m Mar 09, 2022
57m
134: Vera da Silva Sinha
My guest this week is Vera da Silva Sinha who works as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of York, looking at time, number and space in indigenous minority language communities of Brazil. We begin by talking about Vera’s experience of lockdown and of Christmases spent growing up in Brazil. Vera is from a small village in the south of Brazil where her father was a lorry driv...
1hr 5m Feb 15, 2022
1hr 5m
133: Jo Phillips
It was a great pleasure to meet award-winning journalist Jo Phillips for my latest Nostalgia Interview. Jo is a political commentator and has worked as a political editor and broadcaster and was press secretary and policy adviser to Paddy Ashdown and has stood for Parliament. She also worked for Bob Geldof for 10 years. Jo is a sailor and gardener and she explains why she sees herself primarily...
1hr 11m Feb 07, 2022
1hr 11m
132: Craig Braddick
My guest this week is Craig Braddick, a horse racing commentator based in the US where he has been living since 2001. Originally from Cambridge, England, Craig works mainly at Turf Paradise in Phoenix, Arizona, where the new film Jockey (Clint Bentley, 2021) was filmed. We find out why Craig made the journey and about how he has worked in around 18 different states largely doing media work. Ra...
1hr 20m Jan 31, 2022
1hr 20m
131: Malcolm Dixon
My guest this week is Malcolm Dixon, Head of Quality Assurance at the University of Kent who has just published his first novel, The Little House on Everywhere Street (https://www.regalhousepublishing.com/product/the-little-house-on-everywhere-street/) . We learn writing fiction is more indicative of who Malcolm is than his day job, and he tells me why good writing is an exercise in misdirectio...
58m Jan 24, 2022
58m
130: Suzanne Owen
My guest this week is Suzanne Owen, Reader at Leeds Trinity University, who used to be our External Examiner for Religious Studies at Kent. Suzanne talks about how she is always excited to see what other institutions are doing and we learn about how walking is a counterpoint to her day.  We learn about Suzanne’s creative writing work and whether she can ever publish it. We talk about the diffe...
1hr 3m Jan 14, 2022
1hr 3m
129: Jennifer Uzzell
My guest this week is Jennifer Uzzell, who is studying for a PhD in Durham, has done a Masters degree at Lampeter, and used to teach full time in a secondary school. Jennifer’s original background is in theology and biblical studies, when she did her undergraduate degree at Durham. We learn about how her interest in Hinduism developed and how Jennifer is a Senior ‘A’ level examiner. Her latest...
1hr 1m Jan 06, 2022
1hr 1m
128: Chris Deacy interviewed by Pamela Petro
The tables were turned on me for this week’s Nostalgia Interviews podcast – as I am the guest. Pamela Petro, who did such a fantastic interview with me earlier in 2021, asks me about my background (and we talk about why I don’t sound Welsh), why I used to emulate great radio presenters and newsreaders and why I ended up in academia if I always wanted to be on the radio. I talk about my career ...
1hr 2m Dec 17, 2021
1hr 2m
127: Alison Robertson
It was a huge pleasure to meet Alison Robertson for this week’s Nostalgia Interview. Alison’s research is in the area of subcultures – specifically BDSM and kink as religious practice. Alison refers to how this is a notoriously sensitive area – and about how hard it can be to get people to talk to her.  Alison discuss the insider vs. outsider question and we learn that Alison is fascinated by ...
1hr 18m Dec 10, 2021
1hr 18m
126: Declan Kavanagh
My guest this week is Declan Kavanagh, Senior Lecturer in 18th Century Studies in the School of English at the University of Kent. Declan’s specialism is in the area of poetry and political pamphlets from the period and how they address questions of masculinity, nationhood, gender, sexuality and disability.  We talk about surviving lockdown and how it impacted on Declan personally, and about h...
1hr 23m Nov 26, 2021
1hr 23m
125: Kazuyo Matsuda
My guest this week is Kazuyo Matsuda, who is an architect, working in the UK for the last 20 years and practices the Japanese martial art of Kendo which she has been teaching for over two decades. Kazuyo talks about how Kendo, which originated in Japan in the 13th Century, was first seen in the UK at the Japanese Village in Knightsbridge built in 1885. Kazuyo has been in the UK since 1993 and ...
56m Nov 19, 2021
56m
124: Penny Sartori
My guest this week is Penny Sartori, a medical researcher and teacher in the field of near-death experiences who did a PhD in NDEs at Lampeter. Penny used to work in the Intensive Therapy Unit in Morriston Hospital in Swansea where she was upset about the death of her patients and which led her to want to research more about death.  Something that Penny discovered is that the neurophysiologica...
50m Nov 09, 2021
50m
123: Rachel Gefferie
My guest this week is Rachel Gefferie who works at the University of Kent as Diversity Mark Officer and is also doing an Anthropology PhD. Rachel, who is originally from Suriname and later moved to the Netherlands, talks about why calendar and anniversary dates and photographs are so important. She can relive the original feelings she had when she looks back at pictures. Rachel tells us why sh...
1hr 6m Oct 29, 2021
1hr 6m
122: Noel Tyrrel
My guest this week is radio enthusiast Noel Tyrrel, founder of the David Hamilton’s Hot Shots fan site and someone who has an encyclopaedic knowledge and collection of vintage radio shows. Noel grew up with radio, and we learn why the person who awakened his interest was David Hamilton. We talk about why Junior Choice was so special and whether the sort of radio presenting that Ed Stewart and ...
1hr 8m Oct 18, 2021
1hr 8m
121: Babiche Deysel
My guest this week is Babiche Deysel, Executive Headteacher at Petham Primary School in Kent. Originally from the Netherlands, Babiche lived and worked for many years in Zimbabwe and Botswana. In Zimbabwe she studied the economic impact of projects run by a women's group and she discusses the way in which one doesn’t always realize how bad things are in a country which, as she points out, is v...
53m Oct 07, 2021
53m
120: Pamela Petro
My guest this week is Pamela Petro, American author, artist and teacher based in Massachusetts. Pamela has just published a memoir called The Long Field (https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/new-books/the-long-field-by-pamela-petro/) in which we learn about her passion for Wales as an American, based around the concept of hiraeth. Pamela did an MA in The Word and the Visual ...
1hr 15m Oct 01, 2021
1hr 15m
119: Jasjit Singh
My guest this week is Jasjit Singh, Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Leeds where his research includes how people learn about religion and engage with their religious heritage. He is originally from Bradford and did a degree in Computer Science and Accounting at Manchester. We learn how Jasjit found that there weren’t many HE institut...
1hr 7m Sep 25, 2021
1hr 7m
118: Gregory Shushan
My guest this week is Gregory Shushan, a researcher in the area of Near Death Experiences who is currently based in Portugal. Gregory went to Lampeter to do a PhD in 2004 on a cross cultural study of afterlife beliefs under the supervision of Paul Badham. We talk extensively about Near Death Experiences and how Gregory was interested in looking at the impact of NDEs on culture. Gregory was bo...
1hr 8m Sep 18, 2021
1hr 8m
117: Jan Moriarty
My guest this week is Jan Moriarty, Student Success Manager at the University of Kent, a wonderful project designed to support students to achieve better degrees. We learn how Jan became involved in the project and how her initial concern that it was not going to be possible to solve EDI issues in two years were balanced by the consideration that morally it is something that has to be done. It...
1hr 11m Sep 11, 2021
1hr 11m
116: Peter Malone
My guest this week is Fr. Peter Malone, priest and film critic, based in Australia, who was a foundational figure back when I did my own PhD in the late 1990s. Peter talks about his interest in Christ-figure films, including through the work of Clint Eastwood, and he draws on the distinction between redeemer figures and saviour figures and we find out about his work on anti-Christ figures. He ...
1hr 4m Sep 02, 2021
1hr 4m
115: Bettina Schmidt
My guest this week is Professor Bettina Schmidt, Professor in Study of Religions and Anthropology of Religion at University of Wales Trinity Saint David and President of the British Association for the Study of Religion. Bettina is also Director of the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre in Lampeter. Bettina is currently looking in her research at questions of spirituality, heal...
1hr 2m Aug 25, 2021
1hr 2m
114: David Cheetham
My guest this week is Professor David Cheetham, Professor of Philosophical Theology at the University of Birmingham where he has been based since 1999. David and I were both Theology students at Lampeter, with David studying for his PhD at the time that I was an undergraduate, and David talks about how Lampeter influenced him – and how there was more going on than his academic achievements. W...
1hr 3m Aug 14, 2021
1hr 3m
113: Stacey Rand
It was such a pleasure for my latest Nostalgia Interview to catch up with Stacey Rand. Stacey has been at Kent for around a decade where she is a senior researcher in PSSRU, a research unit focusing on social care and community based services. Stacey is also a priest in the Church of England. Stacey’s first degree was in natural sciences and she ended up specializing in neuroscience, and has a...
1hr 4m Jul 30, 2021
1hr 4m
112: Jonathan Trigg
My guest this week is Jonathan Trigg, who studied Archaeology at Lampeter from 1995-98 and has been at Liverpool for the last 22 years. We talk about the advantages of living and studying on a small campus like Lampeter. Jonathan, who was brought up in Essex, talks about how and why he decided to apply to university and being a late developer. We talk about our relationship with the past and h...
58m Jul 22, 2021
58m
111: Charles Musselwhite
My guest this week is Charles Musselwhite, Professor in Psychology at Aberystwyth. Charles is a specialist in gerontology with a particular focus on how people engage with place in terms of age. He first went to Lampeter to study Archaeology and Charles talks about how that experience underpinned what he thinks now. We learn that he prefers a bottom up approach to his research, asking how someo...
1hr 12m Jul 12, 2021
1hr 12m