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Castaway
1 appearance
Rugby player and commentator, known as the "Pit Bull". Earned 64 England caps, three Grand Slams, later a lawyer and broadcaster.
On the island
Eight records
Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen (from Die Zauberflöte)Favourite
the shiver and the froiss that I had down my spine, and this is not an exaggeration, was was similar to standing before an anthem before before an international
as soon as I hear this it takes me back to the old Crossley's Clubhouse at Standheaven House and various girlfriends and friends
This is a track I liked when I was a seven-year-old. It's not commercial. I don't know why it struck a chord in me, but it did, and it's been a lifelong thing.
It was played at uh the funeral of a a friend of mine from school who died when he was quite young of a a drug overdose.
talking about antipathy north of the border and every other border really, um it's Pink Floyd, us and them, which sums it up rather nicely really, doesn't it?
A track which I played continuously and pathologically, because that's the way I'm on an England tour of Australia.
It will wake people up if you need to at this time of the morning. It's simply a piece of musical belligerence.
Intermezzo (from Cavalleria rusticana)
besides just being a fantastic orchestrated piece of music, it is actually the closing music to a trilogy of films, the Godfather trilogy.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:34How do you deal with the feeling that normal life is bland compared to the intensity of playing international rugby?
Well, that's one of the difficulties, one of the principal difficulties that sports people have. And when half your life, or even now, maybe a third of of a sportsman's life only is over, they've got to come to terms with the fact that whatever they do after that, it will never be the same intensity. It just can't be. … So when you step away from that, it's it's it's not easy at all.
Presenter asks
4:07Do you consider yourself more content than you once were, or is contentment still a long way off?
I get more moments than I did. But I've got a a mechanism inside my head that says this: is when I get to a situation where I feel contentment. … My my problem has been that I've got a s a sabotage mechanism that that says Be careful about that, you know, because it's not real and it might go wrong and then you'll be hurt a lot, so. Don't get too close to that. But it's it's has to it has to be put away now, and I'm f I I'm trying, but it and it gets easier with the with the with time and speaking about it, but it's still not easy.
Presenter asks
11:46When did you decide to seek out your birth mother?
The keepsakes
I had a sort of a dabble when I first went to university'cause I became curious. But around um thirty thirty five around it. I just just felt that I I I had to.
Presenter asks
14:36How did it affect your adoptive parents when you decided to contact your birth mother?
Um well I my med my father unfortunately died now, but uh my mother It was the only thing I've ever heard of Boca, really. And I know that she didn't like it at all. But then I'm faced with this dilemma. Do I not go forward with something that's causing me a problem that I need to try and explore, because it might hurt someone else?
Presenter asks
16:52Why did you decide to write about the sexual abuse you suffered as a child?
When I decided but to do the autobiography fifteen years or so after I'd finished playing and lots of things had happened to me i in in in life. I thought I'd dealt with this subject matter by not thinking about it and by pushing it down and saying it hasn't affected me, no problem at all. It obviously had in lots of ways that I didn't understand. And from that point onwards I thought, actually, you've got to try and do something about this. And also, actually, writing about it and speaking about it has helped an awful lot.
Presenter asks
32:46Do you feel you're at a point in your life now where you can allow yourself to take credit and feel a sense of achievement?
Um I'm trying. And that's about as far as I've got. On on an emotional scale of, you know, um I'm at about letter C, but that's good'cause I wasn't even I wasn't in the alphabet before. So maybe in a few years' time I might get to H or or G A maybe.
“Whenever someone describes themselves as driven, I now want to know what they're driven by, because if you think about it, you can be super, super ambitious, but still not be driven, because super ambitious people set their own goals, and when they get there, they're happy with them. Driven people are not happy.”
“Until you allow yourself to feel these things, you you can't you can't move on. And I've started to move on and it would be nice if if, you know, if we could speak to each other and and move on as well.”
“If you can find it within you to tell someone about it. You'll never from that point on be alone. You might still be lonely, but there's a very, very big difference. And whilst you carry this on your own, you don't have a chance of dealing with it successfully.”
“I don't think any s top sportsman a woman is normal. I there's something about them which is a a madness, a a pathology, that that makes them continue to drive in a way that long before the people would have given up.”