The Good Listening To Show: Stories of Distinction & Genius

How to Put Your Life On The Page with Acclaimed Author & Memoirist Cathy Rentzenbrink: "I am a Writer Who Loves to Encourage"

• Chris Grimes - Facilitator. Coach. Motivational Comedian

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Please welcome acclaimed Author & Memoirist Cathy Rentzenbrink to the 'Clearing'!

You can also Watch/Listen to Cathy's wonderful episode here:
https://vimeo.com/chrisgrimes/cathyrentzenbrink

Cathy Rentzenbrink had just delivered the draft of her latest novel when this interview took place. So, naturally enough, she was reluctant to discuss it beyond saying it was two years in the writing and two decades in its creation. 

Cathy is happiest encouraging other writers to write, on the credible assumption that ‘writers are people for whom writing is more difficult.’ 

Cathy herself is a fast reader and a slow writer, who spends lots of time considering what she can cut without loss from her first or later drafts. For her, as for most good writers, writing is rewriting.

Paradoxically, at age 18, when her Irish father first met her English mother on the Quay in Falmouth, he could neither read nor write. Happily, he could both talk and sing and his words were an early inspiration for the young Cathy. In contrast, Cathy’s loving mother was very literate, as well as a 'love at first sight’ super romantic. 

Cathy says “all life is full of material” and the tragic material in Cathy’s early life was the traffic accident that put her younger brother into hospital after being knocked down by a motorbike, which led to the family’s agonising decision to turn off his life support system, 8 years later. 

In her early ‘career,’ Cathy was happiest when she was working in Hatchard’s bookshop. (It remains her scorched earth emergency option.) Cathy never wanted an office job where she might be expected to laugh at dodgy ‘jokes delivered by drunk men.’
Instead, Cathy became a writer. And an encourager of other writers, at festivals and workshops. 

Meanwhile she has been married twice. She remains good friends with her first husband and supportive of her ‘current’ husband, a Dutchman with a difficult name for strangers to spell. Her only criticism is of Mr Rentzenbrink’s intolerance while driving, but allegedly this characteristic is present in all heterosexual male drivers and may perhaps be an essential element of the Patriarchy.

Cathy’s body of work now includes novels as well as autobiographical books and how to start writing guides.  To quote Ovid, translated from the original Latin: “Be patient and tough. Some day this pain will be useful to you.”

Cathy would like to be remembered as a Laugh rather than someone who’s ‘had a big paper round.’

The only award that Cathy’s won so far was at 17 when she won the Snaith and District Ladies Darts Championship, with an additional award for including three treble twenties as a single score in that success. Cathy Rentzenbrink

Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.

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Thanks for listening!

Chris Grimes:

Hello. Welcome to another episode of The Good Listening two Show. A couple of announcements before we get on

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

the open road of today's episode. There's a brand new website for the show at w w w dot the good listening to show dot com. If you'd like to be my guest too and join the Genius Club by being my guest, You can do that through the various series strands on the website again at w w w dot the good listening to show dot com. If you've written a good book and would like to reach a large global audience covering fifty four countries here on UK Health Radio and telling them exactly where to go and buy your book, then GoodBooks is a series strength for you. You also get to put your book on a metaphorical plinth within the clearing to tell us the story behind the story of your book and read and extract from it. Also, if you're a founder or you run a business, then brand strand founder stories is definitely the series trend for you. Where you can be really clear about what you do, how you do it, and also where exactly we can go and find out much more about you on the internet too. There's also one while I'm there called legacy life reflections where you can gift the construct of the podcast with me interviewing somebody near, dear, or close to you in order to record their story for posterity. So, yes, lots to look at on the new website, w w w dot the good listening to show dot com, Don't forget you can follow me on Twitter as well at that Chris Grimes. Enjoy today's show. Welcome another episode of The Goodlistening to Show. Your live and time is with me Chris Grimes. The storytelling show that features the clearing for all good questions come and get asked and all good stories come to be told. And when all my guests have two things in common, they're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors, a clearing, a tree, a juicy storytelling, size called five four three two one, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare, and a cake. So it's all to play for. So yes, welcome to the Good Listing two Show. My life and times will meet Chris Grimes. Why is it incomparable? Then we shall begin marvellous and a seamless segue into welcoming the wonderful Cathy Rentzenbrink into the good listening two show clearing. Cathy is an acclaimed memoirist and author whose books actually don't shy away from the really epic themes which we will be talking about. But you describe it yourself, I am a writer who loves to encourage you'll be able to tell us all about exactly how you go about encouraging others as we go through. But welcome to the show, Cathy RentRentzenbrink and Brink.

Speaker 3:

It's very nice to be here. Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me into the clearing.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

You're very welcome and you were passed the golden baton by the lovely Kate Dinwoolby who you are recently at the Bath Festival, Literature Festival co hosting an event with, I understand.

Speaker 3:

Yes. We do a bit of first singing and writing, and it's all linked, isn't it voice? So I love doing anything with Kate.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Lovely. So she's part of the golden baton. Thank you for saying yes. And well, how's morale? What's your story of the day, please?

Speaker 3:

Well, it's been raining a lot where I live down in Cornwall, but I'm not being oppressed by it. And, yeah, I'm just cracking on, doing my stuff,

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

and would you would you in the midst of writing at the moment?

Speaker 3:

I've just delivered a draft of my novel to my editor. So that is a very good feeling. It's probably the whole process. So that feels very good. And now that I've delivered it to her, I'm almost trying not to think about it yet. I don't want it to develop more in my own head because I don't want to out. I don't want to become I I want to talk to her about it before I sort of almost have more thoughts if that makes sense. So I'm trying to actively not think about the novel. All the characters in the novel is quite hard, so being obsessed to them and think about other things.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

And how long has this sort of giving birth metaphorically process been in in delivering your book?

Speaker 3:

Well, I've been working on this novel probably for just over two years, but I thought about it. I had the idea for it kind of halfway through writing my last novel. And and actually, the idea for it I had when I was about twenty, the original idea for it. So that is so yeah. So two years or three decades, somewhere between.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Somewhere between those things. And by the way, you do like to encourage you. We're recently doing a Guardian master class in happily researching you last September which is how to begin your story, overcome writer's block and start to get your your story out there. So includes stuff like, you know, write it all down, how to put your life on the page. So you're you're all about encouraging others, but you also often you host lots of literary events as well, and you interview lots of authors.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And generally, all about the reading and the writing really. But I do particularly I mean, I do genuinely think everyone should have a go at it. Like, if they like, if they want to. And not all I just do think that actually. So that probably is that probably is my mainly my most unusual thing. It's the thing that really sights me. I can feel a bit, you know, I have to feel a bit awkward or different talking about my own, like, my novels say, but if it's if it's if it's, like, I'm encouraging other people to do it, then I sort of I feel very confident about that bit.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Yes. I like the fact you're sitting there with a stencil, not behind your ear, but it's it's clutched gamefully. You are a writer and you're all you're all sent to tape notes. That's lovely. Yeah. And so very rarely don't have a sort of a pen or

Speaker 3:

a pencil in one hand and and basically piles books surrounding me or paper or whatever.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Well, congratulations on the delivery. Was it just today you've gone better and done the big reveal and the delivery of the edit?

Speaker 3:

It was a couple of days ago there. Yeah. But when and everyone said, like, oh, what are you doing? How are you celebrating? It's mainly lying on the same staring at the wall

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

and dribbling.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And then swimming, going swimming. So So, yeah, it's funny old thing writing books because on the one hand, when I'm writing a book, all I sort of really wanted so I want it to be finished. And then when I when I finish, And then I was supposed to be having a whole weekend off, which rarely happens. So I gave myself this whole weekend off. And of course, I spent most of it having ideas for new things. And subsequently scribbling down as a thing. So

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Yeah. You can't help thinking. You've obviously got a very active brain, which is great. Yes. And but I can't talk to you without asking about your delightful surname which is so unusual rinse and brink. Do you mind if I ask you about the derivation of rinse and brink?

Speaker 3:

Not tall. So I married a Dutchman and changed my name to his. He did at the time say, are you sure about this because you'll get very bored having to spell it out for people? Yeah. I the the problem is I'd married someone else before and change my name. And I really don't see that you should change your name because once you start changing It's difficult then to stop. It's difficult to get off the wheel of changing the name. And that's what you if you haven't maybe. But the hospital but my names had never bothered changing my name back after the first marriage. So the baby was being cold in the hospital by the name of the first husband. That just felt a bit peculiar. So yeah. So and it was I remember this. It was literally easier. To marry someone else and change my name to his, then it was to reverse out of the other name. I saw there's some point you made about the patriarchy that So I signed up with Facebook. No, ma'am. Like, I always say if I'm gonna have a third

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

house and I'm gonna pick someone with something that's a bit easier to spell.

Speaker 3:

And I'm also gonna if I have a third husband, I'm gonna choose someone. He doesn't do that thing when they're driving. Getting annoyed with other drivers.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

That's what you want it. That's an order. You're putting it in order for a quality you want your third husband to have. Is that right?

Speaker 3:

Hi. But both my I'm still very good friends with the first husband. So both my first husband and my current husband say, I will not fight find that quality in a straight man. They reckon they think he doesn't. Oh, okay. Don't me.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

So to the song of mild man's a Dutchman, that's obviously a personalization of that. But did we go on an exotic journey of Jonesmith to Rensenbrink or something? What what's been your surname to directory?

Speaker 3:

Not really. So my original surname so my dad's Irish, but it's not it's not an Irish name, really. My original surname was Midtown. And apparently comes from Dorset. So someone from Dorset went to a court fifty. And I think in about eighteen fifty, we reckon and started having interns over there. Yeah. And then I married mister Waterhouse. That was quite a good name, easy to spell but a little bit memorable. And then I married mister Renson Brink, difficult to spell. It is phonetic. So once people have got the hang of it, you've got a hang of it, but I could do get called some funny things.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

And as a question on everyone's lips, did you ever do an internship as Minton? Because you could have been Minton the intern? Turned

Speaker 3:

That's very good. No. I didn't. No. But I did when I was having my first book published, I did think I might reverse out of this whole, having so one else's name and go back to my original name. But my agent didn't let me basically because she said people already knew me by that other name. So it's a bit like, so Agatha Christie's when Agatha Christie's husband, mister Christie, left her for someone else, she was still stuck with his name. So it's a bit like that. I'm kind of my agent said, doesn't matter whether you keep the husband or not, but you're stuck with the name.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

You're sticking with it. So a million points, no cash attached. What was Angus or Christie's maiden name that she could have gone back to?

Speaker 3:

He was called Miller, which isn't a particularly good name. Is it? But then she married again. She married her mister Malone. So but she was and then she used to she was called missus Malown in her private life, but she had to stay being agnostic. I mean, agnostic. She's a very good right only name. So

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Absolutely. As indeed as Kathy Renson bring just a blow bit of happy smoke at you. It's certainly memorable. So it's gonna make great like, enjoy to curate you through this journey at where I'm gonna invite you to a clearing which we'll talk about in a moment and that energetically is where it will all be set. And then I'm gonna arrive with a tree, shaky tree, see what storytelling apples fall out. There'll be a couple of random squirrels, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare, a good cake, and a golden batten and some Shakespeare, so it's all to play for. So should we just get you on the open road then? There is what is a clearing for Kathy Renson, where does she go to get clutter free, inspirational, and able to think?

Speaker 3:

So I like to be the most important things, I like to be by the sea. And then my clearing would be not a particularly beautiful sandy beach or anything, probably like a little bit rocky and seaweedy, a little sort of cove, that kind of vibe. But yes, next to the sea, the sea can be kind of like crashing in a bit or it can be calm. The sea can be doing whatever it likes because the c is not my bitch to control. So that's like

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

the expression we all like to use, the c is not my bitch to control. I I congratulate you for that.

Speaker 3:

So I'm I'm allowed to be by the sea. The sea does its thing, and I'm allowed to humbly interact with it in my gearing.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

And just to riff on that, it's always us that are the sea's bitches, I think, you know, we must never take the sea for granted.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Yeah.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

You can turn and then tide upon us. So do you want to be on your own in this cove or or do you tend to like to be there with other people nearby?

Speaker 3:

I mean, I do very much like other people. It's at the beach where I go but I do actually go swimming every day. I go to the beach where there are more likely to be more people. Then in general, actually one of the great difficulties in my life is that writing books takes quite a long time. You need to spend quite a lot of time alone and I don't like being alone at all. So yeah. So I would always go for the people, please. Option.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Lovely. And so let's be specifically. Where about where geographically is this beach?

Speaker 3:

It's in Cornwall. Yes. And is it I mean, there's I do kind of have a real one, but the in my head, my clearings a little bit more

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

oh, yes. A bit more esoteric. Yes.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Probably in a little bit more well, probably like a bit sort of smaller But, yeah, there'd be things nearby. There'd be, like, things up on the cliff, and I'd be able to I would be able to see evidence of other people. And it

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

is it's it's c swimming then you like to do on and you do that on

Speaker 3:

the daily do you? Yeah. I do. And many only since last summer. So but at the moment, I swim I'm swimming every day, sometimes twice.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Wow. And do you find that's great sucker for your writing craft as well in terms of clearing your head and the immigration.

Speaker 3:

The body is really for everything. It's good for mental and physical health. It's good creatively. It's good for a sense of perspective. It's good to have a sense of routine. I know I've got a lot of company with it because I kind of there are other people that I sort of we'll see on a regular basis. So I like that feeling of that feels a bit of water coolery, you know, a little bit like heavy. Colleague. He's in a nice way. Like people that sit I really like that seeing people on a sort of nearly daily basis and being a little bit interested in them. But then we sort of we sort of, like, ships that pass in the morning swim. So -- Correct. -- all of that.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

And they love the idea of the sea being a water. It's sort of epic epic water through

Speaker 3:

that quite literally. It is.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

So if I may now then, I'm gonna arrive with a tree a bit waiting for God Odesk, a bit existentially, I'm gonna shake it straight to see what storytelling. Apple's fall out. I've even got a comedy prop apple. How'd you like these apples? And where don't jump on this. It's actually plastic or whatever it's made of. So this is where you've been kind enough to have prepared. You've had five minutes to have thought about four things that have shaped you. Three things that inspire you, two things that never felt to grab your attention and borrow from the film up. That's, oh, that's where the squirrel's gonna come in. And then a quirky or unusual fact about you that we couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us. So over to you to interpret the shaking of your foliage as you see fit.

Speaker 3:

So four things that shaped me. I think the first thing is that I was just born to serve the great good fortune to be born into a really beautiful family. And my parents are both as individuals. They're just really nice people. They're good, kind, but also interesting people. And then they really love each other. And they my dad is Irish, and he had a difficult childhood. He ran away to see. And then when he was eighteen, he sailed into Pharmas, and he met my mother on a custom house key, and it was love at first sight. And that's now what fifty five years ago. And so and they're still like that. And I think just being And the older I get, the more I see what a sort of extraordinary privilege it is just to have parents who I just kind of love you and want the best fear. And I yeah. I mean, of course, it would be wonderful if everybody had that. Wouldn't it? So quite a sort of simple thing. Lots ways. But, yeah, I I grow into it as a I think I grow into it as a piece of knowledge about how lucky I am just to have had that. And how, you know, my dad's really good fun. He couldn't read him by either when I was born. So all my first stories were actually they were told to me by him, but they were told to me via sort of Irish rebel songs usually songs about, you know, British soldiers doing horrible things or men going up, you know, emigrating to work and being treated badly by women. You know, gambling, losing your money, gambling. You know, having to earn your money, doing difficult, dirty, dangerous jobs. So all my first stories are those stories. And again, I guess I find that quite interesting. It's quite a gift, I think, as a writer, to have a big person in your life who is not themselves actually confident with writing a reading. I think it's always given me a a very different perspective. But then of course, I have my highly literate mother who taught me to read from a really young age. But he always says she didn't really even have to teach me to read. She just sort of showed me books and I ate them up. So but I think it's very I think it's been a very shape I think it's a very good piece of good fortune, but also a very shaping thing of me as a person. And probably as a writer to have had those two really nice people, but also then be so different from each other.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

So there's a lovely constancy which they invoked, which you find inspirational and what they've, I suppose, given and provided for you. And I was really intrigued. What was your mom doing on custom key that day? Was she just looking holistically up to see for a future husband? What how what was she doing that day?

Speaker 3:

Yes. She was just out with her friend, Viv's, and she they were just that we just sort of, like, hanging around town. And then she said she just and then she and then she just, like, sort of, like, loved when I died from the first minute. Later on that day, they walked up as this rhodian farmer called sperm and wind, and they walked up sperm and wind. She said she just couldn't take her eyes off him. To the extent that she was walked into a lamp post, she was so dazzled by him. And he was so different from anyone she'd ever met before, like all the you know, he just seems so different and so foreign. You know, at the time, like, the late sixties. It was just such a different thing. And yeah, just right from then, that was it.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

And I hope Viv got married eventually. You all know, unless she's been a whole life being jealous.

Speaker 3:

Another so my dad was with a friend and my mom was with Viv. And Viv and the friend hooked up for a bit. So there was that but then I did I think that fizzled out.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

And and if I may, I'm just being facetious. Your parents gave you constancy, and then you're now on marriage number two, please. And you're you're already preparing for one who mustn't have Road rage.

Speaker 3:

Well, the screen, please. Hey, I'm not sure. Because I'm very lucky to have them, but I'm actually not sure. They've sort of given me unrealistic expectations. And I think my dad's really given me unrealistic expectations of what men are like because he's just so sort of noise in a good mood. And, yeah, I'm sure there are some men like that, but But, yes, between both of them, they're giving me an unrealistic expectation of what marriage should be like and what married life is like. So, I mean, I've never met another couple like them. And so they I mean, they had quite a lot of adversity in their early years, and it was difficult for them to be together. And my mom says they've never she's she's never got over just the joy that she can just be with him. You know, the people aren't trying to split them up anymore, you know. And he so I think it possibly came from that a bit. But, yes, I've got unrealistic expectations because of them, but I'm still pleased to have had them. It's not like I've trade them in for a a more ordinary or more ordinary parents who are always falling out with each other?

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Yes. Lovely. So that's that's the first bit of shapeage. What else would you like to say about shaping?

Speaker 3:

Oh, well then this thing gets really sad because the those born in this beautiful family, and they had me first, and then they had my brother, and then the the other really big shaping thing. And I can't I said, I wish it wasn't such a shape, but it just is is then my brother died. And that's the great sort of sadness really of life for me and my parents. And look, I've started crying again. I've now I mean, I've talked about this so much. I wrote my I wrote a book about it. My first book was about it. And every softener I think, like, surely, I'll stop. Yeah. Surely, I cried all the tears. But I usually find there are still a few more left to say, yes. So I did never I didn't think I ever get a not feel really sad about that and that that happened. And

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

So we're in your first berry cathartic book. Was that the last act of love?

Speaker 3:

That's right. Yeah.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

You'll feel better. And, yeah, it's the second book. So, yes. Very profound indeed. And and if if I may, what's the what happened? What was the story of that?

Speaker 3:

Well, he was knocked over when he was sixteen. He's knocked over to her car. And but then he didn't die straight away, but he was left in a very brain damaged state, and he died eight years later. And we had to go to court to say that we thought he should die, which again isn't a psychological experience I would wish on anyone. So that then I think it is different now because there's more of an awareness of the toll that can take on you as an individual. But but at the time we did that, I think we were the twelfth case to go through the family courts. And it's a very it's a whole big thing about I sort of I do understand it more now, which is just that we've the the what happened to my brother? Like, he just wouldn't like, even ten years before he was knocked over. It just the technology didn't exist always that would keep him alive. So we're we're kind of more able now to keep people alive, but we haven't caught up with that sort of morally, philosophically, ethically, psychologically. So that whole difficulty of being with a body really that doesn't exist anymore, but it's still He's still sort of there. So yeah. So that was such a big thing. It was of eight years between the accident and his desk. And then and I do remember thinking, like, I was I thought when he dies, maybe I won't cry that much because maybe I've Maybe I've used maybe I've used it up. Maybe I haven't got any more tiers left, but that turned out not to be true, and I always seem to have these extra is extra sort of reservoirs of reservoirs of grief early.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Indeed, you know, when I first positioned you, I said, you you definitely don't shy away from the epic themes. You know, one of your other books are manual for heartache, navigating sorrow. Anguished despair and loss and, you know, living with the knowledge that the world can be a cruel place. So you you are chronicling stuff that's really important and cathartic for people in that regard.

Speaker 3:

I suppose that's what I mean, you do realize eventually that and I was always really allergic, so I didn't like people. Telling me that, like, oh, you're a stronger person because of it. I didn't like any of that. I still don't think it's a sensible thing to say to someone who's heart's being tuned out of them. That it's some kind of personal development of tune to. Yeah. But but having said all that, there is a way eventually, ultimately, where you realize that you have learned things. You know, that that just the fact of still being the fact that of having survived and still being here does mean that you've learn things along the way and that some of those things might be worth sharing and that that then and then it kinda gets into a virtuous circle, I think. So I think I think it makes me feel less alone share things. I mean, it makes other people feel less alone because I've shared it and then they write writing me that and then I feel a bit better. So it kind of You do sort of end up in a in a place like that, I think. And I am if I have talent almost, I would say, is I'm really able to be present with human pain. I don't walk away. I don't look away. I can really be with someone that's in incredible pain. And that's just because I've had to sort of learn how to do that. Emotional pain, I mean, not physical pain. I'm not regular physical pain. My son said recently, he said, mommy said, you're always regular emotional pain. You're not regular physical pain. Not. They're not at all. So but, yes, I understand, I think, the depths of the human heart, I suppose, and the the anguish, the possible anguish is of it. And I am still here. And Yeah. I know I think now I do know I think I know quite a lot about how you how you do that, how you how you can still be here despite the anguish.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

So a a very profound shapeage, number two. So I think it's a couple more shapeings and then we're into Yeah. Let me see.

Speaker 3:

One of the things, of course, that is how I'm still here, is books and reading. And that's specifically I chose. I got a job in a bookshop So again, life had gone really wrong. It'd been so derailed by everything that happened with my brother. And I I definitely think

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

And how old were you, by the way, when your brother, this happened to your brother?

Speaker 3:

Well, I was sixteen when he was knocked over in twenty four when he sorry. I was seventeen when he was knocked over, but he was Steve, and I was twenty five when he died. And then and then I definitely think, like, janking aside about ending my first marriage because of my first husband's way of driving. Definitely marriage was a casualty of all of that as well. I just got got swept up in might just solve inability to be a grown up. And then I just didn't I just didn't know what to do really. That had all ended, and I couldn't really do anything, and I didn't know how to do anything. And then I got a job in a bookshop, and that was a very shaping moment. And truly, I could say, I would go as far as to say, it saved my life. And Still my plan again. If anything goes really wrong again, my sort of scorched as plan is I'll just go somewhere where I don't know anyone and get a job in a bookshop sort of anonymously. As in not, you know, not saying anything about writing books or whatever now.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

We read a perfect website for that because even your website is cathy reads books dot com. So hello. Come in and let me read your books. It is the perfect job offer. Yeah. This is qualified.

Speaker 3:

I've got in a book shop. Like, I still I worked in a bookshop called Hotcharts, which is in Central London. And then there was a downstairs there was where the paper that fiction section was. And then this is one of my happy place would be just answering queries about paper about fiction, recommending paper about fiction customers. And in between the customers, I'd like to put Georgia Hayes in alphabetical order, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. And we've like shelving, a little bit of chatting to people about books. So But yeah. So getting you done in a bookshop was a very shake shaping thing, then led to all my other book related things ultimately. So

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

And did you know you were going to be so bookish or that was quite a surprise when it saved your life being in a bookshop?

Speaker 3:

Well, I mean, they had always books were everything to me. And reading was everything to me. But I was quite a low of confidence, so I could definitely thought at the time. I didn't think I could do any I mean, it always wanted to write books, but definitely that. I mean, anything that could be a writer or get a job in publishing or do anything really. And even that to be a bar made and that was the only thing I really knew how to do. So I didn't and then when it came to getting a job, I just thought I just don't wanna you know, I was twenty nine. I thought I don't wanna have to put up with, you know, laughing at the jokes of drunk men. And I thought, oh, maybe I maybe I should try getting a job in a bookshop. And then, of course, it did lead to everything else. And now it seems really I mean, like, why did I feel why did I think all those other things work possible? I don't know. The bit by bit, they kind of became possible, I guess.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Number shapeage. Number four, please. But I've got a bell that sort of drives along, which goes, cash out. Number three, please. So I forgot to mention that. So now we're up to shaping to number four.

Speaker 3:

Yes. So having a child, I just I feel that it's such a and I still don't remotely have my head around at all. My son is thirteen. And I just still feel like it's this extraordinary experience, not anything like I would have thought it would be, and I don't know anything about it yet. And Yeah. Maybe by

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

the end of my life, I'll understand some of it. I don't know.

Speaker 3:

But at the moment, I'm just still sort of like, whoosh. What a thing? I met as someone the other day. He's just had a baby. I think the baby is about six months old. And she said, I just keep thinking, like, everyday, I think, like, gosh, this is more than I thought I was getting into. Like, I every day as well. It doesn't sort of stop and so far in my experience. So, yeah, it's just such a big peculiar It's so it's so denial, isn't it? In the sense that so many people do it. And I mean, lots loads of people have children. Certainly, all of us have been a child. So it's like every single person that exists has been birthed, you know, out of a human, haven't they? And yet, it still feels such a profound mystery to me, I say. Yeah. I've got my head around it too. I mean, I wrote a whole novel about life for small children. And, you know, I think, like yeah. I mean, it I didn't get it didn't I'm not sure it advanced my own standing really, but there we go.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

We're all just winging it. We know that, and so that you can -- Yeah.

Chris Grimes:

--

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

you'll wing it majestically, I'm sure. Lovely. So well done. That's the shaping. So now we're going on to three things that inspire you, please.

Speaker 3:

Yes. So in the pandemic, I really missed big art. And I've never thought of myself as being someone who's very sitting at. Arts at school was always a bit sort of humiliating. I was not very good at it, bit clumsy. You know, would knock over my water thing, all that. It usually end badly. I've never even thought myself about I've never even really thought that I did like art. And only in the pandemic that I realized the extent to which in any kind of situation where you can. It'll always be trying to pop into an art gallery and just look at things that are really big. Just look at big swathes of color. I don't really like portraits. And so and it's one of the things I really looked forward to and it's still one of the things I really liked about going to London, just going into the National Gallery or going into the National Portrait Gallery. And find it quite overwhelming. Like, I can't I can't go to a museum for any kind of museum. I can't go there for any length of time. I still want to look at three things and then lie down on the floor for a day. Yes. But I do. But be able to go in the national gallery again. And most of the time at that moment, I'm just kind of starting at the beginning and looking at the big art and so much that it was religious. And again, all these this blue, this this idea, I mean, this brilliant novel years ago, by James Runsey called the color of heaven, and it was all about artists. It was all about people traveling to try and get the color of blue so they could paint the color of heaven on the chapel walls. And so that's it. So I just like standing in front of not only religious paintings, but these religious paintings, just kind of staring at them and trying to work out. Well, not eat well. I mean, I'm trying to work out. I'm trying to calm my breezy head a bit and just I don't know. Just sort of, like, look at them and kind of lose myself and all that blue, probably. But it's very interesting because often they are was cushioned, And often, it is part of his first to say. So it'd be an ultra peace or it would be was a thing I really like. You know, so it's on so there's

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

no pros for a second there. It's really like what? Sorry. You just snagged.

Speaker 3:

Yes. So there's a so there's a painting, but it's it's a funny shape because actually it's the it's the lid of a harpsichord, you know. So and the paintings will be in funny shapes because they'll be from different things. They'll be a bit side paneling for a wardrobe. I find that really interesting. The way that something about the way that the art was kind of format. It was like in service. It was to be making religious statements

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

I remember Similarly, you know, when I saw the book of Kells in Dublin when someone spent their entire lifetime calligraphy one page or something like that. Whereas now you can just, you know, Google a pantone and then that's where you get your blue flower and that's what you that's what you that's how you paint your heaven. So it's extraordinary when someone has to go on a sort of life quest to find and source. I remember also lapis lazuli as a sort of blue that was obviously that was more tooten carbon, I remember.

Speaker 3:

But it's very interesting. I I could just sit around, I don't know, writing out lists of colors, you know, different shades of blue or just looking at shades of blue. So that's my current big. And I kind of almost can't like what I do. Sometimes I really want to learn about it, you know. So we're thinking like, hi. We want to learn about all of this. And then other times, I think, no, stop trying to educate yourself. You don't always have to know everything or have a theory about something or know what theories are about things. Just maybe just stand here and look at the blue, you know. So that's kind of what I'm trying to do. Think a bit less sometimes.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Sounds like there could almost be a squirrel. The color blue goes, oh, squirrels, and you'll stop and standing all ready to lie down.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Yeah.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Lovely. So another influencing entity.

Speaker 3:

Well, this is also a blue thing. So the sea, we obviously, we've already talked a little bit about my certainly have it. But there is something for me in the sea getting in it, looking at it, thinking about it, But with lights that thing, of course, it delivered my dad to my mother-in-law for me, my dad. You know, he ran away to see when he was fifteen. I kind I again, that's just astonishing, isn't it? Fifteen. He ran away to sea. He got a job on a German ship.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Oh, how old was he when he docked that day? Onkowski. Eighty.

Speaker 3:

So, again, orphaned unloved. It's this sort of astonishing. So but, yeah, but the sea and I get because the sea is also blue. So that's another reason why I just like looking at it and just keep looking at it. And then I think maybe I should try to paint it. Maybe I should take this interest in art and this interest in the sea and switch them together. But I don't know. There's also something where I'm thinking.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

I don't. Trying not to be too purposed about it. Just kind of When you talk about spilling your cup in art classes, that's going into watercolors, literally. You're spilling everything. Yeah. It's all making sense that you're in the sea trying to paint something blue.

Speaker 3:

And I suppose there's something about I did I did ever further my writing as I actually said makes me feel like an idiot. But there's something about any kind of creative pursuit where where you are what I am anyway. Maybe it is just me. And where you're always struggling with the gap, It's the gap between your aspirations for what you want this thing to be and let the current mess that it is. And there's something about I know that if I started trying to paint and see, I would immediately probably come up against the fact that I don't even, like, know how or where it's actually so I kinda think maybe it's just nice stay in this place of possibility where I just almost like look at it and just sort of allow it to be That's

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

a nice expression. Stay in this place of possibility. Be in touch with us. You don't have to solve it or do it. You've just got to be in ace feet and if that's right expression and enjoy it. So we could be on two spirals now, and this is a third influence thing. I'm just checking whether I'm

Speaker 3:

That's my third influencing thing. My third influencing thing. I'm written down ordinary people, and, of course, nobody is ordinary, but everybody is ordinary. Just ordinary people and their kind of just their lives and their hardships. I am so I'm so incredibly inspired just how you get to know someone and one of my favorite sayings is they used to say this in the pub in Yorkshire where I worked. Let's say about someone. Like, oh, you can tell he's had a big paper around. And one of my favorite things is to say, especially if I catch myself being a bit judgmental. But you just don't ever know the size of someone else's paper around. That's the thing. Yes.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

And now we're going on to Two random squirrels, please. Squirrels, so borrow from the film up. What are the squirrels of distraction that never failed to stop you in your tracks, if anything else that might be going on for you, Kathy Rinson Brink in your hectic life.

Speaker 3:

Well, it is sort of it's words and that it's printed words So again, if I am sitting next to someone on a tray and if they have some sort of document in front of them, it's almost literally impossible that I don't And these days, of course, my eyesight is not so good, but I've always been able to read. I don't know how I do it, but it's like I just look at a page and it flies into my head. I haven't taught myself to do it. I've always been able to do that.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Another squirrel I think you're allowed.

Speaker 3:

I've we've thought about And again, he's he's because I've already had to see, light houses. So I'm obsessed with lighthouse.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

I'd like do you know what? I'd like them too. There's just something fascinating about them. Yes. And now, a quirkier unusual fact about you we couldn't possibly know until you tell us.

Speaker 3:

So when I was seventeen, I won and I was the youngest ever winner. I won the SNACE and District Ladies Dance Championship.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

One hundred and eighty. That's a fantastic fact. Now, we're gonna talk about Alchemy and gold. We stay in the clearing, which is still your beautiful sea cove. And now we're moving away from the tree and we're talking about alchemy and gold now. When you're at purpose and inflow, what are you absolutely happiest doing? What you're here to reveal to the world.

Speaker 3:

What I really like doing is I'm gonna never quite know what the word is. I like being with a group of people who want to write and I like helping them do that. And it can be quite a big group of people like I've done a couple of really nice things recently where I had like forty or fifty people. And I'm giving I'm talking to them about writing and giving them sort of exercises to do. And that feels like that is my absolute purpose and calling in life to do that. And I'd love to be able to have people in my clearing like that. I invite them all in with their notebooks.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

And as you save yourself, I am a writer who loves to encourage and that sounds that exactly that zone where you are applying your alchemy, your gold.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I really love it. And again, in my own writing, I'm quite you know, every day is right, it's blocks day. I'm quite you know, often bowed down by my own structural woes. But when I'm with other people, it it all feels like it makes sense because I'm very good at helping other people get over their get over those things themselves. So Yeah. I can't quite do it for myself somehow, but I'm really good at doing it for other people. It just feels so it's just delightful. I just love it. I just utterly love it. It's been a little bit like I did this wonderful thing in Cypress recently, and we were This is basically the Top House Retreat, and it's in this village in the mountains. And the we're right next door to this place, which apparently was the site of the Temple of Apollo. And did you feel really kind of There's something I don't know. It just felt like the gods were in the air because it's there's something about it. It doesn't really almost. It doesn't must simply feel like it is me. Like, when I'm doing it really well, does feel a little bit like I'm almost like channeling something else. I become much less not really about me even. It's just about the people, I guess. And that feels very nice for it not to be about me. So does very occasionally when my writing is going very well. Actually, it's not very occasionally. It's more that as a percentage of the overall thing of writing. It's writing something. It's not all time. But like when writing is going very well, again, it is I can tell it's going very well because it is I'm not in it so much. It's not really a conscious thing so much. It kind of something else takes over. Very having it. More quickly when I'm teaching.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Sometimes referred to as the mews. Isn't it that sweet spot when you have the mews and you're just free flowing?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I think that's probably what it is, and something happens. And I don't know. I don't know. And I kinda don't care whether I remember saying this in Cyprus. Like, I know it doesn't matter what you think it is. I mean, I don't care whether it's dope for me. You know, I don't know whether it's like I do. Yeah. There's I like reading all those books about habits. You know, so I don't care whether, you know, like, a neuroscientist could probably explain what's happening or Apollo could explain what's happening. Personally, I don't care which one it is. But just like with and I don't I don't I don't care whether it's the again, I don't I don't mind what the explanation is for it. More and more, I'm trying to just find ways to sort of be in that state. Fear is a great blocker for it, of course, if you're frightened. I don't think it happens. So it's it's kind of calming yourself so that you can then again, I was writing something about it and I called it and I called the pieces right say yes to the news because that's what it feels like.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

I'm very happy. I used the word news just a few moments ago. That's a lovely segue. So now, I'm gonna award you with a cake, if I may. This is the final multi layered cake. It's stuff like first of all, do you like Kate, Kate, Kate, Kathy?

Speaker 3:

Well, this is probably very boring. At the moment, I've worked out that it really does seem to help me to eat almost Not not not really nothing. I'm not really eating sugar or processed food at the moment, and it seems to have got all these boring health problems. It seems to help was my joint pain, but I will enjoy the metaphorical pain. And actually I've always had a thing because I lived in France for a bit. I really like the window was a French patisserie. And I've always had a thing like, I don't really need to eat the cake. I'm like, having I used to go out with friends and say, you have the cake, and I'll just have an aesthetic share of it. I just like the I like the key pretty things. I don't really want I don't need need to eat them really. I just like the fact that it's pretty so I can have an aesthetic an aesthetic enjoyment of the cake.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

So it could be outside your dream cake shop window. In France, did you say it was licking the windows instead, which is now we're gonna put a cherry on the cake in the form of what's a favorite inspirational quote that's always given you sucker first of all?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So this is, I never say, I never know whether you say ovid or ovid, but this is our friend of that name. And it's be patient and tough. Someday this pain will be useful to you.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given, Kathy?

Speaker 3:

Been given a few, but

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

the one that has a little while ago, so

Speaker 3:

I interviewed Joanna Trollope, who's a very impressive woman. And She said, I can't remember if I'm allowed to swear. Am I?

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Oh, go for it. I can always edit it out. If it's a quote, it's fine.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. She said, and she's very posh, I've I'd really like posh people swearing and just see there's something very appealing about it. She said and, of course, she said and she was very helpful. She's very sweet. Telling her about my writing words, and she was very, very brilliant. And then she said to me, she said, and of course, she said, the other thing is the older I get, the less I give a fuck, And it was just so utterly wonderful. And I came home and wrote that and I posted it now above my desk. And I think there is something exciting about aging actually in that sense of, again, trying to oh, I don't know. I think probably my whole life has been about worrying about what other people are thinking and trying to get trying to give up the shift for long enough to, like, get out under it, to be able just make something or do anything without being paralyzed with the fear of what people are thinking about me, which

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

could be a great segue into what notes help or advice might you profit or younger version of Kathy rinse and brink?

Speaker 3:

No. I would say to her. I would say, be yourself And I would say, yes, I know it's hard. But it's like it's all you've got, you know. And again, I think that's a lifelong Some people just seem to be able to be themselves, didn't they? And I don't ever. I don't I don't run with a lot of conviction. I don't run with a lot of certainty. Calls into

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

this thing. I one of the

Speaker 3:

most things. I think, like, I I didn't know what I think. Outside of the I don't like cruelty. Or rudeness. But outside of that, I just don't I don't feel I've got much conviction about things, and some people do. But yeah. So it's this thing as I would always say. Just be yourself. But no. That but that's not like a one stop binary thing. Is it that you get a bit lifelong thing? But know that it is okay to dedicate time and energy to this pursuit of trying to be yourself. And if I could be greedy and have another one, I would also say to my younger self and really enjoy not being in physical pain because you have no idea how nice your life is just that you don't hurt a bit all the time. And, of course, nobody what I think that that's the things I think you've experienced living with pain. You kinda can't know how great it is not to, but I would like tip my younger self to wink about that one.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Lovely. And sorry, the fact that you're in pain isn't lovely. That was just a really lovely answer I thought Have you had that lovely, slightly cheesy quote about authenticity, which is be yourself because everyone else has taken?

Speaker 3:

Yes. Well, that is very true, isn't it? Yeah.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

If I may, I'm gonna ramp up to a bit of Shakespeare. But just before we get there, this is the past the golden bat moment, please. So who in your network having experienced this from within in the same way that Kate Dimble will be passed this onto you? In order to keep the golden thread of the storytelling going, who Cathy Reds Brick would you like to pass the golden baton onto, please?

Speaker 3:

I would like to nominate Kit Dival who I think is brilliant writer and an all around magnificent cast. And actually, I was interviewing her it at our festival. I think the day before or the day after I was doing the event with Kate. And, yeah, she's just such an amazing person. And she's written a few brilliant books, but the one I was interviewing her about is the memoir which is called without warning and only sometimes scenes from an unpreduced bookchildhood, and I would just like to I basically would like to listen to her fairly nonstop. So, kit the

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

bar, did you say?

Speaker 3:

Yes. Koolool. Your mission

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

should choose to accept it. It's to furnish me with a warm introduction, and then your mission is complete, marvelous. And now, inspired by Shakespeare and all the world's prestige and all the rhythm and rhythm and rhythm players, borrowing from the seven ages of Man's speech, and by that this is a very authentic Shakespeare prop I'm I was in front of you. This is the actual actual complete works of Shakespeare that I bought myself to go to drama school. Shakespeare didn't sign it, but I did Chris Grimes sixteen nine eighty six. Going to Bristol, big theater school. And in turning this into a theater show, I'm delighted in whipping this out as well. Yes. I'll I'll plug the picture at the very end when we're off here. But how when all is said and done, talking about legacy, Kathy, how would you most like will be remembered.

Speaker 3:

I don't know. Like, she tried. Maybe she had a go. Kept going. I wouldn't mind being remembered as a as a laugh. You know, that I think that's one of the things that sometimes You know, because of what has happened to me, I am so often talking about or thinking about really deep subjects, but But, yeah, sometimes it's nice. I also do like to I do like to laugh, so that would be nice. I like that. If I think about how people that actually know me would remember me, I would quite like it. So there's a little bit of that in it as well, you know. Not just like she was a really helpful person when everything went tits up, but more kind of like, oh, yes, she was quite a laugh.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Lovely. As so where can find out where more about you on the old Interweb? So where exactly can we go and find out about you?

Speaker 3:

So my website is called kathy Reidbooks dot com, and I'm intermittently on social media, not very often, because I find it quite tricky. But I'm cat rinsing brink in those places.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

Lovely. As this has been your moment in the good listening to show, stories distinction in Genius. Is there anything else you'd like to say, Kathy?

Speaker 3:

I would like to say that if anyone has listened to this and thought, oh, maybe I should try a writing book, please do do it. Go for it. That will make me feel very happy. It does make me feel incredibly happy. I get quite a lot. I get a lot of correspondence. About my books and I like all of it. And there is a special thing when people say like, oh, since I heard you on this thing and now I'm writing this book, I heard you on this thing, and now I'm writing first thing every day. I really like that. So that would be nice.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

So ladies and gentlemen, Min Min Min. Min. You've been listening to Chris Grimes, me, but most importantly, this has been Kathy, rinse and brink, anything else you'd like to say?

Speaker 3:

Just that it has been a pleasure, and thank you very much for bringing me into the clearing.

Cathy Rentzenbrink:

You're most welcome. And I'll just finish here. And good night. You've been listening to the Goodlistening to show here on UK Health Radio with me. Chris Grimes. Oh, it's most If you've enjoyed the show, then please do tune in next week to listen to more stories from the clearing. If you'd like to connect with me on LinkedIn, then please do so. There's also a dedicated Facebook group for the Show two. You can contact me about the program or if you'd be interested in experiencing some personal impact coaching with me, carry my level out your impact program. That's chris at second curve dot u k. On Twitter and Instagram, it's at at chris grind. So until next time for me, Chris grinds from UK health radio and from stand to your good health and goodbye. So, Kathy, you've just been given a good listening to and I've curated through you through this particular journey, if I could get your immediate feedback and what was that like for you being curated through the Good Listening to Show?

Speaker 3:

That was very enjoyable. I liked it a lot. And I felt that there was a girl had a bit of, you know, notice about things let's format. It's all very interesting to do. Yeah. So it's very nice.