Paul Farmer, charity leader

0:00Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

0:45My cast away this week is the charity leader, Paul Farmer. He spent his working life campaigning, fundraising and changing the national conversation around some of the most challenging issues in our society. He was a graduate with a history degree from Oxford when he found himself working for a heritage centre. He fell in love with the charity sector, moving to the Samaritans. His experiences taking calls from those struggling with their mental health made him a campaigner. Determined to do more than listen, he eventually moved to Mind, where he became CEO. As well as leading successful fundraising efforts that changed the scope of what the charity could do, he effectively lobbied the government, leading a 15-year campaign that helped to change legislation and the national conversation about mental health.

1:32His latest challenge is what used to be called old age, though we should probably use later life. He's taken the helm at Age UK and is determined to do the same with the conversation about ageing as he did for mental health, calling out ageism, campaigning for older people and encouraging all of us to prepare and plan for a happier, healthier, later life. He says, day after day, I see the belief and hope that many charities bring to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in this country. The volunteers and the voluntary sector staff are the belief makers. Paul Farmer, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

2:08Thank you very much, Lauren. It's great to be here. So I think we should start with belief making, Paul. Tell me about that lovely phrase. I'm fortunate enough to work in a sector that brings hope and optimism to so many people's lives. It's creating that sense of belief that we can do things differently. We can make things better. And for me, it's changing big issues. It's changing causes that, you know, is the thing that I've really enjoyed doing so far. And the latest big issue, of course, is ageing. So you want to change the way that we talk about it, the way that we think about it and experience it.

2:42So you said that, you know, in many ways we're in denial about the realities of ageing. What are we not seeing? We've got this extraordinary situation now where people live for 20 or 30 years, even longer sometimes after retirement. I'm not sure that we spend enough time thinking about how we want to spend that later life for our own well-being. It was a tradition in this country that people just moved to the seaside. and increasingly we're hearing that people saying well what I'm not sure I want to do that because I don't know anybody there I don't have friends actually the things I really want to do are go to art galleries or spend time with my friends or with my family so we're not planning in that way it's a little bit like the work we did in mental health there's a sort of stigma about it so people don't talk about it as much yes and I know that loneliness is a really big focus for you Almost a million older people report that they are often lonely.

3:37That's a really sad statistic, isn't it? It's a terrible indictment of how many older people feel and how our society thinks about the loneliness and isolation of older people. In the world where I've come from, in mental health, it feels to me when I'm hearing older people talking about loneliness and isolation, it's the equivalent of younger people talking about depression and anxiety. Well, and we hear about it from younger people too, don't we, that sense of isolation. So what do we do about that, about those older people and the feeling disconnected, feeling isolated? Connection is a huge part of what we do at Age UK.

4:16We connect people. Many of them are volunteer befrienders who give their time to spend a little bit of time with an older person. A lovely man called Stanley, who sadly died just this year, who I met in Lincoln at our local Age UK. his wife had died and he had lost all connection with his community really a befriender found him they found each other and he started to rediscover the thing he loved doing the most which is to play the piano for people went along to a session and he was at the piano and there was a singing session with other older people singing they got me to sing very badly and you could see his sense of pride in what he was doing.

5:01He was connected back into his society. And music. I mean, it's just such a healing force, isn't it? In those circumstances. Speaking of which, Paul, you're going to share yours with us. So I think we should get started with your first choice today, disc number one. What is it and why is it going to the island with you? So my first disc is Aretha Franklin, Think. She's the Queen of Soul, of course. For me, this is music at its very best, her range, her voice, her experience. And it's a song kind of obviously about freedom. And so for me, it's a clarion cry for campaigners on all kinds of issues.

5:37It's a reflection of what so many of us do in the charity sector to empower people to have a voice, to be more free. And so this is such a powerful wake-up song for all of us to think about what we can do. You better think, think, think about what you're trying to do to me, yeah. Let your man go, let yourself be free Oh, freedom, freedom, freedom Oh, freedom, freedom

6:08Freedom, freedom, freedom Oh, freedom Aretha Franklin and Think. So let's go back to the beginning, shall we, Paul Farmer? You were born in 1966 in Oxford, the eldest of two boys, to David and Anne. How would you describe family life when you were a little boy? So we were quite a quiet family, quite private family in many ways. We had a lot of sports in our life. You know, we have very fond memories of the summer of 76, where we spent a lot of time running around, playing lots of cricket. Boiling hot. Boiling hot, exactly. Boiling hot summer. The other part of it was, I suppose, this kind of immersion in history, because my father was an academic, history academic, medieval historian.

6:54And so family holidays always involved castles, abbeys, priories. A cagoule in a ruin. Absolutely. Except in 1976 where it was always hot and sunny. But every other year it was nearly always pouring with rain somewhere. But that just gave me a sense of the heritage of this country. Oh, how wonderful. Well, I had one of those childhoods too, so I can relate to that. But your dad's story was very unusual, wasn't it? because before he became an academic and a historian, he'd been a monk, a Benedictine monk for, what, 20 years? Yes. So not many people have a monk as a father. He was a Benedictine in an abbey in the Isle of Wight called Quar Abbey.

7:31He was one of eight children, a large Catholic family, four of whom at some point or another were in religious orders of some description. Oh, my goodness. 50%. It was a healthy contribution. He joined the Benedictines and was there as a monk for 20 or so years. his main focus academically was on saints and he wrote a very well-known book now the Oxford Dictionary of Saints Still in print? Still in print It was one of the proudest things for me to do to help him produce the last edition and I was his sort of junior researcher going off into using the internet to source some content for some of the newly canonised saints And would he pull out examples?

8:11Was it like, you know, oh well, St Pancras wouldn't have approved of you doing, you know His all-time favourites were St Bede and St Cuthbert. Oh, that's the North East Catholic here, I've got to agree. So I remember being taken by my parents and three of his PhD students in a tiny car on what was described as a holiday to Jarrow, Monk Wehamath, to Durham, and having all the stories of Bede and Cuthbert instilled into me. And, you know, these incredible people whose connection to God was very powerful, but actually their ability also to communicate that to others. And as you said, you know, your dad, he lived a very long life.

8:52And you've described his experience as a guide star for the work that you're doing now. In what way? Well, he finally passed away only a couple of years ago, aged 98. Very sadly, my mother died when she was in her mid-60s. So he spent nearly 40 years of his life on his own. Because there were a bit of an age gap between them. Nearly 10 years between them. In many ways, what I saw in him, particularly in his later life, was somebody who both celebrated the opportunities that being older was. I remember one day he told me, I'm going on holiday. I said, where are you going? Zimbabwe. I thought, OK, interesting.

9:25So he did embrace that kind of sense of opportunity. Yeah, good for him. But I also remember I took him to Bruges for a weekend and we were standing on St Pancras Station. He was probably in his mid-80s at that point. who's a little bit shaky, I suppose. And the train was called and everybody just poured around him as though he was a bag. I've seen that. I've seen that before. Oh, gosh, you know, we're not really thinking, are we, about how older people are being treated. So that's a very strong image. And when I think we talk about ageism, that's a kind of an image for me about how do we make sure that, in all our hurry and our rush to get on with our lives that we don't just ignore people.

10:11So I think we should have some music, Paul. It's your second choice today. What have you gone for? I grew up with a plain chant and polyphony on the record player. So this is the Agnes Day from the Mass for Five Voices by William Byrd. William Byrd was writing this for recusant Catholics in the time of Elizabeth I. And if you can imagine small numbers of people in a tiny space worshipping in the face of real challenges. So these are people, what, in secret chapels? We're singing this together. Yes, they're hiding from the authorities who are chasing after them in many ways. And it's such a strong, powerful voice of what faith feels like, I think.

10:54And in this piece, it brings together these five voices and rises to a crescendo at the end in the Dona Nobis Pace, which is Give Us Your Peace.

11:40Amen.

12:04Part of the Agnes Day from William Byrd's Mass for Five Voices, performed by The Sixteen, with Harry Christopher's conducting. So, Paul Farmer, we've talked about your dad, who just sounds wonderful. Tell me about your mum, Anne. How had she met your dad in the first place? Her father had died when she was very young during the war. It was a very traumatic experience. She was an only child and her and her mother were left on their own. And she was really very affected by this. And so she actually joined a convent herself and became a nun. So she was in a convent for a while and re-emerged in the 1960s.

12:44My father re-emerged in the 1960s. Instant common ground. I think you could kind of join the dots fairly easily. They found each other in Oxford. My father was teaching and researching. My mother was teaching as well. So they connected. They obviously had quite a lot in common. and so it's one of the things that both my parents had maybe as a result of their experiences with whilst they had a really strong connection to their faith and and encouraged us to do the same they were also quite rebellious so they didn't necessarily see the institution of the church as something to just simply adhere to so they would encourage us to think in a quite a constructively critical way I suppose my mother was a teacher in a convent school for a while until the day that she decided that she should wear trousers.

13:28So this would have been in the early 70s, I suppose. And that point, that wasn't something that was approved of. She left the school because she wanted to make a stand about the ability of women to be able to wear whatever they wanted to. And I think it was quite a good example of how she and my father were prepared to say, yes, there are all these rules and so on and so forth, but don't just say they're the rules and you've got to follow them. Yeah, so encouraging that critical thinking in you and your brother. So you were obviously, Paul, a very enthusiastic student. How did you get on at school?

14:02School was... I arrived in the school, I was very young. I got a scholarship into the school. So they decided that what they called the third year, which was the equivalent of year nine, wasn't really worth bothering with. So I was propelled into the year ahead. They just skipped your head into, what is that, the beginning of GCSEs? Oh, no. I don't think that was very good for me, actually, because I was in a class with lots of people who were a lot older than I was. And I arrived, I was 12 and most of the other people in the class were 13 and a half. And that doesn't sound like a lot. You're physically small as well.

14:34Yes, I am physically small. And that also meant that you're, you know, I think you can become a target because you're different. You're standing out. But, you know, I think actually it was the learning and sport that probably carried me through. What was your sport? I would play anything. probably as an escape to be honest but i would play rugby football cricket as i stopped growing i would become further and further in the backs in rugby i was quite quick and you're still sporty now aren't you so important for my mental health didn't i hear that you've been doing walking cricket walking cricket well so lauren we need to talk about walking sport yeah can we just do that for a minute yeah so walking sport as a not naturally fast person i'm all in go well Well, so walking sport is something which is, as you can imagine, is a kind of slightly slower version of running sports.

15:21Walking football, walking rugby, walking tennis, walking cricket and walking golf or golf, as it's called. And we encourage this because it's a really great way for older people to stay physically active. But it's also something that, again, creates that sense of connection because you go and spend time with other people and you have an argument about the score or whatever it might be. And in fact, I was up in Newcastle with our local AGK doing walking football and my goodness me, it's competitive. You're taking it serious. Yeah, they're not going fast, but they mean it. Oh, I love the sound of that.

15:57Definitely going to be getting involved. All right, Paul, let's have some more music. It's your third choice today. What's next and why? So my third disc is from the Communards. We're in the 1980s. This was my kind of awakening decade when it comes to music. The voice of Jimmy Somerville is just extraordinary. Of course, it's the Reverend Richard Coles doing some of his finest work. And for me, it was a student disco classic. It's Don't Leave Me This Way. And it just reminds me of the common room in St Peter's, sound of the 80s, the student discos, the sort of smell of lager.

17:01The Communards and Don't Leave Me This Way taking you back, Paul Farmer, to your student days. So I think that's where we should go next. You studied history at Oxford. Were you following in your dad's footsteps? Definitely. I think it was almost meant to be that I would do history. It was definitely my favourite subject at school and it's the only thing I really seriously thought about applying for. I went to St Peter's, which is a very unpretentious, lovely space, and immediately I just found my home. I felt the combination of the people and being able to really immerse yourself in the subject was an utter joy.

17:37Yeah, you've called it your best possible liberation. So from what? Well, I think I was looking for something and I hadn't found that something at school. School did improve, but I definitely hadn't found my people. I hadn't found the kind of conversations, I suppose, that I really wanted to have. And so Oxford was that place where suddenly you're surrounded by people who are similarly really curious about the world, incredibly bright. They've also all got all, everybody had all the insecurities that you have when you're 18, not really being sure, not really knowing, but being curious to try and test things and being encouraged to do that was something that it just felt like a place, you know, where you could be yourself.

18:27So if we'd met you back then, who would we have been encountering? What would we have seen? Oh, terribly badly dressed, awful hair, large glasses. So big glasses. What was the hair doing? It was sort of long, not long, long, but just a bit messy, really, a bit floppy. 80s floppy curtains. Yes, exactly. I don't think it was nearly as fashionable as that, even. You would have seen somebody who was up a lot. I mean, both awake a lot, but also engaging with people. I met some fantastic people and I met a group of friends who are the most important friends I've had because they are still with me. There's a dozen of them and we're all still going strong.

19:09And that is such an important foundation. And you also met your future wife, Claire, while you were there. I did. How did it happen? My only friend from school who came to Oxford at the same time was at Lady Margaret Hall, Richard. And Claire was at Lady Margaret Hall. And I met Claire through that group. I think I fell in love with her immediately. I think it's fair to say it took a while for us to get together. So on her end, there was a bit of work to do. There was work to do. What was she studying? She was studying geography. She had come back from doing a year's work with Mother Teresa in Calcutta.

19:44She was in awe of that. And we were the closest of friends for a long time, in fact, until after university, when we finally got together and everybody breathed a sigh of relief. So you graduated in 1987 with your degree in history, but you didn't have a clear career path at that point. So what did you do? I did what everybody who has no idea what they want to do, go travelling. I went travelling with two of my Oxford friends, with Richard and Jo, for a year. We covered a lot of ground, 18 countries. It was a joy. We had scrapes and fun along the way to become an adventurer and turn up in Cairo with our first stop.

20:25It was an extraordinary city. It was just a sensory overload. And what did you learn about yourself? Because, you know, you painted a picture of yourself at the beginning of uni as being, you know, quite shy and a bit unsure of yourself, enthusiastic, but not quite knowing who you were yet. Did that help you find yourself? I think definitely. You just have to open up your eyes and look at the wonder of the world. And no internet in those days, just a rather kind of dogged, lonely planet guide to help you find your way. and so I think you learn the art of conversation and you learn the art of asking people for help and how do you again create that kind of sense of connection with other people who in the first instance you might not have anything in common with but actually then through that incredible hospitality you sit down, you have a cup of tea with people and you find a way to communicate It sounds like a fantastic trip and I'm sure you've learned a lot about yourself we'll find out where it took you next in a moment but first I think we should have some more music your fourth disc.

21:25What's next and why? The Beautiful South have been a part of my life for a long time. They're definitely the kind of songs that we'd play in the car journeys, going on holiday with the children. And they've certainly always been there. And I love the witty lyrics of Paul Heaton and that beautiful voice of Jackie Abbott. So this song is Rotterdam and they've actually chosen it because it talks about being alone in a city and loneliness and isolation is something that I personally experienced but I think I've also seen it so many times in my work in mental health and now with older people and so for me it's that kind of sense of really understanding what facing isolation can feel like.

22:11The whole place is pickled, the people are pickles for sure And no one knows that they've done more here than they ever would do in a jar This could be Rotterdam or anywhere, Liverpool or Rome Cos Rotterdam is anywhere, anywhere alone Anywhere alone The Beautiful South and Rotterdam So, Paul Farmer, after university and after travelling, you found your way to working in a historic trust, your history degree coming in very useful, and you fell in love with the charity sector. So after that, you joined the Samaritans, and I know that that was a formative experience for you. Tell me about it. Why?

23:01I arrived at the Samaritans as a press officer. I think I'd be honest and say I didn't really know very much about what that entailed. But as soon as I walked in the door of the organisation, I felt like I'd found a true home. it was clearly fulfilling a really important function in society and it was doing it very quietly actually it was just doing its job 25 000 volunteers millions of calls from people who were lonely isolated feeling suicidal i suppose my job was to try to tell that story to a wider audience to try to encourage people to call. That task of picking up the phone and ringing the Samaritans is not easy for somebody.

23:49So how could we make that easier for people and to give people that sense that there was somebody there, even in the middle of the night, even in your darkest moment. And for you, you were that person for people who called in sometimes. What was that like for you? I know that's the experience that you say made you a campaigner. Yes, I became a listening volunteer. I learned two things, actually. The first thing was the power of listening. I think as a leader, it's incredibly important to be a good listener and not just to listen to the words, but to listen to what's going on in between the words, to listen to the gaps and the silences.

24:25And the second thing I learned was the experiences of many people who were calling were that they had mental health problems. And Samaritans could do something to help, but we could only do a certain amount. So that connection to those callers was an absolute driver for campaigning work in mental health. And how easily did you adapt to having those conversations? I mean, you must have been still quite young to talk to people in crisis in their most difficult moments. That's no small thing. I've always felt like I can listen to people. Maybe it's living in a quiet house or maybe it was being at university.

25:05It was probably all of those things. But I kind of felt like I could listen. I can give people time in that sense. and being able to give people time as a Samaritan volunteer is precious. So, Paul, you then moved on to Rethink Mental Illness, which was formerly known as the National Schizophrenia Fellowship. Tell me a bit more about making that move from listening to actively campaigning. So I loved the Samaritans dearly. At the time, as an organisation, they didn't really see themselves as a campaigning organisation and I was getting very fired up about the need to do some campaigning. so I got a job at Rethink and was able to again learn the art of campaigning and influencing I turned up at Rethink in 1997 I went to my first party conference the Labour conference of 1997 we had a fringe meeting to talk about mental health and mental illness there were more people on the panel than there were in the audience oh my god so how many in the audience then what I mean three three and it was 1997 there was quite a lot of partying I think given the nature of where the Labour Party were at the time.

26:12They were all listening to D. Ream and all of that at that point. Conceivably. So it couldn't be more different now. What did that tell you about how far you had to go, where things were? So I think we knew that mental health was hugely stigmatised. I mean, would we even have used the phrase mental health at that point? I feel like it was mental illness you would hear about, but it wasn't even in common usage. We definitely didn't think about the idea that we all have mental health. Mental illness was something that other people had. And in kind of tabloid terms, it was schizo, knife, axe, murderer, that kind of language.

26:44So people were pushed to the margins. And despite the fact that one in, this is not a new number, but one in four people experienced mental health problems, the image in the public's eye, in the media eye, in the politician's eyes was of this group of people who were dangerous, basically. And therefore, people didn't want to talk about it. They were frightened. All right, Paul, it's time to go to the music. your fifth choice today. What are we going to hear? It is Nina. It is Nina Simone. It's feeling good. I'm going to be 60 this year. I'm absolutely fully embracing the whole idea of later life.

27:19And it's a tribute, actually, for me, to helping to age gracefully or maybe age disgracefully. And for me, it's also that reminder of that positive contribution that older people can make.