Episode 172: Monisha Rajesh

0:04Hello, I'm Safiyella Spexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it all work. I'm a singer and I've released eight albums in between having my five sons aged between seven years old and nearly 22, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but it can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a little bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. good day uh it is friday morning and this week has been quite oh i think it's quite a tricky week isn't it because we're three weeks into uh january it's been very cold and dark in the uk we've had lots of rain so that means lots of mornings where you open the curtains and you're like, oh, and everybody's okay.

1:07I think me and the kids have been feeling a little bit more tired this week. That being said, I'm very much enjoying some home time because two weeks from now I will be in Australia. So I know that's pretty jammy. It's going to be all nice and warm, and I can't deny it. I'm looking forward to it. I start off in Australia. I'm singing at the men's final of the Australian tennis singles, which is exciting. That's in Melbourne. And then I fly to New Zealand for a few dates there and then back to Australia for a few more dates. So come on, that's pretty nice, isn't it? Also, these are my first ever solo shows in Australia and New Zealand.

1:54Am I repeating myself? I probably talked about that last week. Sorry, I'm excited. And also my fingers are freezing so it's given me something nice to think about um but no here we are in london town it's uh it's actually blue sky today so i can't complain too much about that yesterday it was very wet and i ended up having both things i had planned for work cancelled at the last minute so i went to see hamlet with my family the afternoon matinee which felt very indulgent while the kids are little under at school. So that was what I did yesterday. And what else have I been doing? Just prepping and planning, really.

2:34I've got some ideas for music stuff. And so that's the next thing I'll be getting on with. Anyway, sorry, that really is very, very rambly. I apologise. I have such a lovely guest for you this week. And actually, it's very timely because she's going to take us away on the train trip journey now because that is what Manisha Rajesh celebrates, talks about and experiences. She has travelled all around the world on different train journeys and she paints in her books such a picture of those trains and what is extraordinary about them and why they're so special. And honestly, reading about some of them and hearing her speak, I was thinking, I cannot wait, I just want to do that, I want to do that.

3:21In any which way, with friends, with Richard, with the kids, it just sounded so gorgeous and peaceful and extraordinary and such a little window into a whole other culture because she's travelled around trains on Europe, India, all around the world now, actually, and most recently wrote a book called Moonlight Express, which is all sleeper trains. Some of those sound fantastic. She has two little girls. They are six and eight. and she's taken them on some of these train journeys so I really think Monisha's going to take you there but also what I love is that she's come into you know travel writing with completely her own angle her own take and I don't actually think there's anyone else quite like her out there plus she was super warm so it was a lovely chat and I'm actually really we did it We recorded it during the lead up to Christmas.

4:18And at one point, a bauble does fall off my tree, which just that, oh, sorry, I'm going past. Very spooky little bauble all by itself. So you'll hear that. But it was really nice even then to be thinking about plans for this year and if I can involve a train or two. So I'll leave you with her and my chat. And then I will see you on the other side. And hopefully my fingers would have warmed up back then. See you later.

4:49Oh, it's so nice to meet you, Manisha. And I've been absolutely absorbing myself in your description of your train travel. And I actually wondered what came first, the travel or the writing, because you're such a beautiful writer. Thank you. It's easy to just be thinking about the train travel and the experience of what you've done. But I really want to know as well your relationship with words and writing. Okay. Okay, well, funnily enough, actually, the trains came much, much, much later. Even after I'd started doing travel writing, the writing itself just came from, I suppose I was always doing bits and pieces when I was a teenager.

5:29I used to always want to interview people. In fact, I remember interviewing Stephen Fry when I was about 15. What was that for? Who I met. For a school magazine or something? Yes, it was. And I met him at a cricket dinner very randomly. Who you just went to at 15? My parents picked cricket fans. It's very genetic. It's your average 15-year-old. No, it's, well, and I grew up in Edgbaston in Birmingham just by the Test cricket grounds. So cricket was very much part of the family. So I, and I, you know what, you've just reminded me, I actually interviewed various other cricketers for the school paper.

5:58And then it was just fun meeting people. And I think that's a thread that's kind of stayed with my books because they're very much about people. I think absolutely. The books are about people from different places. and the trains are kind of a, they lend themselves to me actually being able to meet people in a way that I wouldn't otherwise. But the writing came about university. I read French at university and then I wrote for the student paper. I did film reviews for them. And then I knew I wanted to do some kind of journalism. So I did a postgraduate when I came to London. And then from there, I just worked at various different magazines and did feature writing.

6:31And then it actually came when I got made redundant. That's how the train book came about. I was working at Time magazine and I was on the copy desk doing all the sort of spelling, punctuation and things. And they shifted the whole desk off to Hong Kong and that was it. And I thought, oh, what do I do? Do I retrain? Do I, you know, job hunt or should I just take some time out? And actually it was when I was sitting in that office that I read an article about India's domestic airlines and that they could at that point reach 80 cities. And I remember thinking, oh, 80 cities, this looks quite interesting.

7:05So I pulled up the map. And as I was looking at all of them, I then saw this really, really tiny kind of lines running around like filigree, really tight, like embroidery. And I looked at the key and it said Indian Railways. And that's when I thought, oh, hang on, this sounds a bit more fun. And they went way beyond where the airlines could go. And it actually was that fast that I sat there thinking, oh, I could do around India in 80 trains. And then I sort of forgot about it because I lived in India when I was nine for two years. My parents moved back and then things didn't work out. So they came back to the UK.

7:37And I suppose I had a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth about the whole experience. So I kind of avoided going back. And then at this point, I was, I don't know, 20 years out from having visited. And I thought, I need to go back. I need to sort of revisit, find a way to reconcile my relationship with the country, I suppose. and that whole idea of around India and 80 trains but also wanting to go back just kind of it just felt like the right time so I just went I just I just bought an Indian rail pass and I went about a month later on your own so I had a photographer friend with me he was a friend of a friend and I felt like I just needed somebody else to be there and he happened to be made redundant at the same time it just worked out really nicely so he came along too but we went our separate ways after a little while and we each did our own thing and it was nice to both have a companion but also to do quite a bit of it by myself and I realized within about three weeks that actually it wasn't being in India that was so thrilling it was the trains because I bought the rail pass just to kind of as a means to an end it was just cheap it was 350 pounds for three months what yeah nuts absolutely nuts including my sleeper trains quite a lot of my food and I remember thinking well I can do this on a pretty decent budget and I knew that the trains would allow me to chat to people and get around easily.

8:55But they really weren't the thing that interested me. It was just they will help me do this. And after a couple of weeks I remember just feeling like whenever I got off in different cities and sort of potted around, spent a couple of days, I was always feeling like something was calling me and I just couldn't wait to get on the next train. That's what it was. I just always felt at home back on the railways rather than seeing them as wanting to get me from A to B. And wherever I went, I would always think, oh, what's the next train going to be? And it just became part of the whole process of traveling around was the trains and where they were taking me and who I was meeting.

9:33And, you know, they were just, each one was so different. Yeah. They were incredible. So were you sort of rebuilding your relationship? Yeah, I think so. Where you were seeing and the people who lived there and the stories. It was definitely because each, I mean, each train has got eight different classes and you've got up to 40 carriages. So you've got first class right up at the top and it can take you up to half an hour to make your way down a train. So if you set off, you're in there literally for the long haul. And I would just potter around. I would go from one carriage to the next just feeling different things in each one.

10:09You know, some of them were really quiet where all the business people were sitting and didn't really want to chat to each other. they're all on laptops or they're, you know, doing paperwork. And then you'd be right down at the other end where it's really noisy with vegetable vendors getting on and their, you know, their scales clanging while they're unwrapping stuff and counting the money they've made that morning. And it's really noisy. It's fun, but it's a really lovely kind of clamor. And I invariably would end up traveling down in those compartments because people always said to me, are you traveling in first class for all of it?

10:38And I said, no, not at all, actually. And for most of the book, I was kind of in the general classes with people because they were just more fun. And people would talk to you a lot more. When did you realize it was a book? Probably at the end of the four months, actually, because I didn't have an agent. I didn't have a publisher. I just went. And the reason I did it with a book in mind was because I just never read anything about India by somebody who was both an insider and an outsider. Yeah, that's pretty fascinating, actually. And almost every book I picked up was by a sort of 60-year-old, very posh white man.

11:12And it was always seen from that perspective of the other, you know, let's go out and find these natives and write about their funny ways and their saris and bright colors. And I would always read them thinking, I don't recognize this. I don't see this. This is not what I feel and see and smell when I go to India at all. And it always felt very surface level. They never really got to grips with people and chatting to people. And I thought I could do that. I would like to actually show a different side, one that I relate to. And that, you know, there's a huge Indian diaspora. You know, one in six people in the world is an Indian.

11:50We're all over the place. And I thought there must be people like me that also want to read books about India that aren't just about, you know, these very basic things. But it was an interesting process actually getting published because at that point in 2010, UK publishers just outright rejected it and said we can't see where it would sit on the shelf. and I remember thinking well between Paul Theroux and Tim Parks because that's where the railway books are and that's where all my books sit yeah now that's a bauble bauble drop happy Christmas um but they yeah they just they just couldn't conceive of the fact that railway books might be different from the perspective of a woman but also a British Indian woman who's bringing something completely different to it so it was it was the whole period was very eye-opening for me.

12:40And what about your perspective of India in comparison to your parents and how they sort of presented it to you like growing up and this brief time you spent there, the two years you spent there, how did it tally with all of that? Oh I mean it had changed so much. It was 20 years since we'd lived there and I just sort of understood at that point when I was traveling by myself that it was more than those experiences and in a very sort of philosophical way as well I sort of put to bed lots of ideas about you know people who'd wronged you and you know instances you'd had where you thought oh that that's very representative of how Indians do things and actually it's not and you realize that it's very fleeting it's a moment in time and those things happen all the time and you can either hold on to it and have your grudges or you can just let go of it and decide that that's not something you're going to stress about.

13:34And actually, by the end of it, I went to, I don't know if you've heard of them before. They're called Vipassana Meditation Retreat. Oh, yes. So it's a 10-day silent meditation. And I went and sat one. Oh, after the, what did you call it, enjoyable clamor? After four months of trains and that noise and that kind of constant stimulation to sit in complete silence for 10 days, just, it completely reset me as a person. and my ability to just let go of stuff and not allow it to I mean it's about sort of physically not being bothered by things and aches and pains and headaches and you just observe it and kind of move past it and it completely changed me it made me a completely different person that's pretty fascinating in itself actually I suppose funnily enough that really tallies with the conversation I was having earlier today because I was talking about um my husband Richard got um I suddenly had tinnitus come on very badly during during the sort of lockdown and i think it might have even been come about by covid who knows it's listed as one of the i don't know 87 possible things that can happen to you but um but part of what he had to do was be what ended up being his the best treatment was meditation and mindfulness so that he could sit in that moment and let the let it acknowledge it and not um adhere to it that fight or flight the freaking out and and our bodies do things all the time i mean that's it's exactly what the core of the person is that it just means to see things as they really are and to not attach yourself to anything whether it's a good thing or a bad thing because good things are also fleeting so try not to just observe them for what they are and just move on from it and it was a really it really was a life-changing period because once you've learned the practice, you can use it all the time.

15:25So now that I know how to do it, if I can't sleep, I will sort of tap into it and use it again. And I'm stressed on the tube. I'll kind of just start doing it again in my head. It does change things a lot. It must be something that sets you up for so many things because it's so much of what's encouraged with, you know, the epidemic of anxiety is absolutely about when you're anxious, your mind is going to the future and predicting all sorts of things and spiraling and if this happens and that happens and knock on knock on yeah and actually a lot of that um the practice to help you pass through that peacefully is to let the thought come let the thought go to not be defined by this thought it's that not being quite ahead of uh in terms of what's more of i mean as a more commonplace mainstream therapy it is and i think it's it's made a big difference with my writing as well when i'm feeling quite stressed by i don't really have writer's block because with non-fiction it's there you have the material you're not creating it but it's just figuring out how to put it in the right order that's appealing to people and it would help me when I was writing thinking this is not how I want this to look it's just not happening I can't get this to shape and then I would think just observe that it is what it is right now and remember that you felt this once before when you did your previous books and they're there and they work and you've done what you wanted with them and that will happen again and I would just get up and walk off for a little bit have a walk and come back also dealing with children well I was gonna say how does this factor you how much I have tapped into that observe it and allow it to disappear of course they don't disappear but it does help you deal with a lot of parental stress and just knowing that it's gonna go at some point everything's a phase everything's a stage just sit in the moment with it well well what was happening in your career when you had your babies what when you had your first baby what were you working on at that time i was doing around the world in 80 trains okay so your second yes my second book so i went back into work between books and then i just kept wanting to go back on the trains i just everywhere we went on holiday i would try and find a train or i'd hear one like we can't now yeah and i would just immediately I love it.

17:46And I'd always think, hmm, I wonder who's on it. I wonder where it's going to take me because they're just like untapped adventure. They're just so full of potential. You just don't know where you're going to end up on it or how or who with. And so finally, I thought, I need to do this again. And I wanted to replicate what I'd done in India, but I couldn't find a country that would lend itself to that in the same way. Because if I'd gone to China, which would have probably been the closest I suppose I would have had issues with the language and that was why India was great as a starter because everybody speaks English or at least up to a point yeah most people do so I didn't really need people interpreting for me but China was very different and then I thought I could probably just do lots of different countries but how would that pan out and then off the back of the first title around India and 80 trains around the world and 80 trains just came of my age and said, oh, just see how far you can get.

18:38And that was that. And it ended up being an eight-month trip. And my now husband, then fiance, came with me, which was never the plan. He wasn't supposed to. In fact, when I met him, I hadn't sent the proposal off. And I sat on it for nine months because I thought, if I sell this, then there's no reason for me not to go. But I'm not up for long distance or what and also who knew how it was going to pan out and I thought let me see how this plays out and once that's sorted out then I can go do this and then we got engaged a week later I was like right I'm off great lock that down that's all fine and he said okay cool I'll come out and do bits with you at some point but as I was leading up to the sort of departure I had a huge map on our wall with pins I just literally put pins in all my bucket list places and the Great Wall of China, you know, Japan, Hiroshima.

19:30I got North Korea because I found out that there was an option to do a trip into there on a train. And Canada and just so many different spots. And there were trains for every single one of them. It was extraordinary to see how far you could get by railways. And he kept looking at it. And every week there'd be a new PIM and a new line. And then finally he went, I really just want to come do the whole thing. and fortunately he was in a position where he could just rent out his flat and said he was like I hate my job I need to rethink things and and he came and I said fine you can come but you sit quietly in a corner you don't interrupt me you let me do my thing this is not just an extended holiday this is actually work um but it was great it was a really lovely thing to have done before having children because I cannot imagine that kind of travel now for till retirement probably eight months of travel it just wouldn't happen no I mean I've been looking dreamily off into the distance of your description but I did not my children were not part of the dream no they're not and I think it would just be but I think because we did that we've never had any point in the last 10 years of thinking I need to quit my job and go off um again we we covered a lot of ground that's literally you've done things and been to places that people can only dream of I mean that's we had so much fun extraordinary and the I mean I do always think privilege of travel as you know and I never lose that joy of of that but then I I haven't done what you've done in the indulgence of the letting the journey be part of your experience rather than a means to an end and also you said oh you said your husband just let me do my thing so what did that look like what what why can what when why do you have to be quiet what does what's necessitating that is it because you're sat there observing yeah yeah very much when you want to speak to people so much when you want to write yeah I mean the it's it's very tricky when you're traveling knowing that you've got the writer's mindset on because it's work you have to actually work at it and quite recently somebody wrote to me saying um he just read my last book Moonlight Express which is all about sleeper trains and he said it's just occurred to me how much you were at work when everyone else was just enjoying their journey.

21:44And I thought, gosh, someone's actually picked up on the fact that when everyone else went to sleep, I didn't sleep for most of those journeys, not because of the trains or any other reason, but because I was taking in what was going on. I needed to see what was outside the window at dark. I needed to know what buildings we were passing by, what lakes I was seeing. I needed to know what that mountain range was. And I had to note all of it with so much precise detail because train journeys can be quite fleeting as well and if I just sat back and thought I'm going to enjoy this ride it would be gone and I would have had nothing to talk about and I needed to find people I needed to talk to passengers and it's it's not always that easy to just walk up to a stranger and start asking about their life and why are you on board and where are you going and why are you on this train and who's this person sitting with you It's tricky.

22:34It's actually quite hard to do all of this. And I was always sitting there thinking, this has to be a chapter. I need about 5 ,000 words out of this journey tonight. That's true. Because also it can't just be. And then we got on another train. And that took about four hours. And then we took another one. I mean, it could be. And, you know, I have to find the dining car. I've got to try the food. I've got to. And I need my conversations. Your descriptions of dining car. They're so good. um I mean I totally understand that because that is where the the fabric is that's what the story is otherwise it's just a series of logistics and schedules and and and by by painting that picture around you you're you're inviting someone to sit alongside you and what am I seeing you know I remember there was a description you did about a train journey in India where the the leaves are like slapping the edge of the the train and the doors are open because that's what you sit in the standard class so that the doors are open and you're kind of going just above jogging pace and see through the windows and if you're in a more premier carriage then the windows are tinted and the air conditioning's yeah exactly that i'm just thinking well you need all that you need all that world around you so that you're you're there you can picture you know the the door sliding open and oh here's the dining car and oh good we sat in here early because later on it will be full up and the other families can't get all that stuff exactly that and i think what i i always want my readers to I don't write thinking they're going to go and do this because so many people don't they read the books as armchair travelers and I really really understood that during lockdown when I had more emails than I'd ever had from anyone during that period of people saying I you know obviously we can't travel now and it's really something I need I need to actually do this I'm too old to go and do any of these things and I would get emails from you know 88 year olds saying, I once did this 40 years ago, and it's really nice to read it because I could never go back.

24:31I'm just not able to go back. Or, you know, my partner's passed away. I met a lot of people like that, a lot of retirees who said, I'd always decided to go and do this with my other half, and then they died. And we want to actually get these trips done when we can and when we're still able to. And little things like people would write to me saying, how easy is it to climb up into a berth? Is there a ladder? Would I be able to get the bottom one? And it made me so much more aware when I then did the next book about the things that people really need. And I had a wheelchair user write to me last week saying, I'm just reading, I said, I'm listening to your audio book.

25:08And I'm assuming that the trains in Europe are not particularly accessible. And I wrote back saying, no, actually, the Scandinavian ones are. I said, I'm not entirely certain about the others. But that's something I also do now. I make sure I go up and down the trains seeing how accessible they are are there wide corridors are there you know wider toilets have you got facilities for people in a way that I probably didn't when I was doing the India one yeah it just didn't occur to me um like you were saying about privilege earlier your travel is privilege you don't often think there is someone out there who absolutely can't do this not even if they you know tried or wanted to and it's it all plays into the research of what I'm looking at when I'm on board and also talking to other people as well I've chatted to wheelchair users about how easily they found it you know would they recommend it to other people how they've gone about doing the booking and you know people with children as well people with dogs you know I didn't know that you have to book out the entire compartment if you have a dog because someone else might not like your doggy so there's a really sweet woman in Sweden I remember who had the most beautiful dog and she's like no I'm she said it's a bit lonely though because you You have to be in a four-person compartment on your own.

26:19So it was just the two of them. I mean, this dog was having a great time because he had his own birth. He had his own sleeper birth and he was opposite her. And I thought, this is so sweet. But it's all kind of interesting detail about how each country does things differently as well. So with that in mind, how did you find it the first time you took your children traveling with you? Because I know they've done quite a few trips and the description of you. and I think it must be your eldest daughter that had done some of the sleeper trains with you. It sounds so sweet and amazing memories she's going to have.

26:53I think it was one you were doing through Italy and getting up on the ferry. Exactly that one. It just sounded so gorgeous. It was, I think that was, I hope the younger one doesn't ever listen to this. I think that was one of my favourite journeys with doing it with her because it was the first time she did kind of cross that boundary of just being my child to being my little pal. She was just the best traveling companion. We decided to meet her dad and her sister in Palermo because the little one at that point was a complete nightmare and we had many tantrums. And I thought, oh, putting her into a compartment overnight, I just don't know what's going to happen.

27:31So I can't face that. So my husband flew out to Palermo with her and I took Ariel, who was five at the time, almost five. And her godparent, who is one of my best friends from work. and the three of us went together and it was really nice because the Italian trains have got triple compartments. So the three of us were sort of slotted in one across the other. Triple as in literally a triple bunk? Yeah, literal triple bunks. And if there's just two of you, they just fold away the middle one. And then you can open them up so you've got six if you've got adjoining compartments of family. So we did from Venice to Rome on a sleeper, there's the three of us, and then he had to head back home so we carried on just together.

28:10and I remember that journey so vividly of her in these little stripy pajamas and it was quite late it was 11 o 'clock at night when we got on and she was very sleepy and a bit cranky and then as soon as we set off and she started to sit at the window and look out at what was going on she completely perked up and I was watching her thinking god I hope this is genetic she's gonna enjoy staring into people's houses and watching what's going on and she was she spent about an hour till midnight just watching it all and it was really lovely to see just watching from a child's perspective of what she was noticing and what she was fascinated by and you know that thing that children do just waving at complete strangers on platforms and they'd always wave back and that even that that kind of little connection of trains and people was so nice to watch so I spent a lot of time just watching the journeys through her and then when we woke up in the morning so this this train which you mentioned is, it's a sleeper from Rome down to Palermo.

29:08It takes about 12 hours. Oh no, hang on, leaves at eight o 'clock at night, gets in at night. Yeah, so 12 or 13. But it's a really amazing train and it's very unique in that it separates. The carriages all get uncoupled and then they slide them onto a ferry and then the ferry crosses in 20 minutes and then they couple the carriages again and set off. And a lot of people don't realise it's happening because they sleep through it and they just feel that they're being shunted around, and most people sleep on the ferry in the train. But we jumped down, and we went up to the top deck, and Errol was just so tickled by the fact that you could look into the middle of the ferry and see the carriages and see people through the window just opening the curtain and looking absolutely perplexed at the fact that there were people looking down from above.

29:50Because not everyone knows that that's how they do it. Well, even the people on the train. No, they had no idea that it actually completely separates and then rejoins. That's unusual, though, to take them apart and then put them side by side like that. They're literally side by side on a ferry. I mean, the construction of all of it. It's so clever. It is so clever. And I was never someone that, and I'm very honest about it in my books, and I've said it a couple of times, I do not know anything about engines. I don't know about brake rigging. Don't think that I'm going to be excited by whatever class.

30:23I met this really sweet chap the other day who we've been chatting to. I chat to all kinds of train people. But he was so enthusiastically telling me about this wooden carriage back from sometime in the 19th century and it's running again. And I was just sitting there looking at him thinking, God bless you for being so into something and having this passion, but you are definitely talking to the wrong person. Also not to be confused with train spotting, I'd imagine. No, no. Really, have you ever seen the B3? Oh, it's so funny. That's not really my vibe. It's just not my vibe. And while I, you know, I appreciate steam engines and how lovely they are for, you know, very many different ways, I'm about the people.

31:07Because the people, they make my journeys. And I could be in the most beautiful train ride in the world. But if there's no one to chat to or get stories out of or to just kind of bounce ideas off, it makes it very different. It's a very different experience. and sometimes you can go through a really sort of dull stretch of scenery for hours at a time but you've got six really cool people in a mixed compartment all strangers who just start chatting and will tell you all kinds of stuff well I guess you all come into the setting I mean I always think whenever I do travel I feel like you kind of go on to like a sort of standby mode really so you're sometimes into action of the bits where you need to show your ticket will be standing at the right place at the right time but other times you can just I love traveling on my own actually for just that observing just watching around you thinking about where you found yourself all the hustle and bustle everything's going on around you as you say everybody's different stories why they're traveling and so you almost come into it as a bit of a bit of a blank space insofar as you can tell people as much or as little there's more mystery around you but also you can be choosy about what you share.

32:17And I think that's quite nice. It is exactly that. And I think you get that with trains in a way that you just don't with any other form of transport. I mean, when you're sitting on a plane, immediately you're very isolated. You are sitting with your headphones on, you've got one screen for you, you're not sharing screens. And on trains, you know, someone will pull up a laptop and suddenly six people are watching Frozen. It may be against their will, but people do. It's very communal. There's a really strong sense of community when you get on these trains specifically sleeper trains because you you're there literally for the long haul you know that you're not getting off at any point tonight so you can just relax there's not that tension of constantly looking out of when's my station coming you know it's not coming till the morning yeah so you can relax and I always feel much more relaxed on sleeper trains than I do on day trains yeah and people I think people still have that mindset during the day of I'm going from a to b yeah and they don't hustle Yeah, and they don't really chat to people as much.

33:16The sleeper train, you're in it, aren't you? Yeah, and also the people who choose to be on sleeper trains tend to be of a certain disposition. They're quite chatty. You don't really find introverts on them because, I mean, you're sleeping next to strangers. So you're sometimes sharing these little punks and there's someone above you and someone below you kind of thing. Yeah, like you're all kind of sandwiched together, this is a people sandwich. because the other thing is train compartments, they're very different depending on your needs. And that's a really nice bit about them that you don't have to share with five strangers.

33:51You could be in a four-person compartment, you can be in a two-person, or you could have a completely private one. Obviously, the prices change depending on that. But, you know, you get business travelers who usually have the twin ones or the person just by themselves who just doesn't want to talk to anybody, but I'm on, I'm going to sleep and I'll go to my meeting in the morning. But the four-person and six-person ones, are really good fun because they tend to be people that like adventure travel they like meeting people they like chatting um but they're also generally quite seasoned travelers so they're very respectful about other people's space yeah and everyone will get in and immediately they will all move their bags around to make everyone else comfortable in a way that you do not see on planes or any other form get your bag in shut the bin and just sit down but they don't do this here it's and And it's really nice to watch everyone will make space for somebody else.

34:42Even if you're in a middle bunk and somebody says, you know, would it be OK if I had that one for this reason? People generally don't mind and they'll just swap. And everyone does whatever they can to make everyone's life easy because you're all there together and you need to sit this out till, you know, 9, 10 in the morning. So you want it to be fun. You don't want to introduce any tension, do you? No, not at all. Keep it chilled as possible. And you really feel that. you can feel that people are very relaxed about what they're doing and so when you're talking about your travel and how you can so much of it gives you this also this state of relax as well and this pure enjoyment of the experience of it and talking to people so am i right that when you had your first baby then so you just come off the back of doing around the world with your fiance say and husband um how did you deal with having something that helps you recalibrate um not something you were participating in for a little while because I'm imagining you had to take a break from well travel um I so I'd done the travels we did the travels through 2015 for eight months and then I actually took a I had a break I don't usually write immediately okay I leave a good five or six months to let everything digest completely because I think you can often be quite reactive about the situations you've had or the experiences and I think it's quite nice to just let all of that just settle yeah and then you start to see the bits that are important the bits your readers actually want to take away from that rather than you know you being irritated by something or you felt stressed out for some reason all of that stuff filters away and you think this is what my readers are going to find interesting, funny, you know, useful, all of those kind of things.

36:25So I had a period of not really doing very much with it. But then when I was pregnant very quickly, 10 days after we got married, which was very much not the intention, but we decided to just see what happened and then suddenly pregnant. And I thought, oh, I've got a book that's due in, you know, seven or eight months and I just had to write. So I did, I did all the hefty chapters before I'd actually had the baby. So I did my North Korea chapter. I did my Tibet chapters, all the one that, the ones that would involve a lot of outside research and fact-checking interviews with people and all of that stuff.

37:05So I'd got the bulk of the hard work done because I knew that I would have no sleep and I needed the lighter chapters to come later. So I'd done about a third of it when she was born. But then I wrote the rest of it when she was six weeks old. I gave myself six weeks of just chill with her. And I ended up moving back to my parents for seven months. It was just impossible to get anything done. Otherwise, I wasn't sleeping. She was a terrible sleeper. And so I went to stay with my mom and dad. And oh, God bless her. My mom would come in at seven in the morning and I would feed the baby and hand her over.

37:39And then I would nap for an hour and then just write. I would just write and write. And my mom would bring her in for feeds and then take her out again. And she used to actually go to my mom more than me because she was so used to being with my parents all the time. And so it was quite hard. It was really tricky to write. And I remember so vividly one day when she'd gone down for a nap, having her monitor up and then my screen and my photos and looking at it thinking, you've got about 40 minutes to write your best stuff. And in an odd way, I think it actually helped me really focus on what I was doing because I didn't just have that long stretch of time where I could just muse over things.

38:16I knew she'd be up and that would be the end of it for this chapter. And I knew what my timeline was to deliver the book. So it was a lot. And actually, when I look back at it, I kind of wonder what was wrong with me. I thought that was a good idea because it was a lot to be dealing with I was probably sleeping about four hours a night and she was you know eight weeks old and I managed to get this out in nine months and it was gone by January I'd written in eight months I'd written 110 ,000 words and hadn't slept and lost loads of weight and not in a good way it was just sheer exhaustion but in an odd way when you you don't have any other option I really didn't at that point I needed to to get it written and it was due and my editor was very sweet and said you know have an extra few months and it's fine but it was tricky but in a way it was it was also great being a new mum and having something else to focus on because that first few I mean you will know it's just like a mental car crash where you don't know whether you're coming or going and you're just kind of yeah and you're also working yourself out again as well so it must have been quite a it was extraordinary process to think back to this life that suddenly feels like so so different you're thinking well there was once a time when like we just got on trains and well my life as I knew it was at that it was it was over what I had been was done that was not who I was going to be again for a long time someone that just went out at six o 'clock in the evening and came back whenever I had to every single minute of my day was around her yeah and it had be but I at the same time also had this book to keep me quite focused on what I was doing yeah um and it helped I think remembering that I was still that person I was still a writer still a journalist at the same time as also being a mom now um and both of those things could be true I could still do both it was just much harder um so I was very practical about the second one what with the second baby yeah um because i remember what sense what do you mean by well oh i know this sounds completely mad and i was very lucky but i remember thinking i got pregnant so quickly with the first one that i literally planned it to the date of when my lit fest were over for when the second one needed to be out actually i don't think that's that crazy and it actually happened i remember because because when around the world and 80 trains came out um I then had lit fest and I knew that they were gonna end around sort of end of May June and I thought I don't want to have a newborn until that point so I timed it I went backwards I don't think that's that crazy and she was born two weeks after I finished the last one and then I just completely forgave myself these things always work out like that but it's it's pretty I think it's quite impressive but it's also it's a funny it's a funny sort of mental state you're in I think when you're in the bit where you're very thinking about babies and you know obviously if you're thinking you know you're you're hoping that you get to have a baby when you want to but with that in mind I think you do get into this sort of mindset of uh I don't know what it is I don't know if it's trying to help yourself problem solve or what but I think I get completely understand it maybe part of the reason why I'm saying that's fine it's because I was I'm not dissimilar uh when i had my uh so my first and my second they were both born really early and i i liked the idea of there then being a three-year gap for my next one okay but then i thought well the next one so my third what if that baby's born two months early so i basically planned it so that it would even if you came two months early it would still be three years but then he didn't come early so he's three years and two months gap but that's the same sort of logic of I look back now I'm like why did I even think that mattered that much because there's so much it's funny isn't it chaos that comes along with parenting and so many last minute pivots and oh that's out the window and oh okay we how do I sort this out but I look back and it seems sort of really weirdly naive and also overly like uptight of me to think that that mattered but I guess you're sort of just trying desperately to put some yeah in the crowds it's exactly that like I mean for so many months I just I mean I would have days where I just felt completely upended and like what is going on is this ever am I ever going to kind of come back out of this and go back to being able to have some control over anything yeah because I just didn't and I really felt that and I thought if this is if this is something I can even vaguely control a little bit then I'm going to make life a bit easier for myself um but then lockdown hit and everything just went out of the window so did you say your youngest is six she's six so she was actually born in June 2019 yeah my youngest is 2019 and then lockdown was obviously six months later so there was just no travel yeah no travel nothing going on and it was tricky but I could see that sleeper trains were having a moment in sort of 2021 after that whole period and that's where the last book idea came from yeah which i think is probably for me the most romantic of all of the ideas of travel because i think a sleeper train immediately evokes this idea i mean firstly there's always something magical about going to sleep one place and working on something else i think that's but also i do think there's a level of sort of tidy comfort in that long long form of train travel that you don't get when it's just your commuter and will I have this is it's planned you've booked your space you know where you'll be there's a space for your bag and yeah you can kind of give yourself over to it a bit more yes you can it's exactly that it's it is it is oddly more structured you know that this is the time you're going to arrive you're going to get your breakfast um but for me the best bit is just waking up and when that blind goes up you just don't know what's outside I love that it's the best feeling in the world you ever tried a tour bus no no i don't like buses no um i don't don't go from trains to tour buses i wouldn't recommend i mean i do love them but um just no you don't get the view it's not about the vista no i can't imagine it is but the all the story you've heard everybody's stories there's no what brings you nothing new we're all going nothing new happening And what was the first sleeper train that you took for your book?

44:56Which was the way did you start? So I went, I retraced the original route of the Orient Express. Beautiful. From Paris to Istanbul. So the first one was a Eurostar, which is always the kind of boring sort of in train. Pretty cool though. I'm glad the Eurostar exists. I am. I am as well. I just wish it was cheaper. But the first proper sleeper was... It's a very premium train experience, isn't it? Yeah, it is. So the first one was the sleeper from Paris to Vienna, which was such a lovely journey in terms of scenery. I remember I didn't sleep very well on it because it's quite old. But getting into Vienna at 10 o 'clock in the morning, and in 20 minutes I was standing in front of the Kiss painting by Klimt, because this is what sleeper trains do.

45:43They fire you right into the heart of a city. That's very true. It's not an airport where you are somewhere. And actually, Vienna's airport is so far out. It takes ages to get in. It costs loads in a taxi. You've got a queue. I mean, the train literally brings you into the center of the city and you can be out and in a museum in 20 minutes. And yeah, it's an amazing feeling when you can just, you have a whole day ahead of you as well. You don't have to, you know, faff around. You can go straight out and do whatever you want to. You're not, you know, you save on a hotel. It's just, there are so many kind of pros to it.

46:17Incredible. I mean, my brain is so filled. I was reading your book and listening to you speak and reading some of your articles. And I was so smitten by so many aspects of your train travel experiences. And I think the two that really, actually, I'm going to have three. really stuck out um the santa claus express as a family experience just sounded glorious and as a family experience so so sweet and wholesome it was i loved the idea of going through the snow in finland and you're back to go and see um father christmas and how you know that's just a childhood it was beautiful you get lost in the magic of it all i also loved your description of the one that goes through so is that up to jasper you said in canada sort of via vancouver or have I got that bit wrong.

47:05You get on in Vancouver. Oh, you do. Okay. Yeah. And then it winds back on itself. And the clear carriage, the carriage with the glass. Panoramic dome. It's beautiful. It's there just in the spring, isn't it? So it's in sort of May, June-y sort of time. Yeah, although it runs year round. In fact, they told me on board that they get loads of people on Christmas Day because they have loads of people who don't have family and they just want to be a part of something. And she said it's one of our busiest days. And I remember at that moment. That's very sweet, isn't it? Yeah, just thinking. because I said you know you probably have no one here then she said oh no Christmas is one of our busiest days of the year just because people who are lonely want to feel like they're with someone on that day and she said we do a big lunch and everyone gets together and I thought oh gosh only a train could do that it could just bring every literally bring people together who are lonely yeah for that very very sweet image of the idea of them all sit there with a glass dome and yeah and then the other one I thought sounded gorgeous which I actually think is probably the most feasible for me to do any time soon would be the one um in the south of France I think it was sort of Cannes to like Joanne-Lepin all around the oh the regular ones yeah yeah the passenger ones commuter one with the double decker and all the people you said like the commuter train all around there because um I love the idea of the hustle bustle but also when you describe and I do like to do this when I'm traveling because I find a bit like you it kind of stops me getting too into my own head I'll start looking at other people and then I love looking out the window so I mean it was only on the tube but the other day we were looking into people's houses and how many people had their Christmas trees yeah the idea in the in France of seeing all these different beaches and people's homes and gardens are so sweet well actually from doing that I because I went interrailing with the girls by myself in May just the three of us went off we just had a girls trip which was such a lovely one it was so beautiful 10 days um so we went we again took the sleeper from Paris to Vienna and we spent five days in Vienna and took the sleeper to Rome and then went through Rome up to Florence and then across to Genoa and then did the Nice can bit again and then took a final sleeper from Nice up to Paris and then home.

49:13Before I set off my husband was like why are you doing this by yourself? Are you sure that you really want to just go just the three of you? And I said yeah because the interrail pass is great you get children up the age of 11 I think it is travel for free so it was really not an expensive trip at all and we just had so much fun and how many of these these are all day trains no there was two three sleepers three sleepers yeah three sleepers um and the kids were allowed one backpack each and they could bring whatever they want as long as they carried it and it was through through doing that journey that I spotted one of the best beaches because the Riviera doesn't have very nice sandy beaches they're all gravelly and I remember we were going past Villefranche and I thought oh hang on that water looks very shallow it's very green looks very yellow and so I made a mental note and we went back and it's it turns out it's one of the best beaches in the Riviera wow and I saw it from the train that was how I saw it that whole sort of two hour stretch that's incredible I clocked it and thought and I mean silly question but is everything always running on time no okay I was thinking is it well maybe it's just here no but you know what I was I was actually very lucky that I never had any big delays or cancellations you haven't had any big travel disasters with any of this really it's all been absolutely not wow I was really lucky I feel heartening well I didn't do any in the UK and that's why well no I lie I did the Caledonian sleeper um the one from London up to Edinburgh that must be nice but it was still fine I mean, it's terrible if you want to sleep.

50:47And I have never met anyone who's ever slept properly on it. Why? Just noisy? It's really rattly. It's really rattly. It swings around quite a lot. And it's just, it's a very jolty train. But it's still fun. It's still fun. Just to be the one for the mind. And you get nice views in the morning. Well, you know, you wake up to the Scottish countryside. Yeah, beautiful. It makes everything okay. Oh, I'm very inspired by the idea of the interrailing with the two little ones. I bet, I think when you said that, you know, they sort of, it's not so much about the parent-child dynamic, but they're little companions.

51:21Yeah. And also by saying to them, you know, this is your bag, put in there what you want. I mean, you're responsible for those bits. Off you go. That gives them a little bit of independence. They were also not allowed iPads. And my husband just looked at me like I was insane. And he said, why are you doing this to yourself? And I said, because, you know, if you're doing slow travel, I don't want them sitting there. you know scrolling away and playing games while there's all this lovely countryside outside i said what's the point and he said well good luck you know i thought you know expecting me to send you know feverish whatsapps getting like mental but i think it it made them so much more engaged and i i organized little things for them to do in each city so we did a cookery class in vienna we took them to learn how to make zackertort then we did a perfume making class in nice and then we We did a paper marbling in Florence and they bought themselves a little notebook.

52:14Can you just look at this all again in my name? I'm very happy to. Do you know what someone said to me the other day? Why don't you operate a small travel agency? That's what I was thinking. You really could do that. And put these itineraries together. I kind of do it ad hoc for people actually who get in touch because I don't mind because I've done so much of it over the last 15 years that I know immediately which routes work for people. Is your phone just filled with train apps? I've only got one actually, just the one. but I quite like I don't mind doing that for people I really don't mind because I get do you know what I get a lot of messages from single women often middle-aged single women saying I really want to do this but I'm quite nervous will I be safe will I be okay you know how should I book tickets because it can be a lot to sort of negotiate the idea of just suddenly going somewhere completely you know with absolutely no research whatsoever understanding of a place it's quite exposing and people can often feel quite vulnerable you literally is also you're somewhere where everything's unfamiliar yeah and I think as well as you get older you can get a little bit more anxious about travel in general not just about oh well I have something you do all the time yeah I have definitely I've seen it in my mum it starts a creep in airports yeah timings just a bit more jangly around the edges of something I've I've definitely found that when I went back to India in for this book actually I went back 10 years after having done it the first time.

53:38And I was on this sleeper train with my photographer pal, and we both just looked at each other. And he said, I can't believe you kind of did this for four months. And I said, you've just taken the words out of my mouth, because I was just looking around thinking, this journey alone is making me feel a bit anxious and stressed, because it's so rattly. And there's so much going on. And I just thought back to how I was when I was 28. I just suppose the thing that had changed was that I now had kids and you're constantly aware of the need to be present for them. And I was always, I always have half my brain at home whenever I'm traveling.

54:17You just do, you know, even if it's, you know, midday somewhere in Delhi, you're thinking, oh, she's got pee. And a quick WhatsApp saying, we sorted my pee. Yes, I've done it. Don't worry about it. You've done a snack. Yes, I've done it. And, but you just do. It's impossible to completely disconnect from all those different elements of your life. But one of the key things why I have the children in the book is because I can't think of very many travel writers who bring their children in. Or the fact that as a woman, it's very tricky to travel with kids. I think Dervila Murphy was one of the only women writers who she took her five-year-old with her, who features quite a lot in her books.

55:00and all the kind of big travel writers are men really um even now in contemporary writing they are men or women who've got much more grown-up children and I was so aware of that and I thought I can see now why because you can't just take off for six months and go and explore Patagonia because you've got you know kids who need you at home yeah um so I had for this book I had to really I had to go off and kind of fits and starts which made the travels much longer and drawn out but it It was, you just, you have to. What was the longest that you went away, do you think? Two weeks to India. And it was the furthest as well, actually.

55:37But yeah, it's hard. It's really hard. And do you like to think one day that your girls will do the same sort of travel, the same scale? Do you know, I have no idea. They certainly seem to enjoy trains. They really do. But I think it's something because they've grown up with it. They don't really know any different. and the other day one of them just rolled her eyes up and went, oh, God, are we going on a train again? Yeah, we are. How did you guess? But they've also got quite spoilt as well because they've been on some of the most fun trains and, you know, the Santa Claus Express and then you get on a southwestern here.

56:14And they're like, oh, I don't like this one. This is the real of educates. Can we be in a nicer compartment? I said, look, this is how, you know, regular people roll, so just get used to it. but I'm very keen on traveling loads with them as much as I can because I read something the other day that said children's some of their most hardwired memories for the rest of their lives happen between five and ten on their travels and those are the memories that they have the most when they get much much older and I thought oh that's quite nice and I think it's probably true when I look back at some of the trips I did with my parents when I was a kid they're really vivid well look at the one you did when you were nine and how it kind of came into play when you yeah 20 years on it no it really did the proof it's literally part of the reason why you've ended up talking about these books because yeah it's informative and I think it's also I mean one of the things I think was well with the kids is that actually this the time with you the slowed down the little vignettes the little moments children are way more we start off being wowed by all that and being very sated by that we're not really it doesn't need to be the flashy stuff that our kids love it when we go we sometimes rent a boat and sleep on the boat it's a bit like camping on water same sort of thing but they they they love it because it's kind of quite in the doing and yeah and you've got like little jobs to do and you see a totally different side of this country as well definitely but um but they don't i think it doesn't come in at a higher level when you've invested more in it or you know that's exactly that you know it's actually coming in in the same same part it's barking the same bit of your brain I think yeah it does in fact some of the things that they I mean one of the things they just wanted to do every time we went anywhere was find a playground and they're perfectly happy doing that and they and they do that lovely thing of finding other children even if they don't speak the same language and they would find a way to hang out with them for an hour or so while I just sat on a bench watching them yeah and they get on sweet and they were very happy to just do that they didn't need much else because there's so much general stimulation do you think it gives an insight as well into how well other countries function because yeah definitely let me guess there's some scandinavian countries that have nailed it the most yeah they really have thing is when you've got very small population such a huge landmass you can there's fewer people to sort of look after and deal with i mean one of the things that really struck me when i was on the Finnish train was that everything was lactose free and ovo vegetarian and gluten and everything's marked out and I thought wow can you imagine up in a sort of Avanti train there's a burger and a sandwich and and you know every milk is they've got seven different types of milks I thought god wow they are just really fast they've just figured everything out and and actually the trains are a really good way of getting those insights into cultural nuances um just in terms of you know how the sleepers are laid out how the births are put together the little things that they give you you know the bigger the pillow that you see it you really see the way they've thought things through that's what i love though when it's like all the little clever details tiny little differences that's just enough to give you oh yeah that's thoughtful and actually yeah the way things tessellate or where you know a table can fold down and all this sort of satisfying tidy Lady living.

59:36Yes, exactly that. It's quite a nice way to be. Well, I'm incredibly inspired and I love not only the idea and just the descriptions you paint, but also the sort of quiet travel writer revolution that you've been also pushing as well. I think it's, I'm all for it because I think it's, well, I just find it really inspiring and if you ever do find you need a little traveller, I can definitely sit quietly in a corner. Sit in a corner just observing what's going on. And then I'll be all perky for our paper marbling in Florence. Have you done any sleeper trains? I've only done one properly. And it was actually one of my favorite things I've ever done.

1:00:14And it was between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Oh, wow. It was very cool. It was a very well-organized train. Everything was incredibly comfortable, even standard class, really lovely, nice seats. A gorgeous dining car. You mentioned the dining car's being so important. it was a perfect mix of old school glamour so red velvet and little table wooden tables but also really uh brilliant tech so you had a key card for your your compartments and so it was very impressive very quiet very hard to climb into your birth i we'd had maybe a little bit of vodka and i grabbed onto the bed to climb up and the thing i was holding onto just came off in my hand oh my I got a very impressive bruise, but I did really love it.

1:01:01I loved it very much. It was a really fun thing for me and the band to do together. Usually that train trip takes about four hours. And we did it together? Yeah, we did it overnight to get from one place to another for another show, and it was great. I mean, I'm probably going back over 10 years now, but I really loved it. Oh, that sounds so lovely. Yeah, I'd like to do more. I would. I think it's a – I like the idea of the kids and the backpacks and the – and, you know, I'll rue the day I said it, but there are no iPads and all that because it's such a great idea for just, you just all kind of enjoy things in a different way.

1:01:32And it worked out all right, didn't it? Yeah, it did. A lot more board games. They kept a diary, which is hilarious to read back over now. It's so cute. Their little thoughts. Every time we finally got to a hotel, they would have a bath, put their pyjamas on, and they'd each sit back sort of scribbling away. And then I'd have a look and photograph it and send it to my husband. You're tiny travel writers. Yes, they were. And they would write. It was just really funny seeing the kind of things they'd taken away from the day. I remember the youngest, now six, had written something about mastiffs, this massive dog that we'd passed, because I'd said to them, don't just keep walking over to dogs.

1:02:08And then one of them said, would they kind of mangle me? And I said, well, yeah, they could really hurt you. And then I came to read what she'd written. She says, I'm not going to touch the mastiffs because my mum says they eat children. And I thought, God, I can't believe that was her takeaway of the day. mastiffs will eat children so i'm not going to go it's a pretty powerful thought for a kid that's so funny but it's it was really nice having these little diaries from them because i'll give it back to them one day and i keep the same one whenever we travel i make them do just a little bit so that they can have it at some point in the future that's gorgeous i'm sure a little keepsake many many seeds for the future thank you so much for sharing that with me no thank you for having planning a trip i need a bit of help with the itinerary but pleasure

1:03:01so which train journey are you now planning because come on it's so lovely isn't it just to think of all those glorious adventures you can have by train oh how nice i can hear the train going past my window. I live really near the tube. I love the sound of the ch-ch-ch. I'm into it, luckily. But yeah, that was so lovely to speak to her about that and be taken on these lovely little journeys. And it was quite funny because when I spoke to my mum later in the day after I'd spoken to Monisha in the morning, I said, oh, we've just been speaking with the travel writer about train travel. And my mum said, oh, there's this train in Italy.

1:03:43I really want to go where the train uncouples when it goes on a ferry and I want to do that and I said ah that's exactly the one I was talking about with Monisha and I definitely want to try that the other one I definitely want to do as I said to Monisha is the Canadian one where you get to go up through all that beautiful landscape and maybe see a bear and see some see some deer and I just think that sounds so good so I'm very inspired and I think it's a glorious way to travel and I do think with the kids that when you do that kind of travel you all kind of get involved in a different rhythm as a family and I think those sorts of adventures are really really good so hopefully I can weave some of that in I have been trying to be more adventurous again with taking the kids away with me I think when I had very little ones it was it was a little bit more intimidating the idea of travel but now that my youngest has just turned seven we're booking in quite a few family adventures that we've been talking about for a while and I do think travel is such a privilege and I love the idea that it might make them excited about and inspired by what they see but also I just love the fact that when you go somewhere else you see a whole new world and you think what would it have been like to grow up here what goes on here day by day what's happening there right now while I'm sitting here in West London talking to you.

1:05:09So yeah, absolutely gorgeous. Thank you so much to Manisha for coming around and talking to me and sending a shout out to her and her family and hoping that they had a lovely Christmas break and Happy New Year. So here we are, two episodes in. Actually, let me have a little look because unlike my usual slightly ramshackle approach to podcast publications. This time I've tried to be a little bit more organized. I'm going to have a quick look because I'm pretty sure that I did like a little rough order. Give me a second. I'll be able to tell you who's coming up next week. I'm actually recording another one later today as well.

1:05:49And I've got another two next week. I do enjoy myself it's it's a good one um so I have got here for you next up ah Dr Eliza Philby so Eliza is a generational historian and we had a very interesting chat uh largely inspired by her book which is called it's time to dwell it's called Inheritocracy and then the subtitle it's to talk about the bank of mum and dad um it's essentially about how how what your parents are able to how they support you into adulthood and within your adulthood can make such a massive difference in your options and opportunities um it's it's really interesting and boy does you know her stuff so that's next week but um for now listen i hope whatever you're doing this week is treating you kindly.

1:06:49Thank you to Claire Jones for producing the podcast. Thank you to Richard, my husband, for editing. Thank you, darling. Thank you to lovely Ella May for being back on board with her glorious artwork. We missed you. Thank you to Monisha Rajesh for joining me and talking to me this week. And if you're looking for her travel books, I really do recommend Moonlight Express, the one all about night trains. I think that's particularly evocative, but she's a lovely writer all round. And yeah, of course, biggest thanks to you, your ears, and I will continue sourcing out some lovely guests to finish off the series.

1:07:26But here we are, 172 in, and thank you so much for being part of this with me. Let's love, see you soon.

1:07:50Thank you.