April 11, 2023 • 40 mins
Waaaay back in November of 2021 I interviewed a delightful British author/illustrator named Charlie Mackesy. Charlie had written a book that the entire world had fallen in love with; "The Boy, the mole, the fox, and the Horse." Its message was one of hope, compassion, and above all, kindness.
I was so thrilled last month when the animated film - that Charlie was hard at work on when we spoke - took home an Oscar at the 95th Academy Awards. The movie is just one more way to share Charlie's kindness with the world. I felt our conversation was worth and encore performance. Enjoy! ~ Delilah
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Some time ago, I introduced you to a British author
and illustrator who had written a book that changes lives.
His name is Charlie Mackassee. At the time we spoke,
he was working on an exciting but somewhat overwhelming project
turning his sweet story into an animated film. I am
(00:27):
so thrilled that the movie The Boy, the Mole, the
Fox and the Horse took home an oscar last month.
It's one more way to get Charlie's wise and compassionate
message of kindness out into the world. I think our
conversation deserves a second Listen. Charlie is pure, honest goodness,
(00:52):
and I want to share him with you again today.
Here's that conversation. You all know how much I love books.
Books clutter every surface of my home. They are here
in my studio, I have shelves of books. I have
a desk that's piled up with books. They're all over
(01:15):
my house, next to the laundry. They're the thing you're
most likely to trip over because I have piles of
books on the floor. I kid you not. I'm somewhat
of a hoarder and I love books. You can't find
a place to set sometimes because I got books piled up,
and please, please don't try to ask me to narrow
(01:36):
it down and ask a foolish question like, well, what
kind of books do you like? Just pick those, because
really I like them. All you will find fiction, you
will find nonfiction, saga's short stories, poetry books, lots of
how to books. I think I've got. There's like a
(01:57):
popular mechanics series that came out when I was a kid.
I got all of them, how to do everything, How
I could build a house With my how to books,
I can go to my how two books to learn
to do watercolor paintings. I have novels hardback, soft covers.
I got coloring books in the stacks. The list doesn't
(02:20):
even include my kids selection my joy of reading. My
love of books is why I have a monthly book
club to share something that brings me so much joy
and to recommend the titles that I think you will enjoy.
Reading was a favorite pastime of my mother's. Wellmadine passed
(02:41):
her passion for the written word on to all four
of her children, and I try to do the same. Although,
just like my mom, I've discovered that it takes with
some more than with others. When I stumble upon a
book I feel everyone will love, regardless of aide, genre
or in the other number of variables, I get super excited.
(03:04):
That's what happened last December. I was choosing gifts for
my twelve Stockings of Christmas giveaway, and a beautiful picture book.
It's full of swarly calligraphy, amazing illustrations and the simplest, sweetest,
most profound messages came to me as a gift. My
(03:26):
friend Lindy gave it to me as a gift, and
I fell in love with it. Whether you're looking for
a little peace, a little comfort, a little insight, or wisdom,
or in my case, I have been I'll be honest,
I will admit it. It's hard to say, but I
have been paralyzed with fear the last two years, actually
(03:47):
the last four years, since losing my son Zach. I
have let fear dominate my decisions, and I found peace.
I found so much peace and so many things that
you might be looking for comfort, wisdom between the pages
of this simple little book. The Boy, the Mole, the
(04:09):
Fox and the Horse. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox
and the Horse by English author and illustrator Charlie Mackassee.
It was written, as Charlie notes in the foreword, for everyone,
whether you are eighty or eight, you've not heard of
this book, which I can barely believe, or you've not
prepared to take my word for it that I simply
(04:30):
won't believe. You've got to believe me when I tell
you this. Perhaps the fact that as of August the
book had been on the New York Times bestseller list
for eighty eight weeks and had sold over two million
copies in the US alone will speak to how beautiful
and relevant it is to our world right now. I
(04:50):
am so pleased that Charlie macassee is joining us on
Love Someone today, hailing all the way from the UK.
We're going to catch up with him and his care
the Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, right
after we spend a little moment on one of the
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(06:15):
by sipping a cup together as I play all your
request and dedications over the airwaves each night with me today.
I love someone with Delilah is Charlie Mackassie, who's the
author of such a delightful book, The Boy, the Mole,
the Fox and the Horse. So I have to tell
(06:38):
you a friend of mine, Lyndy. I don't know if
you've spoken with her, but she works with my company.
Last year she called me so excited like she had
found the holy grail, like, you know, like we women
get when we find a pair of jeans that actually
fit in or comfortable, you know, and we're calling our friends.
(06:58):
Oh my gosh, you're not gonna believe this, she called.
She's like, you're not going to believe this book. I'm
sending you a present. Wait till you see this, Wait
till you read this. And she sent me your book,
and I thought, this is like a kid's book. And
then I sat down and Charlie, I read it in
one night, and I went, oh my gosh, it's like
thousands of years of wisdom condensed into such a sweet story.
(07:24):
Well that's very enough thing to say, thank you. It's beautiful.
And your illustrations, Oh my gosh. I love to draw.
I love to paint, and when I you know, the
first time I read the book was just because Linda
had recommended it. And then I got several copies to
give to my listeners as gifts last Christmas in our
(07:45):
twelve stockings of Christmas. And then I sat down with
it just for me, and I have little pieces of paper,
little torn pieces of paper stuck in different pages that
I just wanted to kind of read again and reflect
on and honestly try to incorporate into my everyday life.
So thank you for the beauty, Thank you for the simplicity.
(08:09):
It's very simple, isn't it. Yeah, it's so simple. Are
you like this sweet? Like? Is your heart really this sweet?
I think that's for others to say. You know, it's
very hard to describe the South least. I find it
very difficult. I would never say I was that sweet.
I'm sure because I've written, I've written some stuff, but
(08:29):
my heart is not nearly as sweet or as pure
as yours. Because you wrote this incredibly touching little book
that I honestly think if we made this mandatory reading
for everybody in government right now, Like if we could
pass a lot and say, everybody in every nation around
(08:52):
the world who is in leadership position, before they go
to bed tonight, must read The Boy the Mold a
Fox in the Horse. Don't you think would wake up
tomorrow in a better world. Oh that's a lovely thing
to have to write that down. But yeah, I mean,
obviously if they did. Imagine if all the leaders in
the world sat down and read this book before they
(09:16):
went to bed and thought, you know what I could apply.
I could apply just one principle of this book to
my life tomorrow, to my decision making tomorrow right, and
the world would be a better place. I mean, what
do you think success is? Asked the boy to love,
said them. I think that idea of success is fairly
(09:39):
low on the list. Have many a leader. Probably it's
a lovely idea. Anyway, I mean, let's just send it
to every university, to every professor at every university that
teaches an economics class or teaches a business class, and
let's just put a little torn piece of paper right there.
What do you think success is, asked the boy, And
let's just make that into a poster. Yeah, that'd be
(10:00):
pretty moving. I mean, it's it's a good idea. I mean,
obviously I wouldn't promote it because I you know, it
would look I'd be telling people to print out my drawing.
But I mean if you suggest it, well I I
let me be your champion. So if anybody is listening
to this podcast, who is a professor or a teacher,
or a leader or a mayor or whatever in a
(10:22):
position of authority, at least print up the page about
what success is and make a poster out of it.
Good idea and the other one of the other pages.
Most of the old moles I know wish they had
listened less to their fears and more to their dreams. Well,
(10:47):
fear kind of can destroy dreams. Kind of really, fear
can destroy everything. It's pretty loud of them, especially now,
the last couple of years. Especially. So I got this
book last fall when we were in the thick of
the shutdowns and the insanity that was going on. And
(11:09):
when this book came and I read that, I felt
like it was a gift from God, like like he
was saying, stop and listen to your dreams instead. And
not that I don't want to be mindful or aware
of what's going on, but yeah, I can't live in
that place. No, it's exhausting, you know. So should we
(11:31):
make a poster out of this page two? So, if
we're redefining success, the true meaning of success as love,
there's so much wrapped up in that because then you go, well,
you know, what do you mean love? Do you just
mean like being romantically in love? And it's no, no, no, no,
no no from it. Well, let's see two posters. I'm
(11:56):
not done with you yet. I want to do a
poster of of when the boy and the mole are
sitting on the limb and the fox comes along, just
because that's such a pretty painting. Yeah, so what is
your medium? I'm trying to figure out. Is it ink? Watercolor?
How do you get thinks it's ink and water color? Yeah?
So it's an old fashioned dip pen. I mean I
(12:18):
spill ink everywhere. It's like every it's a sea of
ink splattered pages, and it's on my feet and you know, yeah,
I saw use ink and then I let it dry,
and then when the drawings dry, then put water color
over the top. And sometimes not even any color some
of those drawings. I just think your artwork is very
loose and flowing, and yet the little details, the little
(12:41):
nuances are so precious. Oh thank you. And I'm making
a little film at the moment. That's quite intense. I've
never done one before. You're making a film with your book? Yeah, yeah,
doing a little tiny animation, animated film. And are you
drying each pick? Sure? Are you doing like old fashioned animation? Yeah,
(13:03):
you know, I'm doing I'm doing quite a lot of them.
I have a lovely little team and Leal share the
share the load. But I must I mean the last
nine months I must have drawn. I hate to think
how many drawings I've done, terrifying, so many. It's twenty
five frames a second. It's a lot of drawings in
twenty five frames a second. So let's just say this.
(13:24):
This little movie is a minute long, sixty seconds exactly.
I mean, I'm not gonna mats you do the maths,
but I know, I mean it's half a how the
film's half now, Oh my gosh, you've got to do
just for a little five minute movie, over seven thousand
drawings and each one has to be the same except
for the little movement. Well a tiny difference, yeah, a
(13:46):
tiny difference. So is there a way to like leave
the stick or the branch they're sitting on out and
just like move the hand. See, yeah, of course you
don't have to redraw the whole. Yeah, you have layers, know,
so sometimes the bill be backgrounds and landscapes are pretty
much still, so you don't have to reach Charlie, that's
(14:08):
a lot of ink A ready aware. I don't want
to think about it anymore. But I love that you're
doing it the old fashioned way. I love that you
did the book the old fashioned way. Oh, people think
my craze getting it this way. I mean everyone thinks
I that. Yeah, we need to start a movement to
get Charlie Macassey in the hands of every You know,
(14:31):
we could start with kids, because it would be really
good for children to learn this before they get all
messed up by our education system that teaches them the
exact opposite of what the Boy, the More the Fox
and the Horse teaches. Yeah, don't you think like the
media and the education system and everything right now kind
of teaches kids the opposite. The irony of all that is,
(14:55):
you know that. I think sometimes if you apply those principles,
you're doo better. Anyway, I had a to come to
me a couple of years ago, and I probably shouldn't
say this anyway, there's no names involved, but he came
to my house and he'd been following me on Instagram agee,
and he decided to want to talk to you. He
left his driver outside. He was a very cool guy,
you know, and he sat with me and he said,
(15:17):
you know, I kind of feel that we need to
run the bank on these principles, but it's so against
the flow, it's so counter culture. So he said, said,
you know, if if we're all honest, we discover what
our weaknesses are, and then if we knew what they were,
we could cover each other. Okay, so if you're telling
(15:37):
me that this is what your struggles are, then that's great.
There's at least we know, whereas everyone's pretending to be strong,
everyone's pretending to be good at things when not, so
we don't really know. So he applied the principles to
his bank and he gave senior year later said yeah,
this seems to be working. By being kinder and more honest.
They were sharing pain, no one's covering up anymore and
(16:00):
all this stuff, and I was, you know, I cried
with him. We had a cup of team and I
cried and as well, you know, I'm really thrillthy. You know.
He said, we have a community now, whereas but beforehand
we had a team, a team, and a team we
are a winning team. And he said, now we have
something else. You know, it's it's a it's a kind
(16:21):
of it an empathetic group of people who know each
other pretty deeply now and I'm not afraid to say
who they are, what they throwed with, or what they
fear or and because of that we worked better together,
you know, So I was I was fun, very moving.
I mean, I don't think I said out to make
a book that would help banks stuff from it, but
it was interesting at least. I don't know when you
(16:43):
decided to write this and publish it. If you had,
you could not have known how many hearts it would touch. No,
I mean, really, I wrote a lot of those drawings
I wrote, I'd made for um people that I know
and love, you know, who have been honest and brave
enough to tell me what they struggle with and what
(17:03):
I struggle with. I'm not like exempt from these struggles.
So who do you? Who do you, Charlie? I mean,
obviously there's there's a little view and all the characters,
but is there one in particular that you feel as
you represent you the most? You know, It's interesting that
there's bits to me in all of them, and from
day to day I think sometimes I'm definitely like the fox.
(17:27):
I definitely take a while to trust people. So I'd
like go around in big circles, and then my circle
decreases and eventually I'll sit next to someone Sometimes other
times I leap straight in and I'm gun ho and
very happy and hugging and everything. But I do see
the fox in me. Um. I think I am like
the mole. I think I default the cake very quickly
if things go wrong. Um, I default a cake very
(17:52):
quickly when things go right. I think one of my
favorite pages was when the mall said, I you a cake,
and the boys like, where is it? I ate it,
and then I brought you another, and I ate it
to the same thing to happen. Yeah, you know that.
I did that the other day with my sister. I
brought her a cake. I got a beautiful cake for her,
(18:13):
and I knew she was getting back like you know
that tea time, and I just every time I walked
past it, I thought, come on, just a little, there's
like a million little universal truths here, just so sweetly
put be curious as they look up at the moon.
How sweet is that? How sweet is that? So I've
read it to my children. The seventeen year olds didn't
(18:37):
appreciate me setting them down and making me read it.
They're like, no, I'm a bad They couldn't. Yeah for them,
that they could. They could they cope with it. Did
they like it? They did like it? But they're like,
just give me the book. Just give me the book. Mom.
Let me read the book, right, because I'm kind of
animated and I like to, you know, act out the
characters and great. It works. It works well for my
(18:58):
five year old, but not so much for the seventeen
year olds. Yeah, I mean I get. I get a
lot of emails and mails from eighty year olds and
eight year olds, I really do, and school kids, but
not many adolescents, not many teenagers. I bet if we
turned it into a crazy phone app, I don't know.
(19:21):
I don't get why kids like have to be like this,
glued to a device when there's books you can touch
and hold it. Well, that's the thing. I mean. It's
interesting you say that because I kind of remember when
I decided to do the book. There's a lovely Irish
and Michael column and he helped me sew the pages
(19:41):
together on some terrible with digital stuff and he I
remember saying to him right at the beginning, I think
we should try and make a little treasure that you
can hold and it exists and it's it's a solid
and so I wanted it to be quite heavy. I
wanted it to really exist physically. And I get these
letters now from a lot of mothers who say that
(20:01):
their children hold it or have it physically under their
arms in bed or arms their pillow, or they take
it with them to school. And I find that so moving,
that because because the screen is as you say, it's
screen is a screen, and it's a different thing altogether.
But I love, I want you to have heavy paper
and I don't know it. Substance, physical substies go. Yeah.
(20:24):
And even even though the drawings are very whimsical and
very ethereal, they're ethereal. They're light, like a spirit. Nice.
But I hope they I hope they also fairly grounded.
I didn't want to make sis. That's what I was
going to say. The colors and the composition, even though
(20:46):
they're ethereal, the colors and the composition, they're very grounded.
They have something earthy, and they leave an impression, like
when you look at one of your paintings, one of
the drawings, especially one that you've like the horse swimming,
you fell, but I've got you. After I looked at
that and I studied it, I went to sleep. The
(21:09):
image was still in my mind, was still Rany Rainy.
I could still see Ranny Yeah, I love that. Wow,
you're very talented young man. Oh you're very kind, Cake
said the moll Cake Cake. Yeah, but he discovers, he
discovers something better than kake to see because I you know,
(21:30):
there's the site, there's a part of the mole that
he's definitely the audit. He is deaf. That's why the
mole and I are simpatico. Especially when he wanted to
bless his friend. He wanted to, you know, to surprise him,
but his addictions just like, ah, dang it, I ate
right right, And then he discovers that loves and hug
is better than skake, better than cake. How many times
(21:53):
in my life have I been disappointed at myself or
somebody I dearly love because addiction kick up and it
gets in the way of love. Yeah, I think that's right.
I mean, I don't know who said this. I think
it's a brilliant was a discovery that's made that the
opposite of addiction, it's not sobriety. The opposite of addiction
is connection. And I think a lot of addictions arise
(22:16):
from a desire for some kind of connection or there
is a disconnection. We want to to somehow Phil yeah,
or medicate if we feel disconnected or you know, it's
all that stuff, isn't it. Okay, So we've got your
books in the hands of every leader, every mayor, every
elected official, every self, and every economics professor and business teacher.
(22:42):
Now let's just, you know, spread it to every recovery center.
What do you think, Well, that's a it's a good aim.
But again, it would be very arrogant for me to
suggest these things. You can. I will do it for you.
I will be the champion of the Boy. The more
the facts, Lynda is truly we need to appoint her
your champion being Linda Thurman. Oh, she Charlie. She is
(23:05):
in love with you. She is like when she called me,
I thought she had just discovered like some anti aging
cream or something. I don't know, as she was so excited.
She's like, no, d this sweet little book has impacted
me in such a profound way. And I'm like, yeah, yeah,
you know, I'm kind of skeptical. Yeah, I'm not going
to stuff up books. It was never intended to be
(23:26):
one there, No, But you can't know where somebody is
coming from when they're talking about your book, The Boy,
the Mold, the Fox and the Horse unless you actually
read it. Four very complicated characters with very different personalities. Yeah,
I didn't know that the four characters were bits of
(23:48):
me at the time. You know, it wasn't enough to
wait a minute, give me another piece of cake? Right,
So I have these questions and then, you know, I
think a lot of a lot of life. We don't
mean like what we're doing. So we look back. I think, oh,
now I see what I was. Okay, I think for me,
(24:08):
I have been all four characters at different phases of
my life. Yeah, who are you right now? Well, I'm
always mostly the mole. I mean, I'm always mostly you know,
the one that wants to eat the cake. I'm an addict,
and I you know, I get addicted to projects. I
get addicted to artwork, and I am all consumed. I
(24:32):
am like, and I've got this whole other life, you know,
like kids and grandkids and work that I'm like, but
I just want to finish my floor. I did this.
I did this mural. I started a mural with wood browns.
I cut thousands of pieces of wood from twigs and sticks.
(24:52):
Then I sanded them, then I verith in them, and
then I stained them different colors, and I use the
wood rounds like you would use a paintbrush to do
a mural on my floor. But then it kind of
grew up the sides of the walls, and before I
knew it, it had like taken on a life of
its own. And so I would get off the air
Charlie at midnight, and then I would go work on
(25:16):
this floor. But you have to use pretty heavy chemicals,
you know, It's like verithane. And even though I had
the right mask and the respirator, by two o'clock in
the morning, I don't even know. It's two o'clock in
the morning. I don't even know where I am, but
I'm lost in my harals. Yeah, so mostly I would
say the mole. But since I've lost my boys, fear
(25:37):
just dominates, you know, and I have to constantly battle it. Yeah.
Not good, not good. I'm sorry. Yeah, but your book helps, really,
it really truly does. And I think your journey took
I mean, the fact that you're able to talk open
(25:57):
me about it is such a great thing, you know,
means brave to say a lot of people wouldn't have
the courage to say that. I trust me. I don't
say it very often. I don't talk about it because
I ended up crying and then I'm a blubbering mass,
and you know, deep breath, yeah, deep breath yeah. I mean,
I find myself crying a lot of these days. I
(26:20):
don't even know why. Sometimes I was on my bicycle
the other day, listened to a song and I just
had an email from a nurse who I get a
lot of emails from people who ready struggled last year
and haven't and I just read it. I just read
an email, and then I was saying a song and
I had tears point in my face, and then before
I knew where I was, I had to stop the
bike and I was just really prying. And it was
(26:41):
just so so much of the last two years was
just coming up, and I wasn't expected it came from
sort of nowhere. I talked to my kids all the
time about having tools in their tool build. I said,
if you go out to build a house and all
you have is a hammer and a saw, you're not
going to be very successful. And if you go out
the doors of this house whenever you choose to, you know,
spread your wings and fly, and the only tools you
(27:03):
have in your tool belt. Are you know, the things
they teach you in school or whatever, right, you're not
going to be very successful. So I refer to things
that help us as tools in our tool belt with
my kids. And the more tools you have in your
tool belt or your tool chest, the better equipped you are.
(27:24):
I think really especially for boys, because I know for me,
being English and you know, educated in a certain way,
emotions were difficult or almost you know, there were only
some There were some legitimate emotions like anger. That was fine.
But you know, I'm really good at that one. I'm
so good at that one. Boys. Yeah, But when it
(27:45):
comes to real vulnerability or sharing weakness or you know
that if that had been encourages a strength, that connection
came through vulnerability rather than impressing people with how well
you did at rugby or whatever it was, you know,
I think we would have set off in a very
different It's taken me on to learn all these things. Yeah, yeah,
So I think having an armory that involves all those
things will set you up. So your book, I think,
(28:09):
is a good tool for anybody. I mean, not just
somebody who's going through loss, not just somebody who's paralyzed
with fear with our current economic situation and world situation.
But anybody of any age that reads your little book,
I think will be blessed. I think their heart will
be enlarged. I can't believe our good fortune in being
able to spend all this time with Charlie Macassey about
(28:32):
the boy and his motley crew of unlikely companions. Will
continue this delightful conversation as soon as I share a
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answer sny question whether I have two farms, have a
(30:00):
small farm that's fifty five acres outside of Seattle. Well,
you have to go across water to get to me.
So even though we're only like technically eight miles from Seattle,
it takes an hour to get here because you have
to go on a fair. Never be in Seattle. I
always wanted to go. And then, um, I have a
farm six and a half hour south in Oregon that's
(30:22):
five hundred acres, so nice. I love dirt. I love
to be in the me too. Because I say that
because you do remind me of when I was in
my twenties. I had a show in New York and
and then they asked me if i'd do a big
mural in a house in Connecticut that's in Manhattan. You know, now,
on the trainer and I went and I, you know,
I did the mural whatever, and it was nice and
(30:42):
there's some very lovely people there and it was fun.
And a lady came at the end of the day.
It was like the press officer. And she looked at
me and she said, well, who are you? And I said, Charliet,
where are you staying? And I said, oh, in a
little sort of boarding house in Manhattan. So you see
every day you come out and do this and go out,
and said you want to come stay with me? And
(31:04):
I said I'd be lovely. She should write, I'll pick
you up at five. And she came and she had
this big old station wagon. When I got to the the house,
she had foster children. She had parrots and dogs and cats,
and it was this whole menagerie of life. And she
was called Pam. And she showed me a whole other
way of thinking and living. She showed me what it
(31:27):
meant to really extend family to people. She'd lost, the son,
she'd lost, the husband. Her husband had been an alcoholic,
he'd died. You know, she'd really suffered, like really, and
that's suffering had opened her heart rather than shut it down.
She'd opened up and her household was something I will
(31:48):
never forget as long as I live. It was a
beautiful thing between my husband and I. We have twenty
children and twenty three grandchildren. WHOA, yeah, well you remind
me of her. The reason why I said, it's because
you do remind me of something about you that that
is really so open and moment it's really right. So
you're great. I don't understand. I will never understand when
(32:12):
there are so many children who need love, right, Why
I don't understand why there is a single child stuck
in foster care. Yeah, it's a strange thing, right, Why?
Why why are children in foster care? If we claim
to be people that have faith, you know, we use
(32:32):
our religion or our faith as an excuse to to
say this or do that, but we have no love.
If every church or synagogue or mosque in America just
took just took an adopted one child out of foster care,
do you know there would be no kids in foster care. Yeah,
that's amazing. Why aren't we stepping up to the plate
(32:54):
and saying, come, come to my you know, like the
lady like Pam who said Charlie come and stay at
my house. So you have twenty You have twenty children,
I mean, how many of those days only four are
still at home? Wow? Then my husband has five children.
All but one were grown when we got together. When
we met, right, and our children aged from forty two
(33:16):
down to five. Whoa, that's so. I saw a picture
the other day of my oldest natural born son, who
I took to kindergarten, like thirty two years ago. Was
his first day of kindergarten. And last week was my
baby's first day of kindergarten. This is my last first
(33:40):
day of kindergarten. This is the last time I will
be taking a child of mine to kindergarten. And that
was very I came home and I bawled like a baby.
Everybody's like, oh, you must be so excited, you're gonna
have some free time. I'm like, I'm not excited, my baby,
I'm pretty but no, you're in touch with that great
(34:04):
and said it. And he loves your book. He does. Yes,
his name is Paul Adam. He loves your book and
I've read it to him. Oh. I cannot even tell
you how many times I need to I need to
send you some books with my name in them. I
can write my name. I would love that. I would
love Yeah, And I'm going to start this campaign to
get the Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse
(34:28):
into the hands of every politician, of every teacher, of
every leader. I'm gonna I'm you know what I'm gonna do, Charlie.
I'm going to go buy some and I'm going to
take it to the principle at our local high school
and say, you know, if you just, if you would
just please make these into posters and put them in
all the classes, especially for the seniors who are about
(34:49):
to launch into the world, I would appreciate it. Like,
can they do that? Can they make a photo copy
of the page? Yeah? Oh gosh, I've always said that
to people. I mean, school and hospitals done that, and
I love what they do that. So they blow them
right up, you know, right? What do you think successes
asked the Boy to love, said them all, that's the one.
(35:10):
I think that everybody should have a poster of that.
You know, you could frame it. You could put a
nice like black frame around it, or you could just
make a poster. What do you think? So, Okay, yeah,
I'll work on this campaign. You go work on your
seventy five seven thousands you have to do for a
five minute movie. Like I used to volunteer in a place.
(35:33):
But every Wednesday afternoon I used to teach people in
an old people's home how to draw. And one of
the things they were scared of was not being very good,
you know, disappointing themselves or they're always told when they
were literally shouldn't draw whatever. And I said, okay, so
here's the thing drawn out. But two things. One, pretend
that you're four years old and that you can you're
(35:54):
allowed to make a mess. So the whole aim here
is to make a mess. And the second thing is
that when you've done your drawing, throw it away. No
one's going to look at it. Oh I couldn't do that.
I couldn't okay, so so wait, so they started doing it,
and I said, there's no pressure at all on you
to make anything good. This is not about goods, just
having fun. And you know what, They began really slowly,
(36:15):
and then three weeks later they were unstoppable. They just
draw a mess everywhere, and bit by bit, when they
realized that it was okay to not do very well,
their drawings got better. And better, and they went through
false wall after false wall into the eventually, you know,
they were making these beautiful things. I mean, half of
the guys I taught are dead now, sadly, but they
(36:36):
know they did some beautiful things while they were here.
Right in the last year or two they'd made they
had fun. You know, if you if you give me
a way to text you or send you, I'll send
you a picture of my floor. That sure, that took
over my life for six months. Okay, I started it
in February, and I just have one kind of every
(36:58):
thing to go and then I'm done. But it literally
crawled up the walls of the it's two rooms, and
it was just going to be an image of a
tree on the floor, and it crawled up the walls
and over. Yeah, it even went up to the ceiling. Yeah.
So but yeah, I will get the dippin out. I've
(37:19):
got them someplace, and I'll start drawing again. Just because
you inspire me. I really think you should don't be
hard in yourself, you know, well, like I'm too much
of a I'm too fussy. I'm way too fussy. I
can be loose in life with other things, you know,
And and free flowing. But I'm way too fussy with
(37:41):
with something. So my goal is to be more like Charlie. Now,
my goal is to be more like the horse, because
ye be the horse. If you've got to be anyone,
be the horse. Yeah. I think that's right. I'll send
you some pictures of my horses. Okay, I'd love to
see them. All right, Jolly, I know you got work
to do, so i'll let you go. Thank you for
(38:02):
spending time with us. You are delighted. I really loved it.
Thanks for having me. Let's stay in touch. Okay, I'm
going to organize our talent to get you some books. Wonderful.
I'll talk to you so bye bye. I know it's
getting late in the day in London. Charlie. Thank you
for sharing so much of your time and reintroducing the
Boy and his friends to us. I say reintroducing because
(38:27):
I feel like we've all met the boy before. He's
inside each of us. He represents our life struggles, big
and small. It's been wonderful getting reacquainted with him and
remembering the things that either once worried him or maybe
still does, and he managed to figure it out as
well as putting me in touch with all those inner
(38:48):
voices that have guided me along my life's path. The Boy,
the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is truly a
special gift. If you haven't yet thumbed your way through
a copy, do yourself a favor and get a hold
of one as quickly as you can. As Charlie recommends
in his forewords, start anywhere you like, start in the middle,
start at the end, or if you must start at
(39:10):
the beginning, it's up to you. Just like so many
other choices we have in life, perhaps the most important
one is the choice to be kind. The Boy, the
Mole of the Fox and the Horse can be found
wherever books are sold, and they make great gifts, Great
gifts for everyone on your list, from grandparents to grandchildren
(39:31):
to world leaders. Charlie continues to share the journey on
his social media platforms at Charlie Macassey on both Instagram
and Facebook. You want to keep up with him there
and share his beautiful, insightful post with all your own followers.
Spring is such a lovely time of year. Everything feels
(39:52):
so fresh and new and possible. It's a perfect time
to give birth to something beautiful, and there's nothing more beautiful,
then kindness. Watch the Oscar winning animated film The Boy,
The Mole, The Fox and the Horse. Keep the book
in a handy place to reread whenever you need a lift.
(40:12):
And sprinkle kindness everywhere you go. It changes lives.
Some time ago, I introduced you to a British author
and illustrator who had written a book that changes lives.
His name is Charlie Mackassee. At the time we spoke,
he was working on an exciting but somewhat overwhelming project
turning his sweet story into an animated film. I am
(00:27):
so thrilled that the movie The Boy, the Mole, the
Fox and the Horse took home an oscar last month.
It's one more way to get Charlie's wise and compassionate
message of kindness out into the world. I think our
conversation deserves a second Listen. Charlie is pure, honest goodness,
(00:52):
and I want to share him with you again today.
Here's that conversation. You all know how much I love books.
Books clutter every surface of my home. They are here
in my studio, I have shelves of books. I have
a desk that's piled up with books. They're all over
(01:15):
my house, next to the laundry. They're the thing you're
most likely to trip over because I have piles of
books on the floor. I kid you not. I'm somewhat
of a hoarder and I love books. You can't find
a place to set sometimes because I got books piled up,
and please, please don't try to ask me to narrow
(01:36):
it down and ask a foolish question like, well, what
kind of books do you like? Just pick those, because
really I like them. All you will find fiction, you
will find nonfiction, saga's short stories, poetry books, lots of
how to books. I think I've got. There's like a
(01:57):
popular mechanics series that came out when I was a kid.
I got all of them, how to do everything, How
I could build a house With my how to books,
I can go to my how two books to learn
to do watercolor paintings. I have novels hardback, soft covers.
I got coloring books in the stacks. The list doesn't
(02:20):
even include my kids selection my joy of reading. My
love of books is why I have a monthly book
club to share something that brings me so much joy
and to recommend the titles that I think you will enjoy.
Reading was a favorite pastime of my mother's. Wellmadine passed
(02:41):
her passion for the written word on to all four
of her children, and I try to do the same. Although,
just like my mom, I've discovered that it takes with
some more than with others. When I stumble upon a
book I feel everyone will love, regardless of aide, genre
or in the other number of variables, I get super excited.
(03:04):
That's what happened last December. I was choosing gifts for
my twelve Stockings of Christmas giveaway, and a beautiful picture book.
It's full of swarly calligraphy, amazing illustrations and the simplest, sweetest,
most profound messages came to me as a gift. My
(03:26):
friend Lindy gave it to me as a gift, and
I fell in love with it. Whether you're looking for
a little peace, a little comfort, a little insight, or wisdom,
or in my case, I have been I'll be honest,
I will admit it. It's hard to say, but I
have been paralyzed with fear the last two years, actually
(03:47):
the last four years, since losing my son Zach. I
have let fear dominate my decisions, and I found peace.
I found so much peace and so many things that
you might be looking for comfort, wisdom between the pages
of this simple little book. The Boy, the Mole, the
(04:09):
Fox and the Horse. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox
and the Horse by English author and illustrator Charlie Mackassee.
It was written, as Charlie notes in the foreword, for everyone,
whether you are eighty or eight, you've not heard of
this book, which I can barely believe, or you've not
prepared to take my word for it that I simply
(04:30):
won't believe. You've got to believe me when I tell
you this. Perhaps the fact that as of August the
book had been on the New York Times bestseller list
for eighty eight weeks and had sold over two million
copies in the US alone will speak to how beautiful
and relevant it is to our world right now. I
(04:50):
am so pleased that Charlie macassee is joining us on
Love Someone today, hailing all the way from the UK.
We're going to catch up with him and his care
the Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, right
after we spend a little moment on one of the
sponsors that make these incredible conversations possible. My friends, family
(05:11):
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(05:31):
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Let's commit to keeping ourselves as healthy as we can
(06:15):
by sipping a cup together as I play all your
request and dedications over the airwaves each night with me today.
I love someone with Delilah is Charlie Mackassie, who's the
author of such a delightful book, The Boy, the Mole,
the Fox and the Horse. So I have to tell
(06:38):
you a friend of mine, Lyndy. I don't know if
you've spoken with her, but she works with my company.
Last year she called me so excited like she had
found the holy grail, like, you know, like we women
get when we find a pair of jeans that actually
fit in or comfortable, you know, and we're calling our friends.
(06:58):
Oh my gosh, you're not gonna believe this, she called.
She's like, you're not going to believe this book. I'm
sending you a present. Wait till you see this, Wait
till you read this. And she sent me your book,
and I thought, this is like a kid's book. And
then I sat down and Charlie, I read it in
one night, and I went, oh my gosh, it's like
thousands of years of wisdom condensed into such a sweet story.
(07:24):
Well that's very enough thing to say, thank you. It's beautiful.
And your illustrations, Oh my gosh. I love to draw.
I love to paint, and when I you know, the
first time I read the book was just because Linda
had recommended it. And then I got several copies to
give to my listeners as gifts last Christmas in our
(07:45):
twelve stockings of Christmas. And then I sat down with
it just for me, and I have little pieces of paper,
little torn pieces of paper stuck in different pages that
I just wanted to kind of read again and reflect
on and honestly try to incorporate into my everyday life.
So thank you for the beauty, Thank you for the simplicity.
(08:09):
It's very simple, isn't it. Yeah, it's so simple. Are
you like this sweet? Like? Is your heart really this sweet?
I think that's for others to say. You know, it's
very hard to describe the South least. I find it
very difficult. I would never say I was that sweet.
I'm sure because I've written, I've written some stuff, but
(08:29):
my heart is not nearly as sweet or as pure
as yours. Because you wrote this incredibly touching little book
that I honestly think if we made this mandatory reading
for everybody in government right now, Like if we could
pass a lot and say, everybody in every nation around
(08:52):
the world who is in leadership position, before they go
to bed tonight, must read The Boy the Mold a
Fox in the Horse. Don't you think would wake up
tomorrow in a better world. Oh that's a lovely thing
to have to write that down. But yeah, I mean,
obviously if they did. Imagine if all the leaders in
the world sat down and read this book before they
(09:16):
went to bed and thought, you know what I could apply.
I could apply just one principle of this book to
my life tomorrow, to my decision making tomorrow right, and
the world would be a better place. I mean, what
do you think success is? Asked the boy to love,
said them. I think that idea of success is fairly
(09:39):
low on the list. Have many a leader. Probably it's
a lovely idea. Anyway, I mean, let's just send it
to every university, to every professor at every university that
teaches an economics class or teaches a business class, and
let's just put a little torn piece of paper right there.
What do you think success is, asked the boy, And
let's just make that into a poster. Yeah, that'd be
(10:00):
pretty moving. I mean, it's it's a good idea. I mean,
obviously I wouldn't promote it because I you know, it
would look I'd be telling people to print out my drawing.
But I mean if you suggest it, well I I
let me be your champion. So if anybody is listening
to this podcast, who is a professor or a teacher,
or a leader or a mayor or whatever in a
(10:22):
position of authority, at least print up the page about
what success is and make a poster out of it.
Good idea and the other one of the other pages.
Most of the old moles I know wish they had
listened less to their fears and more to their dreams. Well,
(10:47):
fear kind of can destroy dreams. Kind of really, fear
can destroy everything. It's pretty loud of them, especially now,
the last couple of years. Especially. So I got this
book last fall when we were in the thick of
the shutdowns and the insanity that was going on. And
(11:09):
when this book came and I read that, I felt
like it was a gift from God, like like he
was saying, stop and listen to your dreams instead. And
not that I don't want to be mindful or aware
of what's going on, but yeah, I can't live in
that place. No, it's exhausting, you know. So should we
(11:31):
make a poster out of this page two? So, if
we're redefining success, the true meaning of success as love,
there's so much wrapped up in that because then you go, well,
you know, what do you mean love? Do you just
mean like being romantically in love? And it's no, no, no, no,
no no from it. Well, let's see two posters. I'm
(11:56):
not done with you yet. I want to do a
poster of of when the boy and the mole are
sitting on the limb and the fox comes along, just
because that's such a pretty painting. Yeah, so what is
your medium? I'm trying to figure out. Is it ink? Watercolor?
How do you get thinks it's ink and water color? Yeah?
So it's an old fashioned dip pen. I mean I
(12:18):
spill ink everywhere. It's like every it's a sea of
ink splattered pages, and it's on my feet and you know, yeah,
I saw use ink and then I let it dry,
and then when the drawings dry, then put water color
over the top. And sometimes not even any color some
of those drawings. I just think your artwork is very
loose and flowing, and yet the little details, the little
(12:41):
nuances are so precious. Oh thank you. And I'm making
a little film at the moment. That's quite intense. I've
never done one before. You're making a film with your book? Yeah, yeah,
doing a little tiny animation, animated film. And are you
drying each pick? Sure? Are you doing like old fashioned animation? Yeah,
(13:03):
you know, I'm doing I'm doing quite a lot of them.
I have a lovely little team and Leal share the
share the load. But I must I mean the last
nine months I must have drawn. I hate to think
how many drawings I've done, terrifying, so many. It's twenty
five frames a second. It's a lot of drawings in
twenty five frames a second. So let's just say this.
(13:24):
This little movie is a minute long, sixty seconds exactly.
I mean, I'm not gonna mats you do the maths,
but I know, I mean it's half a how the
film's half now, Oh my gosh, you've got to do
just for a little five minute movie, over seven thousand
drawings and each one has to be the same except
for the little movement. Well a tiny difference, yeah, a
(13:46):
tiny difference. So is there a way to like leave
the stick or the branch they're sitting on out and
just like move the hand. See, yeah, of course you
don't have to redraw the whole. Yeah, you have layers, know,
so sometimes the bill be backgrounds and landscapes are pretty
much still, so you don't have to reach Charlie, that's
(14:08):
a lot of ink A ready aware. I don't want
to think about it anymore. But I love that you're
doing it the old fashioned way. I love that you
did the book the old fashioned way. Oh, people think
my craze getting it this way. I mean everyone thinks
I that. Yeah, we need to start a movement to
get Charlie Macassey in the hands of every You know,
(14:31):
we could start with kids, because it would be really
good for children to learn this before they get all
messed up by our education system that teaches them the
exact opposite of what the Boy, the More the Fox
and the Horse teaches. Yeah, don't you think like the
media and the education system and everything right now kind
of teaches kids the opposite. The irony of all that is,
(14:55):
you know that. I think sometimes if you apply those principles,
you're doo better. Anyway, I had a to come to
me a couple of years ago, and I probably shouldn't
say this anyway, there's no names involved, but he came
to my house and he'd been following me on Instagram agee,
and he decided to want to talk to you. He
left his driver outside. He was a very cool guy,
you know, and he sat with me and he said,
(15:17):
you know, I kind of feel that we need to
run the bank on these principles, but it's so against
the flow, it's so counter culture. So he said, said,
you know, if if we're all honest, we discover what
our weaknesses are, and then if we knew what they were,
we could cover each other. Okay, so if you're telling
(15:37):
me that this is what your struggles are, then that's great.
There's at least we know, whereas everyone's pretending to be strong,
everyone's pretending to be good at things when not, so
we don't really know. So he applied the principles to
his bank and he gave senior year later said yeah,
this seems to be working. By being kinder and more honest.
They were sharing pain, no one's covering up anymore and
(16:00):
all this stuff, and I was, you know, I cried
with him. We had a cup of team and I
cried and as well, you know, I'm really thrillthy. You know.
He said, we have a community now, whereas but beforehand
we had a team, a team, and a team we
are a winning team. And he said, now we have
something else. You know, it's it's a it's a kind
(16:21):
of it an empathetic group of people who know each
other pretty deeply now and I'm not afraid to say
who they are, what they throwed with, or what they
fear or and because of that we worked better together,
you know, So I was I was fun, very moving.
I mean, I don't think I said out to make
a book that would help banks stuff from it, but
it was interesting at least. I don't know when you
(16:43):
decided to write this and publish it. If you had,
you could not have known how many hearts it would touch. No,
I mean, really, I wrote a lot of those drawings
I wrote, I'd made for um people that I know
and love, you know, who have been honest and brave
enough to tell me what they struggle with and what
(17:03):
I struggle with. I'm not like exempt from these struggles.
So who do you? Who do you, Charlie? I mean,
obviously there's there's a little view and all the characters,
but is there one in particular that you feel as
you represent you the most? You know, It's interesting that
there's bits to me in all of them, and from
day to day I think sometimes I'm definitely like the fox.
(17:27):
I definitely take a while to trust people. So I'd
like go around in big circles, and then my circle
decreases and eventually I'll sit next to someone Sometimes other
times I leap straight in and I'm gun ho and
very happy and hugging and everything. But I do see
the fox in me. Um. I think I am like
the mole. I think I default the cake very quickly
if things go wrong. Um, I default a cake very
(17:52):
quickly when things go right. I think one of my
favorite pages was when the mall said, I you a cake,
and the boys like, where is it? I ate it,
and then I brought you another, and I ate it
to the same thing to happen. Yeah, you know that.
I did that the other day with my sister. I
brought her a cake. I got a beautiful cake for her,
(18:13):
and I knew she was getting back like you know
that tea time, and I just every time I walked
past it, I thought, come on, just a little, there's
like a million little universal truths here, just so sweetly
put be curious as they look up at the moon.
How sweet is that? How sweet is that? So I've
read it to my children. The seventeen year olds didn't
(18:37):
appreciate me setting them down and making me read it.
They're like, no, I'm a bad They couldn't. Yeah for them,
that they could. They could they cope with it. Did
they like it? They did like it? But they're like,
just give me the book. Just give me the book. Mom.
Let me read the book, right, because I'm kind of
animated and I like to, you know, act out the
characters and great. It works. It works well for my
(18:58):
five year old, but not so much for the seventeen
year olds. Yeah, I mean I get. I get a
lot of emails and mails from eighty year olds and
eight year olds, I really do, and school kids, but
not many adolescents, not many teenagers. I bet if we
turned it into a crazy phone app, I don't know.
(19:21):
I don't get why kids like have to be like this,
glued to a device when there's books you can touch
and hold it. Well, that's the thing. I mean. It's
interesting you say that because I kind of remember when
I decided to do the book. There's a lovely Irish
and Michael column and he helped me sew the pages
(19:41):
together on some terrible with digital stuff and he I
remember saying to him right at the beginning, I think
we should try and make a little treasure that you
can hold and it exists and it's it's a solid
and so I wanted it to be quite heavy. I
wanted it to really exist physically. And I get these
letters now from a lot of mothers who say that
(20:01):
their children hold it or have it physically under their
arms in bed or arms their pillow, or they take
it with them to school. And I find that so moving,
that because because the screen is as you say, it's
screen is a screen, and it's a different thing altogether.
But I love, I want you to have heavy paper
and I don't know it. Substance, physical substies go. Yeah.
(20:24):
And even even though the drawings are very whimsical and
very ethereal, they're ethereal. They're light, like a spirit. Nice.
But I hope they I hope they also fairly grounded.
I didn't want to make sis. That's what I was
going to say. The colors and the composition, even though
(20:46):
they're ethereal, the colors and the composition, they're very grounded.
They have something earthy, and they leave an impression, like
when you look at one of your paintings, one of
the drawings, especially one that you've like the horse swimming,
you fell, but I've got you. After I looked at
that and I studied it, I went to sleep. The
(21:09):
image was still in my mind, was still Rany Rainy.
I could still see Ranny Yeah, I love that. Wow,
you're very talented young man. Oh you're very kind, Cake
said the moll Cake Cake. Yeah, but he discovers, he
discovers something better than kake to see because I you know,
(21:30):
there's the site, there's a part of the mole that
he's definitely the audit. He is deaf. That's why the
mole and I are simpatico. Especially when he wanted to
bless his friend. He wanted to, you know, to surprise him,
but his addictions just like, ah, dang it, I ate
right right, And then he discovers that loves and hug
is better than skake, better than cake. How many times
(21:53):
in my life have I been disappointed at myself or
somebody I dearly love because addiction kick up and it
gets in the way of love. Yeah, I think that's right.
I mean, I don't know who said this. I think
it's a brilliant was a discovery that's made that the
opposite of addiction, it's not sobriety. The opposite of addiction
is connection. And I think a lot of addictions arise
(22:16):
from a desire for some kind of connection or there
is a disconnection. We want to to somehow Phil yeah,
or medicate if we feel disconnected or you know, it's
all that stuff, isn't it. Okay, So we've got your
books in the hands of every leader, every mayor, every
elected official, every self, and every economics professor and business teacher.
(22:42):
Now let's just, you know, spread it to every recovery center.
What do you think, Well, that's a it's a good aim.
But again, it would be very arrogant for me to
suggest these things. You can. I will do it for you.
I will be the champion of the Boy. The more
the facts, Lynda is truly we need to appoint her
your champion being Linda Thurman. Oh, she Charlie. She is
(23:05):
in love with you. She is like when she called me,
I thought she had just discovered like some anti aging
cream or something. I don't know, as she was so excited.
She's like, no, d this sweet little book has impacted
me in such a profound way. And I'm like, yeah, yeah,
you know, I'm kind of skeptical. Yeah, I'm not going
to stuff up books. It was never intended to be
(23:26):
one there, No, But you can't know where somebody is
coming from when they're talking about your book, The Boy,
the Mold, the Fox and the Horse unless you actually
read it. Four very complicated characters with very different personalities. Yeah,
I didn't know that the four characters were bits of
(23:48):
me at the time. You know, it wasn't enough to
wait a minute, give me another piece of cake? Right,
So I have these questions and then, you know, I
think a lot of a lot of life. We don't
mean like what we're doing. So we look back. I think, oh,
now I see what I was. Okay, I think for me,
(24:08):
I have been all four characters at different phases of
my life. Yeah, who are you right now? Well, I'm
always mostly the mole. I mean, I'm always mostly you know,
the one that wants to eat the cake. I'm an addict,
and I you know, I get addicted to projects. I
get addicted to artwork, and I am all consumed. I
(24:32):
am like, and I've got this whole other life, you know,
like kids and grandkids and work that I'm like, but
I just want to finish my floor. I did this.
I did this mural. I started a mural with wood browns.
I cut thousands of pieces of wood from twigs and sticks.
(24:52):
Then I sanded them, then I verith in them, and
then I stained them different colors, and I use the
wood rounds like you would use a paintbrush to do
a mural on my floor. But then it kind of
grew up the sides of the walls, and before I
knew it, it had like taken on a life of
its own. And so I would get off the air
Charlie at midnight, and then I would go work on
(25:16):
this floor. But you have to use pretty heavy chemicals,
you know, It's like verithane. And even though I had
the right mask and the respirator, by two o'clock in
the morning, I don't even know. It's two o'clock in
the morning. I don't even know where I am, but
I'm lost in my harals. Yeah, so mostly I would
say the mole. But since I've lost my boys, fear
(25:37):
just dominates, you know, and I have to constantly battle it. Yeah.
Not good, not good. I'm sorry. Yeah, but your book helps, really,
it really truly does. And I think your journey took
I mean, the fact that you're able to talk open
(25:57):
me about it is such a great thing, you know,
means brave to say a lot of people wouldn't have
the courage to say that. I trust me. I don't
say it very often. I don't talk about it because
I ended up crying and then I'm a blubbering mass,
and you know, deep breath, yeah, deep breath yeah. I mean,
I find myself crying a lot of these days. I
(26:20):
don't even know why. Sometimes I was on my bicycle
the other day, listened to a song and I just
had an email from a nurse who I get a
lot of emails from people who ready struggled last year
and haven't and I just read it. I just read
an email, and then I was saying a song and
I had tears point in my face, and then before
I knew where I was, I had to stop the
bike and I was just really prying. And it was
(26:41):
just so so much of the last two years was
just coming up, and I wasn't expected it came from
sort of nowhere. I talked to my kids all the
time about having tools in their tool build. I said,
if you go out to build a house and all
you have is a hammer and a saw, you're not
going to be very successful. And if you go out
the doors of this house whenever you choose to, you know,
spread your wings and fly, and the only tools you
(27:03):
have in your tool belt. Are you know, the things
they teach you in school or whatever, right, you're not
going to be very successful. So I refer to things
that help us as tools in our tool belt with
my kids. And the more tools you have in your
tool belt or your tool chest, the better equipped you are.
(27:24):
I think really especially for boys, because I know for me,
being English and you know, educated in a certain way,
emotions were difficult or almost you know, there were only
some There were some legitimate emotions like anger. That was fine.
But you know, I'm really good at that one. I'm
so good at that one. Boys. Yeah, But when it
(27:45):
comes to real vulnerability or sharing weakness or you know
that if that had been encourages a strength, that connection
came through vulnerability rather than impressing people with how well
you did at rugby or whatever it was, you know,
I think we would have set off in a very
different It's taken me on to learn all these things. Yeah, yeah,
So I think having an armory that involves all those
things will set you up. So your book, I think,
(28:09):
is a good tool for anybody. I mean, not just
somebody who's going through loss, not just somebody who's paralyzed
with fear with our current economic situation and world situation.
But anybody of any age that reads your little book,
I think will be blessed. I think their heart will
be enlarged. I can't believe our good fortune in being
able to spend all this time with Charlie Macassey about
(28:32):
the boy and his motley crew of unlikely companions. Will
continue this delightful conversation as soon as I share a
little more of my good luck. A word about a
sponsor whose support enables me to reach out to guests
like Charlie and bring their inspiration and insights to you.
If you're going to wear glasses, there's one brand of frames.
(28:54):
I recommend you have to look for it, but it's
worth it. The brand is called Eyes of Faith Optical.
I discovered this brand. I fell in love with their
style of frames. I wear them every day now and
get so many compliments. It was only after I discovered
the beauty of their frames did I discover the subtle
(29:16):
message hidden on the inside of every frame, a scripture
from the Bible. Their purpose is not only to provide
you with a great frame, but to help others too.
Eyes of Faith Optical shares a generous amount of the
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(29:39):
And I see their frames and choose the ones that
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Eof optical dot Com. You're in America, right, Yeah, I
answer sny question whether I have two farms, have a
(30:00):
small farm that's fifty five acres outside of Seattle. Well,
you have to go across water to get to me.
So even though we're only like technically eight miles from Seattle,
it takes an hour to get here because you have
to go on a fair. Never be in Seattle. I
always wanted to go. And then, um, I have a
farm six and a half hour south in Oregon that's
(30:22):
five hundred acres, so nice. I love dirt. I love
to be in the me too. Because I say that
because you do remind me of when I was in
my twenties. I had a show in New York and
and then they asked me if i'd do a big
mural in a house in Connecticut that's in Manhattan. You know, now,
on the trainer and I went and I, you know,
I did the mural whatever, and it was nice and
(30:42):
there's some very lovely people there and it was fun.
And a lady came at the end of the day.
It was like the press officer. And she looked at
me and she said, well, who are you? And I said, Charliet,
where are you staying? And I said, oh, in a
little sort of boarding house in Manhattan. So you see
every day you come out and do this and go out,
and said you want to come stay with me? And
(31:04):
I said I'd be lovely. She should write, I'll pick
you up at five. And she came and she had
this big old station wagon. When I got to the the house,
she had foster children. She had parrots and dogs and cats,
and it was this whole menagerie of life. And she
was called Pam. And she showed me a whole other
way of thinking and living. She showed me what it
(31:27):
meant to really extend family to people. She'd lost, the son,
she'd lost, the husband. Her husband had been an alcoholic,
he'd died. You know, she'd really suffered, like really, and
that's suffering had opened her heart rather than shut it down.
She'd opened up and her household was something I will
(31:48):
never forget as long as I live. It was a
beautiful thing between my husband and I. We have twenty
children and twenty three grandchildren. WHOA, yeah, well you remind
me of her. The reason why I said, it's because
you do remind me of something about you that that
is really so open and moment it's really right. So
you're great. I don't understand. I will never understand when
(32:12):
there are so many children who need love, right, Why
I don't understand why there is a single child stuck
in foster care. Yeah, it's a strange thing, right, Why?
Why why are children in foster care? If we claim
to be people that have faith, you know, we use
(32:32):
our religion or our faith as an excuse to to
say this or do that, but we have no love.
If every church or synagogue or mosque in America just
took just took an adopted one child out of foster care,
do you know there would be no kids in foster care. Yeah,
that's amazing. Why aren't we stepping up to the plate
(32:54):
and saying, come, come to my you know, like the
lady like Pam who said Charlie come and stay at
my house. So you have twenty You have twenty children,
I mean, how many of those days only four are
still at home? Wow? Then my husband has five children.
All but one were grown when we got together. When
we met, right, and our children aged from forty two
(33:16):
down to five. Whoa, that's so. I saw a picture
the other day of my oldest natural born son, who
I took to kindergarten, like thirty two years ago. Was
his first day of kindergarten. And last week was my
baby's first day of kindergarten. This is my last first
(33:40):
day of kindergarten. This is the last time I will
be taking a child of mine to kindergarten. And that
was very I came home and I bawled like a baby.
Everybody's like, oh, you must be so excited, you're gonna
have some free time. I'm like, I'm not excited, my baby,
I'm pretty but no, you're in touch with that great
(34:04):
and said it. And he loves your book. He does. Yes,
his name is Paul Adam. He loves your book and
I've read it to him. Oh. I cannot even tell
you how many times I need to I need to
send you some books with my name in them. I
can write my name. I would love that. I would
love Yeah, And I'm going to start this campaign to
get the Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse
(34:28):
into the hands of every politician, of every teacher, of
every leader. I'm gonna I'm you know what I'm gonna do, Charlie.
I'm going to go buy some and I'm going to
take it to the principle at our local high school
and say, you know, if you just, if you would
just please make these into posters and put them in
all the classes, especially for the seniors who are about
(34:49):
to launch into the world, I would appreciate it. Like,
can they do that? Can they make a photo copy
of the page? Yeah? Oh gosh, I've always said that
to people. I mean, school and hospitals done that, and
I love what they do that. So they blow them
right up, you know, right? What do you think successes
asked the Boy to love, said them all, that's the one.
(35:10):
I think that everybody should have a poster of that.
You know, you could frame it. You could put a
nice like black frame around it, or you could just
make a poster. What do you think? So, Okay, yeah,
I'll work on this campaign. You go work on your
seventy five seven thousands you have to do for a
five minute movie. Like I used to volunteer in a place.
(35:33):
But every Wednesday afternoon I used to teach people in
an old people's home how to draw. And one of
the things they were scared of was not being very good,
you know, disappointing themselves or they're always told when they
were literally shouldn't draw whatever. And I said, okay, so
here's the thing drawn out. But two things. One, pretend
that you're four years old and that you can you're
(35:54):
allowed to make a mess. So the whole aim here
is to make a mess. And the second thing is
that when you've done your drawing, throw it away. No
one's going to look at it. Oh I couldn't do that.
I couldn't okay, so so wait, so they started doing it,
and I said, there's no pressure at all on you
to make anything good. This is not about goods, just
having fun. And you know what, They began really slowly,
(36:15):
and then three weeks later they were unstoppable. They just
draw a mess everywhere, and bit by bit, when they
realized that it was okay to not do very well,
their drawings got better. And better, and they went through
false wall after false wall into the eventually, you know,
they were making these beautiful things. I mean, half of
the guys I taught are dead now, sadly, but they
(36:36):
know they did some beautiful things while they were here.
Right in the last year or two they'd made they
had fun. You know, if you if you give me
a way to text you or send you, I'll send
you a picture of my floor. That sure, that took
over my life for six months. Okay, I started it
in February, and I just have one kind of every
(36:58):
thing to go and then I'm done. But it literally
crawled up the walls of the it's two rooms, and
it was just going to be an image of a
tree on the floor, and it crawled up the walls
and over. Yeah, it even went up to the ceiling. Yeah.
So but yeah, I will get the dippin out. I've
(37:19):
got them someplace, and I'll start drawing again. Just because
you inspire me. I really think you should don't be
hard in yourself, you know, well, like I'm too much
of a I'm too fussy. I'm way too fussy. I
can be loose in life with other things, you know,
And and free flowing. But I'm way too fussy with
(37:41):
with something. So my goal is to be more like Charlie. Now,
my goal is to be more like the horse, because
ye be the horse. If you've got to be anyone,
be the horse. Yeah. I think that's right. I'll send
you some pictures of my horses. Okay, I'd love to
see them. All right, Jolly, I know you got work
to do, so i'll let you go. Thank you for
(38:02):
spending time with us. You are delighted. I really loved it.
Thanks for having me. Let's stay in touch. Okay, I'm
going to organize our talent to get you some books. Wonderful.
I'll talk to you so bye bye. I know it's
getting late in the day in London. Charlie. Thank you
for sharing so much of your time and reintroducing the
Boy and his friends to us. I say reintroducing because
(38:27):
I feel like we've all met the boy before. He's
inside each of us. He represents our life struggles, big
and small. It's been wonderful getting reacquainted with him and
remembering the things that either once worried him or maybe
still does, and he managed to figure it out as
well as putting me in touch with all those inner
(38:48):
voices that have guided me along my life's path. The Boy,
the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is truly a
special gift. If you haven't yet thumbed your way through
a copy, do yourself a favor and get a hold
of one as quickly as you can. As Charlie recommends
in his forewords, start anywhere you like, start in the middle,
start at the end, or if you must start at
(39:10):
the beginning, it's up to you. Just like so many
other choices we have in life, perhaps the most important
one is the choice to be kind. The Boy, the
Mole of the Fox and the Horse can be found
wherever books are sold, and they make great gifts, Great
gifts for everyone on your list, from grandparents to grandchildren
(39:31):
to world leaders. Charlie continues to share the journey on
his social media platforms at Charlie Macassey on both Instagram
and Facebook. You want to keep up with him there
and share his beautiful, insightful post with all your own followers.
Spring is such a lovely time of year. Everything feels
(39:52):
so fresh and new and possible. It's a perfect time
to give birth to something beautiful, and there's nothing more beautiful,
then kindness. Watch the Oscar winning animated film The Boy,
The Mole, The Fox and the Horse. Keep the book
in a handy place to reread whenever you need a lift.
(40:12):
And sprinkle kindness everywhere you go. It changes lives.
Host
Delilah
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