I’d never heard of a podcast when I was first invited to speak on one. It’s been a steep learning curve since.

Over the last few years, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting podcasters around the world, recording in grand studios (with my editor at William Collins, the very wise and lovely Arabella Pike), the BBC (with one of my heroes, the writer and broadcaster Michael Rosen), tiny studios (looking at you, Cariad Lloyd!); in my kitchen and my spare bedroom (too many to count), and even crouching beside an armchair for better acoustics (Jane Garvie and Fi Glover have very high standards – see photo).

There are so many now that I’ve added a podcasts/audio section to this website. See you over there.

To my astonishment, I have to announce the publication of my second non-fiction book. It’s published today, by William Collins, and it’s been a delight to work with the same fantastic team at William Collins publishers to bring it to the world.

Listen: how to find the words for tender conversations is the book I didn’t know I had in me. I knew I had to write With The End In Mind. It was simply bursting to get out of my head and onto the page. That was it, I thought. I’ve written a book. ‘Bye now.

But that was before the correspondence started. Before readers began to find ingenious ways to get in touch. The correspondence that said, over and over “How do we even begin to talk about these matters of life and death?”

Of course, I’ve got lots to say about those most tender of conversations. I’ve been talking about death and dying for decades. I’ve watched my skilled, compassionate colleagues tend people in the hardest of circumstances. The ideas began to gather. The stories began to pop into my mind, that curious time travel that takes me back to the conversations, the people, the moments that would illustrate why it’s how we listen, far more than the words we say, that make those conversations helpful or harmful.

So I’ve spent this last year of lockdowns and pandemic and sadness working between the NHS, as a staff supporter for the bedside workers who were so magnificent and so bereft, and storytelling for this new book. And, of course, the covid work has found its way into the book too.

It’s been such a difficult time, it seems hard to be telling ‘good news.’ Yet in the grief epidemic that is trailing behind our experience of covid-19, there has never been more need for tender listening. It’s oddly, unexpectedly timely. And I really hope it helps.

While we are living through these frightening times, it’s been good to look back on something delightful and entirely unexpected that began two years ago and culminated in an astonishing night out in London, at the Ambassadors Theatre and then at the South African High Commission.

It was a major surprise, in early 2018, to get an email from Sir Antony Sher, the brilliant British actor, writer and theatre director, who is of South African origin. He invited me to be a collaborator in a new project, a play being written by South African actor, Shakespeare specialist, author, director and playwright John Kani, for the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK and the Fugard Theatre Company in South Africa.

I had a Skype call with the writing team who were working together in South Africa – Sir Tony, John and producer Janice Honeyman. This is Theatre Royalty, and here I was chatting with them! They explained that the play, Kunene and the King, would be a two hander, the roles to be played by Tony and John, and that one of the characters is terminally ill. They wanted to make the terminal illness and death convincing, and after visiting two hospices in the UK for background research where With The End In Mind was cited as the book they should read, they read it and then sought me out.

Over the next few months we had a series of conversations as we ‘designed’ the character’s illness trajectory so that the medical details would be correct, and to allow a specific plot twist towards the end of the play. Later, I had the thrill of attending dress rehearsal at the RSC in Stratford, in order to give the cast and production team ‘notes’ to refine the details.

It’s no surprise that the play was superb, nor that Tony and John were compelling in their roles: authentic, funny, challenging, poignant and convincing. This play is the third in a trilogy written by John Kani that explores apartheid and its consequences in South Africa, and I found it deeply moving. I had the excitement of attending Press Night in Stratford in 2019, and then joining the team again in January to celebrate the play’s success in its South Africa run as it transferred to London’s West End. After the show, we were all reunited at a reception in South Africa House as guests of the SA High Commissioner, Nomatemba Tambo. Guests included members of the RSC and Fugard Theatre, and many people with links to the South African diaspora who had campaigned against apartheid from the UK.

I was especially moved by how seriously the team took the message about public understanding of dying. They dedicated a whole page in the programme to this message.

Sadly, the West End run has been cut short by the pandemic, but I have no doubt this play will rise again. If you get an opportunity to see it, do take it.

Over the last few months, as the book has been selling around the world, I have had some fantastic conversations with people making podcasts. Here’s a round-up.

Dear Lovejoy

It was great fun to meet Tim Lovejoy and discuss tea, death and stories. It was an honour to hear about Tim’s own experience of the death of his brother a few years ago. He agrees: we really need to talk about this stuff.

The video starts after a section of dodgy sound at the beginning of our conversation, but we were so busy laughing that you won’t miss anything: the sound was restored by Tim’s very efficient Tech Desk (also laughing) by the time we began the interview.

Funny, how much we laugh whilst discussing matters so deep. It’s partly a human emotional defence mechanism, and it’s partly relief that we can say those D-words at last.

Click here to watch.

Shapes of Grief

Liz Gleeson is a bereavement therapist based in Eire and her website, Shapes of Grief, includes guest blog writers, useful bereavement links and her podcast. Liz also offers training to professionals, and there are links in her website.

Liz and I ‘met’ down a Skype line while I was working in London, so picture the scene: I’m in a small hotel room, headphones on and laptop humming. One of the great things about most UK hotels is the tea-making facilities in each room so yes, I am sipping a cuppa.

Here’s our chat.

Dead Good Staffs

is a podcast dedicated to public information about death and dying. Now in its second series, Charlotte Foster chats to a variety of experts about funerals, estate planning and wills, palliative care and – well, dying. We chatted for a while, and Charlotte made the amazing discovery that her Nan’s death had been far less difficult than younger Charlotte had assumed: a real example of the way knowing more helps us to understand and be less afraid.

Dead Good Staffs distilled our chat into three chunks. Here they are:

Episode One

Episode Two

Episode Three (includes Charlotte’s reflection on her new knowledge, and reviewing her understanding of watching her Nan die many years ago)

Hospice UK   

This is the UK’s over-arching campaigning body for hospice and palliative care. They host the multi-agency Dying Matters campaign, and for Dying Matters Awareness Week in May 2019 I popped into their London office to talk to Eleanor McConnell.

Although it was high spring, the weather was remarkable and our chat took place during a frenetic thunderstorm: see whether you can hear the rumbles or the heavy rain on the roof!

Listen here.

There are more too add: I’ll pace myself and add more soon. Happy listening.