People’s Precious Lives Matter

Steve Morris

“People’s Precious Lives Matter” says Steve Morris, Vicar of St Cuthbert’s, North Wembley

“I made a decision when I became a Vicar that I actually would not cover up the fact that I’ve had problems in the past, sometimes with depression and anxiety, I just wasn’t. I was going to be honest about it, cause I didn’t want people thinking that I was some kind of superhero and I found it one of the most useful parts of my ministry is just to say, if you’re feeling bad, talk to me about it, tell me what’s happening says the gifted Steve Morris.”   His sharing with TesseLeads takes us through the highs and lows of life, his father, his wife and himself.   Yet these struggles have served to strengthen his resolve and to cast a light on what really matters to him.

Steve loves hearing people’s stories and everyday courage of keeping on.  Steve is also a music journalist.  Read two old books and one new one says C K Lewis. Steve remembers this motto as he  builds on things that last  and support people.  “Valuing people never ages.    There is hope and there are many things we should not take for granted anymore, like being with the people we love” Steve reminds us.

Steve has had many lives. He  ran a small record label.  He  met his lovely wife, Christine, when they were in school together.    Red Harvest where he was lead singer in 1980’s did really well.   Armed with loads of  life experience, Steve went to Oxford and is now dedicated to the  people  journeys’ in Church.  Northolt where he grew up is one of his favourite places of all time.   Steve cares about people and the pandemic has only strengthened his vision to care, to share and to love others. Steve is also the author of “Our Precious Lives “

STEVE’S GIFT 

 

READ OUR FULL TRANSCRIPT HERE

Paula: 00:00:00 Welcome to TesseLeads with your hosts Tesse Akpeki and co-host Paula Okoneh. Tesse Leads is a safe, sensitive, and supportive place and space to share, hear and tell your stories and experiences. You will hear from top experts and thought leaders, strategies, tips and techniques they have found useful in navigating their diverse range of challenges and difficulties and dilemmas, as well as how you can create and shape your opportunities. Our guest today is Steve Morris and we will be talking about precious lives. Steve is a vicar at St. Cuthbert’s Northwest London, before that he ran a brand agency and was a writer. Woo, woo. He became a Christian in his forties, went to Oxford and studied science, suffering and faith. Wow, and he was  ordained into the church of England. His book, “Our Precious Lives” is published by Authentic. Steve loves hearing people’s stories and everyday courage of keeping on. One thing that I didn’t know, and many of you may not know is that Steve is also a music journalist, he ran a small record label and he met his wife, Christine, when they were in school together. Well apart from having two beautiful daughters, Steve and Christine, his wife, and two friends formed a band at UEA Norridge, called red Arbus and red harvest song world one, listen, charted on college radio in the U S. Steve you are amazing.

Steve: 00:01:56 I didn’t even recongnize myself,very good.Thank you, lovely

Paula: 00:02:04 There is something Steve about this record, I got a surprise for myself. Can you hear this? Oh, my word. This is amazing.

Steve: 00:02:18 It is a beautiful sound

Paula: 00:02:20 We have never had. Wow. All right I’m going to stop here because the whole podcast may be taken up with just listening to all of your releases. “The world will listen” right? 

Steve: 00:02:32 I hope so one day.

Tesse: 00:02:36 I love it. I totally love this song, I actually tapped my fingers to “The world will listen”. 

Steve: 00:02:43 Yeah, it was a great time. We went to Paris to film the video there and, we didn’t realize you’re meant to have a permit to film. We spent three days being chased around Paris by the police.

Paula: 00:02:57 Oh, you’re serious

Steve: 00:02:58 Yeah

Paula: 00:02:59 Well yes, that is in your bio, why don’t you tell us a bit more? I know It didn’t say everything because I was so blown away by, wow. Somebody who had a release in the U S. So tell us more about you, Steve. What did I leave out? 

Steve: 00:03:12 Oh, I think you’ve got most of the stuff there. I mean, yeah, I suppose thing that I always think shaped me most is that I was born in Northholt which is a kind of, you know, is right on the end of London. And there’s nothing there, you know, it’s, you know, when we always say Norwich, but everyone else gets all the other stuff we’re just left, you know? So I grew up in a place that was neglected really, and was on the edge of things. I’ve always had that kind of restlessness, you know, wanting to be somewhere where things are more interesting. I’m like a lot of people, I think from the outer suburbs. That’s still in there, I’ve still got that. And, you know, when I left Norwich , I said, I’m never coming back to, but now I love Norwich. So I’m grateful for, and also it’s the greatest. Honestly I call myself Lord Morris of Norwich. I mean, honestly I say it is the as a sense of the universe and I’m sticking with that, you know. So I love Northup, my mom still lives there, so, I’ve gone full circle. So I think that played a really big part for me in my life. Just where I grow up, where I came from 

Paula: 00:04:10 That’s what makes you who you are, right?. 

Steve: 00:04:13 Yep, that’s right, definitely. I went to a comprehensive school and not just throughout my life that I was almost the only comprehensive school child in almost everything I ever did. I was at a university, I was the only person who hadn’t been privately or grammar, school educated, and in the whole of my course. When I worked in advertising, I was again, the only person that had gone to a  comprehensive, as far as I could tell. In the church of England, we’re a rare breed. We really are. So I’ve just known this, I’ve always in a way had that. And I’ve noticed that really, they all run though. 

Paula: 00:04:45 Fantastic. So are there any lessons you learned while growing up that you want to share with us? 

Steve: 00:04:51 Yeah, I think, I think we always had, as a family work hard, work hard, protect each other. So that was the thing, you know, family stick up for each other, that was the thing. And don’t expect anyone to ever give you anything. You got to earn everything yourself, you’ve got to make everything yourself, no one will ever do you a favor, whatever you do, you get through your own hard work. And that has broadly been true, I think that is true. And I think the other thing I learned when I was growing up is, you know, how tough life had been for my parents and my grandparents. My dad left school at 14, he couldn’t read or write, and he had an appalling childhood that was absolutely, devastatingly bad. And yet, and yet, you know what? He never laid a hand on us, he worked hard his whole life didn’t cheat on my mum. For all of the faults we all have. I think that’s an achievement in itself. I really do 

Tesse: 00:05:42 Wow, that’s so fascinating, Steve. And as I say, I learned about you every day, it’s just so many layers and each layer is very interesting and you know, I love music, and I know from reading about you, that your band played in some of the roughest pubs in London. You know, and you describe as being very character building. And I was so interested when I read that you used to support a “Hells angel band”, which was quite scary. And you also tended to play in good old Irish venues in North London. I grew up in Ireland, so I love Irish venues I think there’s such a hoot. But really this whole thing about the challenges, cause I’m reading about you and I hear what you do and they have lots of highs, but also I get a sense of quite a number of lows. So I’d really be curious to you to share a bit more of the challenges that you’ve faced and how you overcame some of these difficulties?

Steve: 00:06:37 I think, well, the first one, I mean, there was always challenges when growing up. Just before I went to the university, Christine and I met, I knew immediately I met Christine, who’s my wife, now, that was the only person I ever wanted and that’s still the case. And so I really didn’t want to go to university, I was just so scared, really. That was a really difficult time, and the first term, I mean, I knew I’d never give up, but you know, I was hanging on, you know, the handson my fingertips being at university. The thing that really got me, that was when I left university. Because, I built all my hopes on staying there, I wanted to be an academic, I wanted to study books for the rest of my life, and my teachers said to me, Steve, you know, you’re never going to be an academic you’re going to be a journalist. I was heartbroken, and I think for the first year, I mean, I never really wanted to work for a living, I’ll share that with you. I was much happier, not sitting all day in that office really. I was just in autumn morning I was really low, I couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed, I felt that all the things I’d wanted to happen. Weren’t going to, and I was terribly sad about that, it took me years to get over that kind of, sense of loss and looking back on it, it does, it sounds a bit flimsy, but to me I’m an all or nothing person, you know, and absolutely I put everything into everything and, I had all my hopes pinned on staying, studying books. So ,when that crumbled and then when the band fell apart so badly for us, I think it took a long time to kind of be anything like normal again, really. 

Tesse: 00:08:09 And some of the things you, you mentioned to me in the past of being your dad and your dad’s health, what went on there? 

Steve: 00:08:16 He had problems with his nerves really, most of the time after he was growing up. And I suppose we knew that as his family, you know, so it’s difficult when you live with people who, are having a hard time, really. But he got motor neurons. And so, that was very hard to see because my dear old dad, you know, he’s a big, tough, old fellow really. He’d been a debt collector in the East end of London.   He would  sort anything out, you know, he was going to go and sort it out. And then to see what motor neuron does, it just made me realize no one is tough enough on their own absolutely, in the end, whatever it is, something will get you, and you will never be tough enough on your own to win that battle. No, the, the intriguing thing there was, you know, we became reconciled my dad and I, and he became a Christian. And I remember him saying to me, right at the end there, you know, I’ve had a fantastic lifestyle go and enjoy your life. And I was astounded I thought he would have said, I’ve had a rotten old life, you know, grew up in poverty, grandfather used to beat me, you know, this comes blah, blah, blah, whatever it was. But no, no, and when I read the bit of the Bible where it says about defeating the world, that’s what I think defeating the world is. Against all available evidence, my dad could say I had a really good life. Yeah, that’s amazing, it’s is really, really something. So I suppose in a way, the wonderful thing, you know, my father thanked me, you know, right at the end of his life, he said, thank you, you’ve made my life. And so I’ve never had to feel guilty. I occasionally think, I wish I’d been nicer to him, but that was his gift to me, his gift to me was, go and enjoy your life. Yeah. I think that’s something which I always, you know, I treasure really, I hope I can do it for my own children. I really do.

Tesse: 00:09:59 Yeah, thanks for sharing that, Steve, did I read somewhere that your father was in the army as well? 

Steve: 00:10:04 Yeah, he was in the army. He had a really difficult time because his friend, they signed up together and his friend was, was killed. It it was in service actually it wasn’t the war, it was in service and his friend was murdered by terrorists. I’m not going to call them terrorist because they murdered my dad’s friend, you know? Other people might call them freedom fighters. And my dad saw it and you know, he left the army soon after it just affected his mental wellbeing, that kind of thing. But he loved being in the army, you know, we would March around the front room, the military bands playing on the stereo, you get the flag out and wave it around, and you know, he absolutely loved the army, because it got him out of the East end, got him out of the east end of London got him put him around the world. It, it, he met my mum because my mum was a pen friend, you know? So the army had a lot of friends, family friends, old soldiers,old paratroopers and I loved them every single one of them is dead now, everyone’s died now. I used to love as a boy sitting there and hearing, you know, on my mom’s side, they were all paratroopers as well, talking about their, their exploits. So I suppose in a way, you know, I was never going to go in the army myself, that was never going to be me, but I admired them, I did. I still do. 

Paula: 00:11:24 Wow. You, love stories, I can see that. Yeah, that’s kind of dictates, I guess what you’re doing because your book “Precious Lives” have so many heroes in it. Obviously your dad, your mom, both sides of the family, they were your heroes. Right? And so coming back to your book, Can you pick two heroes in that, that impressed you? 

Steve: 00:11:48 Yeah, thank you. I mean, what the idea was was that there’s a kind of heroism in everyday life and that we often don’t acknowledge it. And in that heroism, God’s in that heroism, the incarnation God lived an ordinary life. Jesus had a completely ordinary life, until he was 30, it worked in his mum and dad’s business. They employed people, he would have mucked around with the kids on the, in the area. And so as part of that formation of a person that ordinary life is really important. And so I think that the ordinary life honors God, and I think ordinary people are saints, in the way that the big saints are. There’s a kind of, something very Holy about ordinary life lived well. Those are the people that really, I write about someone called looky, looky Fitzpatrick, and, he was really my friend. He took me under his wing, a big, really big kind of Irish fella, would bear hug me most days. I’ve come to my victory Ridge, sit down and pray with me. And he came through, you know, horrific upbringing, and at one point he was a banned knuckle fighter for money too drunk, drinking. Goodness knows, and his life was turned around by becoming a Christian. But it was just that this is the thing was just, he was just so wise. I’ve just been thinking about the limits of intelligence, the limits of intellectualism, how far it gets you really? Because, looking, I don’t think he even even got a GCSE, but you know, he was the wisest person I ever met and I think that’s something I want to reclaim, I want to reclaim the kind of wisdom. The kudos, the prestige of working class people who are frequently looked down upon because they haven’t done what other people have done. So Lukey is in there, and the other person I think is, is Steven  Chamberlain he is another friend of mine. He now runs a soup kitchen, but he, he was maitre D at the Gavroche, and he was earning such a fortune. I knew Lady Di and everything else. And then one day went to the London lighthouse that was   the early days of HIV AIDS. And he suddenly was so convicted by seeing people, and he looked down at his very expensive Gucci shoes and just the I can’t account go on a truck, his job in training to be an AIDS counselor   flew to San Francisco, visited AIDS patients in the hospital where no one else would go cause they were, they were too scared and then he’s come back and he now most gorgeous thing, you know, so I suppose those two people, and then there’s loads of others, but those two kind of particularly, you know, unlikely heroes, I suppose. That’s what I described them. 

Tesse: 00:14:25 Wow. I’m privileged to have met both of these people you talk about, and I feel very inspired by both of them, but there’s somebody else who inspires me, and that is your gorgeous, lovely, gentle and kind wife, Christine, I know, having met you and Christine about her story, would you like to share a bit of her story? Because I knew she had a pretty rough time with her health and, but you will tell that story better than I. 

Steve: 00:14:53 Oh, thank you Yeah. So Christine and I, we’ve just always been such tremendous friends, you know, that’s the thing I think we, we, that’s the thing that’s, that’s there, is just that we admire each other and we like each other, which is really helpful. But, that was probably something like 14 or 15 years ago. I knew she was getting ill, but I could’nt kind of stop her, you know, she was training for the London marathon and I could see, I could see there was something really seriously wrong and I knew it, but it was a life’s ambition to run the marathon. And at, 16 miles, she collapsed, and, it was just this wretched thing of if only things had been different. She wanted to stop after four miles, I was meant to be there to wave at her, then she would have stopped, but she missed me. She hadn’t got her phone, she was running, so she didn’t wanna let the children down so they could see her, you know, all that stuff. And then, so we had a, she had a  jewel tear, which is basically a tear in your brain. And, what happens is. It’s like I’m in a pressurized system, pop a nail   into it, you get it, all those kinds of pressure drops out of it. And that’s what happened to her brain, you know? And so for a year she had to lay down. That wasn’t the worst of it, the worst of it was that she was in hospital, she had a procedure on her brain, we took her home. She nearly died on the streets in Ealing. The ambulance wouldn’t pick her up. I mean, it was just, the authorities were just conspiring to try and kill my wife. I felt like it, at the time that was. You know, in Star Wars, the force gets kind of disturbed, that was what happened in my life in our family, cause Christine was really indestructible. And, yeah, she’s a great deal better now, but you know, it was, it was a, a massive thing. I mean, in a way, a lot of things came out of that. Our business, it was really the beginning of the end for that, I think because we’d worked together, we were a great team member, when one of us wasn’t able to do it, it just, you just couldn’t really hang together. Christine is brilliant, right? She just gets on with life. But if I were to be honest, it’s left me with this kind of sense of peril that I’ve never really. I’ve never shaken, I’ve never quite got rid of it. It’s somewhere in the back of my mind is the feeling that one day it’s all going to go wrong again, you know? And, um, I kind of live with that now. That’s where I’m at really. 

Tesse: 00:17:22 Yeah, Steve, thanks for sharing that because you know, when I encounter you and we have our chats and I listen to what you do, you come across as being a really like solid rock, you know, just dependable, just so there. Has It always been that case? Did you have your lows and, you know, anxiety, depression, any of those things? And if you do, what have you found helps you to get back to, to kind of be resilient, to be strong? 

Steve: 00:17:47 Thank you, for all people who suffer from anxiety and depression, we’ve become very good actors. We’re really good at, as a defense mechanism of presenting a face, a persona. And I come to think that I probably inherited it, you know, from my dad. I think these things are sometimes  partly nature and partly nurture. So yeah, I mean, that’s something I’ve just, I’ve lived with really, since I was a teenager. And most of the time I function many all the time I function well. I’ve never, never taken the time or anything, but there are good times and there are less good times. And for me, the only thing that works is talking, that’s it, if I’m, if I’m in a bad place, I just, you to just talk about it, that’s it, talk to Christine. I generally feel much better than I’ve done that. I’m glad that we’re much more honest these days about mental health, I really am because it was a taboo subject. And I made a decision when I became a Vicar that I actually would not cover up the fact that I’ve had problems in the past, sometimes with depression and anxiety, I just wasn’t. I was going to be honest about it, cause I didn’t want people thinking that I was some kind of superhero and I found it one of the most useful parts of my ministry is just to say, if you’re feeling bad, talk to me about it, tell me what’s happening. I cannot make anyone feel better, but I can pray for them and I can listen. Those two things are our lifesavers.

Paula: 00:19:09 Yes, indeed they are. Having listened to you talk about what happened with Christine your wife, and talking about your mental health and how you serve the people now, you know, you’ve let people know that you’re vulnerable, that you have suffered some of the things that they think like Tesse just said, you’d look like a pillar of strength when she looks at you. She almost feels like, Tesse correct me if I’m wrong, you almost feel as if there’s nothing that jolts you. But having heard this, and I’m just meeting you for the first time, I know that you’re  a human being, and even though you’re a pastor at church, you have feelings and you’ve gone through trials. So I’m wondering in this pandemic, if you’re finding out, you know, that people are coming to you, what are you using to encourage people at this time?

Steve: 00:19:59 Oh, thank you. I think this pandemic has been very interesting in a way, because it’s, it’s brought us as a church so much closer, very strange, we can’t meet and yet we’re closer and closer because we’ve done a little phoning of each other, we do a bit of zooming and I think we’ve been able to share that we’re all to varying degrees no one has found it easier. And I think in a sense that oddly encouraging is a lot of the older folk that went through the war have said to me, things like this is worse than the war. I mean, if they can say that, then it means that, you know, it’s okay that this is difficult for people. I, I think that  we haven’t really been in church for a year. I haven’t done all the normal things of church and a lot of those are very fiddly and that’s not my strengths really. And so going back to a kind of complexity is something that I find a little bit daunting. I speak to some of my friends last time, the thought of going back to the full church experience, getting everything together, music, this, this, this, and everything else. You know, i just, I think it was going to be a bit of a shock to the system when we get to do it really. But to answer your question, I think that, you know, I’ve just been here. I think that being present is the thing that’s important. I think at the beginning, you’ve got lots of churches who are very well resourced, brilliant on the technical side. And it became clear to me that I could get to a certain level of technical I’ve got a lot better, but that wasn’t where we were itching as a church it was simply just to talk to each other and to see each other on zoom. And I think that’s been, it’s kind of analog ministry, some of it, and I think it’s really strong.

Tesse: 00:21:27 That’s fascinating, because what I’m hearing is that even though the pandemic has been very difficult for a lot of us, including yourself, it’s also brought people together and help people to prioritize what is really important in life and to take care of each other. As we kind of wrap up a conversation.  I’d like to hear a few more of your triumphs, you know, the things that you’re proud about, you know, and when I read about you, I was really chuffed to hear about the fact that you worked with the great Pete Shelley and Adrian Bolan, I was also by proxy taking your, your past glory by the fact that a red harvest single was playlisted on radio one and MTV, I thought yay! And what other triumphs do you have? What else? You mentioned your dad and what your dad said to you, and that’s very moving. Are there any other ones that you’d like to share? 

Steve: 00:22:20 I mean, I’m not very good on the triumph things, i got  this funny thing where, when something is finished, it’s finished and I just barely ever think about it again. I can hardly remember it strange, isn’t it? I just, I think it’s because I did a job. I was a credit director of the agency as well, and the, and the job was to generate ideas. and the only way, I can do that is `having an empty mind. Now, it there’s an interesting  toss up between a kind of Christian says, you’ll say, fill your mind up with God and let the ideas…. But in advertising, you’re going to have a completely empty space up there and let the ideas come. So that’s really where I’m at. So I don’t remember things. I think the thing that I’m most miss really, the thing that I really enjoyed was the initial couple of years when by pure chance, really our single got played on the radio. And I’ve met my hero, who was Adrian Borland and Adrian was in a bank or the sound for me that the greatest eighties band that there was. And I just really looked up to Adrian, I genuinely did. And that period was so, so exciting I mean, I just, it was all I ever wanted was to make records and to, and I met so many extraordinary people in the music business. I actually, I just made contact with my old friend who runs, ran the music label, my publisher after Oh, you know, 20 years. And we had such a lovely talk, you know, and I suddenly realized speaking to him about the business, you know, I, sometimes I was better than that than I’m not being a victim. I knew so much about it, it was as though the years of just constant tainted. I was back there with Dave, with the label and. I’m really  competent at this, you know, I’m really, I know about this and that’s one of the things about coming late to a career. You know, I’m never going to learn enough at a time I’ve got left because I’ve come late to all of this, I haven’t grown up in church, I haven’t, it’s all, to me everything’s new. I’m not adult fish swimming around, or it was always that again, it’s that again? It’s all new. And so I suppose that was one of the things that I really thought was something I was proud of because I love making music and I love playing live. I look back now at those dodgy old venues and I think, well, I’d experienced is that most people haven’t had. And at the time I didn’t value them, but I think my daughter now has been more, she was back home, was she was living up in North London and we’ve walked past some of those old pubs that we used to play in. And then there will be gastro pubs and bistros and what have you honestly. Oh dear, dear. you turn up, and all the windows are smashed. There’s the bouncer, and then there’s, there’s a guy who owns it with his Alsatian on the door. Oh, happy happy happy times. There was one game we used to play. I love this guy. He was an irish guy really good friends with him and we do the gig and if you’ve got 50 people, you’ve got 50 pounds, that was the thing, and every time we finished the gig, It sent me down to see him, Sean. So I go down there, knock on the door, tell me hello Steve how you doing. Sean, had two the biggest Alsatians you’ve ever seen that sat next to him.

And he said, how much you think you got in this tournament? So I was over 50. I sort of counted. It’s 49 you’ve just got the 49 again. And honestly we play there about 15 times . I never got a single penny out of Sean. I’d love to meet him one day, i want to talk to him Tesse, thank you for reminding me of it they were some really, really, really brilliant times really. 

Tesse: 00:25:48 Paula Paula, over to you, I can see Steve becoming this dancing singer, you know, kind of, I can see you doing amazing things still. There’s still a long way to go, but I pass over to you Paula. 

Paula: 00:26:02 So as we chuckling here over your memories, Something you said just now was that, you know, you kind of came late to the game, but what I hear as I’m listening to you is that even though you may have come late to the game, you came with experience that can never be matched. You came with knowledge that people can draw on. As you walk down some streets in North London, and you remember how you played gigs, all those things are relevant today. I mean, we are on a podcast, some of the things that you did while playing music can be brought into a podcast, so many things, I mean, no one knowledge is ever wasted. That’s really what I wanted to say. As we are wrapping up. Oh wow, quick, 25 minutes into this already. I wanted to say, what else can you share with our listeners? You’ve taken us down memory lane, you’ve brought us back to something you said about when you worked in a creative agency, you had to have an empty mind, but now as a Christian, you fill your mind up with the words of God, you know, and that’s what gives us life and hope. What else can you tell us? 

Steve: 00:27:06 And what I’d say is if you’re doing something, if you’re wanting to find out about the faith. There’s lots of good news stuff written, but CS Lewis used to say, read three old books and one new one. And I think there’s a lot of truth in that because I I’ve spent the last couple of weeks reading CS Lewis, GK Tresteton  and you know, it is astounding what they wrote it isn’t just good, it is wise, it’s funny, oh, my word. And so I suppose, I mean, I think that probably applies to any area, there is an interesting point here. I write for, an organization called the center for ethics markets and entrepreneurship it’s a think tank based on Oxford. And one of the things I’ve been doing is looking at management theorists from the ages, rereading their books, and just had a really funny thing is when you read that stuff, it doesn’t last. It’s incredibly dated. I have not found one ages management group that has got anything in it to say to me. Now that’s a really interesting thing isn’t it. There’s something about where wisdom really comes from at the time, you know, Charles Handy, you might remember him or John Harvey Jones, Tom Peters, all those kinds of people. We quoted them as though they were God himself, but you read them again and these small minded people trying to kind of scramble around in the dark. And that has been a most interesting kind of thing for me I mean, some of them, I can’t even read you I can’t bring myself to read more than a chapter that just whizzed over the, over the room and into the, into the bin, you know? So I suppose that’s just something I’d say. I mean, I think that’s, there’s a lot of wisdom to be had out there, we are overwhelmed with it . I’m becoming more and more enamored with going back to the old stuff

Tesse: 00:28:46 That’s beautiful because what I’ve been hearing you say is importance of wisdom and lived experience the suffering and the hardships,give  wisdom as well. But also I’m getting a sense from you about the place of love and care in spite of race, in spite of age, whatever we bring with us as our unique points to value those things and that never ages and, and that makes a lot of difference. And the thing I’m also hearing is your take on reconciliation and healing and bringing communities together, bring in broken families together, building communities, building back, better, building back strong in spite of the hardships. Are there any thoughts you have that you can say to people listening in about pandemic post pandemic to give them a sense of hope? Given these hard times that globally, we are all facing. 

Steve: 00:29:46 Yeah. I mean, I think the one thing is we’re never going to take life for granted again, I just, I cannot imagine ever, I mean, I used to take life so blindly and I thought we go out for a meal and I thought I’m bored here bored. I’d do anything to go out for a nice breakfast somewhere. You know, I was usually, it was obscene in the way I took these things for granted, really. So I think that that’s something I’m definitely going to be just the simple pleasures in life and being with the people that I love, you know, these kinds of things. I don’t think this generation will ever lose that I’m really, really don’t. It’s a bit like the war generation ended up not being warmongers, you know? One of the things about parliament was that while we had people who’d gone through the second world war, it was very unlikely we’d ever have another war because they’d fortunate, today’s politicians have never, fortunately. Can I I’ve never done it. They’re more likely to war mongers because I don’t know what it’s like. And I think that this January we’ve gone through this and I think we’ll carry it right through the rest of our, rather than the rest of our lives. I just hope we have a society that values the people who do the things that people survive and keep us going. But there’s nothing wrong with money when we’re making money, nothing wrong with making lots of money. Because you need to make money to pay tax, and when you pay tax, you can have National Health Service. There’s not that there’s nothing wrong about entrepreneurship or money or anything, but if we’re not going to pay people, lots of money, they’re doing a kind of altruistic job. Like the National Health Service we need to look after them and we need to honor them, and I think that’s very important. 

Paula: 00:31:19 Well said, Steve, what better closing was, do we need then that you need to take care of those who take care of you, I love it. So we going to wrap-up now to our precious listeners and our precious audience, we want you to know on TesseLeads, your stories matter and your lives matter. We encourage you to share them with us and know that you are supported, you are encouraged a new and nurtured, when you know that you’re never alone. So for our listeners, we ask that you head over to Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, or anywhere where you listen to podcasts and please click subscribe. If you have found TesseLeads helpful, please let us know in your review. If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to cover, send us a note. And of course, if you’d like to be a guest on our show, “TesseLeads”, please head over to “www.tesseakpeki.com/tesseleads” to apply. Thank you all this has been amazing, I really, really enjoyed being hosts on “TesseLeads”, and I’ve really enjoyed talking with you, Steve, take care.

Steve: 00:32:38 You’re very welcome, I’m really, really grateful and I just think this is the most brilliant kind of innovational thing you are doing and God’s speed to you dear friends. I really hope it does, I know it’s going to make some real difference. So thank you. 

Tesse: 00:32:51 Steve you’re amazing.