Charlie Mackesy – ‘Grief propelled me into work that saved me’
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I had a brilliant therapist once, who was actually an ex-Franciscan monk. And he said, when people tell you their weight, their sadness, anything, their failings, whatever it is they tell you, treat it like someone's giving you gold. And my best friend at the time said, Salews, I suppose. In my heart was Jamie, who was killed in his car, I think six months later. And he just looked at me and he had tears pouring down his face. And I looked at him and then I had tears pouring down my face. And I held his hand and then gave him a hug. And we never spoke.
This episode of How to Fail is brought to you by Dove Whole Body Deodorant. Welcome to How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. This is the podcast that believes failure is simply what makes us human. Before we get into this episode, please do remember to like, follow and subscribe so that you never miss a single conversation. There are those weeks when everything lands at once and it feels overwhelming. The leak in the shower you didn't see coming, the table you've been meaning to put together, the garden that suddenly turned into a mini jungle. But don't panic because you're not on your own thanks to TaskRabbit, the app that makes everyday life easier by helping people get more done around the home.
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We finally got her. Oh my God, he got her. For years, a deranged man in Wichita known as The Poet stalked Ruth Finley. He sent her letters, gifts, and poems. The Wichita police put everything they had into Ruth's case, but got nowhere. The Poet was always two steps in front of us, and we just didn't know why. And the city was already living in fear under the watch of another monster who called himself BTK. And he also had a thing for poetry. Could we really have two different people? But no one could have guessed how this would end. That's one of those Hitchcock endings that we did not expect. From Sony Music Entertainment and New Metric Media, this is The Poet. I'm Rachel Brown. The Poet is available now on The Binge.
Search for it wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. Subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes all at once, ad-free.
If you haven't met my guest today in person, the chances are you are familiar with his work on the page. Perhaps you saw one of his illustrations during the pandemic on phone screensavers and hospital walls and Instagram grids. Perhaps you remember his familiar handwriting shaping the question, what's the bravest thing you've ever said? And the answer, help. Or perhaps you've read his books with their tales of a curious boy, a cake-obsessed mole, an anxious fox, and a sage old horse, and you've been forever changed by their accessible wisdom. Their author is Charlie Mackesy, whose outdoorsy childhood in Hexham, Northumberland, later informed his love of nature and wildlife. He briefly attended university twice, but left on both occasions within a week.
He started out as an illustrator and a cartoonist for The Spectator and Oxford University Press. But in 2019, shortly before turning 60, Mackesy's life changed overnight when a book he had written and illustrated, The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse, spent 152 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller list.
When did Charlie first feel 'at fault' and how did boarding school shape him?
It was translated into over 40 languages, sold more than 10 million copies, and was turned into an Oscar-winning animated film in 2022.
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