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Perfect Pub Walks with Bill Bailey Season 2 Episode 4
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FunTranscript
00:00that's good I do like a cheese with stuff in it yeah and mustard goes well in cheese doesn't it
00:12yeah I like that I think that's good for many years my only exposure to cheese was just cheddar
00:20well we were just cheddar it was kind of all we had
00:26in the 80s cheddar or Derry Lee yeah I remember being in school one day and I was quite a
00:35disobedient kid in school and the dinner was cheese pie one of these pies that he's spewing
00:41out like a cheesy mashed potato pie thing I remember that and I wouldn't eat it I said I
00:45can't eat cheese it makes me sick and my headmaster made me sit on the table with him
00:48and eat the pie and I threw up all over the table well it's like he serves him right
00:53goodness can you imagine
01:06cheers cheers men have a certain vintage
01:13oh they're not very good at talking
01:18well talking about the big important stuff at any rate it's got furniture and look at this sofa
01:33that's magnificent comedian and lover of the great outdoors Alexander Armstrong has a plan
01:40I love walking and I grew up deep in rural Northumberland so countryside's very much in my
01:45blood what do you do to relax struggle so I've designed these walks so that my guests can get
01:52away from all the hustle and bustle of their normal lives it's a chance to open up and talk about
01:57things that perhaps you wouldn't talk about normally now I've got a bit older I am reverting to
02:02childhood whether I like it or not everyone else seemed okay and I seemed to be the only one that was
02:08broken and I hated myself he's taking some of our best-loved national treasures
02:13okay you ready yes sir has anyone done the risk assessment for this on some spectacular
02:19pub walks that's glorious they just had a funicular railway to get you up here
02:24can fresh air hang on that's bird poo isn't it yeah that's bird poo the odd pint
02:30and the sun's out the sun's out nice right and some good old-fashioned messing about
02:37oh look at that get men to share what's really going on in their lives this is bliss in its purest form
02:47my life is blessed if the Lord decides to pluck me now I can't really have any complaints
02:53last orders at the bar now please
02:56today Xander is taking comedian Chris McCausland
03:02Chris how are you doing Alexander how are you very very good to see you yeah
03:08walking through the Wye Valley and glorious Welsh borders
03:12he's just an extremely funny talented comedian always one of those people you'd love to see on a panel show
03:19but particularly he was the first blind person ever to enter Strictly Come Dancing and he won it
03:26now how do you want to do this do you want to do you want to yeah yeah yeah go on let's uh
03:29we're going to wander this way and we're heading literally towards Wales we're going to step over a
03:33little bridge and suddenly we will be in Wales what I'm really looking forward to with Chris is
03:38just getting to know how he perceives the world in every sense and just to get to know the the man
03:43behind the celebrity and what have you been up to well you know a little bit of stand-up comedy a
03:49little bit of dancing
03:50a little bit of everything is about to change but I say bring it closer to me
04:13it's actually a nice breeze isn't it oh isn't it now of course on the left hand side as you can
04:23hear there's the river the mighty why it's not that mighty it's just it's just it's just the why
04:29do you know where we are well I'm just learning that we're in England and I thought I was in Wales
04:34I don't think anybody's ever started a like an outdoorsy travel show before not having a clue what
04:40country they're in now um we've arrived at the bridge if you walk this way and put your right
04:48hand out so you'll find that there we go this bit's the solid bit oh it's a bit steep it isn't
04:53much steep it's a it's a punishing incline is what it is now it narrows here Chris would you like a
05:00stanner that's what that means are available that's I'm not sure they are though they are
05:06they need to work on their marketing oh wow what we're doing right right so yes now we are on you
05:11can tell just bring me up here and leave me that's just appalling so are we above the water now we're
05:17above just above the shallows on the English side see you England oh so yeah we have done haven't we
05:22yeah we're in sort of no man's land here and there we are we're one step away from the flat oh and
05:29by the way yes welcome to Wales oh thank you very much so to you here thank you different climate
05:34here oh just our watches there we are brilliant ah I think this way it is a bit cooler isn't it
05:43where are you going am I nervous going on these walks um no I mean maybe Alexander will be nervous
06:03not knowing how to oh he should oh he should um guide and lead me maybe he's worried he's going
06:07to walk me off a cliff be diving over furniture it'll be easy peasy as long as he remembers that
06:13there's an extra person stood next to him when he goes through doorways Chris I've never had the
06:20privilege of of talking at any length with with somebody who's blind so I have all kinds of
06:26questions which for me are obviously burning questions for you are the stuff you have to
06:30just a regular cheese beer yeah exactly yeah Zander and Chris are starting their adventure by the
06:39river Y in Monmouthshire they'll climb a hill to explore a shrine to naval heroes like Lord Nelson
06:48and stop for a breather at a spot beloved by wealthy Georgian gentlemen destination is the boat in on the
06:56banks of the river yeah I'm looking forward to getting out there with Alexander and exploring the
07:07area I do like a bit of local history as well and I know nothing about the area I've purposely kept it
07:13all as a surprise so I'm looking forward to learning some fun stuff with them I think this bit of Monmouthshire
07:21is perfect for Chris because it's just an epic landscape everywhere you turn there's some
07:27glorious topographical feature or a castle so it's stiff with stories of knights and derring do so it's
07:34just a land that's full and brimming with stories I grew up in Liverpool in West Derby in Liverpool
07:44and um my mum my dad they're still there my sister's seven years younger than me it took them seven
07:51years before they could face the thought of having another kid again I was I think I was a handful
07:57how did your blindness come about because you you weren't born blind were you so mine's genetic
08:01and I saw it was inherited so I've had it since birth yeah but I was born with normal sight so it's
08:07deteriorated from birth and it probably about 25 years it took before it had gone to the murky muddy
08:14soup yeah um was no longer any use to me in any regard really my mum tells me that you know her
08:19granddad who also had it was blind and um her grandmother died in childbirth with her 10th baby
08:26and um he raised nine children on his own from the age of two to 17 they were and he raised them all
08:33completely blind and I think that puts anything I've ever achieved into stark perspective doesn't
08:38it wow well I mean it yeah it's difficult to say what I remember visually because the memory's weird
08:45isn't it because I don't think I remember what people look like you know I think when I imagine
08:51people in my head that I know I've seen I'm not really remembering what they look like
08:57it's all being rebuilt in here I was going to stop you there and tell you because I well just up here
09:04on our left are these beautiful this great cliff because where we're going I mean this whole area
09:09is sort of rich in mystery obviously history but also mythology yeah a lot of legends around here
09:15I always love a legend if anyone starts a sentence with according to local legend I think oh here we go
09:21yeah yeah but uh king arthur this arthur's cave it's just along here
09:30king arthur's cave stands at the foot of a limestone cliff in the wye valley
09:35no one quite knows why it was named after the mythical english king
09:41but excavations are said to have unearthed the remains of a lion woolly mammoth and even a giant human
09:48there used to be a theme park of camelot didn't there where was that i don't know i don't know
09:55there's a musical do you know what my my whole knowledge on this extends no further than um
10:00disney's sword and stone there you are pretty much the same for me but did you play knights was
10:06that something you did when you were little we used to do jousting in the streets with what you'd
10:10each be on a bike yeah but you'd have do you know the prop that you used to keep the washing line
10:15up with oh yeah yeah that's the prop say yeah yeah so we'd have the prop and you'd each have one
10:20you'd be on the bike and you'd have to ride towards each other with one hand
10:26oh where was health and safety
10:32so growing up then does that mean you didn't go to conventional schools i went to a regular school
10:37till i was nine years old yeah and by that point i was struggling to see the blackboard and so it
10:43was decided that i should go to a school that was for children with sight problems yeah i went to
10:47school in liverpool i went to school in worcester for a couple of years it was a boarding school
10:52and it was good i enjoyed it to be honest i think it taught me a lot about emotional resilience
10:58you do build up a lot of resilience and that's it's a good thing it can be a detrimental thing as
11:04well because it means that you become an island in a way you know you learn to deal with things on
11:11your own and keep everything inside it probably gets in the way of me relating to people and allow
11:17myself to feel things as much as what might be the the healthier way of living you know
11:25come on chris you are not going to believe where we're going next
11:34i think a lot of comedians at least are a wannabe rock stars with no real musical talent yeah yeah
11:50i like to hang a guitar around my neck and i'll i'll play in the bedroom and imagine i'm playing to
11:5550 000 people and how many rock stars do you think go in their bedroom and close their eyes and pretend
12:01they're telling jokes on stage it's not
12:10zander and chris are on their first day in the y valley they're headed for the kaimin a steep hill
12:17which boasts a striking georgian roundhouse and a naval temple celebrating britain's historic dominance of
12:25the high seas and actually nelson came here in 1802 to to visit sort of to consecrate the temple and he
12:35came and paid a visit he'd sailed down the y you're right there yeah yeah yeah i think these steps were
12:41built in 1802. that's how the builders got up all the materials up he came with lady hamilton and sir
12:51william hamilton uh of course he'd been heavily involved in carnal relations with um which one with
12:58with uh lady hamilton oh okay for some years so uh you've got to feel sorry for sir william
13:04it's very beautiful what is the actual thing itself well it's a kind of little palladian folly
13:10and nelson was um i mean if he's getting his um if he's getting his his share of the ladies he's
13:15obviously a considered a bit of a rock star back then but i think he must have been he was very
13:20petite yeah very slight man i've seen his coat and it's it's very narrow shouldered you need one arm
13:29very svelte i see now i'll do that to you you know now this there's a lovely history to this building
13:37what is it well it came about because there was a group of gentlemen who used to meet up every single
13:43week was it for jousting was it for fighting was it for rowdiness no it's a poker no it was for
13:50picnics and in order to be able to picnic in all weathers they built this extraordinary roundhouse
13:55here i think if you have to build a house for it it stops being a picnic just becomes dinner
14:04xander's done a great job he's um his vocabulary is um is stunning and um you know you can imagine
14:12him um being a narrator on an audio book or something the way he brings things to life
14:18with the swooshing of the sword and the clashing of the of the shields it's um it's it's good i'm
14:26along for the ride you know i mean that's why he's on the radio any because you could listen to him all
14:30day or until 1pm anyway there you go nice oh so when you were young you knew that blindness was was
14:47coming did that feel tragic no i went to school with kids you know who would i had far more traumatic
14:58experiences than i had when they were younger it was kids that died because blindness was a symptom
15:05of other things some of these guys have got it far worse than i have yeah i always felt very lucky
15:10you know yeah and um and that's extraordinary i wonder well i wonder if a certain amount of your
15:17resilience has come because you'd seen that yeah i think well when you experience loss
15:24loss it toughens you up in a way and if you experience loss drip fed to you over 25 30 years
15:33it builds a different type of resilience in you than if you experience a hell of a lot of loss in an
15:38instant yes but um but if you're drip fed loss over 30 years you end up becoming quite resistant to um
15:49quite resistant to sadness i suppose in a way you know it's something that you toughen up towards
15:56i think that's an extraordinary uh perspective that you have on it
15:59the first thing you learn very quickly about chris is that he's never going to feel sorry for himself
16:09that's just not in his makeup chris is all about just taking things in his stride and
16:14getting on with it once you've gone blind life starts improving but what you start improving you
16:21start getting better at being blind and you later on look back at it as a as almost a turning point
16:26when you lose your sight over 25 years it's not a sad thing and it's not a tragic thing
16:31it's just something that causes frustrations along the way you really kind of become adept at managing
16:37that frustration keeping a lid on it bottling it up and then you end up like this empty husk of a human
16:42that you see in front of you you know
16:45this is an epic landscape are you so what have we got to the sides of it let me tell you
17:11a head beautiful great there's a great hill there covered in in deciduous trees there are a few
17:18sheep wandering around slightly scraggy looking sheep um if i'm honest i don't think they can hear me
17:26uh but you can hear i think you can hear you but it's beautiful this isn't actually offers dike but
17:32we're on offers dike walk offer was an anglo-saxon warrior king from the eighth century
17:39he ordered thousands of his men to dig an enormous ditch or dike stretching 80 miles along the english
17:45welsh border to mark the edge of his kingdom and what is a dike talk me through it a dike is where
17:51it can be all kinds of different things uh and a dike in the netherlands obviously is what keeps the
17:56the sealer out it keeps water out in holland it keeps the welsh out in uh on office dike
18:08can you hear that what's that there's the gathering roo-ha-ha of a distant pub
18:22can you picture what we're doing now oh walking towards the pubs and yes
18:27the boat in on the banks of the y was built in 1650 using local stone the boat in is uh is just down
18:38to our right wow we're at the end of our first walk and walking with chris has been it's been lovely
18:47i mean he's he's immensely good company chris yes thank you very much there is your pint oh and that
18:56is cold oh that is cold
19:00this area is steeped in myth and legends but more importantly than that it's steeped in steep hills
19:07my calves have had a workout like um like they haven't since uh since strictly
19:12it's been fun mate and it's been lovely to get out in a bit of countryside and um be spoiled with
19:20the um the knowledge and the wisdom um well listen here's to a cracking days walk and a clink yes and
19:26uh tomorrow absolutely more of the same looking forward to it more sun cream though yeah more sun
19:31cream i think tomorrow thanks so much brilliant i mean i knew i would get on with zander you know he's
19:38a nice fella you can tell that it's whether you've got chemistry between each other and um
19:43i think we're finding that we've we've definitely got some chemistry i mean i'm enjoying myself
19:59uh do you know i've never been able to do all my life i've never been able to burp
20:04i mean that's contentedly unable to burp wow i know what happens to it well what happens is i get
20:14funny little noises but i can't just let it out in one sort of yeah yeah oh my god it's terrible
20:25at the start of their second day in the y valley zander has organized a relaxing diversion for chris
20:31well chris to our right here is a is a lake there's a little river a little tributary of the y
20:37that runs through it the valley is a mecca for anglers offering some of the best fishing in the
20:44country brin how do you do i'm zander very nice to meet you this is chris nice to meet you how you
20:51doing now i've got brin to set us up and i thought we'd just see what the uh what the course fishing
20:56world's like okay so i've got to ask you've got a box there that looks um maggots maggots do you know
21:02that reminds me of it's like the animation of um rhubarb and custard you know how it used to buzz
21:07around in a wiggly line yes i can't bear the thought of it it's because i do know this is the
21:13thing when you can't see it it's worse in your head than what it probably is in real life how many
21:18have you got in your hands oh i've put them back now i've now got i've probably got about 30 in my
21:2330. yeah i've got 30. oh i'll do two oh come on here put your hand out put your hand out and i'll put
21:28two on there what what what color would you like ah go on then i've got so you haven't i have i've got
21:36three okay come on oh there you go oh okay oh they're moving can you take them off me please
21:49there's the rod yeah okay i'm gonna move you over here i'll grab hold of you grab hold of me
21:53everyone out of the way yep has anyone done the risk assessment for this just out of curiosity
22:01three two one perfect you serious absolutely perfect now i got you there you go to love
22:12i nearly went in with it absolutely perfect yeah and you're fishing now all right
22:16that means it goes like that's gone oh that's it it's little touches because they've decided that's
22:20it go go on straight which way lift it up straight up straight up oh he's got it right there he is
22:26that's perfect now we're going to stop just that let's bring it up just lift up the rubber tiny bit
22:30that's it that is a roach that is a roach yeah beautifully done first cast so there you go
22:34mate i mean just natural aren't i i can't remember a time i've been fishing so yeah first time to all
22:41intents and purposes it was good on it i can't believe the casting was that easy i thought it would
22:46have been more complicated than that you can see why people like it so much um and so yeah this is
22:53fishing i mean it strikes me that like a lot of activities it's really just an excuse to to sit
23:01and do nothing yeah it's hot though isn't it it's blooming hot oh you can see how the world has moved
23:10on in terms of even fishing which is meant to be at one with nature even the chairs have now got a
23:16little slot for your iphone oh god you're right that's a little iphone slot after ditching the rods
23:27zander and chris will take a walk through an enchanted wood they'll stop by the devil's pulpit
23:34a limestone outcrop rich in legend before dropping down the y valley to explore the ruins of the 12th
23:42century tintern abbey today's pub is the anchor in now there are a few overhanging bits here just of
23:54leaf there we are in his 20s chris studied computer science at kingston university after
24:03kingston i i come out with a degree and really struggle to find work because that's when my
24:12eyesight's deteriorated to the point where i can't see the screen anymore on the computer and so it was
24:17a bit of a slug to be honest and i was unemployed for quite a while so how do you know i just started
24:22applying for mad things and one of them things was to be a spy for my five because believe it or not
24:27they do have an application process i got down to the last 30 out of 3 000 applicants when we were
24:34doing that which is the top one percent of potential spies that this country has to offer
24:40yeah nuts in it okay i was unemployed for about two years and i'm assuming by the end of those two
24:46years you i mean you must have been just tearing your hair out i was going off the rails a little bit in
24:51terms of you know spending too much time in the pub drinking a bit too much getting into some states
24:57but it wasn't i i suppose to some extent you could probably say i was masking a certain amount of
25:04depression with alcohol um anaesthetizing myself to the you know the situation there was one story
25:10where i i got a taxi home and i don't even remember how i got in the taxi and i arrived back at mine to
25:17realize i didn't even have a wallet and um i i ran in the house to try and find some money and i fell
25:24asleep in a looking for money box i woke up lying on the floor several hours later and i ran downstairs
25:32and the door was wide open and he'd gone and it was several weeks later maybe even months i was at
25:39home and my two housemates came running in in fits of giggles because they'd got in the taxi at the
25:44station and they told him where he wanted to go and he'd shouted 61. they told me he was outside
25:51waiting to be paid i owed him about seven quid but i gave him my last 20 pound note for all the waiting
25:56time so you know going to the pub every day you know i'm i'd meet new people drinking in the pub and
26:06you build a new social group going there every day and drinking but i always found that the first three
26:11things that a person would want to know about you is what's your name where you're from and what you
26:16do and i had an answer for the first two you know chris liverpool and i didn't have an answer for the
26:20third one i think it always made me feel like quite incomplete there was a lot of shame attached to that
26:26so i could sense that i was on a trajectory that was not good and so i actually took a job in a call
26:35center for a basic wage that was less than what i was able to get from disability benefit taking that
26:42job in that call center is the best decision i've ever made because it had the biggest impact on me
26:49yeah and how i felt about myself and my confidence than anything else i've done
26:53should we go and have a look at tintinnabby yeah come on let's do it
27:12so what we got here we're coming to a view which means i'm going to have to reach for my
27:17my verbal palette once more you're going to have to paint the picture again because in front of us
27:21now we get this beautiful clear view right down to tintinnabby this ancient cistercian monastery
27:28that ruins there it looks absolutely beautiful but to its right is the mighty y looking sort of
27:33chocolatey brown maybe because of rainfall possibly just because of sewage leaks who knows
27:38but then immediately in front of us here are these two outcrops of limestone those are the devil's
27:50pulpit and local legend has it that this is where the devil would stand to preach
27:57to the monks of tintinnabby and he would sort of lure them out up into the woods if you were a monk
28:05down here you know in the in the abbey and the devil was there what would he need to do to coax you
28:09out what would persuade you to join the devil's side i think you could get me with a tube of pringles
28:19should we head on yeah yeah
28:24so the big question is then chris how did the comedy thing emerge to do comedy was just a dare it
28:30was a one-time deal really for me to just say i'd done it like a bucket list thing but i
28:34was shitting myself so i turned up and a lovely guy called eddie was running the gig yeah he said
28:41to me how do you get up to the microphone i said i don't know i've never done this before
28:46he went oh so um when he announced me he said keep the applause going all the way to the microphone
28:53and um i'm gonna go and get him you'll see why and he went he went and got me and brought me over
28:59what was the material so i i do you know what i'm so i had i i had some material about you know in
29:05films when they when they when they have a bomb and they're diffusing the bomb and they spend ages
29:10should we is it the red or is it the blue is it the red or is it the blue you know the wires yeah
29:14yeah i said why don't the bad guys just make the wires the same color why and enough people left
29:21the people left at the the jokes and when people say you've caught the comedy book that's what it
29:26that's what it is it is addictive you know doing comedy you are chasing those highs on stage risk
29:33taking the impulsivity the inability to conform to a nine to five the compulsion to say the wrong thing
29:39at the wrong time because you think it's funny all of these things you know they lead you to either
29:44trying comedy being a good comedian or ended up in prison and i've got hope in my hands please keep me
30:00tintern abbey was founded by cistercian monks in 1131. the silent order kept an austere regime
30:08with eight services daily beginning at 2am and punctuated by hard work and study
30:16now i mean people talk about ruins and sometimes ruins are literally just ruins and they're just
30:22old bits of knackered war yeah this if landmark trust got hold of this i reckon in about a year
30:28they could have this up and running again as a cathedral i mean all that's missing is the glass
30:32in the windows and oh oh and the roof yeah but i mean let's be honest they wouldn't have had glass back
30:36when it was operational would it well i think it would what in 1200s well it must have done
30:41when did they have glass i don't know they'd have had glass stained glass this was called the warming
30:48house and this was where the monks if they'd been out on a mission spreading the word they would then
30:54come back here and they would be a lovely fire in here and they'd be they'd come in and they'd be
30:59they'd take their trousers off i'll come to that in a moment there's a reason i'd say that
31:03and they would have a nice warm drink and they'd go oh how is it how is it and they'll go oh it's
31:09great does some good missioning but the thing about these monks is they were cistercians and cistercians
31:14lived an incredibly a life of sort of abject spartan austerity and they didn't wear trousers
31:22they only wore trousers no they wouldn't wear trousers because that was a luxury they would
31:26just wear their capes and if they went out on a mission they'd wear trousers then have i got what it
31:32takes to be a monk absolutely not i um i can't do abstinence in any regard you know i um i like
31:39trousers too much it's very impressive and if you look down we're sort of looking east now towards
31:48what would have been the altar and behind that what would have been this almost enormous stained glass
31:53window there you go with your windows again i'm not buying it i'm not buying i am and it has it has
31:59an acoustic yeah you can hear the space yeah you can hear the monks singing maybe how did the monks
32:05sing give me a bit of a what would they say do you know what i love about the way monks sing is they
32:09would sing antiphonally so they would have one lot of monks on one side one lot of monks on the other
32:13side and one lot would sing a bit of plain chant that would go but they would pause in the middle for as
32:20long as they dared and then when they got to the end the other side would come in they'd pile in on
32:25the back of it as soon as they could so they'd be da da da da da da da da da da da da ba da da da
32:34yeah okay it's a lovely thing to listen to it's almost like duelling guitars it's like dueling monks
32:38hundreds of years before there was guitars
33:03the anchor inn dates back to the 12th century and used to be a cider mill for the abbey
33:08next door well that i think has been a fantastic day we've covered a hell of a lot of country cheers
33:15i was going for the swig there you've got to cheers me first
33:21so go on then google it when were windows invented right okay uh when was glass invented when when do
33:29you reckon i mean it's certainly not 1100 and something about 4 000 years ago oh b a
33:39glass has always been found in nature but the first glass created by humans can be dated to about 4 000
33:45years ago when craftsmen working in mesopotamia what website is this between the tigris and the euphrates
33:51what website is this do you know what i bet you i can find a website that says it was invented in 1962
33:56good day mate yeah good day cheers lovely it's incredible to think that glass was invented before christian
34:07i didn't really i know
34:24so how's it been having somebody hang onto your arm like this
34:27do you know what i've come to really like it well because i'm not gonna lie at times i've been hanging
34:31back and letting you do most of the work and pull me up the hill i've become i've sort of genuinely
34:36become i've become quite attached to you it's quite sort of well i'm literally attached to you
34:43it's the last day of xander and chris's adventure in the welsh borders
34:48they're headed for one of wales's most impressive castles built in part by an english king
34:55they'll visit a sacred hill whose unique shape has inspired myths
35:00before their final destination the skirred inn which is said to be wales's oldest pup
35:09oh how are you feeling chris um my calves are a little bit tender same as mine are you bearing
35:17up though you're okay because we've got a bit of a steep climb here yeah all good all good
35:21chris's life changed in 2018 when a television appearance on a stand-up show catapulted him into
35:35the mainstream you get nowhere without opportunity yeah and you can create your own opportunity um
35:42within certain fields yeah but on the telly you need to be given opportunity and so i suppose the
35:47first opportunity was really live at the apollo it couldn't have gone better live at the apollo
35:53and then have i got news for you eight out of ten castles countdown and i was so lucky
35:59that i did these shows and i got my foot in the door of television and i think by that point then
36:05i'd um i'd kind of proven that i was comfortable in those environments
36:10live at the apollo was a big deal you know because it's it was the biggest and the only stand-up show
36:18on television at that time it was such a kind of seal of approval to get an opportunity on it but it's
36:25your own fear of um of blowing the opportunity that's the biggest obstacle to you doing well
36:33so you put a lot of pressure on yourself for it to go as well as it did oh it was um it was such a
36:40such a relief we've come to a place called white castle and how old's this then i'm gonna guess
36:48uh 12th century it's actually 13th century okay 13th century edward ii was a great builder of castles
36:55and this was one of the first castles that he then developed in what you might call a sort of
37:00signature style because he was going to go on and build tons more castles how many castles oh many
37:06many but including carnarvon castle that's another one that he developed edward ii is considered one
37:13of the great castle builders in medieval history the white castle features innovative concentric rings
37:20of stone and was used by the king to assert control over the welsh i love castles though i love
37:26the fact that we have history that's old enough to just have castles i i like it when a when a castle's
37:32left in its ruined state yeah i don't like it when they're rebuilt up to rep represent how it would
37:38have been back then i like it when it's a health and safety nightmare that's exactly right i mean there's
37:46trip hazards everything yeah yeah yeah so how long have you and your wife been together um together
37:5520 years married for 13. and would you think having a family has changed your perspective pretty much on
38:06everything i'm becoming a dad does doesn't it when you have a kid you realize you've actually got to be
38:09a good role model and you realize that you're actually not as important as you thought you were
38:14did you at any stage ever think about whether or not you'd even have children
38:20yeah i mean it was it was a concern it's a 50 50 thing whether you pass it on or not yeah but it's not
38:26one of those things that you can detect but that must have been i mean a very nerve-wracking time for
38:31you and your wife wasn't it yeah we we had my daughter and we we didn't know really whether she had
38:37had inherited it or not it was a case of waiting until she was old enough to test her eyesight the
38:43old-fashioned way and um we're past that point now where we think it's even a remote chance that
38:49she's got it so it was such a relief and how is she now she's 11 she's 11 so by now there would be
38:56something oh yeah yeah me daughter's 11 and she's great and she's i mean i work in comedy and she's the
39:01funniest person i know she makes me laugh more than anybody else um and i think i've created a
39:07monster there's a lot of games i couldn't play with her board games and things because you need
39:12to be able to see so i'd just do daft things with her and we'd just be daft and silly together
39:17and now she's growing up as this incredibly daft silly 11 year old i feel 50 proud and 50
39:26slightly responsible
39:45i mean this one is made for lying on oh look at that
39:50oh this is less comfortable than i thought it was going to be zander if you could see all the wood
39:58lights i could see you before their final pub in wales the lads are exploring the forest trail around
40:07the skyrid also known as holy mountain its distinctive u-shaped summit has spawned several fables
40:16there's one local legend that says that actually at the very moment of christ's crucifixion
40:21at that self-same moment here there's a lightning strike and an earthquake and that causes a landslide
40:28and that is what yeah what split the mountain and when you say split is it two hills or does it look
40:34like one hill that's been kind of pulled apart it looks like uh buttocks well to take a reference from
40:41an old billy connolly bit i'm surprised they didn't call it the devil's bycrest that's exactly what
40:46they should have said all right come on let's go let me go walking with chris has been just a
40:54joy from start to finish i mean he's just a an extremely funny talented human being the way his mind
41:02frames things i mean really one meets a few people in life that just really impress you
41:07it's a real treat to be spending some time with him in 2024 chris entered and won strictly come
41:15dancing that first episode was the most terrifying thing i've ever done in my life yeah yeah the
41:21contract i made with myself going into this was i it was to put absolutely everything into it and take
41:28the dancing 100 seriously yeah and i'm very aware that i am the only exposure that a lot of people have
41:36to someone who's blind or disabled you know i went into it wanting to represent well but i had no idea
41:42of the reach and the the power of it and the responsibility the thing that freaked me out
41:49really was the pressure of getting it wrong you know if anybody else i think does a bad dance or is
41:54a bit goofy or uncoordinated it only looks bad on them whereas i think if i do that it looks bad on an
42:01entire community of people it's not chris can't move to the beat around the dance floor in the right
42:05direction it's blind people can't do that there was that pressure i i didn't expect strictly to be
42:13emotional and i didn't expect dancing to be emotional i didn't expect that it would make people cry
42:19and i didn't expect that it would make me cry it's it's i mean it's the most remarkable thing i've ever
42:25been a part of to be honest oh i tell you what i see over here the place we could have a little sit
42:40give our calves a rest
42:45now it occurs to me chris we've gone through these incredible landscapes of legends and and heroes and
42:54kings and knights and it occurs to me that actually the biggest hero in the landscape all the time
43:02was right next to me oh behave get out come on no it's get out it's true your approach to everything
43:08is just so extraordinarily life-affirming i'm i'm very lucky that i've had so many opportunities
43:16i ended up on a path with comedy that has opened doors yeah not everybody gets that opportunity and work
43:22and and people with disabilities do that every day you know they have to put themselves outside
43:27their comfort zone it's the general population that need exposure and education and if i can
43:35represent myself possibly positively and capably and make people forget that i'm blind and make them
43:41see me be as capable as anybody as anybody else then when they are hiring at their company and somebody
43:48with a disability comes in maybe they look at them in a different light i don't know i i feel
43:54really i feel really emotional actually just saying i think you're a you're a phenomenal person
43:58well thank you very much but as soon as this camera stops i'll be moaning
44:01i think one of the things that we need to get away from is the idea that disability is sad or tragic
44:30it's not helpful to anybody with a disability and it's not helpful really to the perception of
44:36disability in the general population you know we all have tragedy and trauma in life that we have to
44:42overcome it's the spirit and and the determination and the creativity that people use to succeed to
44:51achieve fulfillment you know that's the that's the thing that should be celebrated
45:00it's the last pub yeah it's called the skirrid in
45:05and there's a picture on the on the pub sign of the the cleft in the skirrid yeah beautiful
45:13ah there we are now that's a that's a pint manly pint in a sort of glass with a big stem
45:20ah lovely ah cheers cheers mate we've been on these three beautiful walks and i have learnt so much
45:30more about chris he's a real one-off and he's helped me understand the journey of his life
45:37and this place the skirrid in was wales's oldest pub there's been a pub on this site since the norman
45:44conquest he's an extraordinary person and he's achieved something remarkable even more than
45:52he perhaps knows here's to myths and legends and as to walking and talking since i've done strictly
46:00i i do have a responsibility to try and represent positively but i think i'm more aware of it than
46:07i used to be but also i feel like a huge weight's been lifted i feel like i've achieved something that
46:14is it is a good end to any story you know forget it by a bus tomorrow it's a good story isn't it
46:23yeah um thank you very much you've been amazing company
46:30hey love we're gonna be fine one day
46:37hey love we're gonna be fine one day
46:44i see the light in your eyes like the stars
46:53a water of a choice
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