Ep.13: Carole Stone CBE | Author and Freelance Radio & TV Broadcaster | From This I've Learned
This week, host Mungi Ngomane is joined by Carole Stone CBE. Carole is a British Author and Freelance Radio and Television Broadcaster, who spent 27 years at the BBC, starting her career as a newsroom secretary and eventually becoming the producer of Radio 4‘s flagship discussion programme, 'Any Questions?' In 2018, Stone established The Carole Stone Foundation to support her belief that connecting people, exchanging ideas, and building friendships around the world is essential to creating a more equitable society.
In this episode, Mungi and Carole discuss why networking is so important, and Carole speaks about her journey through grief following the death of her husband, Richard Lindley, in late 2019. The two discuss the causes close to Carole's heart, including eliminating domestic violence and mental health awareness. With both of these causes, Carole highlights the importance of people sharing their stories. She is a true champion for kindness, and like Mungi, is inspired by her mother!
Full Episode Transcript
Carole Stone: This podcast is produced by The Brand is Female.
Mungi Ngomane: Hi, I'm Mungi welcome to the Everyday Ubuntu podcast.
Carole Stone: If I have one message to say it would be please talk to each other, please notice the other people, and don't necessarily just worry about getting to the top of the tree, get to the top of your particular tree, of course, but on the way, keep a lookout for other people, keep your branches out.
Mungi Ngomane: This week, my guest is lovely and lively. Carol Stone. Carol is an author, a television and radio broadcaster who was at the BBC for over 20 years, as well as a media consultant and an ambassador for the Tutu Foundation, UK, Carol and I, were lucky enough to have this conversation in person. And I learned a few things about her that I never knew.
We spoke about what her journey confronting grief has been like after the passing of her husband, Richard, what she sees as her purpose work and why networking is the theme that runs throughout this conversation and through Carol's life and interactions with everyone she meets is the need for.
Because we never know the true journey others are on. Well, Carole Stone, welcome to Everyday Ubuntu, I'm so excited to be speaking with you today to be here and excited. So, I'm going to jump right in and ask you the first question that I ask all my guests. And it's about how our resumes are not a full explanation of who we are.
And you as someone with a really extensive resume, I'm wondering what's missing from it that you think people should know about.
Carole Stone: I suppose the personal side is that I grew up very shy. I was a very shy girl. I can remember when I first joined the BBC, I went up in the lift and always looked at my feet and didn't look at anybody, but I always had a curiosity, always thought, even when I was a very young girl, four or five, somebody somewhere knows the answer.
I also had a brother who was two years older than me who died in his mid-forties, who was always a tormented soul. He couldn't. Communicate with people which I really want to communicate with people. He couldn't really share thoughts and share his ideas and was always questioning why we were here and what we were doing.
And in his early twenties, I don't know if it was a quarter of this, but in his early twenties, he was diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia. And he came running down the stairs one day saying in the early twenties that he ruled the world and that upset me and made me try and find out why he felt that her mama said you're putting the same mind on an insane mind, but I was very anxious as to why my brother had to grow up tormented and he died.
He had as good a life as he could have had with what he had. I think in those times, and he died of a stroke, but my mother was with him until the ambulance came. I was with him all the time, talking to him.
Mungi Ngomane: I did not know that about your brother, but I also find it hard to believe that you were
Carole Stone: I've got, you can see me, or your listeners can't I've got a big nose and I've got small boobs. You can't see that. I always think had life been the other way around life. Could've been very different. And when I was young, I thought I was going to have a boob job and a nose job, and I was going to do this and do that.
Too scared in the end. I think and also, again, Benny always rather wanted to make sure who I was and who I am. I think I'm, non-threatening, I'm not a beauty I'm non-threatening and I think that's why in a way I'm lucky enough that I do make friends because I like
Mungi Ngomane: yeah. And people like you. So, you mentioned the BBC and you get in the elevator and look at your feet.
And I know that you spent 27 years there starting as a newsroom secretary. And then ending as a producer of radio four's flagship show. Any questions? What was that experience like for you, 27 years at a sort of huge name, like the BBC? What did you learn from yourself?
Carole Stone: time there? In those days you just joined, and you thought you kept the job until you were 60.
That was just the way of the world then, that's what I thought would happen to me, but I always, I can remember mum was saying to me, it doesn't matter, sweetheart. If you stay in the newsroom and do no more than making the tea, learn, always be interested, listen to people and learn from them. And so, I learned from being a secretary, I moved up into local radio.
I joined hospital broadcasting as a volunteer. I then went out to network radio, and then they said to me, Carol, do you know much about politics? Yes, there's I knowing nothing, but I took the, all the parliamentary books to bed with me for about six weeks. And by the time they offered me the three-month attachment, they gave me the job after about six weeks.
And I loved it again. I'm not a girl who knows a lot about current affairs in the sense that my late husband was a BBC Panorama reporter and ITN reporter. He covered the Biafran war. He'd be the first Western journalist to interview. Saddam Hussain, that say that was not me, but I was interested in people.
And I think that's why I so really enjoyed producing any questions to have four people a week around me who would tip-top in their own ward, politics, business, media, whatever it was Mavericks. And they could answer questions of the day. I loved it.
Mungi Ngomane: I liked that you okay, six weeks if you really put your mind to something,
Carole Stone: you could have learned the other book and who's this MP and who's that MP so that I could say.
I know. And I think, to be honest, they, even the director-general then said to someone, what she doesn't know about politics. She makes that point in her personality in the sense that I was keen to listen and keen to learn.
Mungi Ngomane: I could see that about maybe I'm going to try that with certain things that I just don't think I know.
What would you say is your purpose?
Carole Stone: work? I didn't even think of it as such, but I've always known that probably because of my brother being so shy and unable to communicate. I've always realized how big a thing it is in life to be able to share. Share your problems and share your joys. I've always realized that.
And so, I began very slowly at first in the BBC in Bristol. When I was producing auditions of women's hour, I would learn. And even then, onto any questions, always had people at my flat, I might have 50 or 60 people or a party for a hundred and it was always the most important prominent people and the people who knew nobody but got great pleasure and had things to say.
And then when I went to London, I had a big party in London a thousand people a year. I ended up having, but I still had the Bristol one until then I got wise, and I thought to push them together. So, I pushed them together, but I've always enjoyed that, bringing people together and knowing that they could learn from each other.
And can meet each other. And the most surprising people would meet somebody they have just come met. And so, she was my mother's cleaner or my mother's, whatever it was. And there are people who now might be in, in really good, important positions who gave time. You can always tell the people that would give time to people who work, the people that you necessarily wanted to know at that point.
And even people, I must admit that I knew just went and met the most important person and went I carried on being a friend with them because they were quite lively people themselves. But it made you realize who really had what I call the humility of life. Yeah. The people
Mungi Ngomane: who like, they may not get anything from this person at this moment, but it's because they're not looking for transactional relations.
Carole Stone: And they got pure pleasure from learning from somebody.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah. Okay. Speaking about, bringing people together in the sharing, I know that you're the author of two books on networking. And what do you think people need to know about networking and relationships and friends?
Carole Stone: I think the first thing is to forget your own ego. If you like, and to come in saying, this is me, I put my best dress on. I've combed my hair. I'm ready to talk to you. And now I'm going to forget myself, I'm not going to be continually fussing with my hair. And do I look all right? And have you got the right view and everything, even this with television?
So, I think to forget yourself and take an interest in the other person to make sure if you were actually having a party, of course, you've got. Make sure that people meet each other, even if your own lunch or dinner, I went somewhere last night. There was an interesting 12 people there, but they weren't quite good enough at making sure we all talk to each other, and all learnt from each other, everyone gets comfortable on their little on that seat and that's what you've got to do.
So, I think I'd say do take an interest. If you're going to see somebody of import, you're going to hear someone speak, making sure you've read a bit about them. The more, the more you can ask if you've read someone's book, you asked me if I'd heard some of your podcasts, which I. The more, the more you've got the background, the more you can say, look, I, Carole Stone I don't remember in your book.
So-and-so can you tell me whatever people are very flattered to be asked about things but very nice. If they think you've done a bit of homework.
Mungi Ngomane: Absolutely. Yeah. And I know that you also have the Carole Stone foundation, and I wonder if you could share sort of the mission behind it.
And also, the origin story, which I know is the which story, the origin story. What was that? How had it started?
Carole Stone: Oh, orange it's. The American accent was when Richard was alive. He died on November 9th, 2019, from, we were run over by Laurie. He had then had outsiders for three years but always knew me. It was always.
And was always the man I knew, but much, much more forgetful. And I said to him just before then, and I said, we should start a foundation, sweetheart because I've now got 55, 60,000 people in my database. I know so many people from, I was a counsellor for one young world, the big charity for 1,500 people getting together over a year to talk about issues of the day.
And I was doing quite a few mental health charities and I thought to myself, I want to put everybody together, but I wanted to put a little bit of money aside. That if you've got something you really want to support, you can say it's bringing people together. It's discussing issues of the day.
And it's really trying to make the board a fair society.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah. And I liked that. And you've mentioned Richard a few times. I think we should speak about him. And you spoke about how he passed away in late 2019. I wonder if you can talk about, what your journey confronting grief has been like?
Carole Stone: It, isn't easy. People will say, you get over it in one year, two years, three years, I'll say you'll get over it. In the sense that you won't be quite so unhappy, you don't get over it. You put it in another compartment that brings you joy. And I think that I felt that I was very lucky.
I met Richard when I was 46. He'd been divorced for years. He said they'd never married again. He had two young children who we saw regularly, but they weren't living. And I said to mama he's a nice guy, but he won't marry. If you wanted to get married, leave him. And if you love him stay.
So, I stayed, and they used to say to moto me to write my sweethearts. And then 10 years later on Christmas day, he said, before you can have your last present of the tree, you've got another question to answer. And we were unusually going out that Christmas day. So, I thought, oh, come on, sweetheart. We want to go out.
And I looked to my left to see him, but he was on the floor and on a knee. And he was saying, will you marry me? I hesitated 10 seconds because I thought you should. And I remember thinking well if he dies before me, and he's six years older than me, I'll have six years on my own, so I won't be always married.
And of course, now nothing I want less than being on my own. There's a big difference between being on your own when you're maybe looking for love and being on your own when you've lost the love, but how wonderful that you've had the love. And I think that's what was very lucky with. And I did say to him when we first met, let's write each other letters by sweetheart so that when one of us dies, the other, one's got a letter to read and he said, okay, then, and when he died, I looked and found next to his will his letter.
And I had written mine, which he would never read. And I opened it on the morning of his funeral. We were, had the funeral in central London, about five or 600 people came all his coat leaks and friends, and it started off saying, my darling, this morning, we are to marry in St. Martin's in the fields. And you've long asked me to write a letter.
He said that I had transformed his life. He said, but that's not why I love you, sweetheart. It's because you were your things, I thought I could never do without you. There's nothing I can't do with you. And he ended saying be as kind as six pages, wonderful pages or quotes in his beautiful handwriting.
Be as kind to yourself as you are to others. And remember you made me the happiest of men and at the funeral, I read just that little piece. And I said I'm going to try my hardest to live within the glow of our love. And that's what I want to do. And I think gradually. It may come about.
Mungi Ngomane: And do you think since then you've been as kind to yourself as you have been/
Carole Stone: but I do get disappointed in myself when I don't do things quick enough, or I try never to say, oh, sweetheart, come back and help me.
Or even to my mother who Richard was with me when my mother died, I don't ever try and say, come and help me to either of them. But I do try and say, I'm going to try and make sure some of your wisdom or some of your love or some of your courage. Comes off on me and rubs off on me. And I'm disappointed when I find myself crying beyond compare don't howl any more, but I often cry and it's quite comforting in a way to do and to know that don't forget, I'm much older and it is unlikely that I would form a new relationship, but that you've just got to realize that you've got to go on, sit talking to people, be ever curious. Really. And I hope that they've had those years with him when the lucky bunny was I, and I think he would have.
In his own way. And he would have said the same, that's what I'm working towards.
Mungi Ngomane: And is there some sort of advice you can share with the people around you who would be helping you through grief? Because I, I spoke to the author and the journalists, Catherine Meyer about her husband passing and was saying that, sometimes.
Someone around me loses someone. I don't know what to say. And first of all, that's one thing that we do is we center ourselves instead of the person who is suffering. And she said that you'd be surprised by the number of people who just don't say anything. And so, I wonder if you have advice for people who are around someone that is experiencing grief and what they should be doing to help that person instead.
Focusing on I don't want to do the Well, I
Carole Stone: read
Mungi Ngomane: Catherine
Carole Stone: Meyer's book. She wrote it together with her mother because her mother's husband died just before. And it was unexpected with Catherine, and they didn't even know, he, he must've picked up COVID-19 in China, they think, and it was very quick for her too.
And she had some good things I remember about what you must do and what you mustn't do. I think the thing is to mention it, not to mention it. Ask any questions you can, if you don't know, Richard asked me about him and if you do know him and say something if you can be nice about him, memory is wonderful.
Yeah. Come around. Be in touch, if need be, just a line. Hope you're feeling okay. Whatever it is. I've got a friend now who's husband is seriously ill in his sixties. And I just, every couple of days, how are you? Let me know when you fancy meeting or chat, just the people to know that you're.
I think that you don't want somebody that in a way you can see why that and how are you, even if you're feeling good, deep
Mungi Ngomane: voice, and that the lean in, you
Carole Stone: yeah. A little bit better that day, you think they're expecting me to below. So, you say this, and this, and in a way, you have to work above it because you can't off it.
All right. Thanks, because you seldom do, but it's a way of asking how you are and it's a way, not in sort of him in a sense of I'm here. And I want to hear it in there in that way, but justice. What a good life you had with him; how much you were pleased to be with each other. Sure, that's the same, of course with Catherine, but whenever way, it is just talking about him, but don't dwell on it.
Just talk about it so that when they ring, you're not necessarily saying, oh dear. I just thought I'd better ring in case you are too low, but just say, wanted to see how you are. And I remember the time we were with. So, I think to be interested, but don't be too keen to necessarily bring out too much when the person, because the person will tell you as much as they want to tell, but they'd be very pleased that you've been interested and a friend enough to ask.
And even if you're a stranger, as I understand your husband died, my husband died two years ago, whatever it is just to talk in that way. I think you, you must know that everything that happens to you. You've got to know that you've got to learn from it. You can't get stuck in it. You've got to learn from it.
I don't want it to be which we're disappointed if in three- or four years’ time, I'm still saying I can't bear to see couples together. And I can't bear to do this. I would be saying, I hope by then I miss that man, as much as I've always missed that, man, I was seeing him as someone that top of teeth every morning when I go for my walk.
But I have now. He's in my heart. And I can take other things on it if you can't do it in the very first days. So, I think that's the sort of thing I would say to know. It will go in the sense of that intensity will go, but you will be live left with them. It depends. If you've had a happy marriage, people who've had an unhappy marriage or an unhappy partnership.
Maybe I've got to get over the fact that they weren't as good to each other or whatever it is, or it may be a child who must be devastating. So, there are all sorts of things. Is there an organization called compassionate friends? I know which, and I went and spoke to their work because my brother had died, but anything I think to talk about it but to gauge that went to stop.
Mungi Ngomane: And what has sustained you in sort of difficult moments?
Carole Stone: I think probably it is the fact that a what my mother, because she died first and what my husband, what they would have done themselves. And I know they would have coped in a different way. So, I'm trying to have the courage they would have had, which I knew to face it, head-on, and to tell myself that whatever comes out of this, I may be a better person to help.
Or able to help others more because I've been through that. And to know that I did get through it, there was a quote, and I can't remember the exact quote. It was a woman who'd been in solitary confinement, and she said something along the lines of it's on radio four the other day. You can't go to hell and back without learning something from it.
And I think to take something for we know all about this, take something from that. And from this side, from this I've learned and that whatever happens, you have to make the most of what you've got there, that time you can't waste time worrying about what might happen, because the very things you think would have to be completely different.
One knock you down. But I think you've just got, and again, be open to people and be open. And it's very difficult because I found it really difficult at first to go on zooms with friends and couples, especially as a couple, the woman had her arm around their husband or whatever, whatever the partner, oh dear, you've got to get all that and just say, I'm moving on to a new life, but I was lucky to have what I
Mungi Ngomane: have.
But I understand that, yeah, that would be difficult in the beginning. And I don't think people think about that at all. Who would you say are the people who've inspired you?
Carole Stone: I'm going to think I'm going to be like, you hear my mother. Of course, my mother.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah. We love mothers Every day.
Carole Stone: I think she married that her, because her mother paid darts with him and that she liked to be with 16 years old. The mama he'd been a boxer in the army in India, and it was the middleweight champion boxer of the British army in India at this time. And I think in granddad was a journeymen tailor that I think went in the workers when he couldn't pay his bills, they had no money.
She didn't go to university. Never thought of herself as being called out. She had my brother who had paranoid schizophrenia and although dadda was a loving, loving husband, he didn't really discuss things very much. And they headed to the sweet shop. He had a milk round and, but she always, she was learning poetry.
She even gave me a precis of the black. Stephen Hawkins because she said, y'all need to know about this. My dad you'll need to
Mungi Ngomane: know that's
Carole Stone: like that it was just compassionate. She was wise, she just seemed to be born wise. And she was even, I remember Michael winner, the late film producers said who wasn't always so generous with his comments.
He said, just to let stand alongside makes me feel happy and it might be party used to go around and she'd say I'm Kathleen I'm Carol's mother. And she used to be wonderful. Oh my God. She does
Mungi Ngomane: sound wonderful. No, I love when mothers are people's answers. I think that's the greatest thing ever. So, I know that you've been involved with a lot of different causes and one of them was, eliminating domestic violence, different organizations aimed at that.
And., I wonder, what do you think it'll take to eliminate domestic violence? Should it start with the language, like the fact that we say domestic violence, that then makes it seem like it's something that? Private and in the home, like what will it actually take
Carole Stone: coming back to the same thing?
It is sharing the stories. It's not keeping it to your, there's a piece on the radio this morning about domestic violence that, you must share the stories. You must talk about it. Otherwise, people don't know because sometimes you're ashamed of it and whether it's coercive behaviour, which is not quite so easy to distinguish whatever it is.
You've got to admit at one point, say, this has got to stop. Tell somebody, if we're in that position or tell each other. And I think that's the sort of way you can get through a mental illness in general, because of Roger. Of course, I'm very interested in it, I think if you've got whatever it is, I'll do one with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Then there's the. Another charity I do is sane, which is a friend of mine started is all about talking about people, autism, whatever it is, everyone's got something to give. And I think it's trying to bring them together. We've done the one or two things, music, but dementia and taken, taking a pee and listening.
Two people who have dementia with their careers, if they need be and do a little afternoon tea or something, anything that you can bring down. I can't think of one thing. This would finish it, or this would stop it. I don't think it's like that. But I think the more the stories are told and the more we can then put ourselves together.
And there are so many good organizations now that they're doing just that. And I've just, this may have got involved with the Montessori group, which is the early learning children. And they've got one or two projects. I think one with Matt. And again, all sorts of ones on kindness. What can we do to promote kindness?
And I think this is a huge thing. And in a way, it's kind to ask people if you think that they are suffering from anything, whether it's domestic violence or whether it's a mental illness just to be on the lookout. I think we can all do our part. Yeah,
Mungi Ngomane: because we never know what people are suffering.
Carole Stone: You can probably get an idea. If you all look, I'm sure that HR departments are very much aware of this now. And another friend of mine is trying to make this something first of all, in Europe, to make sure that HR does know the signs. If they can look out for the signs and make sure that their colleagues will report them, it's all about discussing it and sharing it.
Yeah. The taking away
Mungi Ngomane: the sort of
Carole Stone: stigma attached to it. Just terrible. If it's a stigma, it's not as bad as they think now as it was. I did not sell people that aren't, you have paranoid schizophrenia, but it wasn't as talked about as much as now it would be talked about.
Mungi Ngomane: And so, what would you say right now it's the cause that's closest to your heart and if it's not only one, but you can also
Carole Stone: totally talk about it.
I suppose it is making sure that those less fortunate you and I don't mean monetary or anything, but those that are going through very difficult times. And I think those who cannot communicate are the ones that do suffer a lot. I think it is just going back to kindness. It is just saying on the Heath when you're walking.
Hi, I know I've made friends with a couple of women who pick up the litter when we exchanged ideas, where we talk to each other, you just come away feeling that little bit lighter that little bit higher. So, I think that probably bringing people together. And of course, domestic violence, of course, mental illness, all of these things that are so important, but anything that you can do to take something to people, my friend who got very depressed, she taught herself, she had lessons and went along the course how to be a clown.
And she went into the hospitals of children who were terminally ill. And so that house, she helped to get herself out of it. So, I think anything you can do. To give yourself a talking to and thinking, then what is it I can do that. I can help this side of things. A friend of Richard used to be chairman of an arm's houses and there's a lady there who's very unwell and three or four times I've been to see her.
And when she has to cancel half an hour beforehand, you just pick up and go again, because you understand why, because she's not feeling very well at that time. I think there's such a huge satisfaction, not in a, oh, that's not my way, A warm way of thinking. I think that helped that person. And that's you said, say to me, you've made me feel that I can carry on.
I think that's what people will help me with. I think it is, we all help each other in different ways. But I think if I have one message to say it would be please talk to each other, please notice the other people. And don't necessarily just worry about getting to the top of the tree, get to the top of your particular tree, of course, but on the way, keep a lookout for other people, keep your branches out.
Mungi Ngomane: Out. Yeah. I've noticed even when I'm feeling down. Whatever it may be that than reaching out to other people to check on them makes me step out of my insular issue or whatever it is. And I can focus on whatever they're going through, which may give me some sort of perspective on myself.
And that always makes me feel better. Yes,
Carole Stone: I think that's right. And now we're so lucky that people who've got computers and emails that it's just the. The tiny thing to do just as they hope you're okay. All of course, making a phone call or drop a note. But these days that those who've got emails, it is easy just to send them a quick note to somebody and say, thinking of you, I just sometimes just, but thinking of you and knowing they're going through a pretty bad time at that time.
And I think that is probably the way. And then also to be aware when people don't want uni and don't want to talk about things, I think it's the same old thing do unto yourself, as you wish, I all your wonderful wellbeing, Rachel book of books and hurdle. But I'm an ambassador with the Tutu Foundation.
So, all those things are as true as they've always been to be aware of that. And you can soon pick out people who aren't and you can't really, sometimes if somebody perhaps, ignores me three or four times running, I put my hands on their shoulders. Did you mean to be that rude? Just occasionally and nine times out of 10.
They didn't, they were rushing around, so that's fine on the whole, as I say, I think I'm lucky to like people and mama taught me to be curious. I think they're the things really.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah. And before I ask you my two very favourite questions, I wonder, did COVID teach you anything about
the world or humanity that, that we should really be aware of?
Carole Stone: Funnily enough because I'm in-network and used to have a party. I used to have a hundred people in my room. Yes. And nice. This is just for an hour and a half. So, people came and went and a thousand people every year, people are, oh, you must have been terrible if you were to be in lockdown.
But it happened quite quickly after Richard died. And I didn't feel that at all. I felt I was doing a little, my own podcast about grief and I was making notes about Richard right here. And meanwhile, myself. Grief and love and grief and how you can do your best through it. And so, I was quite relieved for them to say, oh, see you after lockdown the lockdown, rather than having, as I used to have days with two people coming in for coffee, one different time, someone for lunch, someone for afternoon tea, someone for drinks, it was too much.
And I thought, why do I trying to keep, that's why I had the salons to keep in touch with people. But in a funny way, I don't think I did only once more to know that it hits everybody. And it's that those who can come through it, having learned something a bit like the lady I said in solitary confinement, it is all about, if you can't learn from it, then you think why did it happen?
They don't think it happens for any particular reason, but if you can deal with it by learning from it, of course getting over it. I think that is, that's what I'm hoping that I will, I'll be a person that has got more about me and more that I could give to other people. That's what I mean. I think. You know, in the sense of helping them with ideas or whatever it is.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah. And is there anything like a title or a release date that you can share about the memoir? So, people know to
Carole Stone: look out for it and the memoirs are already on YouTube and they're there already just 11. I did two a week for about six weeks in between Rich's anniversary of his dying and the anniversary of his funeral.
And it's just little four-minute pieces saying, well today I feel like. And then I remember when I put a jacket on that, that I found of Richard. Now remind me of Richard. If I don't wash it, when will it smell and things and all these things, you do just to buck yourself up and I'm sure people say, get a dog.
I didn't have to take a dog out. We have got two cats for Richard. Yes. And then lovely. They've got an idea that I'm not as high as I. And so, I think that that's what I would say. I learned how to bite that you've just got to come out of it better in the sense of more, more self-assured in your own self.
But I didn't actually think, oh dear, I can't cope with this lockdown. Because I used to go for a walk on the heat that helped me people sit and walk. So, I've got a garden, but I don't do any gardening. But I did know that helped me and I wasn't decluttering to a degree throwing things.
Mungi Ngomane: And then what would you say is your greatest fear for humanity?
Carole Stone: I think my, my greatest fear is that we don't learn that we don't move on that we don't It goes back again to share the information, whether it's about the viruses. I've just been listening to the book on radio four, about the people who I discovered one of the vaccinate vaccines.
I think if we could all just think one more, I'm sure we do a bit like kindness in the streets. I'm sure. Just one more thing to think about, we've got to look after each other and things happen. So terribly unexpectedly, just to make sure that we are aware of that and not necessarily just.
Grabbing for the top. Although of course, we all want the top, just to do that, I think already people are more friendly maybe in my daily, is just me and my own little world here of talking to each other. And so, I think it would be not to learn really. It just, of course, the environment knows, of course, everything we've got to learn, but I just feel if we can just come away feeling a little bit more, that we're keeping a lookout on others.
Mungi Ngomane: And then what is your greatest hope for humans?
Carole Stone: I think the hope is that. The bit like the foundation that the inequalities that ironed out a little so that we can, for all people, it's so difficult the world, your father took in the world and mama used to say to me, you can't look at the world darling, just your piece of it.
We look after a family in Shinai, Betsy in India, but we don't look after the whole of India. I think that if we can just all do a little bit, there was a piece on the tele, on the radio. I think if you give up half at this, get a day and a half a bar of chocolate. In a year, people would have lost so many pounds and I thought, oh, that's pretty good.
Mungi Ngomane: have that cookie. Then I was going to eat later. If we
Carole Stone: eat, you just take one thing or do one thing that we think even it's only picking up a piece of paper from the ground, that's it. But it's rubbish. If we just do one thing each, whatever it is or make a phone call for someone who's got a cut child that hadn't the capital, take handicap
whatever. Just do one little thing as regularly as we can. I think it will help the world to move on. In the back. I'm going back again to the claim, listen to sharing.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah, no, I like that. It makes sense. This isn't the same thing, but and I saw something where someone had said that they had started collecting a dollar for every time someone asked if they were going to have a kid and they were putting it in a jar and to now they have all this money to spend on not kids.
And he was like, we should start doing that. I'm like, yeah, a dollar every time someone asked that'd be great.
Carole Stone: I did a pound for every time I swore. And then when I got to 50 pounds, I tried to give up swearing about it, went to charity.
Mungi Ngomane: They say that I'm intelligent people
Carole Stone: swear to, oh that's very nice.
So, you don't have to give it away. What a wonderful way
Mungi Ngomane: to end Carol. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank
Carole Stone: you.
Mungi Ngomane: I hope you enjoyed this conversation today and don't forget to hit subscribe and give the show a rating and review wherever you enjoy your podcasts. Follow me at Mungi.Ngomane Instagram.
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