EPISODE 52: People Were Scared of Us
Strangers on a Bench
Tom Rosenthal
4.8 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2025
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tom Rosenthal approaches a stranger on a park bench and asks if he can sit down next to them and record their conversation.
This is what happened!
Produced by Tom Rosenthal
Edited by Rose De Larrabeiti
Mixed by Mike Woolley
Theme tune by Tom Rosenthal & Lucy Railton
Incidental music by Maddie Ashman
End song: 'A New Chapter' by Niamh Regan
Stream it here: https://ffm.to/anewchapter-soab
Listen to all the end songs featured on the podcast (so far) on one handy playlist :
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, sorry to bother you. |
| 0:05.0 | Can I ask you a slightly odd question? |
| 0:09.0 | I'm making a podcast called Strangers on a Bench |
| 0:14.0 | where essentially I talk to people I don't know on benches for 10 or 15 minutes. |
| 0:19.0 | Are you up for that? Do you want to give it a go? Is there a day of the week you favour? |
| 0:50.1 | No. I think the days of the week are individual and it's good to do what you think is a good thing to do on any particular day. |
| 1:03.8 | Don't put it off because it might be the weekend or you might be going to work. |
| 1:20.1 | Beautiful. Beautiful. What for you is a very good day of being alive? |
| 1:25.6 | If you could take me from waking up, oh no, he's a naked man. How do you feel about running naked men? Well, I think there are lots of things that make a day. |
| 1:36.3 | So I don't think there's such a thing as a good day or as a bad day. |
| 1:42.3 | There are just events that happen and some things can be good. |
| 1:46.0 | I mean if for instance you like to spot naked running men, |
| 1:51.0 | that's a good moment, but it's not the end of the day. |
| 1:55.0 | So can you take me through a day, you know, a pleasant, happy day for you? |
| 2:03.2 | So waking up, usually the first thing that's on my mind is whether or not I've got any pain |
| 2:13.7 | from my juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, which I've had since I was seven years old. |
| 2:21.1 | I'm going to be 20. I'm going to be 76. I'm going to be 76 tomorrow. Oh, well, happy |
| 2:27.1 | birthday for tomorrow. So I've had a lot of years of practice of rheumatoid arthritis. If my shoulders and hips hurt, then I usually have a hot |
| 2:38.2 | bath as soon as I get up. And then if I wake up and I feel pretty good and I don't seem to have |
| 2:44.8 | any pains in my joints, then I get on with whatever I've got to do that day |
| 2:51.6 | and actually stopped working when I was 71 |
| 2:56.6 | and I'm quite lucky in all the jobs I've had, three important careers, |
... |
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