Chris Deacy interviewed by Marion Stuart

Marion Stuart turns the tables on me for this week’s Nostalgia Interview. I talk about my earliest memories which involve having my hair washed as a baby and listening to Pinky and Perky at nursery (obsessively) and how my children don’t have the same musical tastes as me.

I talk about what I was interested in outside of music, and my obsession with TV or radio schedules. This helped me at university in terms of having a copious record of all my lecture notes and being organized with essay writing. Looking back I wonder if I would be labelled today as having OCD.

We talk about what experiences have moulded me the most, as well as my relationship with my parents and the notion of protectiveness.

Marion asks me why movies are such a significant part of my life and how I came to film relatively late on, and we talk about what it is like to see a film many years after the first viewing - and the way in which my diary gives me a record of that film.

She asks about my theology and about my interest in Near Death Experiences and their relationships to the movies I watch, and to how indebted I was to the likes of Paul Badham and Chris Arthur at university. She asks about my religious background. I talk about the limited religion I received from my Church school and how in later years I channelled religious interests through academic study. I explain why I didn’t go to chapel at university.

We move on to talk about relationships and whether I am in a better place now than I was in the past, and how we can get caught up in relationships that are not genuine (leading to a discussion about gaslighting). I talk about a particularly debilitating relationship experience and how this became a creative writing project for me. I turned my personal life into an analogous project to my PhD, trying to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Marion asks me how I have moved on and whether I will make the same mistakes again, and I talk about the importance of the integrity of character in answer to Marion’s question of who I am. I conclude by referring to the importance of always being the student, and always being in a state of change, of growth, of transformation.

Please note: Opinions expressed are solely those of Chris Deacy and Marion Stuart and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of Kent.