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My guest on the podcast this week is the delightful and charming Robert Nurden.

Robert has 40 years' experience as a journalist, news reporter, feature writer and subeditor, on the Independent, Guardian, Telegraph, Oxford Mail plus numerous magazines and journals. For three years he was press officer of Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), he also wrote features for the development press, and worked as a freelancer in South-East Asia. In 2020, Robert published his first book, 'Between Heaven and Earth', which is the biography of his grandfather, and his second book, 'I Always Wanted To be A Dad: Men Without Children' was published in August 2023 and has been featured in the Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Independent and BBC Radio.

Robert is 73 years old, lives in East London, and has been in a relationship with his partner, Sue, for 6 years. 

Topics that we cover are:

• Robert’s initial complacency around having children;
• the mounting pressure that he felt around his childlessness as he reached his fifties;
• the emotions he felt around male friends and peers who had children;
• how Robert felt inherently that he wanted to be a Dad;
• his deep desire to nurture, and how that led him back to teaching;
• how he sometimes struggles with the fact that he also won’t be a grandparent, and his lack of ‘status’;
• male broodiness and Robert’s experience of it;
• feeling ‘under used’ when you’re not a parent;
• the reactions of others to towards being a childless man, rather than a childless woman;
• the married fathers who were triggered by Robert’s book, I Always Wanted To Be A Dad;
• the play that Robert has been writing about childlessness;
• his book, how it came to be, and how it was a cathartic process;
• his ongoing search for acceptance and peace;
• Robert’s learning that ‘your wound is your gift’;
• his thoughts about the future, getting older, and staying alive to excitement;
• his grief, and how some days its absent, while other days it’s very much present;
• how supportive Robert’s partner, Sue, is when it comes to his childlessness;
• how it is essential to truly feel one’s grief.

Buy Robert’s book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Always-Wanted-Be-Dad-Children/dp/1838447776 

Check out Robert’s website:
https://robertnurden.com/ 

Follow Robert on Instagram:
@robertonurden

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