So, how did I come to spend a morning with the future king of the UK… it happened due to my involvement with the ‘Listen Up! project’, through Groundswell, and On Our Radar, funded through Comic Relief donations.

At the original chat, we were approached to lead a podcast discussion around the whole narrative around the public perception of homelessness, something I have experience of and report on for the project. No names of invitees, who’d be part of it, clearly, as had I known who… I’d have definitely bottled it and politely said not for me this time.

Anyway, as things progressed, we spoke with the BBC and Comic Relief teams about how we’d run the podcast, what would be brought up, how we would weave some of our personal stories to give some authenticity and what messages we wanted to highlight.

So far, so good. BBC and Comic Relief producers, Johny and Katharine were brilliant, offering to help us, but not leading things at all, simply helping Nawshin and I to feel comfortable and ready for when we were going to broadcast.

Still, there was guests to invite, who might they be, how will we get to know and work with them to make sure an audience would want to hear stuff.

The recording day nears, whispers start to occur, we’re still oblivious to who… so we continue to work on the content, questions we’d like to have, all the logistics of the how, where, when etc.

And then, maybe ten days to go….. it’s revealed…. Prince William would like to accept an invitation to join us… OMG🤣…. suddenly the whole thing is now much, much more to think about….. OR IS IT.. 🙄

The work we’d planned, no different, the logistics, no different and then it kinda hit me that… it’s simply a chat with a guy called William (my eldest sons name) and us about something we’re all passionate about… homelessness!

That’s how I decided to treat the day in my mind and did. Now, I’m not trying to big up here, on the day, the whole protocol of royalty was there, security, confidentiality etc… certainly my head, tum and bum had twitchy moments… yet the moment we met him, that genuinely all disappeared…… he was human, like us, smiling like us, laughing like us, being cheeky at points, like Nawshin, (not me honest guv) he spoke to us like friends.

We spend what feels like a nanosecond, I then look at my watch and it’s an hour and a half later and we’ve covered so so much about why we believe changes have to happen…. and what hits me, and I don’t offer views lightly, is that he is so knowledgeable, passionate, caring and thoughtful…. I believe this guy and what he has planned with others to influence change, I feel it, I hear it in his tone of voice, this isn’t a PR thing. 💥

We finish the podcast, the film crews stop rolling, we all breathe again, chat whether we got enough points across, we agree we feel we have, and then there’s some further photos to do of us together, including some with Richard Curtis, the founder of Comic Relief.

Job done… Nah, that’s just a small part, next it’s out into the streets of fancy London Town with a film crew, gathering clips to go with the film that’s going to be shown live on the night of Comic Relief.

Briefly, during my filming time, we’re stopped by the police, gun’s strapped and van ready, as the background we’re shooting in front of is the MI5 building 🤣…. I offer to get bundled into the van for dramatic licence, yet surprisingly the film crew decline the offer from the Met guys who are up for it, and we move on to another area and finish getting clips for editing.

Finally, another couple of hours of filming inside, clips and soundbites to add to the film, and I realise we’ve been going for the whole day, I’ve a train to catch back up North so I give everyone a hug, I’m so grateful to each and everyone for their care and attention to make sure I felt comfortable the whole time. I arrive home near to midnight, emotionally exhausted, yet funnily enough I am still buzzing from the whole surreal experience.

Now back to the humdrum of daily life, although people are now asking how my day had gone…. I have to keep this secret (even to my reporter colleagues) as no one can know of who was there…. protocol and confidentiality is paramount, even though I want to shout from the rooftops who I’ve just been interviewing – not that they’d believe me, cos who would… these things don’t happen to your ordinary bloke, do they 🤔

Emails ping back and forth, disclosures of photos, clips to be used or deleted, confidentiality paperwork from the palace arrive 😅, over the next couple of weeks… all regular activity for a Listen Up! reporter.

Finally, I’m privileged to be invited to attend the live TV evening in Manchester, and I’m excited that they’ve got me another ticket to bring someone else, straight away I know who, someone who’s been a rock throughout my life, even in those awful dark times, my ex-wife and she accepts the invite.

Now that is progress I could never have imagined, yet I wanted to share this experience, a marker of how far I’d come from those dark, dark days of being homeless and in the grips of addiction, losing all connections to those that cared for me.

We had a brilliant evening, behind the scenes access, meeting some of the presenters, watching performers I didn’t even know of, until Jane told me that I was just old and not with it anymore, cheeky woman 😏

I’m going to wrap up now by summarising this fabulous, once in a lifetime opportunity, likely to never be repeated.

I met royalty, I was proud to represent our Listen Up! project, I learned that I can help seemingly impossible things to happen, be there in the moment with confidence not arrogance, and simply appreciate that whatever, whoever you are, we’re all just human beings trying our best to be our best version of ourselves each day we’re here.

A right royal laugh with seal of approval, and who knows… I’m excited to see what develops.

Miles 🦓👀

 

 

 

You can watch Miles in Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day film by clicking on this link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001k32p/comic-relief-2023-red-nose-day [Skip to 1 hour and 23 minutes to go straight to the film itself] 

You can find out more about Prince Williams involvement here: https://groundswell.org.uk/2023/rednoseday-princewilliam/ 

You can listen to the podcast here: https://groundswell-listenup-hub.org/prince-william-podcast/