0:00

Hi Ben, my name is Christina and my secret

0:02

is I took a very odd job when I was younger

0:04

to make any extra cash I could to get through

0:06

the summer. My friends were shocked at how

0:09

inappropriate the job was, but I thought,

0:11

what could the harm be, and curiosity got

0:13

the best

0:13

of me. Today the Secret Room presents,

0:16

The Accidental Nudist. I'm Ben

0:18

Ham.

0:30

I said to him, so what do you find attractive

0:32

in a woman? And initially we're talking

0:34

about, you know, personality. He

0:36

said, you know what my favorite part of a woman is? And

0:39

I thought, oh, I don't know if I want to hear this.

0:45

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp Therapy

0:47

Online. For 10% off your first month,

0:50

go to betterhelp.com

0:53

slash secret. And thanks to

0:55

Dipsy. Dipsy Stories is your

0:57

passport to a world of sun-kissed adventures

0:59

and unforgettable encounters this summer. Get

1:02

an extended 30-day free trial when

1:04

you go to dipsystories.com slash

1:06

secret.

1:07

Let's start the show.

1:13

Today, Christina tells us about a very odd

1:15

job she took when she was younger. Her

1:17

friends were shocked, and now she's ready

1:19

to tell all.

1:20

Hi Ben, thank you

1:22

for having me. You are welcome. Thank

1:24

you for joining me. Where are you? Okay,

1:27

so currently I'm in Melbourne, Victoria,

1:29

Australia. We've had a number of Aussies on the

1:31

show, and I'm really glad to count you in on this expanding

1:34

group. Yeah, me too. So

1:36

where does your story start?

1:38

Okay, so I grew up on the Gold

1:40

Coast in Australia. So

1:42

the Gold Coast is probably the equivalent of

1:44

maybe Florida or Miami in America.

1:47

And it's on the eastern side of Australia, right? Yes,

1:50

east side. Miles and miles of beautiful

1:52

coastal beaches. So we

1:55

really did grow up in paradise. I feel really grateful

1:58

for the environment I grew up in. up

2:00

in. All my family were in Melbourne,

2:03

my dad's Greek and my mum is Russian-Ukrainian.

2:06

Parents escaped the war and they ended

2:08

up in Australia. So my mum,

2:11

my dad,

2:11

my brother and I were living

2:13

on the Gold Coast by ourselves whereas all the

2:16

family were down in Melbourne. In

2:18

your secret, Christina, you told me about how you

2:20

had a joke that you grew up free range. Can

2:23

you tell me a little bit about that because

2:25

it was kind of funny?

2:26

Yeah,

2:29

so I grew up on an acre block of land.

2:32

We were just wild kids. We never wore

2:34

shoes. My mum didn't bother

2:36

fighting with us to put our shoes on so we're

2:39

always there

2:39

for it. Completely feral. Yeah,

2:42

we're feral kids. We had, you

2:44

know, we're getting

2:45

what we call here, they're called bindies.

2:47

I don't know if you call them the same thing in America,

2:50

but they're like little thorns

2:51

in the grass and they get stuck

2:54

in your feet and you've got to pull them out.

2:56

And so, yeah, we were just, we used

2:58

to make bonfires in the backyard

3:01

and we had big monotillizards

3:04

and kangaroos and koalas on our

3:06

property. And my

3:08

mum,

3:08

my mum really just was happy for

3:11

us to be outside

3:13

and out of her hair. So my

3:16

brother and I were just building trenches and

3:19

Building trenches?

3:19

Whatever we needed to do to keep

3:21

ourselves entertained. Yeah, he used to have

3:24

these little action figures like little GI

3:26

Joe action figures. And

3:28

so we would dig out a part of the property

3:31

and fill it with water and make this like

3:33

mud, this little

3:36

muddy patch and then we'd build like little trenches

3:38

and the little GI Joe's would go under the trenches

3:41

of like a big war zone. Got it. Yeah,

3:43

just the things that we used to do to keep ourselves

3:45

entertained.

3:46

Probably dragged a lot of dirt back to the house.

3:48

Yeah,

3:51

we did. But we had a back door that led

3:53

right into our bathroom. So we would

3:55

just go in there and just clean ourselves

3:57

off. And

3:58

yeah.

3:59

And you said something about illegal

4:02

fireworks being a part of this critical

4:05

part of your youth.

4:06

Yeah. So

4:09

my brother actually dropped out of school or

4:11

left school rather in grade nine.

4:14

He didn't thrive in school. He wasn't

4:16

particularly academic. It wasn't

4:18

his forte, very skilled

4:21

with his hands and in sport

4:23

and everything else. But he really

4:25

just didn't thrive in the schooling environment.

4:28

So he left school and

4:31

after his initial job, he ended

4:33

up working in construction with my dad.

4:36

And the job they had at the time meant

4:39

that they would drive across the border

4:41

into our neighboring

4:43

state, which is New South

4:45

Wales. And in New South

4:47

Wales, it was legal to purchase fireworks

4:50

in some places, but

4:52

they were illegal to have in Queensland.

4:55

And so they would go across the border and bring

4:57

loads

4:57

of fireworks home.

5:00

And because we had this acre

5:02

property, we would just let them off in the backyard

5:05

and our neighbors would come up

5:07

and look over the fence and just watch this

5:10

huge display of fireworks just in our

5:12

suburban backyard. Oh my gosh. Did you get

5:14

any trouble after that? No, but

5:16

we did have a few close calls. I

5:19

remember one in particular, for

5:21

some reason, the firework was upside down. And

5:24

so instead of shooting up into the sky,

5:26

it exploded on the ground and we all

5:28

jumped in the air. But

5:31

that was part of the excitement, right? Yeah, of course.

5:34

Needed a little element of danger

5:35

as well. I mean, it doesn't

5:37

sound too bad.

5:38

It

5:39

was great. It was great. I mean, there

5:41

were definitely some great highlights

5:44

to my childhood. There was definitely

5:46

a lot of lowlights as well. When

5:48

I say that we grew up free range, I think

5:50

we had a lot of freedom

5:53

to

5:53

explore things that maybe tested

5:55

our

5:56

limitations and boundaries

5:58

somewhat. There wasn't a lot of.

5:59

of parental guidance around the

6:02

safeties of fires or, you

6:04

know, we used to build go-karts and go down these

6:06

wild hills and right at the edge

6:08

of the traffic and do all these crazy things

6:10

and

6:11

that was a really fun part of our childhood

6:13

and that was probably something that

6:16

my brother and I bonded with because

6:18

we weren't super close but

6:21

in those moments we had a great

6:23

time together.

6:24

And it doesn't sound like there was a lot of parental guidance

6:27

when it came to wearing shoes either.

6:29

No, and you know

6:31

what? We paid for it. I remember

6:33

one time I went

6:35

with my brother and his friends. We were

6:37

going to walk to, I think we were going to McDonald's

6:40

actually and it was quite a while away

6:42

from our house. It was like a few kilometres.

6:44

Of course, they went off without me

6:47

so I was running out of the house, no shoes on and as

6:50

I was catching up to them, I remember standing

6:52

on some like barbed wire. I don't even know

6:54

why it was there and it was rusted and

6:56

it got stuck in my foot and I

6:59

remember hopping back home by

7:01

myself and getting home

7:03

and my mum's

7:05

general reaction when we would hurt ourselves

7:09

would be

7:10

pointing to the bathroom and saying, well, you

7:12

know where the band-aids are? Oh

7:13

gosh.

7:15

That would be her general reaction. It

7:18

would be, okay, well, you're not going

7:20

to wear shoes. You're

7:22

potentially going to get hurt and you know how

7:24

to clean it up.

7:25

Okay, well,

7:28

you just put out there to learn life's lessons. That's

7:31

it. A lot

7:33

of this sounds like a lot, you

7:35

know, very endearing fun, some

7:37

bonding moments with your brother. There's

7:39

kind of a subtext that

7:42

not all was totally right with your family and

7:45

you know, you really had some opportunities to learn some

7:47

street smarts.

7:48

Yeah. I think, yeah, so

7:50

far I'm sort of painting the picture that these

7:53

were the, I guess these were highlights, you

7:55

know, these sort of fun times, but

7:58

the day-to-day and the reality was that the

8:01

family was quite disjointed. My

8:03

father worked away a lot. You

8:05

know, I think me and my brother were really fighting

8:08

for his attention because we didn't

8:10

get much of it. And my

8:13

mum really struggled with motherhood.

8:15

She really, really struggled with it. She

8:17

knows now that she probably had postnatal.

8:21

She's been an alcoholic most of her life.

8:24

So she was very distant.

8:27

She had a really tough upbringing.

8:30

I think she just had a really hard time coping

8:33

with that. Her maternal instincts don't

8:35

come to her naturally. And she was never

8:37

an affectionate mum. She

8:39

never hugged us, never kissed us, never

8:41

told us, I love you. Yeah,

8:44

when I say me, my brother didn't get on a lot of the

8:46

time, it was because I guess we both

8:49

had some built up frustrations

8:51

and we probably took it out on each

8:53

other a lot because there was just no

8:55

one else there to suffer

8:58

that. Yeah, I guess my brother

9:00

and I did a lot of things that were probably

9:03

a little bit mature for our years.

9:05

Like what?

9:08

Look, I

9:10

would do things like...

9:12

I guess I'm trying

9:14

to think about

9:14

the best way to explain this. I

9:17

think the way we view life,

9:19

even from a young age, is to compare our

9:22

situation with others. And when

9:24

I started going to school and then going to my

9:26

friend's houses, I really started to

9:28

see that difference in how my friend's

9:30

parents

9:31

would

9:32

care for their kids and then how my

9:34

parents were. And so I would see

9:36

things like my friend's parents would

9:39

pack them lunches every day and do

9:42

their washing for them and they

9:44

would all have dinner together at a table. And

9:47

we didn't really have a lot of that. I

9:49

dressed myself, I packed my own lunches

9:52

from a very young age. I did all

9:54

of these things. And you could say, yeah, that's

9:56

great. It gave me independence.

9:58

But because that...

9:59

love and affection wasn't there. I

10:03

really felt like I was being hard done by in

10:05

a lot of ways. I didn't feel like

10:08

it was liberating that I could do all

10:10

these things on my own independently

10:13

because I wasn't sort of getting that pat

10:15

on the back or reassurance to go with it

10:18

because my mum felt to me very cold

10:20

and distant. It felt like a

10:22

chore. It felt like something I had to do to

10:25

take care of myself and survive rather

10:27

than something that my

10:29

mum was allowing me to do

10:31

because I was more than capable

10:34

of doing it. Did you feel resentment towards

10:36

your mum? Absolutely. And

10:39

a lot of that had to do with her alcoholism

10:41

because I would come home from school

10:44

and I'd be excited to tell

10:46

her the things I learnt that day and

10:48

I would have to bring

10:50

homework home and I would

10:52

want someone to help me with that

10:54

and sit with me and be interested

10:57

in me and things that

10:59

I was interested in. And I would come home

11:01

and my mum would either be

11:03

already drunk or

11:05

she would sort of be tipsy after even

11:08

just her first sip of wine.

11:10

You would just see the sort

11:12

of fog go over her

11:14

eyes and you would just know that she's

11:16

no longer there with you. She's in her own

11:18

head. And I'm sure that in her

11:21

own mind, she was having her party

11:23

in her own mind or perhaps look,

11:26

the way I've always explained it is that

11:29

you don't drink to remember, you drink to forget.

11:33

And I know that she had a lot of her own demons

11:35

from her childhood and a lot of things

11:37

that she probably would rather forget. You

11:40

know, I guess I've tried to analyse this over

11:42

the years and I don't think there's much use

11:44

in that. I've really forgiven her for a

11:46

lot of the things that she's done and I've

11:49

really come into terms with a lot

11:51

of things and I've found peace

11:53

in it all. And we've got a pretty good

11:55

relationship now. It is what it is. And

11:58

I think I've realised. that

12:00

I need to focus on the relationship

12:02

we have and not the relationship we don't have.

12:05

Very mature. And I think that was my mistake

12:08

growing up. I would be always

12:10

focusing on what I didn't

12:12

have and this kind of perception that something

12:15

was missing rather than this

12:18

is my story, this is the

12:20

life that I was giving, these are the parents

12:22

that I was given and

12:25

yes, it's shaped my character in so

12:28

many ways. Well, you were a kid at the time.

12:30

Yes.

12:32

As I was getting older, I didn't want my

12:34

friends to come around because I didn't

12:36

want them to see this mum

12:38

that I had that was flurring her words

12:41

and falling off her chair and passing

12:43

out on the couch and

12:46

sometimes she'd just start dancing and she'd be

12:48

having her own little party but it was very sloppy

12:51

and she'd be pulling her shirt up and doing these things

12:53

that were really embarrassing

12:55

for me

12:56

and so that part of my

12:58

life was really rough and then

13:01

as I

13:02

grew into

13:04

my adolescence, my

13:06

mum was going through menopause and

13:08

I was going through puberty at the same time.

13:12

That sounds like a recipe for trouble. You

13:16

can only

13:16

imagine the emotions

13:19

and yeah,

13:21

there was a lot going on in the household

13:23

at that time and there'd be a lot of screaming matches

13:26

and then mum would be crying and I

13:28

would be upset and I would

13:29

go to my room

13:30

and I spent a lot of time in my

13:32

room for hours with no

13:35

one coming to check up on me or no one

13:37

coming in to say, you know, did

13:40

you want to come out for dinner? Everyone would go and have

13:42

dinner and just do their own thing and just

13:45

leave me to my own devices. Yeah,

13:50

not a fun time.

13:51

I wonder

13:52

if the resentment you felt for your mum propelled

13:54

you to get into any trouble. Yeah,

13:58

absolutely. I didn't want to go home.

16:00

during the day and we would just

16:02

play board games, drink,

16:04

we'd just kill time together. We

16:07

decided one night we're going

16:09

to take these fireworks

16:11

and we're going to go and blow up someone's mailbox.

16:13

Oh boy. Whose idea was this? Was

16:16

it yours?

16:17

I don't know. And do you know what? My

16:20

dad actually did this when he was a child and

16:22

he told us this story about blowing up his neighbor's

16:24

mailbox. He should know better. He

16:26

should know better. And you're going to share the story.

16:29

I know. So I think maybe that

16:31

planted the seed to be honest. But

16:33

I don't want to throw him under the bath. Okay.

16:35

And you know, it's so funny because I have a secret

16:38

coming up in the future that's going to come out pretty

16:40

soon about a woman who, in her words,

16:42

quote unquote, murdered a mailbox. And it's a

16:44

great romp. But maybe this is a new theme

16:46

on the show.

16:48

That's a great way of putting it. I love

16:50

that. Murdered the mailbox. Yeah. I

16:52

would say we sent it off into space. Okay.

16:55

Great. I

16:56

love that. So we had this grand

16:58

plan that we're going to sneak out in the middle of the night.

17:01

So Tom and Zach were going to meet us

17:04

at our house and we

17:06

were going to wait until the parents were asleep

17:08

and sort of put our timers on or sort

17:10

of stay up until midnight, meet up

17:12

with them and then go and find a

17:15

mailbox to blow up. And so we

17:17

didn't have a target. We weren't out to get anyone

17:19

in particular. We just wanted to see

17:22

this mailbox shoot up into the sky.

17:25

The way our property was laid out, we had this reserve

17:28

in the back side of it. So it was basically

17:30

a vacant lot. So it was really

17:32

easy to access our

17:34

property from the back end and

17:36

you would just jump this really low fence. My

17:39

brother and myself and

17:42

Jess, we left in the

17:44

middle of night and parents were asleep

17:47

and everyone was quiet

17:49

in the street and we met up with Tom and

17:51

Zach and we

17:53

just

17:54

set out on foot to find the

17:56

victim. Oh

17:57

my gosh, it's such a coordinated effort.

19:38

know

20:00

where it came from, but it came out of nowhere. We

20:03

just started running. We just looked at him and

20:05

said, what are you doing? We

20:08

just ran.

20:09

Did it set off any car alarms?

20:10

The dog started barking, absolutely.

20:13

But at first it was like dead

20:15

silence and then this big and

20:19

then he pops another one and

20:21

then he pops another one and we are

20:23

running for our life and we're like, he's not stopping.

20:26

And then lights start going on. Dogs

20:28

start barking. We thought,

20:31

OK, we're going to get caught and we're going to get

20:33

in a lot of trouble. For sure. You know,

20:35

I reckon he popped

20:37

about five or six car types from

20:40

different cars down the street. It's

20:42

just

20:43

we couldn't even turn around to see what was

20:45

happening. We were just running for our lives by that point.

20:47

Oh, it's not really. And we knew we had to get under this

20:49

bridge to get over the other side

20:52

to where we needed to be to get home. And

20:54

so we're running and running, running. Eventually he

20:56

stops and we thought, OK, we're

20:59

going to have to just do this really quickly

21:01

now because people are already going to be out

21:03

to find us.

21:04

Well, you're still planning to blow up the mailbox

21:06

after all this.

21:07

Yeah, like

21:10

you have to blow up the mailbox. Like otherwise

21:12

mission wasn't accomplished. So

21:14

you're not deterred.

21:16

And I think perhaps

21:19

because we had that bridge between that

21:22

one suburb and the one

21:24

we were running to, we had a little

21:26

bit of time up our sleeve, I

21:28

suppose. There was a really

21:31

big, long hill to get up and we were

21:33

already out of breath. We had already been running for

21:35

our lives at this point. So the

21:37

next part happened very quickly

21:40

because we sort of were running out of time by

21:42

this point. I remember having the

21:44

conversation about which mailbox would

21:46

be perfect. And we really wanted

21:48

a metal one and we really

21:50

wanted it to be just one

21:53

of those really basic metal ones with the

21:55

slip lead and the long stem

21:57

into the ground because we thought,

21:59

that's going to shoot up into the sky and that's going

22:02

to be really exciting to see launch up

22:04

into the air. We didn't want it to be brick

22:06

and we didn't want it to be fixed to the ground. We

22:09

just had this particular mailbox in mind

22:11

and we turned to the side and

22:13

there it was. Oh my gosh. This is a perfect

22:16

mailbox

22:16

and we all just went that one.

22:19

My brother was the one to do the deed and

22:21

he put the firework in the mailbox and

22:23

lit it up. In my mind,

22:26

I thought it was just going to be a loud bang and

22:28

then

22:29

maybe some sparks.

22:31

I didn't realize that this one firework

22:34

he had had multiple fireworks

22:36

that were coming out of it like a festival.

22:41

So he puts the firework in

22:43

and it's like New Year's. Yeah, the first one

22:45

pops up and goes into the sky and it's like bang

22:47

and we're like, great. We watched it for like

22:49

a second and then we all just said run

22:52

and we started running and behind

22:54

us, the fireworks kept going.

22:57

They're all going off and then of course,

22:59

yeah, dogs are barking, house lights are

23:01

going up on. It's all happening

23:04

now. We're running again,

23:06

once again for our lives and at this

23:09

point in which we get to this intersection, my

23:12

brother and

23:13

Zach paired off to the right and

23:15

Jess and Tom and I paired off to the left and

23:18

we ended up splitting up.

23:19

Smart.

23:20

Yeah, I don't think we had any time

23:23

to think about it. I just think that it just happened

23:25

and we didn't have time to reroute and we

23:27

didn't really have a plan to

23:29

go. I think we're my brother and

23:31

Zach went the wrong way because it

23:33

was the front of our house. But then

23:36

in some ways, the way that

23:38

we went, we were a little bit more exposed to

23:40

the main street. So Jess,

23:42

Tom and I actually had to duck behind some bushes

23:45

and we watched as cars were driving

23:48

past looking for us.

23:50

Did the mailbox actually shoot up into the sky?

23:54

To be honest, I couldn't tell you that. Okay.

23:57

I saw this of

24:00

light in the air and I didn't

24:02

even have the

24:03

guts to go back and have a look at it during

24:05

the daytime. Good. I mean, don't return

24:08

to the scene of the crime. You'll get nabbed.

24:11

They just see me there

24:13

the

24:13

next day taking photos. Right.

24:16

Preposterity. Yeah. Okay.

24:19

So you guys are ducking behind

24:20

the bush. Ducking behind the bush and trying to pick out

24:23

the best moment to make

24:25

a run for it to our house. There were sort

24:28

of a few cars that were going around and circling

24:30

and they were clearly looking for us. Yeah.

24:33

And then we made a run for it and we

24:35

split up with the boys and we

24:38

get to the back of our house

24:40

and all the lights are on

24:42

and I think, oh my God, this

24:44

is no good because that

24:46

means that my parents are awake.

24:49

Okay. And probably noticed

24:52

that we're not there. Yeah. Would

24:54

they have heard the explosion? Look, I don't

24:56

think so. What ended up happening

24:58

is the lights are all on and we're thinking,

25:01

oh no, they've called the cops or they're

25:03

going to show up next. I think

25:05

my parents were a little bit more, I think

25:07

they were giving us the opportunity to

25:10

come back first. We

25:12

had left, but we left my dog inside. As soon

25:14

as we'd taken off, he had alerted my parents

25:17

that we had gone. So he started barking and

25:19

crying out and

25:21

we didn't even think that this could be a problem.

25:24

And yeah, he woke them up and

25:26

they

25:27

just stood on the porch and waited for us

25:29

to return. And we're covered

25:31

in mud because we had gone through these

25:33

back streets and under this bridge and we're

25:36

filthy and out of breath. And

25:38

they just looked at us and said, get

25:41

to your rooms now and we'll

25:43

talk about it tomorrow. Yeah. The

25:45

situation normal though, you were always covered in mud. Yeah.

25:48

Yeah. The mud wasn't the issue. The issue

25:51

was we had snuck out in the middle of the night with

25:53

my brother and his friends doing God knows

25:55

what. And

25:58

I was grounded after that.

25:59

And so you said that your family didn't really

26:02

spend a lot of time together, and

26:04

that one thing that you did to

26:06

pass the time was to

26:08

watch TV. And

26:11

there was a show that

26:13

kind of vaulted you into what is your

26:16

secret. Yeah.

26:21

All right, you've got a taste for Christina's free

26:23

spirit. Now let's find out where it takes her.

26:26

It's quite the journey. And it's ahead

26:28

as we continue.

26:35

Making time for myself can feel like planning

26:37

for a big event, just so that I can

26:39

get the most out of my precious me time.

26:42

You're busy too, so you know what I'm talking

26:44

about. And my essential tool to get

26:46

the most out of my me time is Dipsy.

26:48

And Dipsy is always ready to go

26:51

when I have time at hand. You

26:53

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26:55

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26:58

yesterday morning, I was feeling a bit disconnected

27:00

from myself, so I listened to Get

27:03

Grounded with Mark. Mark helps me

27:05

tap back in. In each three-minute

27:07

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27:10

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27:12

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27:14

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27:16

help me release tension, relax, and shake

27:19

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27:20

And with Mark's help, I got yesterday

27:22

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27:22

a great start. You should join

27:24

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27:26

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27:29

and take care of yourself when you have the time.

27:32

And Dipsy is radically inclusive with

27:34

fresh content every week, so you'll always

27:37

have something new to add to your playlist. For

27:39

Secret Room listeners, Dipsy is offering

27:41

an extended 30-day free trial when

27:44

you go to DipsyStories.com slash

27:46

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27:48

for free. When you go to D-I-P-S-E-A

27:51

Stories.com slash secret. DipsyStories.com

27:55

slash secret. The link is on our

27:57

website and in the show

27:58

notes.

28:08

And we're back with Christina as we set the stage for her

28:10

secret with a TV show that set her on

28:12

a course for adventure.

28:15

So there was a show we used to watch called

28:17

Getaway. It's a travel show. Travel

28:19

show, yeah, and the host would go to a different

28:21

location and I would watch that

28:24

and just think, wow, I can't

28:26

wait until I turn 18 and

28:28

I can travel the world. And that was really

28:31

the one thing I really wanted to do. I

28:33

used to visualise

28:34

and fantasise about

28:36

travelling the world and all the places I'd go

28:38

to and the things that I would do. And

28:41

my motivation

28:42

to go there was so much so that I didn't

28:44

even want to get into a serious relationship.

28:47

You wanted to be able to spread your wings.

28:50

Yeah, exactly. So at the

28:52

time, you could get a two

28:54

year working travelling visa for

28:57

England and that

28:59

meant that you could stay in the country for two years and

29:01

you could work for a portion of that time

29:03

or the entire time. But then after

29:05

that, you would either have to get permanent residency

29:08

or perhaps sponsorship

29:10

through work. I wanted to go

29:12

for as long as I possibly could. Two years.

29:15

Yeah, two years. Wow, that's a long time.

29:17

Yeah, yeah. Well, it didn't feel like a long

29:19

time. Definitely went really quickly

29:21

when we were there. But at the time, you had to save

29:24

up and you had to have £2,000 in the bank.

29:26

Our

29:28

Australian dollar wasn't great at the time. So

29:30

it was about five and a half thousand

29:33

dollars. I had just turned 18 and

29:36

saved a little bit more and

29:38

flew over there. And in fact, I

29:40

wasn't sure if I wanted to do it by

29:42

myself or with someone. But one of my

29:44

close friends at school decided she wanted

29:46

to do the same trip with me. So we

29:49

ended up travelling together and our

29:51

first destination was living

29:54

with her auntie and uncle who lived over in

29:56

Earl Court in London. Oh, fabulous. Yeah.

29:59

That's great you had a fun time.

29:59

That's off-landing. What year was it?

30:04

Did you have a smartphone?

30:06

No, this is pre-iPhone. We

30:08

didn't have camera phones. I had

30:10

my own little digital camera that I took with

30:12

me and I put it around my neck

30:15

on the little cord.

30:16

Right. Okay.

30:19

So you didn't have WhatsApp

30:21

to connect back to your parents with every

30:23

hour and to coordinate with friends.

30:26

You were just heading out on your own with your friend.

30:28

No, absolutely not.

30:30

I said to them, if you don't hear from me for six

30:32

months,

30:33

don't be alarmed. Oh my gosh. I'm just

30:36

out having a good time. Tell me about your travel

30:38

buddy.

30:39

We had a great time.

30:41

I was the type of person that would be up at 6am

30:44

and I'd be wanting to explore

30:46

the town whereas she liked

30:48

to sleep in late but aside from that,

30:51

we had a great time.

30:52

You've got to set about to find a job pretty fast,

30:54

right? Because you don't want to burn through your cash. You're

30:57

planning on supporting yourself for a couple of years.

31:00

Yeah. The first week or two,

31:02

our plan was just to explore and just to enjoy

31:05

it and then very quickly that

31:07

became the reality. We wanted to keep that money in

31:09

the bank just in case.

31:10

Of course.

31:11

We needed it for anything that might come

31:14

up. And the good thing about England

31:16

is it's so close to Europe and back

31:18

then and even now, you can get these $50

31:21

flights that would take you to Paris for

31:23

the weekend and it was just so cheap

31:25

to fly to any

31:26

country in Europe. Ryanair.

31:29

Yeah, Ryanair. There was a couple

31:31

budget airlines.

31:32

EasyJet. Yeah,

31:34

EasyJet exactly. I

31:37

guess our sort of rough plan at the time was

31:38

only to stay at each job for about two

31:40

to three months and then travel a bit and

31:43

then get another job and

31:45

that was kind of the rough idea anyway. Well,

31:47

that's so adventurous. I mean, I would

31:49

be petrified if I gave up one job that

31:51

I wasn't going to find another one but that's just

31:53

me.

31:54

Yeah, it's so funny. Like back then

31:56

I didn't really think about it. I think

31:59

we were the novel.

31:59

over there. We were the Aussie girls.

32:02

You know, everyone loved us.

32:04

We were just full of energy and

32:07

up for anything. So, when we would

32:09

go into any situation,

32:11

people would just be so excited. Oh, you're

32:13

from Australia, da-da-da. The

32:16

first job we found was actually

32:18

not in London at all. It was in the

32:21

Cotswolds. Oh, the countryside. Yeah, it was.

32:24

So, that's where we started. All right. Well, tell

32:26

me about this job.

32:27

Yeah, it was a pub. It was a really cool

32:29

pub. It was

32:30

a very horse-orientated area. So,

32:34

there was a lot of horses.

32:35

I didn't know how to explain that well. Horse-orientated.

32:38

That was fine. A horse walks

32:40

into a bar.

32:43

There was a lot of horse trainers

32:46

out there and shooters. We'd get

32:48

the guys coming out after a day

32:50

of shooting and they would hang all the pheasants

32:52

over the railing at the front of the pub

32:55

and they would be all kitted out in

32:58

these sort of old plaid vests and

33:00

these little like these little hats

33:02

and that have their guns flung over their arms.

33:05

It was just like going back in time. And

33:08

what was the pub called? So, the

33:11

name of the pub was called The

33:12

Hollow Bottom. OK.

33:15

Hilarious. What does that mean?

33:16

I still can't say it now without laughing.

33:19

OK. So, the owners were Scottish and

33:21

they were great. One was the chef

33:24

and he was fiery as and you didn't want

33:26

to get on his bad side, but he

33:28

was still great. And the other one was

33:30

sort of like the face of the business. He was behind

33:32

the bar and he'd pop in and we'd

33:34

end up staying up late and having a few drinks

33:36

with him. And it was one of the first things

33:39

I asked, I suppose, what's with the name?

33:41

Yeah. He said, well,

33:43

it's at The Hollow on the bottom

33:46

of the hill. So, we had a

33:48

hill and then it, you know,

33:50

it's sort of at the base of the hill and that's where the pub

33:52

is. And

33:54

so they called it The Hollow Bottom. That

33:57

was the reasoning behind it. It

33:59

actually. actually makes sense.

34:01

My dad came up with

34:03

a new

34:03

name for it and he used to call it the empty

34:05

arse. And

34:07

so every time I'd call him, he'd

34:10

say, hey, Chris,

34:11

how's the empty arse all going? Great,

34:14

dad.

34:14

So

34:17

a lot of times when we found jobs out there at

34:19

pubs, the way that it would work is you

34:21

would work in the restaurant or the pub downstairs

34:24

and then upstairs you would sort of have the living

34:26

quarters of the staff. So

34:29

you would have a bedroom, a bathroom

34:31

and everything on site and your accommodation

34:34

would be sort of incorporated in your wages

34:37

and usually a meal at the restaurant

34:39

as well each night. Room and board.

34:41

And everyone that we worked with and we just

34:44

adored and got on with so well,

34:47

they all lived upstairs with us. So it's just

34:49

like a party

34:49

every single night and we absolutely

34:52

love it. So let me guess, you did not leave after three months?

34:55

No, we didn't. In fact, we

34:57

ended up staying there for seven months

35:00

and we could have really stayed there longer,

35:02

but we had decided that come January,

35:05

we should move on and go back

35:07

to London, you know, find

35:10

another job and do something else for a while. So

35:12

what was your next job?

35:14

Yes, there was another job at a bar.

35:18

And by then I was a real expert

35:20

at pouring

35:21

drinks. In particular

35:23

Guinness. So a lot

35:25

of

35:26

Guinness is such

35:27

a popular drink over there. They're big

35:29

beer drinking culture.

35:31

But I got to the point where

35:33

you could pour the Guinness in a particular

35:35

way where you get

35:38

the foam head and then you could

35:40

trace out a four leaf clover with

35:42

the tap.

35:43

So quite an expert.

35:45

That was my little specialty.

35:47

I don't know if I could do it now, but back then I could

35:49

do it. Did you say the job in East Dalwich

35:51

was about as good?

35:53

Yeah, absolutely. It was a similar

35:55

deal. We lived upstairs, worked

35:58

downstairs. Well,

36:01

we stayed there a lot longer in the end than we

36:03

anticipated, once again. Time

36:05

flew. We were having

36:07

such a good time and it went by so quickly.

36:09

This job presented a very pivotal

36:12

moment in terms of your secret, because you met somebody

36:15

who had an influence on you.

36:16

Yeah, yeah, yep. And

36:19

who was that?

36:20

Ah, yeah, this person meant

36:22

so much to me.

36:24

Step by step, the stage is being set for an unwitting

36:26

Christina. A travel show inspired her to

36:28

head for parts unknown, and now

36:30

a deep friendship will illuminate her understanding

36:32

of self. And where it takes her will

36:35

surprise you as much as it did her. Stay

36:37

with me. This

36:47

episode is brought to you by BetterHelp Therapy Online.

36:50

For 10% off your first month, go to betterhelp.com

36:53

slash secret. Suzie, serious

36:56

question. Have you ever felt like your brain is

36:58

getting in its own way? Um, yeah,

37:00

like just a couple of nights ago. I had

37:02

all these racing thoughts that were keeping me

37:04

awake. Exactly. You were telling me

37:06

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37:12

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37:16

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37:19

Yep. I have totally benefited

37:21

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37:23

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37:25

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41:59

We can contribute here and we started pruning

42:03

the garden and cleaning it up and doing

42:05

all these things and we had such a great time.

42:08

Did what he was going through have an impact

42:10

on you?

42:11

Yeah, because he was going through some court

42:13

cases and they were quite traumatic.

42:16

So, I won't get into too many details

42:18

but basically his son was taken away

42:20

from him and he

42:22

was trying to gain

42:23

custody and it

42:25

was not

42:26

of any fault of his own. And

42:29

so, we would take him to these court cases

42:32

and he would

42:32

just be so

42:35

sick and emotional and a couple

42:37

of times he would even throw up in the

42:40

garden outside the courtroom because

42:43

he was just so ill with

42:45

the details that made him feel really

42:47

sick.

42:48

I think I just really felt for

42:50

him and his situation. One

42:53

of the situations he was in was of

42:56

any fault of his own and

42:59

I was really heartbroken for him and he

43:01

would say to me, like, I hope that you can meet

43:03

my child one day and I hope

43:05

you get to meet them and

43:08

I'd say, yes, one day we will. But

43:10

there was also a part of me that felt like maybe that wouldn't be

43:12

a reality for a really long time. Yeah,

43:15

it was a bit heartbreaking to see him going

43:18

through what he was going through but then

43:20

at the same time, I guess we

43:23

had this great friendship and I knew

43:26

that he really appreciated that company and

43:28

it was good for him to have that. And

43:32

he introduced me to amazing music.

43:34

He had all these old records and books

43:37

and he even gifted me some of his favorite

43:39

books that he'd had since he was a teenager.

43:42

I had to put this whole box on a ship

43:44

to send back to Australia when I left because

43:46

he'd gifted me so many

43:48

great books and yeah,

43:51

he just shared all of his life with

43:53

us and I was just so grateful for that.

43:56

Sounds like an amazing friendship.

43:58

Yeah, he was beautiful.

43:59

And so, what was it about your friendship

44:02

that vaulted you into your secret?

44:04

Going back to some

44:06

of the conversations we would have at the bar,

44:08

we had this amazing conversation

44:10

one night. I think we're

44:12

just talking about dating and

44:15

men and women in particular. And

44:18

I think maybe I had said to him, you know,

44:21

would you consider dating again? And

44:23

sort of what type of person would you look for?

44:26

And this and that. He was sort of saying,

44:28

you know, look at me like no one's going to want

44:30

to date me. And, you know,

44:33

I'm a mess at the moment. And I said to him,

44:35

I said, that's not true. I said, you are

44:38

so intelligent. And I said,

44:39

I can stay here and talk to you all

44:42

night. And I can't imagine anyone

44:44

with your intelligence would ever

44:46

have a problem dating because

44:49

you can just hold a conversation.

44:52

And most of the time,

44:54

that's what a lot of women want, is

44:56

to be able to talk to someone

44:59

that can string a sentence together.

45:01

And yeah.

45:02

And I said, and he said, wow, he said, I

45:05

never really thought about it like that. And

45:08

as the conversation went on, I said

45:10

to him, so what do you find attractive in a woman?

45:13

And initially, we're talking about, you know,

45:15

personality. And then it sort of went

45:17

into physicality. And

45:20

he said, do you know what he

45:22

said? You know what my favorite part of a woman is?

45:24

And I thought, oh, I don't

45:26

know

45:26

if I want to hear this because

45:28

it might make it awkward or strange.

45:30

But his answer

45:33

really surprised me. And what he

45:35

said was the thing I

45:37

really am attracted to

45:40

is a woman's shoulders, but

45:42

her shoulders and her collarbone and

45:44

kind of, yeah, just her

45:47

upper body and 19 year

45:50

old me said,

45:51

oh, OK.

45:53

I sort of expected him to say boobs

45:55

or legs or something. And

45:57

I grew up on the Gold Coast where, you know,

45:59

know,

46:01

that was the conversation a lot of the

46:03

guys would have, you know, like, oh, she had great

46:05

boobs or this or that. I

46:07

used to call it plastic fantastic.

46:11

Plastic fantastic. Like you'd get the fake

46:13

boobs and, you

46:15

know, the tans and there

46:18

was a lot of beautiful bodies out there and a lot

46:20

of fit bodies.

46:22

But there's a lot of like Barbie and Ken bodies.

46:25

And I guess, you know, especially at that

46:27

age, just sort of comparing yourself with others and going,

46:29

oh, you know, my boobs big enough is, you

46:32

know, you're just sort of comparing

46:34

yourself. And I look back then I think, oh my God, I

46:36

had an amazing physique, but I just at the time,

46:38

I wasn't really 100% confident

46:41

in my body yet. So having

46:44

that conversation with Bill was amazing,

46:46

actually, because it really changed the

46:48

way that I thought about women's

46:51

and men's bodies. And

46:53

he said, you know, a woman's shoulders are really

46:56

small and I can't remember

46:58

how to he described them so beautifully.

47:00

But basically, he was saying

47:02

a woman's silhouette is so

47:05

much different to a man's in

47:07

so many ways, you know, and I

47:10

had never really thought about

47:12

the differences between a man's body

47:15

and a woman's body in that way before. And

47:17

it really changed the way I started

47:19

to think about my own body.

47:22

I mean, I'm still 19, I

47:24

guess I haven't hadn't really sort of stepped into

47:26

my womanhood yet. I

47:29

was very confident, comfortable around

47:31

people. But in terms of

47:33

being really confident in my

47:36

physicality and sexuality, I hadn't really

47:39

owned that part of me yet.

47:41

And I still felt like a giraffe here

47:43

because there's a lot of Greeks

47:46

and Maltese and Italians

47:47

and they're a lot shorter. So

47:50

I'm probably the tallest in my friendship group

47:52

here. Whereas when I go to Queensland, we're all

47:54

the same height.

47:56

So a couple of questions, Christina. Yeah.

47:58

First, did his response? months end up ruining

48:01

your friendship or you thought that was pretty

48:03

cool?

48:03

No, absolutely not. No,

48:05

not at all. In fact, I was really grateful

48:08

for his honesty and I was really grateful

48:10

for that perspective. And

48:12

I guess my second question is how did this change

48:14

your view of your own body and

48:17

did it help with your self-confidence?

48:19

Look, back then, I was pretty wild.

48:21

Like...

48:21

Yeah, you were feral. He established

48:24

it. Yes, I was feral. And

48:25

I started wearing shoes by the time

48:27

I got to London. Good progress. I

48:30

did wear shoes by that time. Good. But

48:32

I mean, you know, we would go out on a

48:34

night out and I would have

48:36

quite a few drinks beforehand. And

48:39

I realize now that I probably had a little bit of

48:41

social anxiety or I

48:44

probably didn't have the most self-confidence.

48:48

You know, I would have to have a few drinks to get

48:50

ready for the night and

48:52

sort of bring out this personality,

48:54

which I thought that everyone really loved.

48:57

There was two Cristinas and I kind

48:59

of really embraced that Cristina. So, you

49:01

know, we would go out, I would do

49:03

something crazy, like take my top off and

49:05

run through a fountain in the

49:07

middle of winter. And then

49:10

the next day, like everyone would say, oh my God,

49:12

that was hilarious. That was so ridiculous.

49:14

I was crazy, you know, and

49:16

I'd be dancing on tables and doing

49:18

all of these things. But that was me

49:21

with a bit of liquid courage going

49:23

out and having a good time. You

49:25

know.

49:27

So at this point, Cristina, you've been away from home for a

49:29

while. Are you planning on just spending

49:31

the entire two years away or is there

49:33

going to be a shoreleaf? You

49:35

know, you're going to get home for a visit.

49:38

Say hi to friends and family.

49:40

Yeah, to be honest, I would have loved to just

49:42

stay in England the whole time. But I

49:44

had this best friend in Queensland

49:47

and she was just the

49:49

most amazing. She was like a sister

49:51

to me. So I promised her that

49:53

I would fly home for her birthday and her

49:56

18th birthday. It was an important one.

49:58

So I went back to her. summer. And

50:02

so

50:03

when I came back to England,

50:05

I just assumed that I could

50:08

get my old bar job back. I had never

50:10

really worried about finding

50:11

work before,

50:13

but what I didn't take into account is that during

50:15

summer, all the uni students and

50:18

college students, they all go on break for

50:20

two, three months.

50:22

So

50:22

they're typically the ones that take all

50:24

of the bar and waitressing work.

50:28

So what happened was I come back from

50:30

home from this little visit and

50:33

my job wasn't available anymore. I didn't have any shifts

50:35

there. My accommodation wasn't available.

50:38

Fortunately, I could live

50:40

with Phil at the time, but

50:42

I started to panic a little bit because I absolutely

50:46

did not

50:46

want to go back home.

50:47

And I did not want

50:50

to ask my parents for a handout. That was

50:52

the last thing I wanted to do. And in

50:54

fact,

50:55

mum definitely wouldn't have

50:57

helped me out there anyway. And dad

51:00

did a couple of times towards the end of the

51:02

trip, but I really didn't want to rely on that. I wanted

51:04

to do this on my own. Of course. Yeah.

51:07

So I just started thinking outside the box and

51:09

thought, okay, well, I

51:10

spent weeks going up or weeks

51:13

or probably days going up and down the streets,

51:16

you know, popping my head into shops and bars

51:18

and restaurants and asking if they're looking for anyone.

51:21

And

51:21

they were all full and sorry, we've

51:23

got people at the moment that maybe come back in a couple

51:25

of months. Oh boy. Okay. So you're getting a little

51:27

desperate. You're starting to feel the heat. All

51:29

my savings were dwindling and

51:31

I was living off rations by that

51:33

point. So when you say you're living

51:36

off rations, what does that mean? I was living

51:38

mostly off egg omelets because

51:40

it was filling and reasonably healthy. So does

51:42

that mean you need to look for

51:44

jobs outside service?

51:46

Yes. I started to look

51:48

on sites.

51:50

I think it could have been Craigslist or something

51:52

like that. I was

51:53

thinking like a dog walker, house

51:55

sitter, house cleaner. Like

51:57

they're the types of jobs

51:58

I was looking for initially. when the

52:00

bar worked dried up.

52:02

You're looking through Craigslist, you're looking

52:04

for, you know, anything at this

52:06

point, right?

52:08

Pretty much. After a while, they all start to look the

52:10

same. Housekeeping, so I'm

52:12

scrolling through these jobs and then

52:15

one stands out.

52:16

Okay.

52:18

So, I see

52:21

in capitals, nudist.

52:25

Okay, nudist. And

52:27

I thought, okay. They're looking

52:28

for you? I thought it was spam or I thought, okay,

52:31

someone's

52:32

posted something explicit

52:34

or, you know, I didn't really think that

52:37

this was meant to be where it was, but

52:39

I was so fatigued at scrolling through

52:42

these jobs one after the other that I thought, oh, I've

52:44

got to see what this is. So,

52:46

I opened it

52:48

and it was all pretty normal.

52:50

It said, you know, I live here and I'm

52:52

looking for a housekeeper,

52:54

like one or two days a

52:55

week or whatever it was. It said

52:58

in bold letters for nudist.

53:01

Okay.

53:02

You know, if you're interested, please call Charles

53:04

da da da da da da. So,

53:07

I thought,

53:09

okay, that's interesting. And I

53:11

thought about it and I thought, okay, well, I

53:13

can work for a naked guy. You

53:16

know, I thought, okay, maybe he

53:18

just thought.

53:22

I saw it and I thought, okay, he's

53:24

obviously, he's a nudist. He's

53:27

a bit of an artistic type. He

53:29

needed to point it out in the job ads because he

53:31

didn't want to waste anyone's time. This

53:33

is what I'm sort of thinking. It's just a housekeeping

53:36

job, but the guy's a nudist. You

53:38

know, that's what I was thinking.

53:40

Is he also looking for

53:43

a nudist housekeeper? That must have

53:45

crossed your mind, right?

53:47

Well, it didn't say that. So,

53:50

I thought I

53:51

would go and give it a try first and

53:53

go into the interview and find out a little bit more.

53:56

Okay, fantastic. So, wow. How

53:59

do you get in touch?

53:59

with Charles the nudist. I just applied

54:02

through the website and I got

54:05

a response back pretty quickly. I

54:08

decided to tell the friends that I was traveling

54:10

with that I was going to go for this job

54:12

interview. And

54:14

when I told her what the job

54:16

was,

54:17

she wasn't...

54:20

her reaction wasn't positive. And

54:22

wouldn't you say like, don't you dare? What

54:25

are you thinking? You're crazy.

54:27

Yeah. Are you nuts? Yeah,

54:29

that's probably a perfect. Like what are you thinking?

54:32

Yeah, come on. You know, there's so many housekeeping jobs.

54:35

You know, why do you have to work for this guy? That's

54:37

a fair question.

54:39

Our suit is

54:41

not far and

54:42

I'm also really curious.

54:46

You're hungry for adventure. And I said, look,

54:48

what's the worst that can happen? I'll go for the interview.

54:51

If

54:52

he's a creep or I don't feel comfortable,

54:54

I don't have to do it, you know? I

54:57

just thought I'll go there first and see what happens.

54:59

So what's her job

55:01

at this point?

55:01

Okay, so she secured a job

55:04

in a restaurant and she did come home with me

55:06

for that period that I had gone back to

55:08

Australia. So she

55:10

secured and kept her job. So she was okay.

55:13

She was earning money and she was sort of keen to do

55:15

some more trips to Europe and I needed to

55:18

quickly save up some more funds so we

55:20

could keep having a good time. Right.

55:23

So after I told her about this job, she

55:26

insisted on coming with me to the interview

55:28

and she said, look, I'm not going to come inside, but

55:30

I'm going to make myself known and

55:32

I'm going to stay outside just to be safe.

55:35

Okay, good friend.

55:37

I wasn't worried, but I also really appreciated

55:39

that. For sure. Yeah.

55:42

I think at this point,

55:43

I was curious, but I was also kind of excited

55:46

about it for some reason. I

55:49

wasn't scared or nervous.

55:50

Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone?

55:52

Yeah, definitely. So on

55:54

the morning of,

55:55

I remember

55:57

getting ready for the interview.

55:59

What do you wear to an interview with a nudist? Well,

56:04

that

56:05

was the funny part.

56:06

So, I ended up settling on like a white shirt

56:09

but then I sort of kept it casual. I think

56:11

I had

56:11

a head with some jeans or something. Yeah.

56:14

I mean, you could either go casual, you could go

56:16

naked, right? No

56:19

need to get dressed up too much for this. That

56:21

would just be overkill with a nudist.

56:23

No, I didn't think so. And I really, I wanted

56:25

to make a good impression but I didn't want to go out of

56:27

my way to make a too good impression. Like, this

56:30

was still a housekeeping job.

56:31

Exactly. Right.

56:34

So, what happened was we had to catch, they

56:36

call it the tube, underground rail

56:39

to get to this location. And

56:42

that morning had been raining and

56:45

the rain had

56:46

stopped but as we were walking to

56:48

get the train, I remember this

56:50

taxi drives straight

56:52

past us into a puddle

56:55

of water. Oh, no. And this huge

56:58

wave of water comes over me and just

57:01

drenches me.

57:03

And I mean drenched. My

57:06

friend was dry

57:08

as a bone and I was just

57:10

soaked and I was wearing a white shirt. So,

57:14

now I'm soaking wet and I've

57:17

got this white shirt on and

57:19

I

57:20

nearly just packed it in. I

57:22

thought, this is a sign that I'm not supposed

57:24

to do this. I'm going to turn around,

57:26

go home. You

57:27

know, if I turn around and go home now, I'm going to

57:29

be late and not make it to the interview.

57:32

Anyway, my friend said, yeah,

57:34

you know what, it's a sign you should probably not do this.

57:37

And as soon as she said that, it was

57:39

like the motivation I needed.

57:41

I was going to say maybe it's a sign

57:43

that you should do it because you do

57:45

pretty well when you show up somewhere covered in mud.

57:48

It's so

57:50

true. It seems to be this running theme

57:52

in my life. Yeah.

57:54

The dirtier I am,

57:55

the better the outcome. Exactly. You

57:58

know, and it must have crossed your mind too that, you know, you know, you're

58:00

basically showing up to interview with a nudist

58:02

and you're basically wearing a wet t-shirt, right?

58:04

Yeah, and to

58:06

know what the uncanniness of it, I actually

58:09

thought

58:10

it would be a great icebreaker. If

58:12

he doesn't have a sense of humour, then we're

58:14

probably not going to get on very well anyway.

58:17

So, I actually

58:19

thought, okay, this

58:20

is going to be a funny thing to tell him

58:22

and I'll just see how he reacts.

58:24

Okay, so you find a place in

58:27

a nice part of town?

58:28

Yeah, so it's in a really nice neighbourhood.

58:30

So, it's in Kensington, really

58:32

upmarket neighbourhood, beautiful

58:35

houses. His house was white

58:39

and very well kept. There

58:41

was no front door, there was sort of like a laneway on

58:43

the side. We arrived

58:46

and he came to the door fully

58:48

closed.

58:48

Okay, appropriate. Yes,

58:51

my friend made a self-known

58:54

and said, okay, well, I'm just going to be outside

58:56

just

58:57

here and I'll see you when you're

58:59

done.

59:00

Have fun kids. Exactly.

59:04

And I went inside and the first thing I said to

59:06

him was, I'm so sorry about

59:10

my appearance. I said, I've just, this

59:12

taxi went past me and covered me in

59:14

water and we

59:15

sort of had a laugh about it and that

59:17

was that. And he was

59:19

this quite handsome man, longish

59:22

hair, dark hair, tall,

59:24

dressed really nicely, beautiful

59:27

house. I'm sort of looking around his apartment

59:30

as we're talking and it's

59:33

really clean and really

59:35

white and beige and not

59:37

a lot of furniture in there, very

59:40

minimalist.

59:41

And I'm sort of

59:43

looking for

59:44

cameras or I don't

59:47

know, anything that might be out of place

59:49

or yeah,

59:53

we sat down and had a conversation. And it was

59:55

just a very

59:57

normal conversation and he

59:59

told me,

59:59

me what he was looking for and

1:00:02

he said that he owned a couple of big nightclubs

1:00:05

around town and one

1:00:07

was actually quite popular. You

1:00:10

know, there was a lot of actors and actresses that

1:00:12

would go there, the likes of like Sienna

1:00:14

Miller and Drew Law who were really big

1:00:16

at the time. Yeah, he had sort

1:00:19

of a bit of a reputation, I guess,

1:00:21

of owning these successful nightclubs.

1:00:24

We'll

1:00:24

notice our people too. Exactly.

1:00:27

I didn't know what to expect. I thought maybe

1:00:29

he's kind of this spiritual guy. I

1:00:31

thought I'd walk in and it would be like

1:00:34

I thought the place would smell of incense

1:00:36

and I don't know, maybe I had

1:00:38

this sort of stereotype in mind but it wasn't what

1:00:41

I expected. He was

1:00:43

very generous with his time.

1:00:46

He answered every question I had and

1:00:49

I was really happy with the responses

1:00:51

and

1:00:51

there were really no red flags.

1:00:53

Did you ask him if he was going to be naked,

1:00:56

if he expected you to be naked? Yeah,

1:00:58

my question was

1:01:00

why did you put nudist in

1:01:02

capital letters on your job ad?

1:01:06

His response was a very good one and he

1:01:08

said that the reason why he did that

1:01:10

was because there were a lot of overseas

1:01:14

workers or people that would come from different

1:01:16

parts of the world to work in England and

1:01:19

a lot of them didn't have very good

1:01:21

English skills and he didn't

1:01:23

want anything to be lost in translation.

1:01:26

So he really wanted that part of it to stand

1:01:29

out because he didn't want someone

1:01:31

to show up for the job ad and not fully

1:01:33

understand what they were signing themselves up for.

1:01:36

So he's just said he wanted to be very clear

1:01:39

and upfront with the fact that he

1:01:41

is a nudist and he would be naked

1:01:44

when he's at home during the times

1:01:46

that I would be there housekeeping. Yeah,

1:01:50

I think I was happy

1:01:52

with his response. It's like it made sense to me.

1:01:55

It was a very logical

1:01:56

response. And then

1:01:58

he said...

1:02:01

The thing that I was worried

1:02:03

he would say, and he said,

1:02:06

the thing is, I

1:02:08

would feel more comfortable and I would

1:02:10

prefer if the person working with

1:02:13

me could adopt

1:02:15

the same lifestyle as me.

1:02:17

So it's about him being comfortable. Yeah.

1:02:20

And I said to him, oh, so

1:02:22

you want me to be naked? And

1:02:25

he said, well, only if you're comfortable.

1:02:27

He said, I wouldn't expect you to do it straight away,

1:02:29

but I would really love you to try it.

1:02:34

And I said to him, oh, well,

1:02:36

I'm not a nudist. And he said,

1:02:39

yeah,

1:02:39

I understand. And he said

1:02:41

that

1:02:42

maybe you could just

1:02:44

come and just do a normal day's

1:02:46

worth of work. And then if you'd like to try

1:02:48

it, you can.

1:02:52

And

1:02:54

yeah, I just, there

1:02:56

it was, the bit that I was concerned

1:02:59

about. And I hadn't

1:03:01

really taken into account. And in the back

1:03:03

of my mind, I'm thinking, oh, you know, my friend's

1:03:05

going to say, I told you so.

1:03:06

And,

1:03:08

you know, and I said, oh, that wasn't in the job

1:03:10

ad. And he said, I know. And he said, but you

1:03:12

can ask me any questions you want to ask. And

1:03:16

so I thought, look, the first

1:03:18

day I can be fully closed. He'll

1:03:20

be naked. Maybe I'll just be

1:03:23

desensitized with it. I

1:03:25

thought, look, I'm going to go the first day. I'll be

1:03:27

fully closed.

1:03:28

He'll be naked and I'll just see how

1:03:31

I feel.

1:03:32

And if things get weird or uncomfortable, then

1:03:34

I'm not going to take it any further.

1:03:36

Okay. And so that's what I did. Okay.

1:03:40

So, wow. So

1:03:44

the first day comes around. His

1:03:47

house was pretty

1:03:47

spotless. I think it was the week after. So

1:03:50

you were poor for work and is he naked when you

1:03:52

get there?

1:03:53

Yeah, he was. He kind of

1:03:55

played it casual. He sort of said, just let

1:03:57

yourself in through the side and

1:03:59

then I'll just. go through what needs to be done for the

1:04:01

day. So, I think he was sitting

1:04:03

on his computer when I arrived

1:04:05

and I just let myself in and there

1:04:09

he was. He was there, he was stuck

1:04:12

naked. All

1:04:14

I was thinking

1:04:14

was don't look at his dick. And

1:04:18

that's got to be hard not to do that.

1:04:20

It's so hard because all you

1:04:22

want to do is just look and just get

1:04:24

it over and done with. And

1:04:26

he's trying to explain to me what needs to be done

1:04:29

and I'm not hearing any

1:04:30

of it. All I'm thinking is don't

1:04:32

look at his dick, don't look at his dick,

1:04:34

don't look at his dick

1:04:35

the whole time. And so,

1:04:37

I thought look, when he turns

1:04:40

around to take

1:04:40

me to

1:04:42

upstairs to show me the other parts of the house,

1:04:44

I'll just see if I can take a quick look. And

1:04:47

I'm sure he was probably amused by that. He

1:04:49

catch you?

1:04:50

Probably. I mean, it's so obvious when someone

1:04:52

looks at

1:04:53

you for us. Yeah, right. I

1:04:56

mean, even to all the guys out there who think they're being

1:04:58

really subtle when they're looking at your chest or,

1:05:00

you know, you can see. You

1:05:03

can see when someone's gay. Anyway,

1:05:06

it was fine and

1:05:07

everything was all normal. Okay.

1:05:10

Look, the first day was pretty

1:05:12

straightforward. I was just getting my

1:05:15

bearings of the house and what he liked done.

1:05:18

You know, he liked to have his sheets washed

1:05:20

and ironed

1:05:22

and I thought that was a bit odd. I thought it was a bit much

1:05:25

to have your sheets ironed, but I thought, look, this guy's

1:05:27

got money. You know, he's that's

1:05:29

what he likes. He wants his bed made like a

1:05:31

hotel bed where it's all tuffin and

1:05:33

it's all ironed and stiff

1:05:35

and nice and maybe I shouldn't use the word

1:05:38

stiff

1:05:38

actually.

1:05:40

I'll find another

1:05:42

word for you.

1:05:44

Yeah, first day was fine. And in fact,

1:05:47

he was working, but you could tell that he

1:05:49

didn't really need to do a lot. It

1:05:52

seemed like his businesses were running

1:05:54

themselves and he was just checking in with the

1:05:56

management. It was also daytime

1:05:58

and they were clubs. mostly open

1:06:01

at night. So he'd either be on his computer

1:06:03

or taking a few phone calls, but a lot of the time,

1:06:06

he would come and have conversations with

1:06:08

me. And we would

1:06:10

talk about everything. He would ask

1:06:13

me where I grew up and what Australia's

1:06:16

like and how he always wanted to go. And

1:06:18

by the end of the day, it wasn't even on my radar

1:06:21

that he was naked anymore. It

1:06:23

was totally comfortable and normal. And

1:06:25

yeah, I felt fine with

1:06:26

it. Oh, you're taking to the nudist lifestyle.

1:06:28

Yeah, I

1:06:31

guess that's exactly what he...

1:06:33

Well, I don't know if that's what he wanted, but I think

1:06:36

after speaking with him and getting to know him,

1:06:38

at

1:06:39

that point in my life, I wasn't afraid to ask

1:06:41

questions.

1:06:42

And I thought there's no harm in asking whatever

1:06:45

questions I like because we're in this sort

1:06:47

of vulnerable position together and I'm

1:06:49

just getting to know this guy. And he's

1:06:51

probably in his early 40s, I'm 19,

1:06:54

I'm on the other side of the world. And I thought, I'll

1:06:56

ask him as many questions as I like

1:06:58

and I have the right to. And that was sort of the attitude

1:07:01

I had.

1:07:02

And so

1:07:03

I asked him, why are you

1:07:05

a nudist? What is it about nudity

1:07:08

that... I didn't want

1:07:10

to say that gets you off, but what

1:07:12

is it about it? Interests

1:07:15

you. So Charles had been

1:07:17

on this

1:07:18

trip to, I think it was Brazil.

1:07:22

And what happened was he got

1:07:24

invited to this party. I think he had met

1:07:26

some people out or on the beach and they

1:07:29

invited him to this party and

1:07:31

it was that nighttime and he

1:07:34

showed up there.

1:07:35

And when he got there,

1:07:37

everyone was naked.

1:07:39

It was like a whole nudist colony

1:07:41

of people completely naked. And

1:07:44

he's the only one with clothes on and they all

1:07:46

turn around and look at him and he's out of place.

1:07:49

They're probably

1:07:51

thinking he's

1:07:52

the pervert, right? Because he's got the clothes

1:07:54

on. Right. Who

1:07:56

was this weirdo in?

1:07:58

Yeah, and I think he's insane.

1:07:59

was just to turn around and

1:08:02

go away, but he was curious and

1:08:04

his mate spotted him. And

1:08:06

so Charles, Charles over here, and

1:08:08

he said, well, what is this? Like everybody's

1:08:10

naked. And they said, oh yeah, you know,

1:08:13

this is a nudist colony. This is our,

1:08:16

you know, naturalist party or

1:08:18

whatever they call it. And we have these

1:08:21

moonlight parties and, you know, it's

1:08:23

free and liberating. And you should try

1:08:25

it. And he said,

1:08:27

oh, well, I don't know if I feel comfortable. And

1:08:29

they said to him, well, just give it a go.

1:08:32

Like no one's looking. No one gives,

1:08:34

no one cares what it looks like.

1:08:37

We're just all here having a good time. And

1:08:40

so he did. And he

1:08:42

said from that moment on, he was just hooked.

1:08:44

Wow, that was it.

1:08:45

That was it for him. And he said that

1:08:48

much like my experience, after

1:08:51

a while, you don't feel like you're naked anymore and

1:08:53

you know, you forget you've got to go back into

1:08:56

everyday life and wear clothes again. And

1:08:58

then the more that you're naked, the more uncomfortable

1:09:01

and restricting you find

1:09:02

clothes. Yeah.

1:09:04

After a while, he just started

1:09:06

doing it more often and going to more of these

1:09:08

parties. And then when he came back home to London,

1:09:11

he decided he didn't want to wear

1:09:13

clothes when he didn't have

1:09:15

to. So whenever he was home, he was always.

1:09:18

Right. Clothesless. Okay. Is

1:09:20

that a word? Naked. When

1:09:23

he started posting the

1:09:25

jobs, he thought, well, I'm not going to change my

1:09:27

lifestyle. So he wanted to make it

1:09:29

known that he was a nudist, but also he fell in love

1:09:32

with the lifestyle

1:09:35

so much. He wanted the people around

1:09:37

him to give it a

1:09:39

try as well.

1:09:41

He wasn't, he wasn't creepy at all. Didn't

1:09:43

do anything inappropriate.

1:09:45

No. And that was another thing I thought if his dick

1:09:47

moves, I'm out of there.

1:09:48

So, uh, did

1:09:50

it.

1:09:53

Um, not, not

1:09:55

that I was aware of in my peripheral.

1:09:57

Okay. Right. Right. Cause yeah, you weren't. You

1:10:00

weren't staring at it 24-7. Yeah,

1:10:02

yeah, yeah. So, everyone wants to know,

1:10:04

Chris, did you become a nudist? Or

1:10:08

at least perform your housekeeping duties in the buff?

1:10:09

It

1:10:12

was the end of my first shift,

1:10:15

the very first day where

1:10:17

I was leaving and he said to me, so

1:10:19

what do you think? Do you think you might try it

1:10:21

next time you're here? I

1:10:24

said, yeah, I think I might.

1:10:25

You know,

1:10:27

we'll see each other next week.

1:10:30

I didn't tell my friends this at the time because

1:10:32

they just would have lost the plot. But

1:10:35

I had two good friends over there actually

1:10:37

at that time, but

1:10:39

yeah, I didn't tell them. But the next shift

1:10:41

came around

1:10:43

and I thought, how am I going to do this? How

1:10:46

does one just take their clothes off and just

1:10:48

put them to the side and just get on with the day?

1:10:50

Maybe there's a changing room? I

1:10:52

don't know.

1:10:53

No, nothing. It was just one big

1:10:55

open house. Okay.

1:10:57

I said to him, yeah, I think I'm just going

1:11:00

to jump in the deep end. And that

1:11:02

was sort of our understanding that, yeah,

1:11:04

I was going to undress and

1:11:07

do my job that day naked.

1:11:11

Okay. Yes, I did. I took my clothes off

1:11:13

and I just got on with the job and

1:11:16

he acted very normally and he came

1:11:19

in, had a few conversations with me.

1:11:22

So his demeanor did not change?

1:11:25

Not at all. His demeanor didn't

1:11:27

change at all. And in

1:11:29

fact, the end of the day he said, how did you go? What

1:11:31

did you think? He was actually excited with

1:11:34

what I thought about it. And

1:11:37

I said to him, I thought it was fine.

1:11:40

But the thing that kept coming back

1:11:42

to me was that, so when I grew

1:11:44

up, we used to watch Seinfeld a lot.

1:11:46

Oh, there's an episode.

1:11:47

Yeah. And I worked with a few Americans and they're

1:11:49

like, oh, we don't really watch a lot of Seinfeld at home.

1:11:52

I said, oh, we loved it here. I don't

1:11:54

know who you're talking to. Seinfeld's huge. Yeah.

1:11:57

Yeah, I know. I know, right?

1:11:59

Anyway, so we grew up watching SideBald and there's

1:12:02

this one episode where

1:12:04

Jerry's, you know the episode where Jerry's

1:12:06

got

1:12:06

that girlfriend and

1:12:09

she's, you know, walks around his apartment

1:12:11

naked all the time and then she starts doing

1:12:13

these things like there's one scene

1:12:15

where she's opening a jar of gherkins. Gherkins,

1:12:18

pickle jar. Yeah,

1:12:20

and she's fully naked and Jerry's

1:12:22

sort of a bit repulsed by this action.

1:12:28

And as I was working there, I was thinking the same

1:12:30

thing. There were some jobs that I had to do where

1:12:32

I thought I just need a bit of a barrier

1:12:34

between me and this task. Right.

1:12:38

You know, even just like cleaning the dishes

1:12:41

and you'd be washing some dishes and

1:12:43

maybe some dish

1:12:44

soap or something would spray

1:12:46

up against you and you

1:12:48

know, there's just no barrier between

1:12:51

you and the dish water and you'd

1:12:53

feel like, oh, I need to go home and have a shower. That

1:12:56

happened to you. Yeah, it did. Yeah.

1:12:59

Okay. Yeah. I mean,

1:13:01

you know, you don't have any pockets, maybe too many breezes.

1:13:04

It's just not what you're used to and

1:13:06

maybe a little more convenient to have clothes

1:13:08

for whatever reason.

1:13:09

Yeah. Like just

1:13:11

something would have been good. An apron. Right.

1:13:14

Okay. And it's funny because

1:13:16

I think

1:13:17

being naked with an apron on would have felt

1:13:19

more naked than being fully naked.

1:13:21

Interesting. Okay.

1:13:23

Could have been. It got to

1:13:25

a point where I thought, oh, I've got to be really

1:13:27

careful. I don't just step outside.

1:13:29

I was worried that I was going to leave the

1:13:32

house naked.

1:13:32

That's hilarious. Because I just forgot

1:13:35

to put my clothes on. Right. Funny.

1:13:38

Okay. So

1:13:39

you were in it.

1:13:40

I'm in it. I tried it. I

1:13:42

thought it was fine. I went home that night and I actually felt like a

1:13:44

little bit excited about

1:13:47

it or maybe excited is not the right word.

1:13:49

I just felt kind of proud of myself.

1:13:53

And I know that sounds like a strange thing to say,

1:13:55

but there was something about it that felt quite empowering

1:13:58

and liberating.

1:13:59

Well, you've done. something new that's a little

1:14:01

bit challenging.

1:14:02

Yeah, I have and I know this sounds

1:14:04

a bit...

1:14:05

I'm fully aware that I'm telling

1:14:07

this

1:14:07

story from the point of view where

1:14:10

I had this really positive experience

1:14:12

with a man that I didn't know in a very

1:14:15

vulnerable situation. And

1:14:17

I don't want to sort of downplay the fact that I

1:14:20

can say, yeah, I weighed up all the risks associated,

1:14:23

you know, I'm an excellent

1:14:25

judge of character and I felt really comfortable

1:14:28

and I can say all of those things. But

1:14:30

I know that there's a lot of women out there that have probably

1:14:33

been in situations a lot

1:14:35

less black and white and have been

1:14:38

taken advantage of. I

1:14:40

was doing... I feel like this experience

1:14:43

was really liberating and empowering for

1:14:45

me, but I'm also very aware that as

1:14:47

I'm telling it, I'm not trying to

1:14:49

say it from the point of view where everyone

1:14:52

should go out and do all these things that

1:14:54

maybe they feel a bit fearful of and

1:14:56

they'll feel liberated and empowered.

1:14:59

I think this was a very unique situation.

1:15:03

I also know that I did it for

1:15:05

myself.

1:15:06

Even though I needed the money, I didn't necessarily

1:15:08

do it for the money. The money wasn't like that

1:15:11

great. It wasn't amazing and

1:15:14

I didn't really do it for the money. I did it for the experience

1:15:16

and I did it to kind of challenge myself

1:15:19

and I did it because I was curious

1:15:21

and that was my choice at the end of the

1:15:23

day.

1:15:23

Well, I'm glad you said that and

1:15:26

you did take the time to start the situation out.

1:15:28

Yeah. So after day

1:15:30

three, I thought...

1:15:34

Look, there was this point in which we'd

1:15:37

become

1:15:38

pretty...

1:15:39

I wouldn't say good friends, but we've really gotten

1:15:42

to know a lot about each other by then. And

1:15:44

to be honest, there wasn't a lot of cleaning going

1:15:47

on. There was a lot of me standing around ironing

1:15:49

sheets and folding some

1:15:51

clothes. There wasn't a lot to do. And

1:15:55

I started to think that maybe Charles

1:15:58

actually just wanted the company more than...

1:15:59

anything. Oh, he was looking for a friend.

1:16:02

I think so. And

1:16:04

yeah, I do think that a lot of the people

1:16:06

he interacted with were people that worked

1:16:08

for him,

1:16:09

people on the

1:16:11

club scene. He didn't have

1:16:13

a partner. His family didn't

1:16:15

seem to live close by. All

1:16:18

of his nudist friends

1:16:19

were sort of over in South America. Yeah,

1:16:23

I think he was just looking for some company as well.

1:16:27

Like even though I was doing it for the experience, after like

1:16:29

the third or fourth day, you get

1:16:31

to the point where it's not really thrilling or exciting

1:16:34

anymore. And it's just a housekeeping job. And

1:16:36

you're really looking forward to your bar

1:16:38

job opening up again.

1:16:40

I reckon I was only there for five

1:16:43

or six days in total, you

1:16:45

know, two days a week for like three weeks before

1:16:48

my previous job was available. So it wasn't a

1:16:50

very long time. But there was this

1:16:52

one day.

1:16:53

So I'm ironing the sheets. That was a beautiful

1:16:56

piano. And I said, Charles, can you play

1:16:58

the piano? And he said,

1:17:00

oh, I can actually. And I said, well,

1:17:02

can you play me something? And

1:17:05

he starts playing the piano beautifully.

1:17:08

So

1:17:08

he's playing the piano. I'm standing

1:17:10

there

1:17:10

naked, ironing the sheets. And

1:17:13

I think I just have this moment of clarity where

1:17:15

I think, how the fuck did I get here? You

1:17:19

know, it was just this sort of bubble. This

1:17:21

is a little moment where I just went, what

1:17:23

am I doing? It is a

1:17:26

unique scenario for sure.

1:17:28

Do you remember what he was playing? Yeah,

1:17:31

I can't. And I really wish I did

1:17:33

because it was wonderful. And I was surprised at

1:17:35

how good he was. I thought,

1:17:36

you know, I always thought that people have these pianos in

1:17:38

the house because I don't

1:17:40

know, they look nice. And but

1:17:43

he could actually play and he could play really well.

1:17:45

That was amazing. I was getting this private

1:17:48

performance from this naked guy on the

1:17:50

piano. And I'm there ironing his sheets naked.

1:17:52

And there's nothing sexual going on between

1:17:55

us. And it was just so unusual. Very

1:17:57

odd. But it was funny and it was hilarious.

1:18:00

And I think after that day, I got my

1:18:02

bar job back and I think I'd decided at

1:18:04

that point that I didn't really need to do that

1:18:06

anymore. So how did you break the news? I

1:18:11

didn't feel like I owed it to him to commute

1:18:13

across town to go tell

1:18:15

him to his face, look, I've got my old

1:18:17

job back. I don't need to work here anymore. It

1:18:19

was always very casual. And like I said, I really

1:18:22

felt like he didn't really need

1:18:24

a house cleaner. It

1:18:26

was maybe for the company as well. Yeah,

1:18:29

I ended up telling him by text.

1:18:32

Must have been a bummer for him. I mean, it was working

1:18:34

out kind of nicely.

1:18:35

Yeah, yeah, it was.

1:18:37

And I actually, you know, we

1:18:40

got on quite well and I love

1:18:42

to speak to him again. I would love to know

1:18:44

what he's up to now. I would love to know how

1:18:46

he went with future employees. For

1:18:48

sure. I would love to know all the stories.

1:18:51

He was really lovely and he sent a message back

1:18:53

saying, no problem at all. And

1:18:55

it was such a pleasure getting to know you and

1:18:58

thank you for being

1:19:00

my house cleaner.

1:19:01

How ever he wetted it. Right.

1:19:04

But the last line he said was,

1:19:06

by the way, he said,

1:19:09

by the way, you have a beautiful body.

1:19:13

And that's how he entered the message.

1:19:14

Did that. Wow.

1:19:16

Did that kind of ruin it for you or how

1:19:18

did you take that?

1:19:20

Um, do

1:19:21

you know what's funny? Mm hmm.

1:19:24

There's a part of me that thought I wish he

1:19:26

won't comment on my body because that's not

1:19:28

what it was about. Right. But then there was also

1:19:31

a part of me that felt like I would be offended in

1:19:33

some way if he hadn't.

1:19:34

Okay. Right. That's fair.

1:19:36

So

1:19:37

I found it flattering when

1:19:39

I showed my friend, she was pissed

1:19:41

off and repulsed and said, I told you here's

1:19:43

a pervert, you know, he's looking at you the whole time.

1:19:47

And I said, but

1:19:49

I guess

1:19:50

I didn't have a problem with it. You know,

1:19:53

so

1:19:54

yeah, I actually found it fine. And

1:19:56

again, it was a bit of like acknowledgement and recognition

1:19:59

that I had. this beautiful physique

1:20:01

and yeah, I

1:20:03

really felt really confident

1:20:05

in my own body after that.

1:20:07

Well, that's great. And so, did

1:20:09

you have a chance to talk about this with

1:20:11

Bill since he kind of, I don't

1:20:15

know, might have opened you up to, you

1:20:17

know, receptive to

1:20:19

a situation like this.

1:20:21

I'm not sure. I don't remember speaking

1:20:23

to him about it at all. And to be honest, I

1:20:26

didn't really even tie that

1:20:28

conversation with Bill to this event at all

1:20:30

until years later, until I reflected

1:20:33

on it a bit more and thought, oh,

1:20:35

well, that was a funny spontaneous thing I did.

1:20:38

But why did I really do it? And

1:20:41

now when I look back on it, I think, wow,

1:20:44

I think I really needed to do that. It

1:20:46

really changed me as a person

1:20:49

and it really helped me step into my womanhood.

1:20:53

And like I said, it was just such a liberating,

1:20:55

empowering experience for me. I

1:20:58

didn't want to have any other opinions

1:21:00

or judgments placed on me.

1:21:03

I already had two friends over there

1:21:05

that weren't happy with the situation. So

1:21:09

I didn't tell many people at the time. I didn't

1:21:11

tell my parents at all, of course. And

1:21:14

I didn't tell any other friends back at home. I just

1:21:16

sort of kept it to myself. And I thought, it'll

1:21:19

be a great story to tell one day, but I'll

1:21:21

tell it

1:21:22

later when it's over and I'm ready to tell it.

1:21:25

And here you are.

1:21:26

And here I am.

1:21:28

I remember even back when

1:21:30

I read the job advert, I remember

1:21:33

thinking, what a great

1:21:35

anecdote to have. You know, I

1:21:37

remember thinking this would

1:21:39

make such a great story one day.

1:21:42

And you know, part of the reason why I went overseas

1:21:45

and went on this big adventure was to

1:21:47

create some stories and to come

1:21:49

home with these stories. So

1:21:51

this was one of those things. And I think if I didn't

1:21:53

take it on, I would have

1:21:54

regretted it. Well, you have grabbed life

1:21:57

by the horns, right? Yeah,

1:21:59

I think so. So yeah. There's just something

1:22:01

about this story that, yes, it's

1:22:04

a great story to have. You know, you went, you

1:22:06

had this very unusual

1:22:08

adventure and it's just so interesting

1:22:11

and it seems to have really made an impact on you because

1:22:14

to this day, you still have very

1:22:16

significant feelings about it. I do

1:22:18

and

1:22:18

like I said, even when I was in

1:22:20

it, I remember thinking I can't wait

1:22:23

till this is over and I can

1:22:24

tell this story.

1:22:26

Right. I remember even having that clarity

1:22:28

in the moment where I thought one day there's

1:22:30

going to be a funny story to tell people, you

1:22:33

know, I guess the conversation would come up

1:22:35

and you'd say,

1:22:37

what's the strangest job that you've ever had? Well,

1:22:39

there you go. You know,

1:22:41

and then everyone would share and then I would say,

1:22:43

okay,

1:22:43

well, one time I worked

1:22:45

for this nudist and everyone would be

1:22:47

so intrigued and then they'd be asking all

1:22:49

these questions. Another question. So initially

1:22:52

it was just a great story, you know? And

1:22:55

I guess it's like a unique

1:22:56

story. Initially.

1:22:58

Initially. And so what is

1:22:59

it now? I think now it's

1:23:02

an incredibly

1:23:03

important story.

1:23:05

It was such a pivotal point in my life

1:23:07

where I really went from

1:23:09

being

1:23:10

this wild teenager to

1:23:14

growing into this woman and

1:23:16

stepping into this power that I didn't know that

1:23:18

I had as a woman.

1:23:21

And I think that it gave me

1:23:23

a lot of self-love.

1:23:26

And with that, I ended up attracting

1:23:28

a lot of beautiful people in my life. That's

1:23:31

awesome.

1:23:31

Yeah. And I think before that time, I didn't

1:23:33

really love myself.

1:23:35

I judged myself a lot

1:23:37

and I was very harsh. I was my harshest critic

1:23:41

and I probably attracted a few

1:23:43

friends that took advantage of me a

1:23:46

bit because I was just so giving

1:23:48

and generous. So after this

1:23:50

experience, a few things happened. I

1:23:52

got into this really beautiful relationship

1:23:54

with my first love and we're still

1:23:56

friends to this day. I think it

1:23:58

really helped me with my career.

1:23:59

it too because I was really confident in myself.

1:24:03

So I got

1:24:04

a lot of roles in management

1:24:07

at a young age and a lot of people trusted

1:24:09

me to run their businesses and

1:24:11

it just sort of went on from there. But I

1:24:13

do think that experience

1:24:15

was

1:24:16

really important to me and my growth

1:24:19

and I didn't really

1:24:21

value that part of that experience

1:24:23

until later in life. Now you say it's helped

1:24:25

you with work and your career. Is

1:24:28

it on your resume? No,

1:24:31

I never put it on my resume. It

1:24:34

was more of a character building experience.

1:24:38

It could go two ways. It could work to my advantage

1:24:40

or disadvantage depending on what job

1:24:42

you're applying for. So

1:24:45

you can use it to shape a resume if

1:24:47

it's ever appropriate. Like

1:24:49

if you ever go be a house cleaner or if you're ever going to

1:24:51

go work at a nudist colony.

1:24:53

I've always got that

1:24:55

one

1:24:55

in my back pocket just in case. I

1:24:57

guess you do. So do you have any way

1:24:59

to get a hold of Charles? To ask him these

1:25:02

burning questions you have like how's he

1:25:04

doing? Did he ever get married? No,

1:25:07

I don't.

1:25:08

What a shame. I would love to. I would

1:25:10

absolutely love to. I know. I

1:25:12

don't have anything. I tried to go back through some old

1:25:14

emails to see if I could find a job

1:25:16

ad.

1:25:18

I don't have his phone number. I

1:25:20

tried to find the clubs that he

1:25:22

owned. I don't even know the names of the clubs. Oh

1:25:25

my

1:25:25

gosh. And there's a part of me

1:25:27

that thinks maybe

1:25:29

he didn't even give me his real name. I

1:25:33

met this person. I know so much about

1:25:35

him but then yet I know very

1:25:37

little about him and his public persona.

1:25:39

Well, and you didn't know him very long. No,

1:25:41

it was such a short amount of time. But

1:25:43

you know where he lives.

1:25:45

I don't have his address anymore either

1:25:47

and I couldn't find it. London

1:25:50

is such a condensed city and you

1:25:53

could drop me in the middle of Kensington and I wouldn't

1:25:55

know left and right. Well maybe he'll hear the

1:25:57

podcast and get in touch.

1:25:59

It would be amazing. If he

1:26:02

gets in touch with you,

1:26:04

tell him to give me a call. I

1:26:06

will. I will do that. And so,

1:26:09

speaking of that, of the podcast, are

1:26:11

your parents going to hear this?

1:26:13

Possibly.

1:26:14

I don't have a problem if they do.

1:26:17

Does anybody you know listen to the podcast?

1:26:20

Yes.

1:26:21

Yes. In fact, funny

1:26:23

story.

1:26:24

So, the other

1:26:25

day, I said to my mother-in-law, I said, oh,

1:26:27

guess what? I'm going to be on a podcast. Her

1:26:29

immediate response was,

1:26:31

oh, it's not the secret room, is it?

1:26:33

What? Really? Yeah.

1:26:36

And I said, what? And I said, all the podcasts,

1:26:39

why did that one come to mind? She goes, oh, because

1:26:41

I love that podcast. I've been listening

1:26:43

to it all every day. Oh my gosh.

1:26:45

And she doesn't know that you listen to the secret room. No

1:26:48

idea. Wow.

1:26:49

No idea. Never spoken

1:26:52

about it at all. And so, I said to her, well, actually,

1:26:54

it is. Oh my

1:26:56

gosh. And what did she say? She said,

1:26:57

oh my God, that's amazing. What's

1:26:59

your secret? And she goes, no, wait, don't tell me. I'll

1:27:02

hear it when you're on the podcast.

1:27:05

And I said, no

1:27:06

problem. It would have been crazy if you hadn't

1:27:08

had that discussion. And then she had just been

1:27:10

listening and heard you.

1:27:13

I know, right? And there's a part of me

1:27:15

that wants to tell a few people and just say, hey,

1:27:17

you know, if anyone's interested in the story,

1:27:19

you know, you can listen

1:27:21

to it in its entirety. Well,

1:27:23

it's going to be there for you to do just that.

1:27:25

Yeah. And at the same time,

1:27:28

I sort of want to put it out there and just see what happens

1:27:30

and see if anyone recognizes

1:27:32

my voice and says, hey, heard you

1:27:34

on this podcast. Amazing. Well, one

1:27:36

person will, you know that, and that's your mother-in-law.

1:27:38

Of all people.

1:27:40

Oh, well, it's

1:27:42

out there now. She's great.

1:27:44

So, she will think it's hilarious.

1:27:47

And so, how's your relationship with your brother these days?

1:27:50

These days, we're great. We've traveled together

1:27:53

and he's awesome. And, yeah.

1:27:56

Well, I'm very glad to hear that. I

1:27:59

wonder also. Also, are you in touch with

1:28:01

Bill? No,

1:28:02

and I'd love to be.

1:28:04

This is a bit of a

1:28:06

sore point for me because

1:28:08

I thought Bill and I

1:28:09

were going to be friends forever and

1:28:12

to me, he's still one of my best friends

1:28:15

and one of the most amazing

1:28:17

people I've met in my life. But

1:28:20

this is my fault. It's my fault that

1:28:22

the friendship hasn't stood

1:28:25

the test of time. So when

1:28:27

I came back from England to Australia

1:28:30

for that 18th birthday, that was my best friend

1:28:33

Blair. I called her my sister. We grew up

1:28:35

together. She was like my soul sister.

1:28:38

I died

1:28:39

the next year. I'm sorry.

1:28:41

After her death, I

1:28:44

just kind of, I

1:28:47

think I just shut down.

1:28:49

I really shut down and it was the

1:28:51

most painful thing that I've ever gone through and

1:28:53

I had so much

1:28:55

guilt

1:28:55

for

1:28:57

not waiting another year to go overseas

1:29:00

and taking her with me. And

1:29:03

I really felt like I should have been here.

1:29:05

So

1:29:06

that happened. And when I came home,

1:29:09

the Gold Coast didn't feel the same anymore. And

1:29:12

that was also part of the reason why I ended

1:29:14

up moving to Melbourne. Bill

1:29:17

and I kept in touch over the phone, but it

1:29:19

was sort of long distance phone calls

1:29:21

and

1:29:22

bad reception and

1:29:25

there was always a lag and sort of expensive

1:29:27

phone calls at the time. You'd have to get call cards

1:29:30

and we'd email here and there. And

1:29:33

in fact, he ended up meeting this

1:29:36

amazing woman and

1:29:39

he proposed to her and they were

1:29:41

going to get married. He

1:29:43

told her that they would get married in New

1:29:45

Zealand.

1:29:46

So it would be close to myself

1:29:49

and my friends. Nearby. Quite

1:29:51

easily. Yeah.

1:29:53

He said, I'm not going to get married unless Christina

1:29:55

can be a part of the wedding in some way. And

1:29:58

that was one of our last...

1:29:59

conversations.

1:30:01

And I know that I don't

1:30:05

know what happened. He tried to call me

1:30:07

a few times, you know, I answered the

1:30:09

phone, but the line was bad and I'd say,

1:30:11

look, I can't hear you. And then I would get off the

1:30:13

phone. And, you know, I

1:30:15

just became a bit complacent with

1:30:18

that relationship.

1:30:19

And then I think

1:30:21

he made a he may

1:30:23

have felt that I didn't want to continue

1:30:25

the friendship or I needed some space. I

1:30:28

did tell him, you know, I

1:30:29

was going through,

1:30:32

I just was going, I guess I

1:30:34

was still

1:30:34

mourning. I just, I

1:30:37

just wasn't in the position to maintain

1:30:42

this friendship, which sounds

1:30:44

really slack. You know, it

1:30:47

sounds awful, but I just

1:30:49

wasn't in the right headspace. And he

1:30:51

gave me the space that I felt like

1:30:53

I needed. And over time,

1:30:56

we just lost contact and I tried

1:30:58

calling him and emailing him

1:31:00

years later. And

1:31:03

I'm really worried that

1:31:05

he's dead

1:31:08

or, you

1:31:10

know,

1:31:11

just I haven't been able

1:31:13

to contact him in years now. And

1:31:16

in fact, I did email him again the other day

1:31:18

to tell him, you know,

1:31:20

I'm doing this podcast and also just

1:31:22

because every couple of years I try to reach

1:31:25

out and I don't know if he receives

1:31:27

them. And that's why I think maybe,

1:31:30

yeah,

1:31:31

maybe he's passed or maybe he's

1:31:33

just moved on. I don't

1:31:35

know. Oh, gosh.

1:31:36

I would love more than anything to see

1:31:38

him again and to speak to him again and just

1:31:40

to give him a big hug.

1:31:42

And I

1:31:44

hope he's doing well. I hope he's around and

1:31:46

he's thriving. And you never found out if

1:31:48

he actually got married or not?

1:31:51

No, I don't.

1:31:53

And I hope he didn't wait for us. I hope that,

1:31:57

you know, he didn't postpone it because

1:31:59

of me. me, you know, because he wanted me

1:32:01

to be a part of it in some way. Yeah, I

1:32:05

just, I feel like such

1:32:06

an asshole.

1:32:09

I feel like such a prick because he meant

1:32:11

so much to me and I want him

1:32:13

to know that, you know, we

1:32:16

weren't sort of taking advantage of that

1:32:18

situation because we were living

1:32:20

with him rent free. His friendship

1:32:23

meant so much to me and still does to

1:32:26

this day.

1:32:27

I'm sure he knows that. Friendships,

1:32:29

though, have a way of moving on, particularly if you're

1:32:31

not in the same area. You know, we change,

1:32:34

we grow, we morph and sometimes friendships

1:32:36

are just for a certain place and time.

1:32:39

Yeah, I think so. And I hope that's

1:32:41

the case. I hope he knows

1:32:43

that he means so much

1:32:45

to me and he's moved

1:32:48

on with his life, perhaps with his partner

1:32:50

and his child back in his life.

1:32:52

I know that much because the last time

1:32:54

we spoke,

1:32:55

he mentioned that also. So

1:32:57

I hope everything's going great for him. But

1:33:00

again, you know, if this gets

1:33:03

to him in some way, I would love more than anything

1:33:05

to speak to him again and see him again.

1:33:08

Well, I hope for that too.

1:33:10

Yeah.

1:33:11

Well, what a story, Christina.

1:33:13

My goodness gracious. You

1:33:16

took us around the world and back and

1:33:19

did you ever become a nudist yourself? Did you

1:33:21

ever feel that itch to just like join

1:33:24

the colony?

1:33:26

I could have. I mean, not really.

1:33:29

I remember we had

1:33:31

a couple of parties in our friend's

1:33:33

backyard

1:33:35

and he had a jacuzzi

1:33:38

and it would be the, this is when

1:33:40

winter keeps back in. So it would be cold outside,

1:33:43

but we had this

1:33:44

hot jacuzzi with bubbles in it and

1:33:48

we would skinny dip. I guess

1:33:50

I did take it on a little bit.

1:33:53

You know, funny story.

1:33:56

As we're talking, it's just all

1:33:58

of these stories keep coming to mind.

1:33:59

But

1:34:00

I'll tell you this one. So

1:34:03

when I was eight years old and my brother

1:34:05

was nine, my parents rented our

1:34:07

house out and bought a four wheel drive. And

1:34:10

we went on this trip around Australia for six

1:34:12

months. And we

1:34:14

lived out of our four wheel

1:34:16

drive and then a caravan. And then we moved

1:34:18

to Melbourne and then moved back to Queensland. This

1:34:21

all happened to spaces like a year and a half.

1:34:24

And so when we were on this adventure, we were

1:34:27

in this place called Broome.

1:34:29

And Broome's a really beautiful part

1:34:31

of Western Australia. They've got beautiful beaches

1:34:34

and beautiful sunsets. And I

1:34:37

used to love collecting shells

1:34:39

on the beach and there'd be all these amazing

1:34:42

rock pools and you could get these beautiful

1:34:44

shells and a perfect form.

1:34:46

And I collected so many of them on our travels. And

1:34:49

anyway, I remember there was this pile of rocks

1:34:51

dividing the two beaches. And

1:34:54

I was just in my own little world, collecting

1:34:56

these shells. And I was looking down. I had my head

1:34:58

down the whole time. And as I'm going through these rock

1:35:01

pools, I'm also walking over this rocky

1:35:04

wall.

1:35:04

And

1:35:06

then I'm on the other side of the wall and then I'm still walking

1:35:08

with my head down and I hear this voice

1:35:11

behind me. And it's my mum calling out,

1:35:13

Christina, Christina. And

1:35:15

I look up and all of a sudden

1:35:18

everybody's naked.

1:35:20

What? And I'm

1:35:22

like, what the

1:35:23

fuck?

1:35:24

And I'm like eight and I hadn't seen a

1:35:26

lot of nude adults in that time.

1:35:29

There's men and women and they've got everything

1:35:32

out. And I had just stumbled across a nudist

1:35:34

beach and

1:35:37

my mum's running to come and get me and

1:35:39

pull me back over the other side

1:35:40

of the rock pool.

1:35:42

And so I guess that was

1:35:44

my first experience witnessing

1:35:48

a nudist colony.

1:35:54

Did you call it that? Little did you know?

1:35:56

What was lying ahead? Little did I know.

1:35:58

So maybe it was in my day.

1:35:59

It was on the cards. It was a cute shot.

1:36:02

It sounds like it to me. For sure.

1:36:05

Well, Christina, what a great

1:36:07

way to wrap this story and what

1:36:10

an interesting way to sort of come

1:36:12

into your own, you know, with a part

1:36:15

of growing up certainly. And

1:36:17

I just want to thank you so much for sharing it with us. Oh,

1:36:19

thank you for having me. It's so good to tell

1:36:21

it finally in its entirety

1:36:23

because as I said, I've told this

1:36:25

story before just in

1:36:28

little snippets, just the fun parts. But

1:36:31

it is nice to go

1:36:31

back and reminisce and just,

1:36:34

yeah, and just tell it, tell

1:36:36

it in its entirety. Yeah.

1:36:40

From a spirited adolescence to a carefree

1:36:42

adventure and the heartbreak of a lost

1:36:45

friendship, Christina developed her sense

1:36:47

of identity and she returned home to her

1:36:49

native Australia a more confident woman than ever.

1:36:52

Despite some perils, her youthful globe-trotting

1:36:54

adventure was a win. And

1:36:56

I just checked in with Christina this weekend. Hey,

1:36:59

Christina.

1:37:00

Hey, Ben. So I never

1:37:02

fully adopted the nudist lifestyle. However,

1:37:05

I did become a lot more comfortable with

1:37:07

nudity in general. There may

1:37:09

have been a few naked jacuzzi nights

1:37:12

at friends' parties overseas, but

1:37:14

I can confirm that I prefer to clean my house

1:37:17

clothes these days, unless

1:37:19

it's a shower,

1:37:19

of course. See the empty ass? I

1:37:21

mean, the hollow bottom and a great shot

1:37:23

of Christina hanging on to a koala bear crossing

1:37:26

sign in Australia. The pictures are available

1:37:28

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1:37:30

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1:37:32

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1:37:35

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1:37:37

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1:37:37

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1:37:40

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1:37:42

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1:37:44

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And while you're there, you can submit your own secret. We're

1:38:09

always on the lookout for the next great story. Maybe

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it's yours. And next time,

1:38:15

Sloan tells us how she never would have received a prestigious

1:38:17

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1:38:19

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1:38:24

and adversity. Come back in just two short

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1:38:35

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1:38:37

Ben Hay.