Ed O'Brien

During lockdown, Ed O'Brien joins a family in east Texas on a FaceTime call arranged through direct messages, with a child wandering in and out and a good deal of small talk before anything begins.

The host describes a childhood spent in a cult, leaving it, and being homeless from 13 to 16 before meeting his wife shortly before he turned 17.

O'Brien is careful not to set his own upbringing beside that. He had loving parents, he says, though it was grim in stretches, and he puts it in the context of a generation of British children raised to be seen and not heard. Having a family of his own turned all of it into a decision about what he wanted to do differently.

He closes on his own observation that, given two minutes, anybody turns out to have a story in them.