Why we must raise empathetic men | Stephen Graham

For people that don't know what you've done, can you just explain it

It's not my book. It's lots of authors. Every single person that wrote a letter is an author within the context of the book

And I was asked by my dear, dear, dear friend Jude, who I've known for 33 years

She's a book agent now. And her friend Orly, who is also one of the curators of the book

she had a wonderful idea when her son turned 13. she thought it might be a really good idea to ask men in his life to write him a letter

That kind of like coming of age thing, do you know what I mean? I suppose if we were tribal, it would be one of those moments where you're sent out into the forest

or go hunt and come back and bring back the spoils of your labor and show us what you've done

And that's kind of the journey to manhood. But in today's society, we don't really have things like that

And I think what it was, was Jude approached me with that concept and that idea

And I thought after the success of adolescence, you know what I mean? I thought it might be a really good idea to maybe reach out and ask men to write letters to their sons

And that's where the kind of concept and the idea come from. I thought it would be good to write a book which was called Letters to Our Sons

And look, there's a lot of division in the world at the moment as we're all aware, you know, irrespective of your political views or whatever

There's a lot of divisiveness out there in the world. and one of the things that men have who are fathers is that commonality and that empathy for each other

do you know what I mean because it's it's it's it's not an easy thing to do being a father or a

mother do you know what I mean these wonderful little things we have to raise them and let them

go out into the world but we just thought it would be a really wonderful thing to reach out

and ask people to write a letter and we did that and you know in the book which you've you've looked

and you've seen this there's letters from been meant to barristers do you know what i mean we

all we all have that one thing in common and that's that we are fathers and like i've said

irrespective of whatever your views or opinions may be surely you want to raise a young man who

has empathy and just let them know they're loved do you know what i mean we need a bit more love in

the world it screams off the page all of the letters that i wrote and you know some of them

were very funny Danny Dyer's obviously it's hilarious it's always funny beautiful as well

do you know what I mean and like and there was there such pathos in them and yeah you know that there a letter from um a father who is it Goldie who son in prison and I mean just beautiful just different stories different people but as you said this thread of commonality that runs through it all How did you go about approaching people to ask them to do this

Well, there was a magnificent team involved. Do you know what I mean

Jude was one of the main figureheads in that. And Katie from Bloomsbury, who's been absolutely wonderful

She's a genius. And we tried to reach out and make our appeal as broad as possible

So they went to libraries. They went to football grounds. We went, they visited prisons

So we wanted to get a huge, diverse kind of mass of these letters

and I think we had just under 3,000 entries. How do you go about cutting that down

That's the difficult part. Do you know what I mean? That's where the team were imperative, absolutely imperative

And you slowly begin to whittle it down. And some letters, and again, it's one of those things

where I'd like to thank every single person that sent a letter in

every single man that wrote a letter and sent it into the hub that we created

Because your letter may not be there, but there's you've helped create the themes of the letters that are there do you know what i mean

because some letters are similar so we kind of broke it down piece by piece and eventually

unfortunately you have to break it right the way down to i think i can't remember exactly how many

is in there but maybe 200 and odd letters or just under there that's a lot of letters yeah it's a lot

of letters you know i mean and when you think about it there's a lot of love that's gone into

writing those letters because just for example my little brother Nathan and my

busy mate Leon they kept pulling it off and putting it off and putting it off

and I was like lads you've got three letters you've got sorry you lads you've

got three days now to get these letters in I need them and even I just don't

know what to write it look it doesn't have to be the perfect letter just sit

down and do it and they did and they took that time and dare I say look when

And, you know, the art of writing, when you sit and you contemplate

just solely about that one person, it can be extremely meditative. Do you know what I mean

And the emotions can overflow. And that's just what they did. They wrote it from that perspective

So it's been a wonderful, joyous thing to be a part of, and I feel very blessed and very honored

You started such an incredible conversation, an incredibly important conversation with adolescents obviously and the effects of that are still reverberating now even though it been what two years almost since it screened um and that sort of

that that started a conversation around masculinity and toxic masculinity yeah this sort of feels like

a lovely bookend to it in a way yeah yeah that's you really framed that beautifully that question

it that's exactly what it is it's an opportunity to kind of to me the greatest form of masculinity

personally is vulnerability and to show our vulnerability to the young men in our lives and

you know our sons who we love and some people may not find it very easy to express that

tactfully or you know verbally but to write a letter like I've said you're just sitting

thinking of that one person and it's a beautiful thing to do so if it wasn't for the success of

adolescence then obviously we wouldn't have been able to have this opportunity but again I am merely

a piece of these beautiful jigsaws, do you know what I mean? Absolutely. And obviously you contribute your own letter to this

and your son Alfie, which is wonderful. Presumably Alfie has read this

What did he say? Well, he hadn't read it and he didn't want to read it

And we had a launch in Liverpool at the Playhouse in Liverpool

a theatre that I hadn't been to since I was 15. I did a play there called Our Day Out years ago

Our Day Out, the Willie Russell? Yeah. I did that when I was at drama school

Did you? I loved it. It's a great play, isn't it? I love Willie Russell

And I love doing that play. It was a wonderful thing to do

Who were you in it? I played Digger. I was the mate. I was the two scallies on the back

Do you know what I mean? The one that robbed the sweet shop. And we did the musical at the Playhouse

So to go back there the other night and read my letter for the first time

And Alfie hadn't heard it neither. And he was sat in the audience. and my dad read his letter

and Nathan read his letter my two cousins, Art Teddy and Argio

they read their letters and a few friends read their letters and it was really beautiful

it was a wonderful thing and you could feel it was palpable, you could feel

the energy in the room, do you know what I mean it was really beautiful and a joy to be a part of

Were you tearful around that time? Yeah, yeah, very, yeah yeah, because

as well, writing it is one thing, do you know what I mean but then speaking out your own

letter because the emotion is there so each one of them brave beautiful men that wrote their letters and read their letters out that night it was a joyous experience and it was a blessing to be a part of

You talked about vulnerability a minute ago being so important, and it's obviously not the way that a lot of men of our generation and older than us were raised

That's not something that was considered a traditionally masculine trait. Do you think things are improving

Do you think we're better at talking about that kind of thing? Yeah, I think we've created a platform where we can now be honest and be open about our thoughts

Look, and, you know, we all suffer from, you know, we all have our own vulnerabilities and our own insecurities

But it's important and it's imperative, I think, to communicate them and to talk and to show our children and to give our children that safe place

You know, no thought is too painful or too deep because they are merely thoughts

They're not truth. they're not reality do you know what i mean and and if we begin to talk about things we can always

find a solution to any problem as long as we communicate absolutely wonderful i wish more

people knew that um you described alfie i think as one of your best mates which is so lovely what

is the main difference sort of parenting him now compared to when he was little um there isn't

really much of a difference you know how old is he now he's 20. I'm I am so blessed to have the

most beautiful children our Grace is a phenomenon she wants to change the world she wants to fight

for justice and she wants to she wants to make the world a better place to live in do you know

what I mean and Alfie Alfie's and I say this but Alfie's just Alfie there's there's no one like

out Alfie and he's a wonderful young man and you know he's he's extremely respectful and I say in

my letter there's something I wrote in my letter which I've noticed in Alfie from a very young age

he treats everyone equally you know from a prince to a pauper dare I say he would treat them both

with respect dignity and grace and Alfie has a wonderful humility about him and I think me and

my you know my wife Hannah we've we're doing all right with him we've done all right we've got two

beautiful children that walk out into that world you know what I mean wonderful and try to make it

a better place I think your book is making the world a better place I think it's a wonderful

idea I congratulate you on bringing it to fruition understanding that obviously it's it's a it's a

brilliant sort of team effort but thank you for doing it and thank you for starting this conversation