fiction

“Oi! Incoming!”– a BBC Pause for Thought

/ Trey Hall / Leave a comment

A total joy to be invited to offer the 06.07.26 Pause for Thought on the first morning of the Sara Cox Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2! Listen here. Here’s what I shared:

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In our local park there’s a winding path – and from 8:00 in the morning it fills with kids heading to school, walking, or riding their bikes. I was walking the dog one morning in the park last week and noticed a group of adults chatting at the bottom of a little hill. They were spread right across the path, completely unaware they were blocking everybody else. Children were trudging around them. Kids riding bikes had to brake and pedal up into the long grass.

But then, there was this young girl – probably nine or ten years old. She crested the hill on her bike, she saw the adults, and she rang her bike bell. Well, the adults didn’t even look up. So she rang that bell again – they didn’t move. It was like they hadn’t woken up yet.

Finally, ten meters out, she rang that bell one more time and she yelled: “Oi! I’M INCOMING!” Suddenly the crowd woke up and scattered off the path, just in time, laughing. And the girl sailed through, triumphant.

Sara Cox – I thought of you.

It’s your first show and here you are, with energy and bells and a little bit of “Oi! Incoming!” To wake us up, to bring some joy to our days, and maybe even to move us on a bit, too. Welcome, we’re so glad you’re here.

I know you’ve got the amazing Tom Hanks coming in later. I heard him interviewed recently, about when he played Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers, the children’s television presenter who was also a Christian minister. Tom Hanks said he’d once heard Mr. Rogers say something like: if the only prayer we ever pray is “thank you, God”, that would be enough. And Tom Hanks said: I’m not really a religious person, but I love that.

I’m a Christian, and I love that, too. Whether we’re people who pray or people who don’t, wherever we are on the spirituality spectrum (or not), I think gratitude – “thank you” – is something many of us recognise.

And so, this morning, Sara, as you arrive – incoming! – I pray:

Thank you, God, for new beginnings.

Thank you for Bolton pride and a strong Lancashire accent.

Thank you for the music on the radio.

For sass and surprise, and for the gift of waking up again, however we feel about it.

Sara Cox, may your show be a blessing – a space for laughter, a force for good, and an absolute ton of fun.

“Parallel human activities”– a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 29 June 2026 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Gary Davies on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

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We live on an old London dock, and when it’s hot, I take our Labrador, Iris, down the stone steps to the water’s edge. And as soon as I unclip her collar, she leaps in and glides to the centre, looking back at me until I throw the ball … so she can retrieve the ball, scramble back up the stairs, drop the ball, shake herself off – and jump right back in again.

Over and over. She could swim forever, and it’s a joy for me to watch her experience so much joy.

And I’m not the only one watching. Runners stop running. Cyclists stop cycling. Parents with kids stop walking. All, just to watch Iris swim.

And then something else happens. British reserve melts away and people start talking to me:

“Oh, she’s gorgeous.”

“We thought she was a seal!”

“She’s in her element, isn’t she?”

One couple even went home, changed into their swimsuits, and came back and jumped in with her.

And the conversations often move deeper. Strangers who are talking to me start talking with each other. Like proper talking, like beneath the surface-level talking, for twenty-or-thirty minutes, people dive into discussion, all while watching a happy dog swim.

A colleague recently showed me a video by comedian Jazz Emu: about what he calls “parallel man activities”. It’s hilarious. And really moving, too: about how loads of us men – but not just men – find that looking someone in the eyes can make real conversation harder, not easier. But if we stand side-by-side – parallel – and look at something else – a football match, a sunset on the horizon, a Labrador in the dock – well, suddenly, the words come more freely.

In the Bible, many of Jesus’s conversations with people are “parallel human activities”. Walking beside each other, noticing ordinary things, and somehow, in that shared direction of vision, deeper truths emerge.

Some of my biggest “ahas” in life have happened just like that. With a friend on a drive or on a run, not staring at each other but watching the path ahead. Sometimes, when I stop trying so hard to connect, I find myself drawn closer to others. And to God, who, in my experience, is already there right beside me, sharing the view.

“Jesus the Mother Swan”– a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 7 May 2026 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Gary Davies on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

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A bit of gossip for you. There’s a couple in our neighborhood that everybody’s been talking about lately.

A pair of swans in the local pond.

Last year, very sadly, they lost all their children to avian flu. So this year we’ve really been rooting for them.

In March they built their nest under a little bridge. And eventually there was one perfect egg – but the next day it was gone, stolen perhaps by a fox. But the next day there was another egg – and from then on, Mama Swan hunkered down and never left her nest.

Cycling to work, I’d stop to greet her, or out for a jog. Others did, too: kids on the way to school, tourists, locals. Eventually the council had to put up barriers to give her some peace from her fans.

Last Wednesday evening, I noticed her posture had changed: her wings spread out like feathery canopies. I wondered, I waited, and when she shuffled, I saw them: four babies, another one pecking through, and four still-unhatched eggs.

“Oh, my goodness!” I said outloud. Someone stopped, I pointed, and soon a clutch of us were there on the bridge, lost in wonder. And doing something English strangers don’t usually do: talking with each other.

One woman – we realised we lived on the same street. “Hey, we’re neighbors!” she said. A teenager stopped, temporarily transfixed. A security guard came over with tears in his eyes.

The next morning, they were all there: nine babies and two proud parents. I told my fellow swan-fan-onlookers something I’d learned from Sir David Attenborough: Swans lay eggs on different days, but the baby cygnets coordinate through their eggshell barriers to hatch together on the same day.

“Wow!” said a woman on her phone. “My mum in Swansea says to tell that swan, she’s a star!”

In the Bible, Jesus says: How often I’ve wanted to gather you like a mother hen gathers her children under her wings.

We live in a vulnerable and fragile world – and the danger we face is real. Foxes need to raise their babies, too. It’s nature. And sadly, we’re never short of human tyrants who unnaturally thrive on violence and domination.

According to Jesus, God is not a tyrant, but a mother swan – who doesn’t guarantee us safety but definitely promises us love. God who, I believe, gathers cygnets and humans under her wings, reminding us that we’re not strangers, but neighbours. That we belong not only to God but to each other, and all creation.

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