james rhodes is still haunted by the violent sexual abuse he suffered from years from the age of six. he has written about how it drove him to drink, take drugs, self harm, and spend time in a psychiatric hospital — and how he was saved by music, only rediscovering in his 30s that he could really play the piano. but in this latest book, he recounts what his successful life really feels like, and it is almost unbearable and distressing to hear. it is nice to be here, thank you. quite a dramatic introduction, i have to say. quite a dramatic book. yeah, possibly. and you intended it to be. no, i never intended it. the whole drama thing, i've had quite enough of. sometimes it can be quite sensational to talk about certain topics, and to me, what i really wanted to do was just tell the truth and be transparent. and so, so much of our lives today seems to entail kind of perfectly curated instagram selfies and pretending everything is a certain way, and that we somehow have all the rules and we know how to live perfectly well, and actually, i think the reality, certainly for me and i think for a lot of us, is very different, that actually life is quite challenging and it can be quite messy, and it is ok to kind of, admit is the wrong word but it is ok to say that, to talk about it, to be open about it. and you have been very open about it in your book, but the descriptions seem that almost any time that you are away from the piano, on your own, you are almost in a state of constant torment. is that unfair? do you know, it is probably not unfair. i think when you put it like that, god, ifeel more depressed now than when i came in. no, actually, i think it is unfair, i would not say almost any time. there are more and more moments that i feel quite comfortable with my place in the world, but there are a surprising number, large number of moments where i do feel very tormented but i think, the thing is, i don't think i'm alone in that. i really think that many of us wake up a lot of mornings with that idea of god, i have had too much to think last night and ijust had those voices and all that dialogue going on, today is going to be awful. you look at yourself in the mirror and you just think oh god, i'm a disaster. i feel destroyed, i don't think that is uncommon. but it is quite extreme for you. it is extreme with me only because of where it lead potentially, only because of... because of where you have been in the past? exactly, because i have a history of being in various locked psychiatric wards and suicide attempts and am, i suppose, understandably nervous about going back there. so when i have a bad day and things seem to be spiralling out of control, my fear is that i am not too long away from ending up back where i was a few years ago. and we can hear from a concert last year, when you were playing chopin, and i suppose this is the dayjob. yes. playing chopin. it is awful, watching that. it is like hearing your own voice on an answering machine. no one watching this will know what an answering machine is, we all have voice mail now, but do you remember when you were a kid hearing your own voice and you would go oh god? what do you think? probably the same thing that you think when you see yourself on tv or whatjournalists think when they're reading articles they've written, it is just slightly uncomfortable. when you are actually playing? that is the best, time just disappears, and that is why i think it's important to find something that you love, something that is ideally created. the big problem that i have fallen for and i think we all have it, is that we are not designed to live the way we are living in 2018, we are just not built for it. we look outside of ourselves all the time to try and fix what is happening on the inside, and without sounding too much like deepak chopra, it is not working. i do not think it works to get self—esteem from how many retweets we get on twitter or how many facebook friends we like, or if we get the shiny new iphone before anyone else. that is not the point, the point is try to find something, that awful word mindfulness, but the point is we go inside, rather than outside. that is what music does to me, what art does to some people, or painting. it is always music. it is music that saved you, but the cause, the reason you need saving is because what happened to you when you were six? yes and no, personally yes. look around you, i think we kind of all need saving. we have all experienced trauma, i think there is no question about that, whether it is parents divorced, disease, people dying. you cannot quantify trauma, that is the point, it is part of the human condition. for you, it was extreme. it was the age of six when you were very violently raped. yes, for a long time, for many years, to the point where it ended up with spinal surgeries to try and repair all the damage — physically, the emotional stuff is still there. i mean, obviously, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out if you take a six—year—old and you do that to him for four or five years, it is going to result in some pretty issues. and it was a teacher who did it to you? yeah, a gym teacher at school, and it was the 805, which is not an excuse, but nothing happened. do you want to know something about this country, england, the uk, where we are shooting this, even though it is watched all around the world ? people in other countries hearing this will not quite believe this, but i promise you it is true. still in 2018, in any clerical setting, such as a school, a teacher could walk into a classroom and see another teacher raping a six—year—old girl or boy and they could shut the door and walk away, and they don't need to say anything, and they won't have broken any laws. that is the point, we do not have mandatory reporting. for the uk, they do have a duty to report. no, they do not. that is the point. we are one of the only countries in the world that does not have mandatory reporting and if they do report to the school or the police, they have no protection like whistleblower status or anything like that. you bring that up because — did the teachers at that school know? that is a hard question to answer, yes is the short answer to that. i was found by a teacher with blood on my face and coming down my legs and hysterical, and... i mean, as you would be. and i changed overnight and that was witnessed also by teachers and one of the teachers in her police evidence statement, she said — there is no issue, i have permission to talk about that because she told me i can — but she went to the head teacher and said something is happening here and it is not right, and the head teacher said, as they did in the 805, little rhodes needs to toughen up and nothing was done, nothing was done. and we should explain that she only came forward after you had done an interview about it. exactly. you have done your research. i did an interview where i mentioned it, it was a big interview in the sunday times. it was a couple of sentences were i said this happened to me when i was at school, and she got in touch with me and said i read this interview, i know who it was and i had my suspicions. i was quite naive, i was quite innocent. i did not realise it was sexual in nature but i realised something was happening, and i thought it was physical, not sexual. of course, it was both. she went to the police, she gave a statement, they tracked the guy down. here is the thing. sometimes, there is a lot of very angry people, i think, in the world, sometimes that comes out on social media, it comes out below the articles when people are writing comments. very occasionally, people will say you only talk about this because you want to sell a few albums, and i always tell them this story. i talked about this for the first time in 2000, in this interview, and as a direct result of that, the police found this guy and you know what he was doing at the time that he was arrested? he was an old man, he was a part—time boxing coach for boys under ten. when people accuse me of talking about this to get sympathy or sell albums — if i had not spoken, this guy would still be doing it. he could be teaching your son, your grandson, god forbid, your nephew. would you rather that were happening? he actually, there was a police investigation. yes, he was charged. there was a trial date set and he died before it got to trial, justice turns slowly. how do you he feel about the fact, though, that he knew eventually what he had done to you, the damage? nothing, there's nothing. no feeling? no, god, it sounds so melodramatic, but that part is dead. i mean there is no feeling now. we're talking about your teachers and things but what about your family because you say you changed overnight? again, i can only really talk about myself. it is like in the book, a memoir i wrote, instrumental, where i talk about it, talk about me, because it is my story, not my family's story. all i will say is again, it was the 805, it was a different time, people were very naive then. i think now if any of those 5igns were going on in a kid, we would be all over it. it does not mean that it has stopped, as we know, it is still an epidemic all around the world, but people are aware of it more now. we need to talk more about it. there was something else, you mentioned it took quite a few years to come out. this was almost wor5e than what happened when i was a kid, if you can believe that. yeah, you are right. i had to get the supreme court to give me permission to publish it. it took me legal fees because they tried to ban the book, not only banned the book but they wanted a gagging order that would stop me from speaking or writing in any medium anywhere in the world about any aspect of my past. and we should explain it was your then ex—wife who was concerned about your son... well, ostensibly yes. her belief was that i was doing this intentionally to inflict psychological harm on my own child by talking about my own past, which defie5 belief, but... well, eventually, the supreme court ruled... they intervened and they changed the law to stop this happening again because the precedent was so terrifying. but you talked when the book came out about how people are in denial, whether it is your family, the teachers... i think two people in my family have read the book, one of them has barely mentioned it and the other one who has kind of mentioned it is my mum. it is like it does not exist, the culture of silence, which is what allows abu5e of any kind to thrive, it is like we do not talk about this stuff, how could you write a book? and the shame, the secrecy, sexual abuse is predicated on 5hame, it is predicated on the fact that 5hame will stop you from talking. and that is why i promised myself that if i ever had a microphone, even a small one, i would talk about it. it is not the only thing i talk about, i will talk until i'm blue in the face about bach, chopin and really lovely things. it is a love letter to my son. but also about this terrible thing, that is really one of the 5courge5 of our society. but there were, of course, many years when you did not talk because you moved on from the abuse... tried to. and then it was in your late teen5 that you started to drink, everything. and self harming and everything else. and the truth is, you can't outrun, 5adly you can't outrun these things. it is another reason i talk, because my own experience and that of thousands of people who have got in touch with me since the book came out, is that it is talk or die. i mean i know that sounds very melodramatic but you have to talk, not necessarily to your family, not necessarily to your friends, maybe to a good therapist or doctor or the samaritans, who are amazing, or their organisations you can call, but you have to talk about this stuff. otherwise, it is like a cancer inside you. you said your mother had spoken to you, what did she 5ay? she was very supportive and very loving and kind. she's a wonderful woman. i think the thing is, when you have a child, all paedophiles say the same thing. they all say, you cannot talk about this. if you cannot talk about this, you cannot imagine the horror of things that will rain down on you. you will go to prison i will go to prison, you will be killed, your family. whatever is used. and when you're five or six or seven, your brain is not fully wired, it's still plastic. it changes the way you think and act. every time you're around that person, you have to act normally, you say yes, sir or hi, dad or shake their hands. you become complicit in the crime they have carried out. it's like you have robbed the bank together and you are protecting him and every single time that happens, that bond, it sounds crazy, but that bond get5 5tronger, so it's no wonder that we have people speaking out now 20 years, 30 years, a0 years later, which is why things like the statute of limitations on sexual abu5e crimes are so ridiculous. it can take 30 years before you have the courage and strength to speak out. there are many remarkable things about your life... all of our lives. we all have stories. but in your particular life, you got your life back on track effectively. you had a succe55fuljob with a financial publication. i worked in the city, the only thing i am embarra55ed about is working in finance. you got married and had a son. you stopped the piano. for ten years, i didn't play, from 18 to 28. and only i started properly at 14. i did everything in reverse. it was like amy whitehou5e in reverse. i did all the drugs, i stopped and when i hit 28, i thought life is too short, i quit myjob, i said i'm going to be a concert pianist. everyone looked at me like i was crazy. and they're not laughing now because i did it. to me, that's a wonderful thing. how many people... i have lost count of the number of people who said to me, i know i could write a book or i always wanted to be an actor. i think it's so easy — we get trapped in these jobs that we don't like, marriage5 that are kind of convenient but a little bit 5habby because we have a mortgage together or we have to pay the bills, and i think, you know what? you get one shot. i walked away from all of that and i'm doing what since i was a little kid i wanted to do, which was play in concert hall5 around the world. you talk about what it means for you, mu5ic saved you. around that same time, you were having a son growing up who then hit the same age. they don't tell you this. i mean, i wish they had. i'm not sure how i would have prepared for it but i realised afterwards that it's very common if you were raped or abused a5 a child and you also have a child, when that child turns the age you were when the abuse started, it's very likely that your entire world will implode. that's what happened to me. i just couldn't. .. on a biological level, i couldn't do the math. i couldn't see this perfect miracle child who was four, five years old, this ab5olute god—given miracle, and see that i was that size when this was done to me, and not only that but the terror of, what have i done? i brought this kid into a world where these awful things happen. what was the effect on you? everything fell apart. i was aggre55ively self—harming, i was suicidal, i ended up spending nine months in various secure wards. i hasten to add, not because of him. he is still perfect and the greatest thing in my life and as any father would atte5t, it's the most overwhelming feeling of love and it only ever gets bigger. they don't tell you that. just when you think it can't get any bigger, it does, it's amazing the capacity to love your child. it's everything. but at that time, it brought up a lot of unresolved things. i tried to run away from it because i hadn't dealt with it. i don't know how i could have dealt with it. i hadn't talked about it. it's like when a train 5tops but the carriages behind it haven't stopped and theyjust crash into the back of it, that's what happened with me and it took a long time to deal with that. to recover from it. it took a lot to recover from it but in a way, that is one of the messages in your book, it is that you don't ever really recover. it is what it is. exactly. it's a kind of daily reprieve. that's why i am so deeply suspicious of self—help books, this idea that you can find happiness in six weeks if you do these simple things or find peace of mind in one year if you follow these little guides. the pursuit of happiness, it's in the constitution in america. we shouldn't be pur5uing happiness, i don't think. i think happiness is fleeting. it's lovely when it comes, but we are not designed to be happy. even most of the time, i would say. just because we are not happy doe5 not mean we are unhappy. there is a giant scale in between. it can go further down into depression and anxiety but the message in the book, if there is one, it is that life is kind of messy and imperfect and all of us feel alone in a crowd sometime5. all of us feel 5lightly like we don't belong. sometime5, just getting out of bed, getting the kids ready for school, getting on the subway to go to work, getting home, putting the kids to bed, eating something and going to sleep is an heroic act. no—one says, well done, you made it through the day like an adult! but for a lot of us, it's an extraordinary thing to achieve when your head is saying, throw yourself under the tube, your life is meaningless, no—one will care, life is too much. just to survive and endure i5 heroic. for you, we come back to the music. yes, please. you had come out of hospital and you were putting your life back together again. it was this combination of writing, talking and playing that saw your career 5oar? yeah, i had no career before. i got out of hospital and met my manager purely by chance at a coffee shop, and in 2009, i released my first album which is crazy because concert pianists, you start at two or three years old, six hours of practice a day and i was in my late 305... mid—305, i'm not that old, and i did it all the wrong way around. but music is the one con5i5tent thing. i'br been on 35 different kinds of medication, i've seen the same number of p5ychiatrist5 and psychologists, i tried so many different things. the only con5i5tent thing that has worked is music. do you know how it works? that's the magic trick. no. what i do know is that when i was seven and the world was like a warzone, i found an old cassette tape with a piece of music by bach and listened to it, and in that moment, everything changed. thank god it wasn't a bible. everything would be different but to me, it was bach and everything was changed. you are sitting here with bach emblazoned on your t—5hirt. let's hear you play him. sure, why not. is there an answer to the question why bach? why oxygen, why water? everyone wanted to see that piece. everyone watching this programme, everyone single one of you, if you have two hands, you would be able to play that piece by bach in six weeks. you are looking at me like that. in a stroke of marketing genius, we decided to call the book how to play the piano. it shows you how to play that piece. you don't need a proper piano. that one cost £150,000, if you can believe it. you get a £30 keyboard. you plug it in and spend a0 minutes a day, sunday5 off — six weeks later, you are playing bach. what a thing. imagine in an age where everything has an app, if we can't do it within three minutes we give up — to find a0 minutes a day, it is amazing. jame5 rhodes, on that note, thank you very much for coming on hardtalk. thank you. hello. tuesday's weather is a wet, windy, and for some of us, rather wintry tale. the culprit — an area of low pressure swinging in from the atlantic that will bring 5ome di5ruptive snow to the northern half of the uk. some wet and windy conditions further south. so here it is — this weather front pushing in from the west. a low—pre55ure centre to the north. the low itself will keep the winds up right the way across the british isles. the worst of the snow will be through the morning in time for the rush hour, sadly, across scotland with 5—10 centimetres po55ible across the highlands. but a good few centimetres po55ible through the central belt, making for a dangerous rush hour. for northern ireland, perhaps the worst of the snow pulling away by 8am, but not i think before we've had some significant accumulations. snow for the pennine5 and the higher ground of wales too. but even to lower levels for a while, even possible across the midlands. then further south, we've got some heavy rain and some strong winds. so for the morning, a very me55y picture. keep up to date with the travel on your bbc local radio station. this is the way the day then pans out. this whole weather front will push its way eastwards, clearer skies will follow on from the west, but some wintry showers for scotland and northern ireland. so you can see scotland clears considerably as the day goes by. but that threat of something a little bit wintry across the midlands through the mid afternoon is mostly rain by the time that front gets into eastern england in the second part of the day. still a chilly story wherever you are, even with some 5un5hine. highs ofjust a or 5 degrees. thi5 weather front away to the east through tuesday evening, overnight into wednesday, clear skies again after that falling snow and all the moisture lying around, a widespread frost developing. ice a big risk for first thing on wednesday. you can see, we're talking about quite a widespread frost for first thing wednesday, and quite a hard frost as well. towards the west, though, notice the blue ea5ing somewhat by the end of the night. that's because we'll see a weather front approaching, trying to bring in some cloud, which will lift the temperatures, but of course, it's bumping into all that cold air, so again, 5now a potential problem for scotland, i think, parts of northern england and wales. behind the weather front, 5ome milder air coming in, so turning back to rain acro55 northern ireland and wales as the day goes on. temperatures in double figures for cardiff and plymouth through the afternoon. that weather system, again, well, that moves through pretty quickly off into the continent for the small hours of thursday. then we're still left with a low—pressure centre driving our weather for the remainder of the week. it will keep some showers pushing into scotland and northern ireland, and some of them could be wintry for a time. but generally, things look a little milder by the end of the week. hello, this is the briefing. i'm samantha simmonds. our top stories: the governing anc tells south african president jacob zuma you are being removed as head of state. north korea's leader speaks of a warm climate of reconciliation with the south after a delegation return5 from the winter olympics. the high tech fight against extremist content online and new software that claims to root it out and remove it instantly. is it safe to go back into the water? travel operator thomas cook say5 it is and resumes selling holiday5 to tunisia for the first time since the terror attacks almost three years ago. in the business briefing we'll hear from the company why it has taken this step.

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