Sam and Rhonda (00:14)

Welcome back to Rosie the Reviewer. This week we’re talking about the film Another Mother’s Son, which came out in 2017. It was directed by Christopher Menaul and written by Jenny Lecoat. It is the true story of resistance member Louisa Gould, who sheltered an escaped Russian POW on the German-occupied Channel Islands during World War II. And the scriptwriter is actually Gould’s great-niece. So that’s kind of a fun little family connection there.

The title comes from what Louisa Gould supposedly said about the dangers of harbouring Russian fugitives. Louisa, who had two enlisted sons of her own, one of whom had died aboard a cruiser in 1941, said, “I have to do something for another mother’s son.” This movie is available on YouTube or Amazon Prime in the UK. And today we have a special guest. It’s a movie about a woman doing her best for another mother’s son. And it’s also Mother’s Day in Canada and the United States.

So we have my mom Rhonda on the pod. Welcome, Mom.

Rhonda:
Thanks for having me. Wow. Two years and a hundred-plus episodes later. Congratulations on your success. And you made a fan out of me, just so you know. And I thank you for sharing your passion with the world. I also want your listeners to know that if they want to further deep dive into any of your episodes, they can go to the awesome website rosiethereviewer.com, where you can check out links that Maartje has posted for books. You can find it all there if you really want to do a lot more research into the content of these episodes. I also want to remind you that on that website they have a link to where you can buy some really groovy, wonderful Rosie wear. I have my t-shirt on today as a matter of fact.

Sam:
So you should go there and check it out. Ma, what did you think of this movie, Maartje?

Maartje (02:02)

I thought it was a cute little story, a sad story. These stories are my kinds of stories because they are about ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and it just reminds me that even when times are bad, we can always expect some people to do good things, and that’s helpful, especially in today’s world. The acting was alright. On occasion it struggled a little bit with tension, especially in the middle of the movie. I got a little bit distracted maybe, but overall an interesting movie to watch and just an extraordinary story overall. How about you? Let’s go to Rhonda first. Rhonda, what did you think?

Sam and Rhonda (02:47)

Rhonda:
I enjoyed watching it and it resonated with me because I’m a mom, of course. It was a nice story to tell because we all know about the atrocities during World War II, how many innocent people were killed, slaughtered, murdered, just a terrible, terrible thing. And these little stories that come out of these people that showed courage and empathy for their fellow human — more of these stories I hope are available and can be told. I know that for all the millions of people killed, there were a lot of people that were actually rescued by these people that had empathy for their fellow human beings. So I enjoyed it.

Sam:
I will say I also enjoyed it, but I found that they relied really heavily on “no, the Nazis are here again” as like the only way to, I guess, generate tension in the movie. And I thought the main relationship between Louisa and this guy who’s living in her house, this stranger who comes from a completely different culture, like who doesn’t even speak English at first — I thought their relationship, they could have gone into a lot more depth with it. There were a few things that happened in the movie that are just never followed up on again.

And I would have loved to see, you know, they’re living in a house together. I’m sure sometimes it was difficult. Because we see little moments between them, but I think I would have liked just delving more into their relationship, because that can also be a source of tension, rather than constantly being like, all right, something hasn’t happened in a while, let’s have another close call with the Nazis.

Maartje (04:20)

That’s true. I suppose there’s one really tense moment between them when religion comes up and God comes up, but it’s kind of out of the blue, and it would’ve been nice, maybe, if they’d built on that tension before and have that be the catalyst for a big blowout between them. But it just — I agree with you, I think. Maybe that’s also what I struggled with. When I said they struggled to hold the tension, maybe it’s just because there’s not enough tension between the evil Germans and nothing else.

Sam and Rhonda (04:54)

Sam:
It did seem like there were a few spots where they kind of shortchanged the story. And it was just like, they kind of left us hanging, you know? And we wanted maybe a little bit more about it. So I agree there.

I was giving it some thought about the fact that the scriptwriter is Gould’s great-niece, so obviously, if the script is written by someone in your family, then of course they are incentivized to present you in a certain way. And I don’t know if maybe she reduced the amount of conflict between them, or maybe some elements of the story were a little bit changed. Or maybe even just, you know, if you love someone, you want to present them in the best light possible. I just thought it was really interesting thinking about things that happened in the movie and then remembering that, yeah, her family member wrote this.

Maartje (05:38)

Yes, I agree.

Should I delve into some of the details about what happened on the Channel Islands? Because the movie begins in 1942, but a lot of the really scary stuff happens before then. So should I update all of you about what happened on the Channel Islands?

Sam and Rhonda (05:57)

Sam:
Let’s do it.

Maartje (06:06)

So first of all, this story takes place on Jersey, which is a Channel Island, and I wasn’t too aware of what a Channel Island actually was. So the UK has two major ones of these. They call them kind of Crown dependencies in the channel. One of them is the Bailiwick of Jersey, which is where we are in the movie. It’s the largest one of the two. And the other one is the Bailiwick of Guernsey. They have their own government, but Britain is responsible for their defence and international relations, and — spoiler alert — they don’t really do a good job of defending these islands, by choice.

Sam and Rhonda (06:46)

Sam:
The Channel Islands have this really interesting dialect that’s a blend of French and English. And so we see this in the movie where all the characters speak English, but we briefly see the main character speaking a sort of French patois, and they all have French last names. And this is because like a thousand years ago when William the Conqueror crossed the English Channel and took the English crown, he was, of course, William Duke of Normandy. And so for a period of time, the English monarchy held not just England, but also the Duchy of Normandy. And as the centuries went by, they lost most of that territory except for the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands are all that is left today of the Duchy of Normandy. And so the Channel Islands belong specifically to the British monarch, but they do not belong to Britain.

So they find themselves in this interesting situation. And they’re also geographically, if you look at them, they’re pretty much right off the coast of Normandy. They’re about 80 miles south of the coast of England. So geographically they’re closer to France than they are to England. That’s why they’re sort of in this weird legal position where they govern themselves, but they belong to the English crown.

Maartje (07:58)

Yes. They’re also the only British soil that was ever occupied by the Germans. So that makes them unique in a sense. So let’s get to the occupation of the Channel Islands, because a lot happens in between — we’re a WWII podcast after all, so let’s get to that point. The occupation lasted from June 30th, 1940 until Liberation Day on May 9th, 1945, and there was no conscription for any of the islands, though some of the people who lived there travelled to the UK to volunteer and join the armed forces. After the defeat in the Battle of France, which lasted from May 10th to June 25th of 1940, the British decided not to defend the Channel Islands if they were attacked, as they were deemed of little strategic importance.

And they notably did not tell the Germans that they weren’t going to defend these islands. So when the Germans came upon them, they machine-gunned Jersey. That was on June 28th, and they killed 10 people. They then occupied the island on July 1st. And Guernsey — actually the island of Guernsey — they occupied the day before, and they also killed a bunch of people there, even though Britain had by then demilitarised the islands and there were no military personnel on the islands anymore. They could have just walked in there and not harmed anyone, which is kind of sad.

Sam and Rhonda (09:29)

Sam:
Well, yeah, both of the major ports on the islands were bombed, but essentially what happened is that a Luftwaffe pilot was flying overhead and he’s like, it feels weird that I’m not being shot at. I’m just gonna land and see what happens. So he landed at this airport that was like deserted and he was like, guys, I think we can just come here. And that’s pretty much what happened. And then later on that day or something like that, Britain was like, yeah, we’re not defending it, PS

Rhonda:
And to be fair, Germany didn’t really see a lot of strategic value in —

Maartje (09:52)

Yeah.

Sam and Rhonda (09:56)

Rhonda:
— the islands either. Well, when they first invaded and conquered the islands, Hitler viewed it more as a propaganda coup so he could share with the rest of the Germans that they had a piece of Britain and victory was coming, and this was a huge thing for him personally, that he had made this score and gotten a piece of Britain. So just thought I’d add that. It did turn out to be strategically pretty good later.

Maartje (10:19)

A little bit.

Sam and Rhonda (10:23)

Sam:
But then it became such a drain on their resources that it really wasn’t worth it. Who knows, right?

Maartje (10:29)

Yeah. I kind of wanted to mention a little bit about Guernsey, about the attack on the harbour, because it’s so sad. The Germans saw trucks and they thought they were convoy trucks, and they ended up being tomato trucks, and they bombed them and they killed 22 people. So, not a fun time.

So that’s what happens during the initial occupation, but the movie kind of skips all that, and we’re two years into the occupation by the time it starts. Speaking of, should we start? Should we get into the movie?

Sam and Rhonda (11:03)

Sam:
Do it.

Maartje (11:03)

Let’s get into the movie.

We open on Jersey, one of the Channel Islands, in the summer of 1942. And there’s a little opening card that says: “The only British territory to fall under Nazi rule. By order of Hitler, Englishmen not born on the islands are to be deported to Germany with their families. Men captured elsewhere in Europe are brought to the islands and are forced to work. A true story.” Indeed it is.

Sam and Rhonda (11:38)

Sam:
There’s this situation that was happening at the time where Persia, which is today Iran, had the Soviet Union on its northern border. And then the British were camped out in Iraq to the west. And so it had these two Allied armies on either side of it. But Iran was officially neutral, but its largest trading partner was Germany. So it didn’t want to piss them off. So there was quite a large expat German population living in Iran at the time. And at a certain point, the Allies were like, well, if we leave them there, then we’re worried that we’re going to encounter sabotage and espionage and that kind of stuff. And so the British and the Soviets rounded up all these German expats. They let the women and the children go back to Europe, but they put the men in internment camps. And this pissed Hitler off to an outrageous degree. He’s like, how dare they invade a neutral country and round people up? And it’s like, he was just completely failing to see the irony in that. And so he decided that he wanted to imprison ten British civilians for every German who was in prison. And he decided he was going to get them from the Channel Islands. But by the time he gets there, the Channel Islands have been partially evacuated. A lot of people have left. As you said, there are a lot of men who left to enlist in the British Army. And so he gets there and there just simply aren’t enough people for him to have his ratio of ten to one that he wants. But that is the motivation behind this idea — that he’s going to start deporting people. This was direct retaliation for what had happened to these German expats in Iran.

Maartje (13:03)

How petty of him.

Sam and Rhonda (13:05)

Sam:
Yeah, I think that is one of many negative character traits that we can ascribe to Adolf Hitler.

It’s definitely worth mentioning that the Germans did attempt to enforce the antisemitic laws of Germany here, the way they did in other places that they occupied. There just were simply not that many Jewish people left on the Channel Islands, because there weren’t that many in the first place and many of them had evacuated. But of the ones that were left, the Germans essentially made the local government enforce this thing where it’s like, if you’re Jewish, you have to give up your business. And if you’re Jewish, you’re not allowed to do this and that. You can only come out of your house an hour a day, that kind of thing. The local government did push back a little bit. Like they didn’t force people to wear the yellow star and that kind of stuff. But the Germans still rounded up quite a few Jewish people and some of them died at Auschwitz. So definitely worth noting that they were specifically rounding up Jewish people here too.

Maartje (13:57)

Yes, and they also changed a couple of things to the way of life on these islands, like the time was changed to German time, they had to drive on the other side of the road — usually they’d drive on the left, they were made to drive on the right side of the road. I’m guessing there was a curfew. I don’t know how enforced it was. Overall, what you read about these islands is that the Germans weren’t as nasty to these people as they were to people in other countries, but it was no fun. There were rations and all sorts of food shortages, especially toward the end — we’ll get there later.

Sam and Rhonda (14:32)

Sam:
The other thing too is that they would have these very specific rules that people would have to follow. And part of it was an excuse so that if they caught you breaking the rules, they could force you to do hard labour, because they tried to force the islanders to work on military installations. And the islanders were like, no, you can’t make civilians do that. But once they catch you breaking their rules, well, now they can make you do anything they want you to do.

Maartje (14:42)

Mm.

Sam and Rhonda (14:59)

Sam:
The wonderful thing about the islanders is that there weren’t really a lot of them there. But this soft resistance was enough to save a lot of lives, or save them from a lot of harassment from the Nazis. Of course, they’re going to harass people just because that’s what they do. But this soft resistance was really a way to kick back just a little bit and keep some of their, I guess, sanity. And they were very secluded. They were left on their own. It’s like, okay, well, we’re not going to rise up or we’re all going to get killed. So we’re just going to lay low and hopefully wait out the war and this occupation.

So yes, which is great because it brings us to our next point. We meet our main character, whose name is Louisa Gould. She’s played by Jenny Seagrove, and her sister Ivy is played by Amanda Abbington of BBC Sherlock. I believe that’s where I’ve seen her. And these two ladies have connections which they’re about to use. So Ivy’s husband Arthur, played by John Hannah, works in the post office. They use this to wrangle a promotion from the postmaster, played by Nicholas Farrell, for a friend’s husband, so that he and his family won’t be deported. And this is the first time we see Louisa do something to push back against the regime, but it won’t be the last.

Maartje (16:05)

It will not.

Louisa and her nephew Rex, played by Brennan O’Connor, stumble upon the quarry where the Russian prisoners are being forced to do hard labour and are brutally beaten, and it plants the seed for what will happen next. So the Germans brought in approximately 16,000 POWs to turn Jersey into a fortress, including an estimated — [figure unclear in transcript] — and other POWs came from Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Holland and North Africa, so there’s a bit of everything here, who are all treated very poorly. But I believe the Russians got the worst of it.

Sam and Rhonda (16:46)

Sam:
Yeah, the Channel Islands became one of the most well-fortified parts of the Atlantic Wall. So the Atlantic Wall was this chain of fortifications that Hitler was building all along the coast of Europe, fully knowing that if the Allies were going to invade the continent at some point, they would do it in that direction. And he was right, incidentally. And so it was sometimes said that the Channel Islands were more well-defended than the Normandy beaches, which is quite something.

Actually, if you go to Jersey today, the underground tunnels that were built by these POWs are still there and they’re like a museum. You can go in and tour them.

Maartje (17:20)

One thing we see in the movie is that they mine the beaches as well. So we see something we saw in the Denmark movie we watched, Land of Mine. But it doesn’t look nearly as scary as it did in that movie, just because the story isn’t about it. I’m sure it was really scary, and I think they still find the occasional landmine or bomb today in Jersey.

Sam and Rhonda (17:43)

Sam:
Louisa learns that one of her sons, Ted, has been killed in the war. Ted was, I believe, an anti-aircraft technician of some kind, and he was serving on a cruiser that escorted convoys. And as he was escorting a convoy away from Greece, his ship was torpedoed. About 180 sailors died, and he was one of them, unfortunately. So Louisa obviously is quite emotionally affected by this. She’s working in the shop that she runs, not long after that, when she sees the Germans herding a group of Russian prisoners along, and she rushes outside to give them food, disturbed by what is happening in her community.

Maartje (18:22)

What I thought about this — about her emotion and also about how quickly they kind of moved on from it — maybe that’s another one of those things where they could have gone a little bit deeper. It happened so early in the movie that I, even though I felt sad for her, I didn’t really know her yet, or any of her sons. So it left me feeling a little bit unaffected. Maybe I’m a bad person.

Maybe it’s good to mention too that Louisa is a widow. Her husband has died already, way before the war. They don’t really mention him that much in the movie, but she’s this really just kick-ass lady who looked after these boys when they were younger, and now they are apparently really clever boys. I watched a documentary called Betrayed by the Nazis, which spoke at length about how she looked after these boys and how really bright and smart they were, and the villagers all liked Louisa also because she ran the shop. And she was a connection to the outside world because she had a wireless that she listened to. Listening to the wireless was highly illegal at this point — if the Germans found you with a wireless, you’d be in trouble.

Sam and Rhonda (19:40)

Sam:
One thing that I thought was a little sad was that in the movie, there’s a point where she gets a Red Cross letter from her other son, and it’s dated like four months earlier, because it just takes the mail so long to get to them. And in real life, she didn’t find out that her son Ted had died until four months after it happened. So I thought that was a sad little footnote there.

Maartje (20:01)

Yeah, she would have probably written to him as well in the meantime. I mean, they did write, so… God, that’s so sad.

At the quarry, a young Russian POW called Feodor Burriy, played by Julian Kostov, manages to hide from the Germans. They are kind of distracted because one of the Germans is an asshole and he throws a piece of food to the floor, and they all scramble to get it, but it means that Feodor gets to get away.

And he escapes to a farm where the farmer René Le Mottée, played by Peter Wight, needs to find another place for him, as he already has another escaped POW that he’s looking after.

Sam and Rhonda (20:41)

Sam:
Apparently in real life, Feodor had tried to escape twice before and he kept getting caught. So this time the other prisoners helped him by staging a distraction so he could get away.

Maartje (20:51)

Yeah, in the movie they make it seem like it’s accidental, but apparently it was not accidental that he got away.

Sam and Rhonda (20:57)

Sam:
We also need to shout out this farmer, René, because apparently when Feodor escaped in real life, he stayed with René for three months. And René had four kids and he knew the risk that he was taking by harbouring this guy. But he was like, I have to, because I’m trying to be a good person and set an example for my children. And apparently it was his children that dubbed Feodor “Bill.” So they called him Russian Bill. And then that’s the name that the English people started calling him.

René asks Louisa if she can take Feodor in, but she says no. She’s the local shopkeeper. Her and her husband used to run the grocery store together until he passed away — I want to say in 1933, it was a few years before the war. And she’s struggling enough as it is trying to obtain enough food to feed her community. People come into the store and they ask her if they can have some of her eggs and that kind of stuff.

So soon after, she and her sister Ivy see a dead German soldier washed up on the beach, and their friend Elena, played by Susan Hampshire, who owns the land upon which Louisa lives, comments that she would like the soldier to be buried. And a lot of the other people standing around are like, forget that guy. But she’s like, wouldn’t we all want our sons to be buried if they died far from home? Wouldn’t we want that bare minimum of human dignity?

Maartje (22:11)

Yeah, it’s a strange kind of humanity. Well, I guess it’s not strange. It kind of makes me happy to see the humanity there, despite the fact that this guy is German.

Lou decides eventually that she must help, and she takes Feodor in. And as he settles in, she sees that he’s been badly beaten — she offers him a bath and then she sees all his nasty scars. And then they have a close call as a Nazi comes by to give Louisa grief for violating some blackout rules because Feodor’s left a light on.

And it’s very tense. I’d already forgotten about this moment, but that’s one of the tense moments that’s created just because a Nazi happens to be walking by. She’s like, sorry, sorry, sorry, and closes the door and then it’s over.

Sam and Rhonda (22:56)

Sam:
We had talked previously about how in Norway during World War II, there were like eight Germans to every Norwegian, which seemed like a lot, but on the Channel Islands there was like a couple of Germans for every islander. Because there’s just not that many — it’s not a heavily populous area. And the Germans were obviously stationed there ready to defend it. So there were just so many Germans crawling all over the place.

Maartje (23:17)

Yeah. I think it’s interesting that despite the Germans being there, life does seem to go on for these people. They do their regular — if they still have their jobs, they just do their jobs and they go about getting groceries from Louisa, even though there’s a shortage of a lot of stuff. It seems kind of not as terrible as we’ve seen in other movies.

And I also wasn’t as scared for these people, even though Louisa obviously was hiding a Russian. Most people just seemed to get on with their lives.

Sam and Rhonda (23:52)

Sam:
Well, and I think that lulled them into a false sense of security too, because in real life, Louisa — obviously a brave, incredible person — but she also was just a little bit fast and loose. Like she didn’t seem that concerned about being caught harbouring this guy or having an illegal wireless. She seemed to genuinely think that it wouldn’t be that big of a deal if she got caught. And as we know, it did end up being a pretty big deal.

Maartje (24:16)

Yeah.

Sam and Rhonda (24:16)

Sam:
The other thing too that I think helped was that if you look at the island of Jersey, the most populous area — I don’t know if you’d call it a town or a city — but it’s on the south part, Saint Helier, I think it’s called. And even today there’s maybe less than 30,000 people who live in that town. And then she lives on the far northwest part of the island in a place called Saint-Ouen. And so she’s pretty rural, and she mentions that at one point in the movie — the fact that they’re so far out of town that they know all their neighbours and she’s not really worried about being turned in and that kind of stuff. Little did she know. Spoiler alert.

Maartje (24:54)

Exactly, yeah. That makes it extra sad that she’s so trusting of other people, and then they end up being betrayed.

Sam and Rhonda (25:03)

Sam:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, that’s the thing, right? In as much as bad people like to project bad behaviour onto other people, good people also tend to project their behaviour onto other people. She trusts people because she’s like, I’m a good person, ergo, other people are intrinsically good. And it’s like, hmm, not everyone.

Maartje (25:21)

Nope. And as a way of showing that, the movie at the next scene goes to the post office where Arthur learns that locals are turning each other in to the Nazis.

We have encountered two shop ladies who are jealous of Louisa’s perceived connections, as well as a young local girl who’s dating a German soldier — they call her a Jerry bag — that Louisa refused to serve at the shop. And they are potential enemies who have reasons to potentially rat Louisa out if they find out her secret, though Louisa doesn’t seem too concerned about this.

Sam and Rhonda (25:56)

Sam:
Yes, they definitely Chekhov’s gun us with these two shop ladies and the young girl dating the German soldier. They’re like, it’s only a matter of time before someone turns this lady in.

Maartje (26:06)

Yeah, the research says people were not kind to this girl dating a German boy. Like this girl would have been ostracised, I think, by the entire island.

Sam and Rhonda (26:16)

Sam:
Yeah. Feodor settles in at Louisa’s home and begins to learn English. It kind of cracked me up because we see a scene where he introduces himself and she simply cannot pronounce his name, and she’s like, well, I’ll just call you Bill. And then pretty soon after that, we see her teaching him English, and I’m like, girl, maybe you can learn a little bit of Russian, starting with, I don’t know, his name.

Maartje (26:39)

Yeah.

Sam and Rhonda (26:40)

Sam:
Around this point in the movie too, I found it disconcerting that he was this rough-looking Russian guy and she saw him in the bathtub with his beat-up back and everything else like that. And then in the next scene I almost didn’t realise it was the same character, because here he was clean-shaven. His English was actually pretty good. It’s like, obviously some time had elapsed, but it was just like, it went from him being scruffy and then the next scene he’s just this wonderful-looking young man all scrubbed up, looking good, handsome and everything. And I’m going, that’s a bit disconcerting.

That’s true too, because if they had shown us him having a shave and coming back to resembling some form of human being — that he clearly didn’t feel like when he was being dehumanised by the Germans — then we would have understood a bit more about his internal life, I think, because that’s another thing: we don’t really see much of his emotional journey beyond certain moments between him and Louisa. So yeah, I definitely agree. I thought it was weird when it was like, yeah, he speaks two words of English and all of a sudden he’s like, “I went to art school in Moscow.” I’m like, that’s a pretty advanced sentence. Exactly.

Maartje (27:51)

Yeah.

Sam and Rhonda (27:51)

Sam:
And then he meets Louisa’s family by accident — her brother-in-law Arthur and her nephew Rex come over and they see Feodor and they’re like, who’s this guy? And she’s like, oh, he’s my Russian POW friend. And Arthur is understandably very alarmed about the presence of Feodor at her house, because he obviously knows firsthand that people are turning each other in all over the place.

Maartje (28:12)

Yeah, Louisa’s just so cavalier about the whole thing. She’s just like, da da da da da, and he’s just my Russian friend.

Sam and Rhonda (28:19)

Sam:
Yeah.

Maartje (28:20)

Moving forward a bit to 1943, and this is when Louisa and Feodor argue about God, because Feodor cannot believe there is a God when all of this bad stuff is going on. He’s like, if there was a God, why are all my friends dead? Which is a fair question, I would say. And when Louisa decides he needs to get out of the house, they go on a bike ride.

And they have a close call at a German checkpoint. And this is another thing — maybe it’s basically the same argument you just made — because we don’t get to see him grow at all in any sort of direction. All his emotional beats are really sudden and kind of out of the blue, like he’s suddenly very panicked at this checkpoint.

Which is fair, because there were a bunch of Germans. But I kind of wish they’d built that up a little bit. And I also don’t understand why the hell Louisa took him out on a bike ride, to be honest with you.

Sam and Rhonda (29:21)

Sam:
This is also the scene where Louisa’s glasses get broken and she picks them up and the arm is missing. And this — spoiler alert — will be something that you’ll see at the end of the movie, how this adds a certain amount of poignancy and connection there. So I just thought I’d point that out. Yeah. Tie a little ribbon around that.

Maartje (29:44)

Yep. And after this close call with the Germans at the checkpoint — where they just managed to turn around and get away — they decide that Feodor needs papers. And the passport maker’s suspicions lead to an extortion of Louisa’s brother Harold, played by Ronan Keating, of all people. Now there is another potential enemy in the midst. They just kind of make it so you don’t know who’s going to betray them, but you just know that it’s going to happen at some point.

Sam and Rhonda (30:11)

Sam:
Yeah. So in real life, Feodor actually got his identity papers from a local insurance salesman named Bob Le Sueur. And I wanted to mention Bob because he is just hilarious to me. He runs the insurance company by himself. Like he’s the only insurance agent, and he’s 19. He visits Louisa because she has a minor insurance claim — she burned a rug or something. And while he’s there, he’s like, why don’t I use my ability to travel around unnoticed as an insurance agent to acquire papers for your Russian friend Bill? And so he does that. Bob is also the one later on who finds new hiding places for Feodor, as well as another Russian POW, after the Germans are alerted to their presence at Louisa’s house and her sister Ivy’s house. And Bob also goes on to help Feodor sell his art while he’s in hiding, so that he can make some money. Like this guy is so kick-ass.

Maartje (31:04)

So Bob is in this little documentary that I mentioned earlier and he’s a delightful man. He became, obviously, a historian on the island, so he tells you mostly what happened in real life, and he’s just a delightful old man at this point.

Sam and Rhonda (31:20)

Sam:
He seems great. And actually a thing that I did enjoy when I was reading about how Feodor liked to draw — which we do see in the movie, he’s constantly doing portraits and stuff of people — is that apparently he was very good at replicating photographs. And I was like, I know another artist who’s good at that.

Maartje (31:36)

I wonder who you mean. I don’t know.

Sam and Rhonda (31:38)

Sam:
And that’s —

Maartje (31:39)

It’s me.

Sam and Rhonda (31:40)

Sam:
You.

Louisa catches Feodor and her young shop assistant, Annie, played by Izzy Meikle-Small, kissing. And she once again decides that Feodor needs to get some fresh air and takes him into town. And Feodor hates every single moment of this. Understandably, there are just Germans everywhere. And they have a run-in with a Nazi that frightens him so badly that he wets himself, which is pretty understandable if you think about where he came from and what’s going to happen to him if he gets caught.

They go into a bookstore together and a Nazi follows them in and they have a sort of weird interaction because Feodor is pretending to be French, but he doesn’t really speak any French. He’s trying not to talk too much because he obviously has a Russian accent. And this Nazi follows them out of the store and is flagging them down. And when he finally catches up with them, he’s like, you forgot your pocketbook. And it’s like, okay.

So he’s really freaked out, understandably. And meanwhile, Louisa and Ivy also find shop assistant Annie another job to break things off between her and Feodor. And he’s pissed about that. And then it’s just simply never addressed again. It’s so weird, because in this scene this is actually where you get to see Bill being a normal young man. He’s a horny young man. He’s looking for maybe a relationship with somebody. And he gets so frightened that he pees his pants. So he’s actually got some character finally in this film. You’re going, there he is right there. He’s just a normal guy looking for a little bit of nookie, maybe some romance. And it’s too bad that they didn’t pursue that a little bit further, because he then lapses back into his normal boring self again after.

Maartje (33:20)

Yeah.

Sam and Rhonda (33:20)

Sam:
And I honestly thought they were being chased because he picked up a book, wasn’t it, about that Russian painter? Yeah, Kandinsky. So I thought that’s why they were being chased out of the store. That’s kind of where I was led down the path there by my nose, I guess.

Maartje (33:36)

Yeah, also — why would you buy a Russian book if you are harbouring a Russian POW?

Sam and Rhonda (33:43)

Sam:
Well, that’s what I thought. This is really strange, that they’re just like — as you said, they just seem to be very laissez faire about the whole thing. There’s a Nazi in the shop and I’m getting a book about a Russian painter. How many people would be doing that in occupied — with a whole bunch of Russian POWs on the island? That just seems really strange. Well, and also they’re trying to pass him off as Louisa’s French cousin from the continent. And it’s like, everyone in this town speaks French. Up until 100 years ago, the majority of islanders barely spoke English routinely — people spoke French. And obviously the weight of that has shifted and now the majority of islanders speak English as a first language. But at the time it’s like everyone who lives on that island speaks French. If anyone speaks to him, they’re going to realise that he’s not French.

Maartje (34:33)

Now I feel like the islanders at this point — and that kind of brings me to the next note — because Feodor is becoming increasingly ingrained in Louisa’s life. He’s openly working at the shop, selling stuff to people, and then he’s celebrating Christmas with the family. I guess the only one who’s slightly concerned at this point is Arthur. He’s tense as hell. I mean, understandably.

And they’re singing songs and playing piano, and then they ask Feodor to sing a Russian song, which he does, loudly and proudly. And because of that, some Nazis overhear and they ring the doorbell. And then thank God Harold, who’s a teacher, sings this song and kind of covers it up for them. But Feodor is obviously freaked out by this. He goes into the chicken coop where they tell him to hide, and then afterwards he tries to leave because he’s obviously putting them in danger.

Sam and Rhonda (35:32)

Sam:
Yeah, Harold sings a song in Russian, and then he comes in and he’s like, it was me singing the whole time. And the Nazi’s like, okay, seems valid. I don’t know why you’d be singing a Russian song, but okay.

Maartje (35:42)

I do like that Ronan Keating tries to act. I don’t know if I think he succeeds, but you know, at least he got to sing, right?

Sam and Rhonda (35:52)

Sam:
Yeah. I was a little disappointed too because Louisa’s sister Ivy in real life was also harbouring a Russian POW at her house, and we don’t really see that in the movie. She obviously — and we’ll talk about her more later — but she ended up being a pretty cool lady. So we just don’t see her that much in the movie. And I think they give Harold more — I don’t want to say more credit than he deserves — but I feel like they could have given Ivy the credit that she deserves as well.

Maartje (36:18)

Yes, I agree.

Sam and Rhonda (36:19)

Sam:
Lou and Feodor are at church — so yeah, he’s just straight up in church with them. When Elena, that’s Lou’s landlord, she takes Lou aside to warn her that it’s becoming very dangerous to harbour Russian POWs. More and more people are turning their neighbours in. And we see the girl with the German boyfriend overhear them. And Louisa had been quite sympathetic to this girl initially. She’s like, yeah, she’s young, she doesn’t really understand, she just sees a handsome face, kind of thing. And this time she’s a bit snarky with her. And you’re like, she pissed her off, that’s probably not a good idea.

Maartje (36:55)

No, it’s Arthur — if you remember, he’s working at the post office. He discovers that a dummy letter has been written about Louisa to the Germans. And that’s when some Nazis arrive wanting to see the post office employee register for some reason, and he’s made to attend that. And while he’s doing that, the postmaster has actually sent the letter before Arthur could destroy it as he planned. But he does manage to warn Lou.

But in actuality, it wasn’t Arthur at all. It was the vice principal of Victoria College, and his name was Pat Tatam, who found the letter because it was incorrectly addressed to Victoria College instead of Victoria College House, where the German administration was based. So kind of a lucky accident, because he did readdress it and send it, but he created a 24-hour delay and arranged for a messenger to warn Louisa. And apparently another warning came from the girl with the German boyfriend, who’d overheard her German boyfriend talking about Louisa, saying someone needs to warn this woman because it’s going to be trouble. This last rumour has never been verified, but it was Bob Le Sueur who talked about this in the documentary. So I hope it’s true. It’s likely it may have happened, and I’d like that for this girl who was dating the German boy.

Sam and Rhonda (38:26)

Sam:
Yeah, for sure. It’s like, obviously Louisa believed in her. So it would be nice if that were true, I agree.

So they move Feodor to a safe house and they pack up all of his stuff. They’re trying to get rid of all evidence that he was in the house, so they’re burning papers. But it’s too late. The Nazis search Louisa’s house and they discover a Russian-English dictionary along with Christmas gift tags written in Russian. And she ends up being arrested along with Elena, her friend Nicole, played by Félicité Du Jeu, and Harold.

Maartje (39:00)

Yeah. In real life they weren’t all arrested at the same time, but along with the dictionary they also found Louisa’s wireless, which was, as we said, highly illegal. And that’s actually the charge that she was sentenced on — illegally listening to a wireless. So it’s not even that she was charged for harbouring Bill. They just put it on the wireless.

Sam and Rhonda (39:23)

Sam:
To be fair, they don’t touch on this very much in the movie, but she had kept her radio when they were supposed to turn it in or get it confiscated. And she often had neighbours over to her house to listen to the news, because that was the only way they had contact with the outside world. And that is definitely a no-no on the occupied islands. That is one of the major reasons she got arrested, because she was letting all her neighbours in on the news and what was happening with the war. Yeah, she did also get charged with harbouring Bill. Yes. But the others only got charged with the radio thing.

Maartje (40:09)

I thought she only got the main charge for the wireless, but then yeah, I was wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Sam and Rhonda (40:15)

Sam:
Yeah, it’s something they call like, violating the peace or something or other. And actually one of Louisa’s friends who regularly came to listen to the radio ended up receiving a lenient sentence because Louisa insisted to the Germans that she always arrived too late to hear anything. She’s like, well, you shouldn’t charge her, because even though she tried to come, she never actually heard anything because that bitch is tardy.

Maartje (40:21)

Yeah, that makes sense.

Sam and Rhonda (40:41)

Sam:
So this lady was literally like, yeah, Louisa, help me out. So she didn’t get shipped to the continent. And another friend managed to escape the Germans as the prisoners were moving through France. They were being kept in this prison and an Allied bomb hit it. And this lady saw her opportunity and she ran for it. And because she spoke French, she was able to blend in with the population. And then the Americans came through and liberated the town a week or two weeks later or something like that.

Maartje (41:07)

Yep. So not all of her friends that were arrested are in the movie. They conflated a couple of them, which makes sense because you can only tell so many stories at once. But there were quite a few other people that we don’t see who were involved and who also helped keep Bill safe, so.

Sam and Rhonda (41:27)

Sam:
Yeah.

Maartje (41:27)

Lou is interrogated and put on trial. The prisoners, as they are put in a cell, can hear the masses of planes flying overhead. That indicated D-Day is happening, but the Allies intend to liberate France first before they turn their attention to the Channel Islands, which is just another blow to these islanders, I guess. And Lou and the other conspirators are sentenced to prison, with sentences to be served in Germany, on the mainland. Feodor is devastated when he learns what has happened, but he’s saved, so at least there’s that.

Sam and Rhonda (42:04)

Sam:
I do also wonder if part of the reason why they got the book thrown at them, so to speak, was because throughout their trial they could hear the fighting happening in Normandy. That’s how close to the mainland they were. Because you can see France from the island — it’s quite close. So they could literally hear the fighting happening in Normandy as the trial was going on. And I wonder if that’s part of the reason why the Germans were like, forget these people in particular.

Maartje (42:32)

Maybe. And after D-Day, it was actually one of the worst times for the inhabitants of Jersey and also of Guernsey, because that’s when a lot of things just ran out — like salt, sugar, butter, and also later bread. The gas and electricity failed and water was only pumped out occasionally, so they were really struggling at this point of the war. So even though liberation felt closer, they were having the worst time they’d ever had on the island.

And Ivy, Lou’s sister, was initially also meant to serve her sentence on the mainland, but a doctor called Raymond Osmond forged papers for her saying she had a kidney disease — which she didn’t have — but the Germans believed it and thought she was too ill. So she stayed on the island and served her sentence there.

Sam and Rhonda (43:22)

Sam:
Yeah, which probably saved her life.

Maartje (43:23)

Most likely.

Sam and Rhonda (43:24)

Sam:
In Northern France, August of 1944, Harold and Louisa are being taken to the concentration camps where they will serve their sentences, and they see one another for the very last time. And it’s Harold’s birthday. It’s a really sad scene. And Harold ends up being taken to Bergen-Belsen and Louisa is taken to Ravensbrück. So both of these places are obviously extremely notorious if you know anything about World War II.

Maartje (43:49)

Yes, and this actually happened in real life. It was really lucky that they even saw each other, because they were going in different directions. They just happened to stop at the same depot, and they shouted at each other from across the trains. And she threw him a case of tobacco for his birthday, and it breaks my heart that that’s the last time they saw each other.

Sam and Rhonda (44:10)

Sam:
Yeah.

Maartje (44:10)

So, 1945, it’s Liberation Day. And Ivy and Arthur find out that Harold has survived — barely alive at this point, but he has survived. Elena serves the shop ladies who come in, showing clearly who she suspects of turning Louisa in. And Harold and Ivy return home.

But as the screen flashes to Ravensbrück in August 1945, we see a worker shovelling debris. And in the rubble are Louisa’s glasses that Bill had fixed for her. And it’s so sad, because she did not survive.

Sam and Rhonda (44:46)

Sam:
Yeah. And end cards tell us what happened. Louisa Gould died in the gas chambers of Ravensbrück on the 13th of February 1945, two months before the camp’s liberation. She had started out, when she got to the camp, teaching English, but she rapidly became sick. Obviously they’re just hotbeds of disease because they had people stacked on top of each other basically. She was sent to the gas chamber. No one has ever admitted to the betrayal of the family.

Ivy Forster remained on the island with Arthur and became the first woman to be elected to the States of Jersey after the war. Ivy, Harold, and Louisa were amongst the first recipients of Her Majesty’s British Heroes of the Holocaust awards, which are given for selfless actions which preserved life in the face of persecution. Harold Le Druillenec was Bergen-Belsen’s only British survivor — although I looked into this and I think there were two, ultimately.

But his testimony at the Nuremberg trials led to the prosecution and execution of several Nazi war criminals. And he returned to his teaching career and received commendations for bravery from the French and Soviet governments and lived until 1985.

Maartje (45:47)

I found a quote from Harold about his stay in Bergen-Belsen. He said: “There was no food, no water, sleep was impossible. We had to rise at 3.30am. All my time there was spent in heaving dead bodies into the mass graves. Jungle law reigned among the prisoners. At night you killed or were killed, and by day cannibalism was rampant.”

And in the documentary they show him talking about how when he was carrying the bodies of people who had died, he noticed that their livers were missing — because other people had eaten their livers. Because there was no food in the camps and that’s the only way they could survive.

Sam and Rhonda (46:32)

Sam:
Yes, that’s a lot. Yeah.

Maartje (46:34)

And so the two shop ladies who allegedly betrayed the Goulds never admitted to doing it. They said, we didn’t do it. But they were questioned in an investigation after the war and they were made to write down their story. And the head of the German secret service believed that the handwriting in their testimony was the same as in the letter that they received. And this only came to light when all these documents were released from the National Archives at Kew in the UK. So this is a fairly recent discovery — well, I guess fairly recent. What was it, 2017? When this movie was made? But there’s no official proof. They were never tried. The reason they didn’t have a trial for these ladies is because there was no law on the books under which they could try them. So basically, they got lucky, but they were ostracised for the rest of their lives.

Sam and Rhonda (47:29)

Sam:
They were paid a hundred British pounds to betray their neighbour. And in the end, was it worth it? Like you got a bunch of people murdered. Yeah.

Maartje (47:39)

Probably not. And in the documentary they say that they were most likely jealous of Louisa and the privileges she had because of her store, and also because she had these two sons — or in the end only one, I guess, but initially two really brilliant sons. And they were said to be jealous of that. They are named in the documentary, by the way. I didn’t name them here because they talk about in the documentary whether these people should be named, and some of their family have said they’ve suffered enough. Which I guess — they’ve died already — but they did suffer for their entire lives because no one wanted anything to do with them. They were all convinced that they did it.

Sam and Rhonda (48:23)

Sam:
Yeah, that’s it. It’s just so short-sighted. It’s the same thing as this local girl dating the German soldier. It’s like, the occupation is not going to last forever. And then you’re going to have to look these people in the eye — your neighbours and your community.

Maartje (48:36)

Yeah.

Which is kind of why I enjoy that they, in the documentary, talk about this girl possibly giving Louisa a heads up. I guess the maker of this documentary thought there was reason to give her a little bit of a reprieve from years of ostracism.

Sam and Rhonda (49:00)

Sam:
Yeah, a tough one on that island too, because the Germans effectively allowed the local governments to still operate. They could still pass laws and that kind of stuff — they had to get the Germans to sign off on it, but they still left the local police force in place. And something like half of the islanders ended up working for the Germans, because there simply weren’t other jobs. And the Germans were paying everyone in occupation currency, basically Reichsmarks — it wasn’t real currency. And so people ended up in this just terrible situation where really the only option if you wanted to survive was to work for the Germans in some way or form. So after the war, it was difficult because it was like, can you call these people collaborators, really? It’s just such a tough situation.

Maartje (49:50)

We’ve talked about this before, right? You do certain things to survive. And would you or I have done anything different if we were in that situation? I don’t think I can say, because I’ve not been in that situation. But I think it would be likely that I would also try my hardest to keep myself and my family safe.

Sam and Rhonda (50:11)

Sam:
There was a guy — the only active resistance movement on the islands. His name was Norman Le Brocq, and he actively did manage to sabotage some of the Nazi operations and that kind of stuff. And he was pretty pissed after the war because he and his resistance movement never really got recognition. A lot of people don’t think that there was much active resistance on the islands, and to a degree that was true. But there very much was this guy and his little band. And he pointed out that many of the people who had quote-unquote collaborated with the Nazis ended up getting OBEs and knighthoods and were getting recognised for stuff. So yeah, he was a little bitter after the war was over. I would say understandably so.

Maartje (50:56)

Yes.

Feodor — Bill — stayed with Louisa for two years. Like all repatriated Russian POWs, Feodor was discriminated against by the Soviet government after his return. But he survived, and he married, and he lived into his seventies. Louisa’s son Ralph survived the war, and in 1995 met Bill for the first time at the unveiling of a plaque in Jersey, which is on the building that Louisa owned, to commemorate the bravery of his mother, Louisa Gould, who lived from 1891 to 1945. And it says: “The value of life isn’t measured in length, but in deeds.” Which I guess it is.

Sam and Rhonda (51:39)

Sam:
Hell yeah.

Maartje (51:41)

And that’s the end of the movie.

Sam and Rhonda (51:51)

Sam:
What kind of cracked me up a little bit is that obviously it’s terrible that Feodor was discriminated against by the Soviet government, and this is a common story of Russian POWs who went home — they were just never really trusted again. He ended up being under surveillance by the KGB for like 20 years after the war was over. But before he left the Channel Islands, the British government very much did ask him if he wanted to be a spy. And he said no. But yeah, literally.

Maartje (52:14)

“Say, Bill, do you want to spy on the Russians?”

Sam and Rhonda (52:17)

Sam:
And so he went home and he had said no, but obviously the Soviet government was suspicious.

Maartje (52:23)

So in the documentary we see him coming back to the island to watch this plaque unveiling, and he still spoke English! I was pretty amused by that.

Sam and Rhonda (52:34)

Sam:
Yeah, I also read that apparently him and Bob Le Sueur kept in touch after the war and they met a couple of times — in 1992, after the collapse of the Iron Curtain when you could travel more freely, Bob actually went to Siberia with his wife. And then they met I think one other time after that, in like 1995 or something like that. But apparently, yeah, they kept in touch and they were just good friends over the years. And I was like, ah. That makes my heart happy. Yeah, exactly.

Maartje (53:04)

Yeah, mine too.

We have to rate this movie, but before we do, I would like to remind you that you can follow us wherever you get your podcasts, and you can send this episode to a friend if you like your mother.

I mean, I guess, I don’t know. Maybe that’s a weird thing to say, but it is a Mother’s Day episode. So send this one to your mother, actually.

Sam and Rhonda (53:25)

Rhonda:
Well, you know, thank you. As a mother, this was really great for me to be here, by the way. So thank you for having me.

Maartje (53:31)

We won’t let you go just yet, Rhonda. We do have to have you rate this movie. What are we going to rate it out of?

Sam and Rhonda (53:36)

Sam:
But what are we going to rate it out of? Tossed tobacco tins. Sure. All right. Maartje, how many tossed tobacco tins would you rate this movie?

Maartje (53:46)

I appreciate that you’ve turned this into a tongue twister, especially for me.

Sam and Rhonda (53:50)

Sam:
She loves when we do this, by the way. She’s like, great, alliteration, my favourite.

Maartje (53:55)

I would rate this movie… I don’t know, 6.9? Just… 6.9 tossed tobacco tins out of 10.

Sam and Rhonda (54:03)

Sam:
Can I just say, I love that we’re on a trend lately where you’re rating everything in decimal points. It’s great.

Maartje (54:09)

I don’t know why. I don’t want to give it a 7, so it’s getting a 6.9. I really appreciate that this story was told. I think it was told fairly accurately, which I appreciate, but as far as moviemaking goes it could have been slightly better, and the acting from some people could be slightly better. I think it’s mostly the pacing and the tension that was lacking for me. But it got me interested in doing research about these people, and these are my favourite kinds of stories. So that’s why I think it’s still a good watch and I think more people should watch it. How about you, Rhonda? Go on.

Sam and Rhonda (54:51)

Rhonda:
I will give it seven tossed tobacco tins out of 10.

Sam:
I had a problem with that too. You tripped yourself up.

Rhonda:
I did. I enjoyed watching the movie. I liked it that it was relatively short, by the way, because I’m not much of a movie person and anything over two hours I get fidgety, really fidgety. But it could have been a little bit longer because I do believe they needed to flesh it out just a little bit more with some of the storylines.

Maartje (54:58)

Ha.

Sam and Rhonda (55:18)

Rhonda:
But by and large, the humanity and empathy that was displayed — it’s so nice to see that in the midst of all this chaos there’s something that gives you kind of hope for humanity, I guess. So it was enjoyable.

Sam:
What about you, Sam? You know what? I’ll also rate it 6.9 tossed tobacco tins out of 10. And by the way — 69. Nice.

I would say that it’s pretty predictable in the vein of movies about a hero being selfless and rescuing someone during the Holocaust or whatever. So you kind of know it’s going to happen, and they overuse Nazis as a plot device. And I think it would have been nice — because we do see it so much from Louisa’s perspective — and I did touch on this where it’s like, she doesn’t even learn how to say his name, and she’s teaching him English but she’s not learning any Russian. And it is very focused on her. And it’s like, yeah, she did hero stuff, absolutely. But Feodor was a pilot who was shot down — and they don’t really touch on that in the movie. We don’t really know very much about him. And I think I would have just liked it a lot more if we had seen things from his perspective too, and a little bit more about what their relationship was like and how it developed as they lived in this house together. So yeah, I enjoyed it. I did think that they missed some opportunities there.

Maartje (56:40)

I agree.

Are we getting to the point where I need to ask you if you’re reading anything?

Sam and Rhonda (56:45)

Sam:
I am reading something. I have started reading The Dirty Dozen by Nathanson, and we are going to probably watch that movie and chat about it pretty soon.

Maartje (56:55)

Yay. Rhonda, do you want to add anything? Either a book or something you read, or a movie that you saw that you think other people should watch?

Sam and Rhonda (57:03)

Rhonda:
No, not really. I’m more of a, you know, fiction, detective novels kind of person. I mean, the odd time Samantha does recommend me a book and I have read a few — like The Women Who Flew for Hitler, I read that one. And then there was another one that you gave me recently. And I also want to read The Tower of Skulls. I’m very interested in reading that one too. So I do read other stuff other than just fiction and junk magazines, just so you know. But I’m not going to recommend any of my junk magazines because nobody needs to know.

Sam:
She wants you to read Food and Drink, where they print recipes where you have to use every pan in your kitchen. And the recipes are like three pages long too. Yeah, they’re like, make sure you toast the sesame seeds in a separate pan and then set them aside. And you’re like, I’m not doing that.

Maartje (57:51)

I cannot be bothered with that many things.

Sam and Rhonda (57:54)

Sam:
I just simply don’t believe it makes the dish taste that different. Come at me.

Rhonda:
Yeah, exactly.

Maartje (58:00)

Well, Rhonda, don’t you want to give us some parting words on Mother’s Day?

Sam and Rhonda (58:04)

Rhonda:
I don’t know. Treat your kids well. And you know, I’d be like Louisa and say, would I want my son to be treated by another human being if he was away? I mean, to be fair, Samantha flew across the ocean to meet all you people. Was it for Charlie’s wedding or something like that? In 2011? Yes. Although I also went over the year before, in 2010. And I trusted that her friends were going to take care of her. I’d never met these friends before. And I don’t believe she’d ever met them in person either. These are all internet friends. So as a mother, it’s like, I hope these friends… and you guys turned out to be absolutely the most amazing people I’ve ever met in my whole entire life. So there’s that.

Sam:
You weren’t waiting to surprise me with like a bouquet of anthrax.

Rhonda:
We never know.

Maartje (58:51)

No, that’s true. I mean, as far as dangerous people go, at least I’m in a wheelchair. I’d have a hard time being dangerous.

Sam and Rhonda (58:59)

Sam:
And then she pulled out a gun.

Maartje (59:01)

Anyway, I’m going to say thank you everyone now for being on with us. That was really fun.

Sam and Rhonda (59:06)

Rhonda:
It was fun for me too. A little nerve-racking, if you want to know the truth, but it’s all good.

Sam:
Yeah, you sounded smart, Ma.

Rhonda:
Did I really?

Sam:
Yeah.

Rhonda:
I’m not sure about that.

Sam:
See, now people know where I get it from. I was saying that because my dad’s here, so it’s like a little backhanded compliment.

Rhonda:
Yeah.

Maartje (59:12)

You did great!

Haha.

Thank you everyone else for listening to yet another episode of Rosie. You can follow us wherever you get your podcasts and rate us five stars. You can send this episode to a friend. You can follow us on Instagram at RosieTheReviewerPodcast. Or you can visit our website, rosiethereviewer.com. Or you can buy some merch. And you should be nice to your mother. We’ll see you next week.