Episode 3
· 22:40
I'm excited to bring you this episode with Frankie about a gorilla, eye contact, a dog at the Transition City Market in London's Crystal Palace, and Frankie's frog paradise with a miraculous frog that changed color.
Frankie Sinclair:My name is Frankie Sinclair. I've got three different activities that I do in my life. And the most meaningful is is my fine art, which I got back into about three years ago when I moved to Salisbury, and I started doing figure drawing again. Something I've always loved is that actual line drawing, that physical connection with the eyes, eye to hand.
Frankie Sinclair:And I also sell vintage doll clothes on eBay. Cindy from the nineteen seventies, which is all about fashion, miniature fashions. I really adore the the nineteen seventies styles with the yellow flares, a yellow twin set, clashing colors, pink. I can never get enough of these little things, and I love ironing. So I I iron them.
Frankie Sinclair:I wash them, and I put them on eBay and sell them, hopefully. And I also do a bit of admin with an architect in town called Grace Architects. Yeah. So that's what I get up to. I used to about fifteen years ago, I used to run a club, a kind of club in London called the cartoon figure drawing club.
Frankie Sinclair:And it was all for all about drawing people in costume and people, in various stages of movement with masks or carnival costumes, that kind of thing. And one one day, we decided that we were gonna draw animals at the zoo, so off we went to London Zoo. And they had a gorilla enclosure. So the gorillas were mostly outdoors, and I know the humans as the humans, us, were walking through a glass corridor. So we could see the gorillas on the other side of the glass, which is, I guess, an inch thick or something.
Frankie Sinclair:One of the gorillas I guess, I think there was a part where we stopped, which was had cement walls, but the gorilla could go out from there, but this gorilla was inside. And I'm not sure if it was a male or a female. I think probably a female because it didn't have the big shaggy sort of hood, and it wasn't that broad shoulder. So it must have been a probably a female. She was a bit she was a bit disturbed, and she was kind of throwing herself against the walls a bit.
Frankie Sinclair:And I felt that maybe it was because people were staring, and staring is quite an aggressive social communication, I guess. Anyway, so we all had our little sketchbooks with us, and we had, little folding stools to sit on, which were really, really small, about a foot high. And we just arranged ourselves on the floor of this glass corridor, and we started drawing. And after a while, maybe five, ten minutes, the gorilla settled, and she came right up to the glass so that she was nestled within our group. So it was kind of like we were shoulder to shoulder.
Frankie Sinclair:And I think she liked I I imagined that that was kind of what gorillas might do together in a group, is sort of huddle together and eat or whatever. So it was almost as though she was more comfortable. And you could get a sense of the scale of this animal And that that what what we all shared afterwards was that we felt a connection. We felt a really palpable connection with the gorilla, you know, an invisible connection beyond what we could see. It was very I mean, it wasn't overwhelming, but it was very tangible.
Frankie Sinclair:It you could imagine I can't really describe it. I see. You just couldn't describe it in words, because it's not visual. It's not audio audio. It's not something you'd hear with your ears.
Frankie Sinclair:And we weren't kind of miming or making any gestures, really. So it was literally a kind of a sense, and we we all refelt it. And it it was something that I was very excited and joyful about when I came out. And I felt very happy and thrilled and something that I always remembered. Yeah.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah, that's so moving, isn't it?
Frankie Sinclair:It is moving. Yeah. It's and also sort of it's really difficult to listen to without feeling really tearful. Yeah. I started to feel a bit
Frankie Sinclair:tearful myself about it. Yes. It's it's almost like a bridge over an unfathomable divine, really. And a divide in the sense that that's, yeah, a capture a captured animal. How could we have any kind of equality?
Frankie Sinclair:Or I I saw it as a social act. I saw it as a simple, spontaneous, in terms of the actions of the animal and the actions of us. So, guess, a spontaneous being together. I think the drawing connects you does connect you anyway. I've noticed that when I've drawn people.
Frankie Sinclair:I think the drawing is a part of it. Yeah. Because you're not because you're you've got eye contact, close eye contact, but not staring. The staring can feel more aggressive. So you're looking up and down.
Frankie Sinclair:So you're looking mean, I guess some people might draw with a stare, but most people tend to look up and down. So you you have moments where you might look right into someone's eyes, and that can a sense of connection. So I've got a couple of thoughts about about that or just things I've noticed. So one of them is what I've looked up on the Internet just before we started. There's a few studies that have been done in there.
Frankie Sinclair:They've been peer to peer published and so on. And there are studies of groups of people together and with tracking using methods of tracking their brain activity. And they've shown that when people are interested in the same thing, their brain activity starts to mirror. So parts of the brain that are activated in one person then start to get more and more in sync with their other person who's getting on well with them in a chat or talking about something that they're interested in. So I was interested to read that I mean, I I don't know if that means that there's sort of waves like a radio waves, you know, which are kind of transmitted, but within the within the activity in a sense of mirroring is being proven to occur.
Frankie Sinclair:The other thing I've noticed about eye contact, which is completely unscientific, I've noticed that when you pass somebody and you're in a busy area and you're wanting to avoid crashing into them, if you connect your eyes with theirs, you both know which direction to go Yeah. Even though you don't move your head or your eyes to indicate. So I don't know how that happens, but I've noticed if I don't give eye contact in that context, there'll be a kind of dance that goes up, and nobody knows which side to go. And I I just had another animal one, which was not so much of a story, and it was a sunny afternoon. I was doing a market somewhere in London in Crystal Palace, actually.
Frankie Sinclair:I was running a Cindy museum of these, vintage fashions. How brilliant. And I went outside for a break. It was lovely and sunny, and the rest of the market on a Saturday was fruit, veg, and cakes, and that kind of thing, takeaway food, run by Transition Town in in Crystal Palace. It's quite quite a good one.
Frankie Sinclair:Yeah. So there was kind of like there's kind of like a courtyard there which you have to go through. And someone came with this this dog, and the dog was there, and it didn't take much notice of me. They didn't take much notice of me, but I felt that same feeling that I had with the gorilla. I I didn't really know why, but it was just just there.
Estelle Phillips:Wow. That's amazing.
Frankie Sinclair:They told me a little story. I asked them about the dogs. I said, oh, I like I like your dog.
Frankie Sinclair:I'm feeling quite connected with your dog. And they were like, oh, they were you know how it's not really the dumb thing at the moment to buy a dog from Facebook or something like that? They had actually done that. Yeah. And so it was a dog that may have belonged to somebody else before, but it was now with his family.
Frankie Sinclair:So that's all. I don't know if any more about it really, but that was just that's just what happened.
Estelle Phillips:And when you had when you felt that connection with the dog, how did that how did that manifest itself, that feeling?
Frankie Sinclair:Yeah. I don't know.
Frankie Sinclair:It's it's kind of there's no drama to it. It's a very nondramatic kind of feeling. It's more like oh, yes. So it's more like that that I've I have had it with a child. I've had it when I was feeding my my ex partner this is going back years.
Frankie Sinclair:His my ex partner his sister had a baby, a newborn baby. And I was feeding the baby with a bottle, and it was looking up at me, and I felt that felt that feeling then. Or yeah. And, like, the feeling you have in a really quiet, intimate moment with somebody that you're physically close to. Mhmm.
Frankie Sinclair:But in, yeah, in this case, I wasn't I didn't have any physical interaction with the dog or the gorilla. But you just felt There's a similar similar kind of feeling, the presence. Yeah. It's like a very calm feeling. It's the when you like, as if you're you're lying in someone's arms, you'd completely trust them.
Frankie Sinclair:You love them. You're feeling really relaxed, and you're just not troubled by any by any stress or or niggling thoughts. There's that kind of feeling of connection that you have with the person, but also like a calmness about it. There's not really an exciting feeling. It's more of a wholesome feeling.
Frankie Sinclair:For me, it's a bit more like there isn't really any me. There doesn't have to be any me, and I think that's the beauty of it. Yeah.
Estelle Phillips:So it's like a perfect kind of peace.
Frankie Sinclair:Yeah.
Frankie Sinclair:It it's not yeah. I mean, it's like it's I think it's that press that power of now, the ekatol, the Buddhism, the simplicity of the power of now, really. Yeah. I'm into that. I I I believe in that.
Frankie Sinclair:I wouldn't say and I and I think some people you know, I wouldn't say that I have it. I can experience that whenever I want, but, because I'm interested in it, I've learned about it, and I take action in my life such as I do like, at the moment, I do meditation every morning. Mhmm. But I wasn't doing that at the time, the gorillery time, but I think doing things like that can allow you to be freer, less caught up with who you are, less caught up with these tangle of kind of worries and things that we tend to have oozing around our heads at any one time. Yeah.
Frankie Sinclair:And those are okay. You know? It's fine. I'm I don't want to stop getting preachy because I'm I'm not I'm not a teacher of meditation or anything like that, but I do follow some people who teach it. One of them is a guy, what's his name?
Frankie Sinclair:Robert Mitchell, and he teaches out of South London. He's a very, very down to earth person, and he teaches meditation. And he in a in a very unpretentious kind of way, in in a very technique based way. Yeah. So he's like, oh, you know, if you're into numbers, you can just count.
Frankie Sinclair:Or if you're you're into if if you like visuals, then you can focus on something visual. And and he talks about why it's a good good thing to meditate, and he talks about how it's not the aim of it isn't isn't to clear your mind, but the aim of it is actually ultimately connection with others. Mhmm. That's what he believes anyway. Because because the more you observe your own thoughts, the more you realize you're separate from your ego.
Frankie Sinclair:And the more you're separate from your ego, the more you can connect with other people and have compassion for them. I don't really think of myself as that compassionate. I think I've got a long way to go compassion, but, yeah, it's it's a good thing to aim for, I suppose. We yeah. With this week's news, it's kind of hard to wonder how you can people are in sort of digging their heels in and embedding in their entrenched kind of opinions.
Estelle Phillips:Someone else I spoke to said that who'd had, like, obviously, another similar experience. He said that you have to be open to it. Yeah. And, this is definitely something that I'm hearing, like, time and time again Right. With everyone that I speak to.
Estelle Phillips:And then you know what? This big debate about, you know, how nature is good for you and all this stuff, which is so obvious that it is. Yeah. But I'm kind of thinking, is that because when you start exposing yourself to nature, all these things start sort of like coming to life. You know?
Frankie Sinclair:Some people resist very resistant to that.
Frankie Sinclair:I mean, I know people who really don't like nature. They just don't even like being outside.
Estelle Phillips:Really? That's amazing. Who?
Estelle Phillips:I mean,
Estelle Phillips:I don't mean who, but, I mean, what type of people?
Estelle Phillips:I find that incredible.
Frankie Sinclair:Yes. Someone I was close to really didn't like being outside, and didn't really understand why I wanted that. And I had a neighbor, and this is quite typical in, you know, in inner cities, people who are afraid of insects.
Estelle Phillips:Oh, I know. It's bizarre.
Frankie Sinclair:They're really scared of that. And so they they just want to destroy them. And, yeah, I I used to live on a little street in Penge in South London. And when I moved there, there was a front garden, and it had got out of control.
Frankie Sinclair:So it was quite weedy. But around the door was a gorgeous red rose, clambering rose. So it looked it was a row of terraces, but it looked like a cottage. I had that very romantic look. And the the housing association who were my landlords actually featured it on the front of their annual magazine.
Frankie Sinclair:Anyway, one day I got home, and and it had all been ripped up. With the rose? No. The whole garden. And the rose as
Frankie Sinclair:well or not the rose?
Frankie Sinclair:And the rose was still there. It was the only thing that was left, but it didn't survive. No. Because another morning, I came out. By this point, the whole garden had been covered in paving slab.
Frankie Sinclair:I came out, someone had cut the rose at at the base. Oh, no. And I was really upset. I managed to save, a foot square of the garden next to the front door, and I planted some dahlias there, but which thrived. Why was the garden because my neighbor, I think she had perhaps, requested that the garden be paved over, and I'd only just moved in.
Frankie Sinclair:So I was a bit late. Like, I didn't get a a say in it. And by the time I think I I said to the builders, oh, you know, make sure you leave the flower beds, and they they just didn't. They just paved over them. You know?
Frankie Sinclair:And I I it was over before I knew what happened. Yeah. And my my neighbor was she was afraid of creepy crawlies, so she just wanted to do it. She just sort of you know, she was a bit of a destroyer. Yeah.
Frankie Sinclair:It was quite a shame. But on the upside, I had to hold the back garden because she was on the Top Floor and I was on the Ground Floor. So I made the the garden into a frog paradise. I had loads of frogs at a tiny little pond, which was there before I moved in, about one and a half feet. Yeah.
Frankie Sinclair:And it had reeds and beautiful iris yellow irises that grew there in the spring. And then and then, yeah, about, yeah, March, the frogs would mate in there. So that pond would suddenly be heaving with all these frogs. If you shone your torch at night, there just were always headlamps. Yeah.
Frankie Sinclair:I really like that little garden. It's gorgeous. And in the summer, they would purr for me. What does that sound like? It's like an it's like the, you know, the frog a frog is supposed to ribbit, isn't it?
Frankie Sinclair:Yeah. Ribbit ribbit. But, yeah, when they're in in the summer, it was a north facing garden, so they would find the damp spot, cool damp spot, and they just kind of do the rivety thing, but it was, like, quite soft. It sounded like a purr, and I I would just hear it in the garden any time of the day and especially at night. And at night, sometimes they would leap.
Frankie Sinclair:I don't know quite where they were leaping from. One day, I almost accidentally killed one because I had left a really big yellow bucket out in the garden, and the frog had jumped into the bucket. But there's no way for it to get out. Yeah. So, obviously, it's a frog, so it was alright.
Frankie Sinclair:Happy swimming around, and it didn't die. But it changed color, so it went completely bright yellow to disguise itself in the bucket so the heron wouldn't get it. And then I let it out, and I saw it was floating in there.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah. And did it change back?
Frankie Sinclair:I don't know. I I Must have. Let it hop into hop off into the undergrowth. Oh, wow. In Penge, we got real sort of notable from a wildlife point of view.
Frankie Sinclair:I can't remember the name of them now, but they're like a very large beetle. Perhaps one of our largest beetles in The UK.
Estelle Phillips:Stag. A stag beetle. Oh, they're beautiful.
Estelle Phillips:They're quite unusual. Yes.
Frankie Sinclair:Yeah. Because that I think that area used to be forested.
Estelle Phillips:Oh.I see
Frankie Sinclair:There's still a few hanging on. Yeah. Dusk, they they they the males fly. And, yeah, one kind of flew into me almost one day. There was a fence in the garden.
Estelle Phillips:How wonderful. They're they're they're yeah. To see one of those flying is quite cool. Yeah. I've never seen a stag beetle fly.
Frankie Sinclair:They're cool, and and they apparently, they grew in the ground. They're like giant, really big, fat maggots.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah. I've seen that in the ground.
Frankie Sinclair:Okay.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah. I've seen that
Estelle Phillips:in the ground when I was planting a tree in my orchard. Oh. Yeah. I saw one of those magnets and quickly put it back in and have had stag beetles in my garden, the one that is wild now. Yeah.
Frankie Sinclair:I mean, if you sit in the garden at it's at dusk, they're like on a sunny day At dusk, then then you'll see them fly.
Estelle Phillips:I'm going to do that
Estelle Phillips:this year. You should come over, and we do it together.
Frankie Sinclair:Yeah. I don't
Estelle Phillips:know if there's anything you can do to attract them. Yeah. Well, I know where it was.
Estelle Phillips:We can sit near where where where it was.
Frankie Sinclair:Alright. It's a date. Yeah. Midsummer's day.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah.
Estelle Phillips:Let's do that.
Estelle Phillips:Oh, Frankie, thank you so much.
Frankie Sinclair:Oh, you're welcome. Yeah. It's been really wonderful. Thank you. Thanks.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah. It was fun. You may have heard Allen Chalk talking on an earlier podcast about how a shire horse saved his life. I'm thrilled to tell you that I'll be releasing a bonus podcast as we approach VE day. That's Victory in Europe Day, the 05/08/2025.
Estelle Phillips:And this podcast will be Alln talking about rural childhood during the wartime years. He even came across a fallen enemy aircraft. Subscribe to know when that bonus is released, and follow me on Instagram at Estelle underscore writer forty four, and TikTok at Estelle Phillips. Bye.
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