Charlie Mackesy – ‘Grief propelled me into work that saved me’
About this episode
Charlie Mackesy discusses how grief influenced his art and the importance of kindness and self-compassion.
In this episode, I sit down with bestselling author‑illustrator Charlie Mackesy, whose work – The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse – has become a global touchstone for kindness, vulnerability and hope. Yet Charlie’s path was anything but straightforward: he grew up feeling inherently at fault, shaped by the pressures of competitive schooling and the emotional weight of carrying the painful stories readers now share with him. He talks about failing his driving test four times and the devastating loss of his best friend, Jamie, in a car crash – a grief that propelled him to London and sparked the first moment he began drawing compulsively, with music as solace. Charlie reflects on not achieving what he calls “conventional success” through marriage or children, the underrated importance of friendship and the power of kindness and self‑compassion. We also explore his years of not earning a living as an artist – a period he now sees not as failure, but as an essential process. Charlie urges us to create without fear, to let go of perfection and to live fully in the imperfect present. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Intro 03:44 Feeling at Fault 04:30 Outsider and School Years 05:55…
People in this episode
Host: Elizabeth Day
Guest: Charlie Mackesy
Topics covered
- grief
- art
- kindness
- self-compassion
- failure
- friendship
Keywords
- grief
- art
- kindness
- failure
- self-compassion
- friendship
- success
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
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- Kristin Scott Thomas – ‘Having children allowed me to see where I’d gone wrong’
- Patrick Radden Keefe - ‘Lying Is More Prevalent Than People Think’
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