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From Canon Ann Easter, Chief Executive of a Charity and Chaplain to the Queen:

I like doing Pause for Thought on Fridays because I know that I’ll always be in the company of some fascinating people – as well as you, Chris, of course!

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And today we’ve got legends! Luminaries who have entertained and amazed people all over the world with their various talents; and each of them so very special. I’m sure that as we’ve been listening to Sir Cliff and Miranda and Sir Ranulph talking to you, we’ve remembered some of the tunes, and the laughs, and the gasps of wonder that they’ve brought to us.

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And when we hear of people doing extraordinary things, I guess we can feel either ‘Oh, I’d like to do that too – let’s get down to some music lessons immediately’, or we can feel – and maybe more of us do – ‘It’s all right for them but they’re different. I could never do anything like that’, and while I imagine that most of us couldn’t aspire to such world class heights, that’s not actually what we are called to, thank goodness.

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We’re put here on this earth to be the best version of ourselves that we can manage; and when I think of the foster parents who have given families and homes to hundreds of children; when I think of our service personnel, far from home and facing danger every moment; when I think of people who are carers, who go on looking after a loved one year after weary year; those, and all the other so called ordinary people, they’ve achieved every bit as much as our guests; they’re special too.

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I’m such a wimp and I couldn’t imagine myself at the North Pole – it’s so cold! so uncomfortable! so far from the shops! – but I make a mean pear pie and they say I do a lovely funeral. Like Lady Gaga says – You have to be unique, and different, and shine in your own way’ – and she should know!

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