162: Matt Batten

Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy

Matt Batten works for the Llandaff Diocese of the Church in Wales as Director of Communications and we first met in the early 2000s when Matt did a Masters in Ecumenical Studies at Trinity College Carmarthen. Based in Cardiff, Matt talks about how going to university was the making of him.
We talk about reunions and why Matt is not keen to go back, and the concept of ‘going out’ and how it was not enjoyable prior to his university days during which he never missed a lecture.
We learn why Matt is glad not to have had social media back in the 90s, and why he bought a disposable camera for evenings out in those days – and we reflect on why we didn’t tend to take photos from our lectures.
Matt is doing a Masters in Digital Theology and talks about why he has stopped live Tweeting at conferences and doesn’t take as many photos at gigs as he used to.
We talk about my film reviews and whether they should be posted (I have acted on Matt’s very kind advice), and we talk about the genres he watches irrespective of quality – horror and kung fu. Matt especially likes religious horror films which he speaks of in the context of biblical literacy, and we learn why churches are not comfortable with horror and sin.
We share our quite different memories of watching The Exorcist and how many people tended to laugh at it. We talk too about Matt’s passion for the films of Brian De Palma and we find out what happened when he went to the cinema with a priest to watch Prey for the Devil.
We find out why Matt has looked back at the last five years with anger due to health matters and how he has changed, and how hard it is to look back when one of his close friends has died to stage 4 cancer.
Then, at the end of the interview, we find what his younger self wanted to be and how much joy Matt has from looking back and relating it to the now, and why he has a fear of standing still.