Hello. I'm Leila McKinnon. Welcome to Inside Story. They were everywhere, anywhere there was a camera, and Bessie Bardot and Geoff Barker loved every minute of it. She was the model, who had her own business at 22. He was the ex-TV gladiator with a driving ambition to be someone. Then, suddenly, they disappeared completely. Naturally, they took a camera with them. Whenever we're in the van, before we drive to, like, anywhere, we go, "Mummy, ready? Yes! Daddy ready? Yes! BlueBelle ready? Yes!" And then we start driving. Living this is a dream, in the best sense of the word. # Advance Australia fair! # It keeps changing and evolving. It's never boring, never dull and not knowing what's coming next is the best bit. Hi, I'm Bessie. I'm Geoff. I'm BlueBelle and this is our story. # ..when I'm alone with you... # My name is BlueBelle and I am six. My name is an English flower and my dad named me that because it was his favourite flower. My mum's from Australia and I was born in Australia. My dad's a writer and he's writing about Lady Gaga. # I got bills # All these bills piled up on my desk they lookin' like a mountain # All o' your kids runnin' round, I can hear they stomachs growlin'. # I'd like to think I was known for being a young businesswoman, who was a bit strong and gutsy with my career choices, but I think also being known as someone a bit glamorous on the social set. I was Commando in 'Gladiators'. That was quite the experience. It gave me that taste of everything that I had ever wanted out of the media, TV, fame world. # I got bills I gotta pay so I'm gonna work... # I would say we were living as authentically as we knew how at the time. But there's that little, niggling voice going, "This isn't it. There's more joy. There's more everything." We just wanted more. We knew there was more and we wanted it. So Bessie and I have always just said, "Life is an adventure, let's have one together." # I got bills, yo' uncle got bills # Everybody got bills # Everybody got bills... # So, this is the main entrance to the place that we have been given access to and we're... I think we'll just do that bit again. When you get out there and you do it, oh, there's a sense of joy and connectedness and purpose. This is a bad idea. So, yeah, on our journeys, we have a lot of fun. Hello, possums. Do you want to come in? We've got space. No. No. We get to have so much fun and we get to see all around the world. I want to go everywhere! With all the travel BlueBelle's done, she's been to eight countries and she's only just turned six. It's, like, amazing because you're free. You feel so free. Well, I grew up half between Byron Bay in a little hippie commune and the rest of my time on Sydney's North Shore. I grew up in a little fishing village called Newton Ferrers in South Devon. It was sort of an idyllic little place. My parents really wanted me to go to a certain type of school. Actually, it was a Christian school that they wanted me to go to and hippie to Christian is a huge contrast and, actually, it caused kind of problems for me with where I felt that I fitted. I had big plans. I wanted to be hugely famous. I wanted to be hugely rich. You ask any young guy, any young guy, they want to be all those things and they want to be known, they want to be respected, they want to be wealthy. I wasn't an ambitious girl at all and I still don't think of myself as ambitious, but in a good way, I don't think that's a bad thing. I just kind of enjoy wherever I am in life. When I first met Bessie, I actually said, "Do you want to be famous?" And she said, "Sure." It wasn't like, "Yeah!" It was like, "Oh, yeah." For Geoff and Bessie, you know, for a good few years, they were there, they were part of that circle, they were part of that scene, they were attending the functions and going to the parties. We were invited to all the best parties. We'd go to this opening and that opening. This function, that function. We'd get to meet some amazing people. It would be glamorous. There'd be limos. I mean, I just lapped it up. # Money, money, money. # Bessie Bardot and former gladiator Geoff Barker run Bardot's Bodies, a modelling agency with a difference. You watch TV for half an hour and you'll see 20 examples where a body model could've been used and, of course, that's the sort of work we're getting. (CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS REPEATEDLY) Image was everything. The whole of your life is wrapped up in image and how you're perceived. We've got our guest judges ready! Please welcome author and social commentator Bessie Bardot! Bessie and I got jobs where having an image that other people could use for whatever purposes, you know, promotion and advertising campaign, a TV show, a media, whatever. So...every photo taken of us was a resume. If you haven't heard of Bessie Bardot and her husband Geoff Barker yet, it isn't through lack of trying on their part. They want fame. If you didn't know Bessie, you'd think she was all just a pretty face and she's a model. But if you knew her, you know, she was always smart. She obviously had business nous behind the looks, or in addition to the looks. So, the site's been running for... ..coming up to a year and lately it's actually been getting a lot of hits. I wonder why. Being a businesswoman, owning my own company at 22, 23, it was a dream come true. They were some of the best days of my life, I must say. That was... 'Cause I like business, I enjoyed running a business. It was like flying. It was glamorous, it was fun, we were in a penthouse suite overlooking the Harbour Bridge, we had all the parties to go to still and we were doing something. Like a beautiful painting. When it's there, it should be hung on a wall so that all can see. If you've got it, flaunt it. Exactly. What do you think? Yeah. Nah, good. Hey, hon. How's the painting? Oh, hi, Kev. What do you think? Yeah. Nah, good. Be honest. Nice. Kev, honesty. Uh, I like it. (SIGHS) What? What's wrong? (SIGHS) You've changed your mind, haven't you? Pink?! Magenta. We should've gone with magenta. Oh, pink, magenta ` same thing, isn't it? They're not the same thing, Kev. When you paint with Valspar, if you're not in love with your colour, you can change it for free. In public, it all seemed so glamorous. A life full of fun and bubbly. In private, though, it was a different story. A familiar one of fame turned sour. For Geoff, too much booze, too many hangovers with Bessie stoically standing by the unhappy man she loved. (INTRO TO 'UPTOWN FUNK' BY MARK RONSON) It's cute. Trying to bring a bit of Australia home. They've got their little Harbour Bridge and harbour over here. Geoff's really helped me out throughout my life, actually, to bring me out of my shell. I have a naturally tendency to be quiet and shy. Without him, I never would've done any TV, any radio. I never would've jumped out of a plane, been to Iraq. # Uptown funk you up... # Because she... ..has that side to her that is, "Hm, I wonder what that might be like," she would do it and she would do a great job. You can have fun on the side together, but still build a life together. I like that. That's the idea. That's a nice thought. On the outside, Geoff looked like everything was fantastic and it was all smiley and bubbly. But, you know, I've known him a long time and I actually knew he was depressed because he wasn't finding the answers he thought he needed in life. He used to drown a lot of that in alcohol and whatever. You have an expectation that your life should be this or it should be that. You get to 30 and you go, "Wait a second," or 35, "This isn't how it's supposed to be and I don't know how to make it the way I believe it's supposed to be." You can get depressed. Geoff's life, his adult life, has been absolutely dedicated to searching and he's been drinking all night and he's an absolute heap on the floor, just devastated that he can't seem to find or understand the answers or the point of life. I think if it wasn't for Bessie, Geoff might not be here, in all honesty. She's an incredible, incredible lady. Bessie was a rock through the whole thing. She was never phased. She never nagged once, despite the fact I drank too much and I did a lot of things too much. Usually, he'd had half a bottle of vodka, a whole bottle of vodka. He'd be watching, you know, marathons on the Discovery Channel. I'm Bear Grylls... I was watching Bear Grylls on TV... I'm going to show you what it takes to get out alive of some of the most dangerous places on earth. ..and I went, "Wait a second. "Why am I sitting on this couch, miserable, when he's out doing what he loves?" It suddenly struck me, "I need to strip down. "I need to strip everything back from my life and reboot and start again." I broached the subject just by saying, literally, "Bess, I think we should give everything we own in the world away and see what happens." The first time, she said, "No, don't be silly." And I said, "No, no. I'm serious." And the next time, she came back, she said, "Yeah, let's do it. Sounds great." I knew that he really needed to make a change and I adore my husband, so I said 'yes'. You know, again, how many ways do I love this girl? (JAUNTY FOLK MUSIC) This is lovely. It changed me forever to have BlueBelle. She completes me and makes me a better person. When she was born, I realised my life was never going to be the same again, but in a delicious way. Hi, I'm Bessie. And I'm Geoff. And welcome to our life change experiment. Yes, and the big giveaway. Basically, we're giving away everything we own. Furniture, clothing, shoes. Computers. Laptops. Knives and forks and plates and... Everything but the kitchen sink. Which we would've given you if we could've got it out of the kitchen. A lovely lady has just come over to take BlueBelle for a walk so that we can get through some of these 40,000 emails and she said, "Are you guys crazy?" And people say that all the time, but she was here and it was in my face and I thought, oh, my god. Maybe we are. That was kind of the opening of my heart in some way. I wasn't much of a crier. I was pretty strong, pretty independent. It's just scary, me being a planner, I don't have anything planned but I'm making eggs so at least I've got something to do. To me, it was the first time the nut was cracked for me, where it was like, "OK... this is going to get interesting." It's 5:00am and BlueBelle's just woken up and we're leaving today. We don't know where we're going still. We don't know what we're going to do when we get there. But it seems really OK. I'm not in the slightest bit stressed. I thought something just fell off the back. # Gonna put the world away for a minute... # Living in the van is kind of addictive. Geoff kept turning to me and saying, "Are you sure you still want to do this?" And I'd say, "Yeah, let's... This is great." Look at that. Just the ability to be anywhere, you open the back doors and you have a million dollar ocean view and then when you feel like something different, you drive your house away. I loved it. We have met some fascinating, weird, wild and wonderful characters along the way. I'd just class myself as a witch. And each one has added to our journey and to our life. Green witches are closer to nature, there's kitchen witches, hedge witches. They're all different. If you stop your judgement of who you think they are or what you think they know or that what they said 10 minutes ago was a complete load of rubbish, it doesn't matter. What are they saying now and how can that connect with you? So what I do, I look after the health of prisoners. Don't ever be afraid of life. There's lots of wonderful things waiting out there for you. I remember naked gardening. I think that is burned in my memory. I just saw your tattoo. Can I have a look at your tattoo? Oh, it's really nice. I've got to get one too. Someone who heard us on the radio came up and said, "You've got to come to our eco-farm." What she didn't tell us until we got there was that it was a nude eco-farm. But, you know, the background that we'd had, it's not like we had a problem with it. It's definitely a visual image that's going to be stuck there for a while. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I say. the raspberry shake and super shake, chock mint sundae, hotcakes with whipped cream and strawberry topping or our famous Hershey's chocolate pie. For spring treats the way they're meant to be, head to Burger King. What's wrong? (SIGHS) Hey, hon. How's the painting? Oh, hi, Kev. What do you think? Yeah. Nah, good. Be honest. Nice. Kev, honesty. Uh, I like it. (SIGHS) What? What's wrong? (SIGHS) You've changed your mind, haven't you? Pink?! Magenta. We should've gone with magenta. Oh, pink, magenta ` same thing, isn't it? They're not the same thing, Kev. When you paint with Valspar, if you're not in love with your colour, you can change it for free. It's certainly been a long and winding road to happiness. For six years, Bessie and Geoff trekked across Australia, then Europe and America. BlueBelle was only six months old when they set out, so it's the only life she's ever known. What I loved about the zoo birthday party, it was low maintenance fun. Everybody could relax and enjoy themselves. # Happy birthday, dear BlueBelle. # It wasn't the perfect day in that a lot of the animals were sleeping and the lion would not turn around. (LAUGHS) I love you, Ava! She didn't even notice. She was having a ball with her best friend Ava and it's kind of the... It epitomises everything we've taught her, that she's low maintenance, she's got low expectations and doesn't insist on things being perfect and all about her and I love that about her. BlueBelle is the pride of my life. She is incredibly pure of heart and sweet and innocent and gentle and kind and brave. All the things that I wish I was when I was little. So I love looking at her every day and watching her and learning from her. Good. E. And Y. BlueBelle's schooling was something we weren't sure about. How many is in there? 10. Great, so write 10. I found this hybrid which is kind of like school by correspondence. 19. 19. Good girl. You write a lovely 19 for me there. She is actually the top of her class. I'm very proud of her. She's doing brilliantly with school. Don't eat this one. We are trying to save it for our cookie crumbs. We made sure that she wasn't around things that were too advanced for her young years, but still making her feel comfortable and competent, as a little adult, that she could do things for herself. It's a mixture between lots of love and kindness, but not overtaking her as a person. BlueBelle is... She is kind of special. We watched parents feed their children's minds as carelessly as taking them to junk food outlets every day. Who's winning? Me. I just decided I didn't want to feed her mind with frenetic, crazy, meaningless information, cartoons and that sort of thing. Alright. Check. The queen? No, check on the king. Oh. Any movie with any animal talking, you should not watch that because it makes your brain shrink. What I mean by brain shrink, I mean everything that you know that's right will fall out of your head and you think about bad things and be not very nice then, yeah. People go, "Oh, where do you go to the loo? Where do you wash?" Well, wait a second, the world is our house, so the world is my lounge room and my bathroom, so it's like you'll see a little babbling brook, "Oh, there's the shower for the night. Let's jump in that." It's blooming freezing and BlueBelle, who thought it was a good idea in the beginning, didn't think it such a good idea. Did you have fun? Do you feel adventurous? Horrible. After 10 minutes of numb, I felt alive and I guess that's how we live our life. Just dive in. Come out feeling better even if it hurts. # I will go anywhere for you # I will go anywhere for you # Yeah. # As we were journeying around, I found out my brother, at only 38, had bowel cancer and it was accelerating really, really fast. So I rushed back to spend some time with him and I remember being in tears and just saying, "James, I'm so sorry that I haven't been here for you." And he said... He said... I'll never forget. He looked me in the eyes and he said, "Bess, you're living. "If I hadn't been fearful all those years ago, "I would still be living in the future too. "It's only my fear that's been holding me back "and you're getting out there, you're taking your beautiful daughter and you just live." (MOURNFUL MUSIC) We go, what I call, we go by flow. This comes down to a practical way of living. We are open to life. Life shows up. If we feel passionate about something, we'll move forward into it. If we feel inspired by something, we'll move forward into it. It's pretty big. At first it was wild dogs and now T. rexs. We can end up in houses, we can end up house sitting, we can end up in bars, we can end up in buses, we can end up in tents, in yurts, in... We've lived pretty much everywhere and we love it like that because every day is like an adventure. Make sure there's no white bits. People always ask us what do we do to make money? And I like to answer very simply, "We add value." And that can take any form you imagine. It could be painting a fence, it could be tidying a house, it could be helping set up a business, it could be grooming a horse, it could be looking after a baby. That's awesome. Good job. Any dinosaur eggs? No. Hey, darling. This is where we're going to stay tonight. OK. We are a good team. BlueBelle, Geoff and I, we just all have the same spirit. You know, we all love adventure, we all love fun and I don't think either of us particularly wants to stop, but if one day we decided, "Hey, this is kind of a nice patch of grass, maybe we could have a home here," I'm sure all of us would feel the same way at the same time. It started as a bit of an experiment but ended as a way of life and according to Geoff, the search for happiness not only succeeded, it saved his marriage too. Now, I'm drawing... There are no words to describe when you get to the place in your life when you're not struggling anymore. You know, fulfilment, happiness, peace, these are all words we put on an indescribable place that we sit. There's a goji berry farm in New Mexico. And I don't regret anything that I ever did. I love the memories, Maybe it's becoming a mum. Maybe it's turning 40. But I feel like a better version, I think. A lot less worried about what people think and a lot more relaxed. BlueBelle, do you fancy looking after some horses for a while? Definitely! From my perspective, it saved me as a person and in that, it saved our marriage. I was able to become the person I could be and therefore Bessie was able to have the husband she should have. The experiment definitely saved our marriage, not because it would've fallen apart without it, but because I finally have a husband who is happy and who is a wonderful partner to be around. The rest of the time, I was always going to stick by him. I love him. He's my heart, my soul, my everything. So that was never going to be a question. Am I in the best place I've ever been? I never even came close to this ever before. A flower for you. I guess I want to say I wish I had known how to be in this place 20 years ago, but it was the journey that allowed it to happen and so I'm grateful for the journey. Absolutely the best place I've ever been in my life. I don't know where I would be without having my daughter and I also don't know where I'd be, honestly, without Geoff coming up with that crazy idea, because until then, I was holding onto my life, and things that I had done, for dear life and I wasn't letting anything in. The fear that's stopping you doing it is the very fear you need to go through to change all the rest of your life. So all I can say is step out. Don't necessarily give it all away. Just step out and step down. Go to your heart. Stop listening to this crap. Didn't get you anywhere in the first place, did it? I mean, seriously. # Home is wherever I'm with you... # www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Able 2015