I’d like the main protagonist to be a woman or man of a certain age, and thus practical, and not at all fluttery. The angst of youth would have been either binned long ago, or simply dealt with by heaving a sigh from the depths, a pushing up of the sleeves and a “Right then. Let’s just get on with it.”

They would not do things that put themselves or others in needless danger, like ignoring weather warnings or the advice of people far more experienced. When it comes to telephone calls from their informants/contacts, they would never allow them to say “I’ll tell you later” without saying “YOU MAY NOT BE HERE LATER.” with gusto.

They would make sure they have a charged mobile phone with them at all times and were wearing proper boots. With grippy soles and a steel toe for kicking people inna forks.

They would have a battery pack, and a filled, windproof lighter tucked into their bra or an inside pocket. They would also never, under any circumstances, go and visit a known site of dubious reputation without a) back up, b) a large supply of protein bars and bandages or c) letting other associates know where and when they were going.

Their go bag would have a very powerful wide beam torch, (FFS cop shows etc., can you not get torches that actually illuminate a room?) and a multi tool plus a location tracker in the lining, just case they get lost in the wilds of the dark and stormy countryside. Possibly a tracker embedded under the skin too.

I’d also quite like this person not to faint or scream at the sight of a dead body. Hear me out. I can’t help but feel every TV program that shows a middle aged woman screaming at the sight of a dead person, doesn’t actually know how a middle aged women would react. I’m quite sure that there are many of us who would go “Oh bugger. Fuxxake.” and then get on with the Doing of Things. There might be an audible gasp, initial tears and then a sigh as they realised it was down to them to fix as usual. (Unless there was a copious amount of stomach contents, in which case all bets are off and they’d call a professional.)

Mind you, let’s be real. This is not to say they wouldn’t have an aftershock reaction, and be found later on with a box of emergency Marlboro Golds and a strong sweet tea, with the biscuit tin half emptied.

Let’s talk jewellery. Silver jewellery is all very pretty but black iron is fae proof. They would make sure some of said iron is set into charms, bracelets and pendants even if it can’t be seen, and they would have protective charms and sigils tattooed on, not just written on five minutes before they set off.

Their protective circle might have to be on the floor (because grounding) but it would be made of something that can’t just be puffed away by a sharp gust of wind or demon breath; perhaps a collapsible salt infused and filled tube that can be held down with iron (because faeries) tent pegs. At the very least, they’d have a back up bag of salt and cayenne pepper mix. Handy for throwing in nasty faces.

There’d also be none of this sitting on the floor crossed legged malarkey. No. Lightweight folding chairs are to be made available to every witch and warlock because dammit knees and bums and backs give up being bendy after a while and spellcasting makes you tired. It’s all very romantic and flowy to have cushions and blankets on the ground but them’s for the young of hip and sound of collagen.

Any witch that can see and communicate with spirits will be given what looks like a bluetooth earpiece so the public don’t think they are just a crazy person, and they will also be trained in the art of holding a conversation whilst not needing to turn and look at the invisible thing they are conversing with. I’ve lost count of the times in modern productions where they get this wrong and I find it deeply irksome. Common sense needs to be deployed in order to minimise shouting at the telly and the raising of blood pressure.

Genuine psychics will repeat exactly what the attendant ghost is saying, not a précis. Thank you. Even if is just a “Your cousin is a twit, your sister Mavis is no better than she should be and is after your money and of course I don’t know where your bloody necklace is.”

They will also be allowed to say ”I don’t give a flying fig if you don’t believe me, but it needs to get out of my head and into yours. I’m sick of your relative following me around. I didn’t ask for this, but I’ve got it. Get a grip Chad.”

I have a nurse appointment tomorrow, as it’s been 6 months since starting HRT and 3 months since adding in utrogestan (progesterone)

I have had a slow realisation that since adding in the progesterone, my knee joints seem to be working better. The problem with things not working is that, often, it’s so slow and so gradual that suddenly one day you (I) realise you (I) can’t squat down any more to get something. It used to be done without thinking, then slowly it became a non happener. The skin felt too tight, the muscles non-cooperative.

“Well, you did have a bike crash, so...you know, your knees are crap anyway.” said my brain, and so I just thought no more of it. I’m used to things not working.

This past week, there’s been a change. I can’t put my finger on it, or really describe it, but it’s like I feel more present, more me.

I feel like I am possibly back in charge of myself again.

I’m not doubting my abilities as much, and I’m not doing a rabbit in the headlights at every slightly harder work task. Well, not as much anyway.

The nervous feelings/light palpitations have lessened.

Long may this continue. (It has better, or I’ll be in a right old state.)

How are YOU all doing?

Are we ready to rule the world yet? (Probably! Let’s face it, the ones doing it at the moment are making a hash of it.)

*I’m sure you know who I mean. If you don’t, find out. She’s no more saving women than I am nailing jelly to a wall.

Lately I have been charging through some excellent books by TJ Green - Magic, Myths, and Mystery.

I started the Whitehaven Witches series not that long ago and today I finished book 12, Midwinter Magic, having only started it yesterday. I had to hold myself back from going straight on to book 13, Sacred Magic. Book 14 is due soon too and I can’t wait.

They embrace all the green and elemental magic, along with a good dose of tight friendship bonds, humour and fey influence.

If you’ve felt the pull of the wild woods in spring and summer, sensed there is more to life than our eyes see or heard the call of iced edges and lacework webs in winter, these books are for you.

I’m off to start book 13 and yes, I have book 14 on pre-order.

On a Monday in July of 2018 , a light went out of the blogging world. Lots of my friends from that world lost one of their own, and were recovering from being hit hard by that loss.

There was a sudden explosion of sentiment from others on my timeline and fab posts that made me go and see for myself. Kate sounded like an amazing lady.

@witwitwoo - Kate Sutton - was someone who I really wished I’d known about before she passed, because my goodness she sounded like a wonderful and inspiring person to be around - but I looked at all the glorious photos posted with the hashtag #bemorewitwitwoo and loved the strong, beautiful women being as positive as they could in the wake of their loss, braving the OMG I can’t, and wearing their bikinis and swimsuits with pride.

So, from me, even though I didn’t know her, but in honour of those who did, and who were going to miss her dearly I wrote this. It still stands.

Wear your sleeveless tops, who gives a toss about bingo wings. Those arms give comfort, hugs, love.

Wear your bright colours, your swimsuits, your jeans, your strappy tops. Buy yourself those shoes/trousers/cookies/books you covet because there’s only one YOU, one life.

Have cake, eat vegan, go veggie, be a carnivore - do what YOU WANT because what others think DOESN’T MATTER.

Dance, sing, go to the seaside, sit on a swing, let yourself love and live.

Colour your hair, go pink, blue, green, purple - why not?

Why should we consider ourselves less than anyone else?

Why allow our low self-esteem, probably caused by others, get in the way of who we are, of what we want to do?

Do it. Just do it anyway. I know it’s hard, but we earn or take our own places, nobody awards them to us.

This little girl grew.

She grew, and grew, and got taller than her classmates, wider and broader than the others at dance class. The teacher said “SHE’S LIGHT ON HER FEET FOR A CHILD OF HER SIZE.” and the girl never went back because she was ashamed.

But she grew more, in size, in age, and in mind. Life threw curve balls, lots of them, but still she grew and the shame fell away.

She lost people, dear people, but she gained strength with each loss, and gained more people along the way.

She met things head on, and sometimes she ran and hid. But back she came.

Be big, bold and sassy. Do not apologise for your breadth, for your width, for your broad shoulders, your magnificent round backside or your big hair.

Life is way too short to give a flying fig about what other people might think.

Tut back at the tutters, smile widely at the haters.

Love you. Love YOU.

In this time of Big Things, I find myself craving the smallest pockets of beauty, kindness and hope. I used to go for a walk along my local high street and find joy in the diversity of our shops but this has since been invaded by the dreaded St George’s flags hanging off every available lamp post and cell tower. For the first time in 20+ years of living here, I feel unwelcome. It’s hard to push past that at the moment.

This has all the echoes of how I felt when I was a teenager and the National Front was on the march. I would walk from my Dad’s shop in E12, just along to the next parade of shops and be on the look out all the time, wondering which half of my heritage they would choose to pick on. Yes I am half English, but back then I didn’t look it. I’d been called ‘paki’ enough times to know I didn’t pass. Now I am a 54 year old with purple hair, but I still look ‘different’ enough to get looks.

I am a brown woman and can be mistaken for any number of nationalities. Believe me, I have been ‘claimed’ by many. In hospital the Punjabi catering lady was sure I was one of hers, the Gujarati cleaner said I was hers and a Spanish intern was certain I was hers.

The place I work for is global. My colleagues are of all nationalities, and I love it. One of the team from Riyadh recently took a trip to Paris and posted up some of his photos for us to see.

I was genuinely taken aback by one of them, because it showed me how small something was in comparison to its celebrity and how I had always imagined it.

How did I not know that the Mona Lisa was so tiny?

It does genuinely look like she’s been hung on the wall in a student end of term art show. The lining paper used in the photo is remarkably similar to the one used in my own end of term art show way back in 1989.

The wall panels seem dented and flimsy and even though I know she is protected behind glass she seems ever so vulnerable. This was not how I expected her to be presented.

I’ve never felt the call to go and see her in the flash, probably because I hate crowds. All those bodies jostling to get in front of her and take a photo with their phones held aloft…no thank you.

One of the things that has stuck with me from when I was at art school was a trip to see some Van Gogh paintings. What stayed wasn’t the front view, it was the side view. The impasto he created was so vivid because of the sheer amount of paint he used on some of his canvasses. Layer upon layer, piled on the canvas with a fervent almost desperate passion. Seeing those layers from an unframed side was not only a revelation but almost a shock at the thickness of the layers.

Part painter, part sculptor, part engraver. They say the devil is in the details but to me, this is just pure beauty.

Applications: It has been used for various applications like preserving fence timbers, railway sleepers, and utility poles.

Health Risks: While effective as a preservative, creosote and its byproducts can pose health risks, particularly to workers involved in its production and application.”

The above definition is factually correct, and I think the stuff has been banned for use in the UK because of the potential for harm. (It’s a shame we can’t also ban certain people for the same reason but that’s another, much longer and far more ethically complicated story in which I probably compare Farage and Trump et al to a Japanese knotweed syphilis crossbreed and get cross.)

Another old and now non-existent smell akin to creosote was Wright’s Coal Tar soap. It was not genteel.

William Valentine Wright, born in 1826 in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, was a wholesale druggist and chemist and had gained a reputation for inventing non alcoholic communion wine. One hopes it did not contain tar.

He met an 'untimely death' in Dundee in September 1877 when: "he caught a cold in the face, which developed into erysipelas, the inflammation extending to the brain, he succumbed with great suddenness at the age of fifty one".

Back to creosote. What ho fair tin!

Note: I began writing this in April of 2025. Lost it. Found it again!

It’s a Bank Holiday, heading slowly into summer and the weather is bringing with it all the unpredictability of British seasons. We most definitely have seasons, but sometimes they seem to have a bit of an identity crisis, and shuffle a little awkwardly amongst themselves, jostling for position whilst also stepping on each others toes in a bid to get some space.

Last week, in this neck of the woods, we had temperatures that were more suited to the height of summer. 28°C in April is certainly not usual, nor is needing to sleep with all the windows open and a fan on. Yes, I enjoyed it because I am a warmth and sunshine girl at heart and I am always happy not to need a coat but it’s also unsettling; you can feel that the weather systems are out of kilter.

The advent of warm weather always brings in the memories. There’s a magic meeting of circumstances that usher in one particular memory; the smell of cut grass, the sounds of wood pigeons and the smell of creosote all combine to bring sharply focused image of my grandad painting the sides of his shed and the nearby fences. They had a lot of fencing, so there was a considerable amount of creosote application to be done every year. I liked the smell. I also loved the smell of petrol. No I am not a firestarter.

I recall a dark purple clematis climbing all over the dark wood and green plexiglass shed that sheltered not only a stash of flowerpots and a sole garden chair but also a container of Grandad’s home made beer and some pipe tobacco. Of course the creosote chore would have happened long before the clematis was planted out, and I remember the dark liquid being applied liberally to the dividing fence between Nan’s garden and Auntie Peggy’s house next door.

Auntie Peggy would have been termed ‘a spinster of our parish’. A kind, fiercely intelligent woman who had worked at Whitehall before she retired. I never knew what it was she did there, but she used to laugh heartily at Yes Minister because she said it had been exactly that way. I recall her as always wearing a brown nylon housecoat and being slightly faded; I think she’d had red hair when she was younger which now showed only as threads in a sea of pale grey. Her skin certainly had the pallor of a redhead and her eyes were a watery blue. For some reason I have her in my mind as Scottish, but that may well be completely wrong. Part of my memory contains another older lady, possible called Ella, who lived with her and whose bottom teeth worried me. I’d not seen teeth with brown edges before, and very young me was concerned about it. I’m sure it was just a build up of strong tea, because the teapot was always on the go.

Their house felt dark, and smelled old. I remember thinking it always smelled faintly of onions but, thinking on it now, that may well have been the scent of old ladies who don’t do a full immersion bath, but who do a stand up wash every day. I don’t know if they even had a bath! I was always running in between both houses and Peggy wandered between both as well, landing in the kitchen with a gentle oowaah! call. Like a cooee! but not.

Nan’s garden was big enough to contain a swimming pool, a raised patio at the back and a decent sized shed. The pool was put in during the summer of 1976, which was a rather felicitous occasion as the drought warning kicked in the day after the pool had been filled.

There was a copper coin inlaid into the paving stones around the edge, and it was my job to polish it, Brasso and a cloth in hand. To this day I cannot stand the smell of copper coins on my hands. I think we tried ketchup once, and that worked a dream, smelled better too.

That pool was where I learned to swim, after a sip or two of Grandad’s blackberry wine. I cared not a jot that he wasn’t holding me any more and just swam off. It was where I found out that I can float on my back, utterly motionless with head back and my ears submerged so all I hear is muffled noises. Noises like my Nan telling me to get out of the pool because it was raining which made no sense to already wet me.

It was also the place where my aversion to water on my face was cemented in, when a school chum jumped in and landed on my head on purpose, pushing me under and leaving me terrified and gasping.

Incidentally it was also where we found out that not only could my Nan not swim, but that she had negative buoyancy and sank like a stone, sitting on the bottom of the pool waiting for Grandad to go and rescue her. He did, because he was nice like that.

My favourite lunch was poolside too.

Old fashioned white sandwich bread, the kind with a domed top, and golden crust, holding smooth cheddar cheese, butter and Heinz Sandwich Spread.

Still your pens, haters, I love it even now. Get orf moi jaaar.

Waiting for the bus back from a shopping trip in which I celebrated my own sense of Me returning (HRT ftw) I chose to wait a bit and get the 499 bus because that wouldn't use Gallows Corner roundabout; currently undergoing Works and submitting drivers to seven shades of hell in roadworks, delays and diversions.

While we were waiting, a bus pulled up. This one was going to somewhere called Passingford Bridge which I've never heard of but as we stood there, the driver got out and looked around. He was on his phone for a while and then he got back in again, looked down into the bus and said “Does anybody on here know the way to Passingford Bridge and can direct me?”

A lady came down from the back of the bus and said yes so she sat in the front seat to the left of the driver with her phone on. I can only assume Google Maps was being used as she directed him on the way to go.

When my bus came, myself and the lady who sat next to me started talking saying but what happens if she's not going all the way to the end of the route? Does she have to stay on the bus all day? Are we going to read in the newspaper about a woman on bus for 48 hours?

“Woman on two day bus journey says ‘I didn't think the drive was ever going to end but I did my duty’. She has been treated for dehydration and sent home in a taxi.”

To my mind it sounded like a prompt for the beginning of a novel where she got on the bus never thinking that anything more would happen. It kept us entertained all the way back to my stop, and to be honest, we're still wondering if she ever managed to get off the bus at all because on the way back we saw the same bus coming back in the opposite direction, so we knew that he'd made it to the end of the route and halfway back again, but we couldn't see if she was still sitting in the front seat, waiting patiently to guide him around.

Was it a penance? Did he keep her there until he’d finished her shift or did they eventually they ended up in a co-dependant relationship while they searched for a third team member to open and close the bus windows as the seasons changed.

Will she end her days going to a café once a week to think back on her her experiences whilst nursing a strong coffee and vowing never to set foot on a bus again?

In 2010, I wrote this on a memories board. This is no way portrays the actual horrors that he went through, and relived every night of his life. The horrors that caused him to have a nervous breakdown at the wheel of his car, hearing only the screaming of men around him as they went down in flames while in his mind he was in control of a plane trying desperately not to crash.

It's thanks to men like my grandfather that we have the freedoms we have today and I can never fully express my gratitude.

It's because of them I donate to the Legion and to the RAF. I don't actually give a toss what colour poppy you wear, just so long as we remember what it is actually for.

You can condemn war, and still support the men and women who give their lives.

“Dear Sirs,

I came across your list of POWs in Stalag Luft III and as soon as I saw Peter Butterworth's name I knew I had the right camp that my Grandfather was in.

He was Navigator John Walter Crowe and he remembered being in camp with Peter. I think he flew in a bomber though I’m not sure what kind.

My maternal Grandfather was a musician for many many years. He was a guitarist in a Latin band called The Four Monarchs and they were very popular here - all nice looking young men with that Errol Flynn moustache thing going on. The band was parted when they all went off to war and Grandad (John Crowe) ended up in prison camp for years. I believe he was in the same camp as Peter Butterworth at one point.

He'd been shot down over what he thought was Holland as the farmers were wearing Dutch clothing but it was a trick that the Germans used to fool airmen in just this situation. He was rescued by a farmer, and well cared for but soon the soldiers came.

He was taken to the office of a camp where the soldiers interrogated him about something for hours. He had a pick, or a plectrum for his guitar in his pocket you see. It was made out of an old set square with degree marks on it and they thought it was a fiendish new British guidance gadget. Once he told them what it was though, the commandant asked to see him.

"Tell me Mr Crowe, you do know of Burt Weedon? I play the guitar too you see."

They spent the next few hours talking music and guitars and then the commandant had to send him on to the camp, albeit with a very heavy heart.

He made a toothbrush out of wood and string (this was even reported in our local paper when he came home!) so that he could stay clean and lived in hope of being rescued. They forced the prisoners, at Christmas, to walk to Poland from Germany. The men were chained in threes and if one died, they had no choice but to drag him with them. The route was lined with guards with rottweilers trained to kill and so they marched and they marched.

One night they all took shelter in a barn and were woken by a massive rumbling and an almighty roaring. Suddenly the wall of the barn caved in and through it came a tank. The lid (John called it that) popped open and a face looked out and said "Bloody hell Johnny Crowe - what the hell are you doing here?"

It was Grandad's next door neighbour from back home in East London. He was helping the Americans on a rescue mission. He threw Grandad a can of bully beef and a can of Christmas Pudding and then set about helping everyone else.

They were all medically and honourably discharged and he came home to marry Gran. She'd thought he was dead and then one day there he was on her doorstep. All 70lb (5 stone) of him.

He never ate Christmas pudding again...”

Years later, someone in Australia trying to find out about his relative, the pilot, had read that board, and then contacted me. He sent me the records that he had.

The need to spend time alone has definitely become stronger. My favourite times are the ones when I am the only one awake, or at least it feels like I am.

When the mornings became lighter, I wake up earlier so it’s not unknown for me to be out on a walk at 4am, chasing the clouds as they clear the sky.

If I wake up in the night (I’m over 50, of course I wake up in the night), I often stay up for a while and gaze out of the open window, watching a secret, silent world and deeply inhaling the night scents until I get chilly and go back to bed.

I recently watched an interview with the author of a book called simply Sociopath. Patric Gagne grew up knowing she was different, but this memoir details her battle to get a diagnosis, and covers with stunning honesty all of her challenges, mistakes and light bulb moments along the way. (Sociopath is not the same as psychopath, but sadly many conflate the two.)

She described breaking into empty buildings as a child, and finally feeling safe and secure because she was in the middle of a space where nobody had any clue she was there. It gave her peace to be not only completely and utterly alone, but unknown as well. That resonated with me.

I enjoy being alone; I’m an only child, so fairly standard.

I enjoy my own company; I more than enjoy it, I crave it.

I love being alone, and reading but I also enjoy people watching. I make up stories in my head; plot lines and scenarios that may well be utter nonsense, but it’s fun and harms nobody.

The feeling of being outside, independently journeying even if just to the shops fills me with a peace and an inside my own head calmness. A long bus journey can be a wonder.

I don’t have to answer to anyone, or talk to anyone if I don’t want to. Despite appearances to the contrary, I do have those times when I want absolute zero conversation, no responsibilities, no decisions to make for other people. No questions to answer other than “Shall I go left or right?”

This may seem at odds with also being a person who is inherently interested in people and their stories but I have boundaries, and if they get overly encroached upon then I know that soon I’m going to be off out with only my own thoughts for company.

When this photo was taken I also had the voices and percussion section of woodpeckers, blackbirds, magpies, starlings and crows tagging along, but that’s fine. They ask nothing of me.

Usually early morning is my time. I often set my alarm to stupidly early purely to gain alone time. It’s not done because I don’t like my people, or anything even approaching that but the older I get the more non-interaction time I seem to need.

The brain noise can become overwhelming; it’s very hard to quantify but I notice my responses become short, my patience is no longer willingly given and I get extremely frustrated with messaging on different platforms. If a beep goes off, or a ping on my phone, or a whatever-that-noise-that-Teams-makes comes out of the computer and my immediate response is “Oh f*ck off.” then I know it’s time. I’ve given up on Instagram and - obviously - TwatterXnMusk, dialled back on Farcebook and turn off my phone notifications during the work day.

Imagine you are in a room which has multiple doors. Outside that room there are well-meaning, lovable and wonderful but disruptive bears, and you don’t know what door they will use.

They will come in and go out via a different door every time; you will never know which one, never be able to predict their next appearance and their disappearance will somehow never correlate with the way they come back in. It eventually starts making you jump every time a door opens or closes.

This will continue, getting faster and faster until you have no choice but to lock every single door, put noise-cancelling earbuds in and just turn the world off.

Welcome to a depiction of how my brain needs and wants to be.

I am not the greatest fan of The Media. Whilst the daily rags can sometimes be a force for good, more often than not they are just a source of annoyance, gossip mongering, outright shit stirring and racial division. They are experts at Othering and we have already seen recently that the media can influence everything in entirely the wrong alt-right direction.

They are also experts at oversharing. Details that really have no business being out here, but they print and publish anyway because ‘the public’ has what the media calls a right to know. The public has no ‘right’ to know a huge amount of the things they print, but they do it because of sales. Those clicks won’t earn themselves, am I right?

There have been interviews with Alison Hammond about her weight loss. (Go you girl, you look fabulous but then you always have) and SO OF COURSE they all harp on about dietary changes.

Stay with me here.

Yes, of course some people have to make those changes, but the problem with reporting them is that every person who needs (in the eyes of society/doctors etc.,) to lose weight then gets tagged as a greedy over-eater.

If you know any fat people - as in know them well, not from an observational standpoint - quite often we aren’t eating what the media would have you think we eat. People like that awful weaselly man who did the equivalent of up skirt photos of fat people so he could make a show about it; that series always picked people who ate far too much of the desperately wrong things. They made a huge table to display their foods on and every time it struck me that not only was it an unhealthy diet, it was an abnormal one. 3 kebabs a night, every night? Six portions of chip shop chips a day? Two extra large pizzas each as an average order? I get full after a dessert bowl of rice. Two small slices of pizza and I’m done.

These gargantuan meals sounded more like an illness or a food obsession or a medical problem that needs proper help, not something that should be exploited for some tawdry TV show with a dictatorial fat hater called Steve Miller (not the cool one) at the helm, bustling about like a failed Butlins wannabe.

It’s concern trolling at its finest. (Concern trolls are the types of people who, for example, try to coax otherwise healthy fat people into dieting, claiming it’s because they worry for their health. But in reality, it’s often because the concern troll doesn’t like fat people, or is actually terrified of one day being fat themselves or are just enjoy being an asshat for fun.)

Being overweight makes you a target. We are quite easy to spot after all, but we are also very easy to make assumptions about. I’ve never quite been able to find that sweet spot where you can just coast along in life without getting picked on for something, which does make me think there isn’t one.

Thin and pretty*? You’re probably going to get called a spoiled bitch at some point.

Fat and pretty**? “Oh you’d be so pretty if only you lost weight.”

Thin and ugly**? I’m sure people can imagine where that’s going to go.

Successful** and attractive**? “Who did you sleep with then?”

There are more, and it’s so BORING.

We often internalise all of this, then turn on ourselves because we believe we must be at fault or flawed when in reality none of it is anything to do with us, or how we look or how we behave. 90% of the time it comes from a deep core of dissatisfaction/trauma/sadness/lack of self worth/unhappiness/frustration on the part of the abuser.

The best thing I have ever learned is that I have zero control over other peoples actions. I can’t change how they act, or think, or alter anything they do.

However, I am in control of me. I can learn to control how much of myself I give to people, and how much of myself I let them affect. Only I can put mental distance between their behaviours and the affect it has on my feelings.

It’s not an easy lesson to learn or to practice but you do get better with time. You get faster at spotting the energy vampires, the ones who leech your time and your spirit. Those people who seem great at first and then slowly, slowly you find that you haven’t actually been happy in their presence for a while, but it happened so very slowly and gradually that there was no defining breaking point but that is when you take back control.

You control when you see them. You control how you interact. You take control of your social calendar and you stand firm on your decisions. You don’t need to be nasty, but you do need to be strong. “No thank you, I’m already booked up that night.” might become a stock answer but it’s your answer.

This article is talking about personal relationships, but in truth it applies to everyone you might be in proximity to, not just romantic loves. Family, friends, acquaintances; the list goes on.

The phrase “But I love them!” needs an awful lot of unpacking.

It is love, or dependence?

Is it love or have you been subtly gas lit?

Do you love them or have you been made to feel you can’t exist without them?

Do you feel real loyalty to them, or have you been coached and subtly bullied into thinking their needs and wants are more important than yours are?

Self examination and self reflection can often be painful, and we might find ourselves in unfamiliar territory, but the unfamiliar can quickly become the familiar, if you give yourself the leeway; the mental space and time to walk about and explore on your own.

Our destiny shouldn’t be controlled, or forced by another person. It’s ours.

Take it back.

*Mma Ramotswe, Sir Alexander McCall Smith - No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books

**all these are subjective.

Good old Musky McFartface is forever extolling his own virtues, and telling anyone who is within shouting (or saluting) distance that HE’S THE BEST when he so very clearly isn’t. Tech bro without the actual tech acumen. He just buys in the knowledge and claims it for his own, then screws it up spectacularly.

Then we have innumerable blogs and vlogs and skeets and tweets, telling us how to be, how to live, what not to wear, and what not to buy.

Part of me understands the weariness towards experts, the shying away from the ones who understand simply because there is such a huge overload and people get fed up with what they perceive as being told what to do.

The sheer volume of online commentary from people who don’t understand but who think they do, or who promote their own misunderstandings the loudest is overwhelming. They all seem to write a good story, plausible until you dig a fraction deeper. In some cases you don’t have to dig very far at all.

Many ‘influencers’ have no formal credentials in medicine, nutrition, or food science yet spout forth ‘advice’ like a veritable fountain of errors. They repeat misinformation from the school of ‘everybody knows’ without having either the wherewithal or the concern to check if it’s true or not.

Snake oil salespeople are still out there, but it’s called all kinds of different things now. Follow the money trail, see who profits. Listen carefully, and see whose voice raises and shrills above everyone else. Even some of the most educated people can turn into pedlars of phony elixirs if there’s enough money in it.

The ranting of the wild eyed and frothing street corner preacher has been distilled down and honed into expensive corporate wellness.

These purveyors of snake oil still prey on the vulnerable; the ones to whom critical thinking has never been taught or the ones who have never been encouraged to question media sources. These are the people who now refuse to vaccinate their children against deadly diseases, who run from the legitimate doctors because a Hollywood star has repeated the lies about something ‘causing’ autism without fact checking or thinking of the consequences.

Celebrities who bought into the Dr Oz phenomenon then went on to spout his rhetoric as fact, when The British Medical Journal found that more than half of the recommendations on his shows contradicted medical research.

(The producers for the show stated that the series gives viewers "the most information and the greatest number of tools they can use to make their own choices.")

It all, eventually, seems to lead back to making someone else even more money.

Our peace can sometimes be hard won as we may feel societal guilt about not engaging. Friends might not realise that your lack of engagement with the news isn’t because you don’t care, but instead it is because you care too much. Very often you cannot make your own mind step away and all you do is run over the images you have seen time and time and time again.

They invade your dreams, pop up in the middle of the work day, and you try desperately to squash them down and subdue those arrowed thoughts. Days of this becomes exhausting.

Your own peace should be non negotiable. You absolutely have and must insist upon the right to disengage else your brain become a plague pit of ideas and half baked solutions. Those of us who are fixers have a brain that can become obsessed by trying to solve a problem that isn’t ours; a puzzle to which we have no solution and only minimal pieces. It’s not even a conscious thing, it happens in the background until we finally manage to shut it down but it can take a long time, and then another image or piece of news forces its way in.

Often though, those images are still there, tapping at the base of your hind brain, vying for attention so they can reach full strength and draw you back down into the maelstrom.

We have every reason to want to be quiet, to be be at peace. Yes, I acknowledge that it is a huge privilege to be able to choose quiet and silence, but if we have that privilege then we should exercise it so we stay at our best. That way we have the mind space to deal with the things that happen in close proximity to us. We need that energy to deal with things we can actually influence, and if we use it up by worrying over things we cannot change then we end up lost in a constant doom scroll.

It’s not easy. It takes a conscious effort to disengage, to step off the merry go round, and a firm resolution with both ourselves and others to say No.

The grey oppressive days of the previous week are forgotten in the exuberance of a sunny Saturday.

As I walk I catch snippets of conversation floating in and out of my hearing.

…it was the way she just stood there, as if…

…I mean, really. It's like a circus. Would you even…

[glass breaks] “Waheeeey! Never mind son, we've all done it.”

Snatches of lives in passing, family sagas, future hopes and life lessons.

In the cafè the conversations cross over each other, old friends seated together by choice and new acquaintances thrown in on the same table due to circumstance.

The noise level ebbs and flows like an indoor tide, a sudden breaker pushed higher by the arrival of a tiny dog in a pink jumper, its owner swathed in layers of scarves, gloves and a zipped tight cobalt blue jacket.

Our barista is bilingual, switching rapidly between fast Italian to his family and accented English to the customers, all of whom appear to be his friends.

…this Parmesan is superb, wouldn't go anywhere else…

…I don't know what this sa- wait, you're Italian. Can you translate…

…never eat this anywhere else, this place is the best …

…the coffee is great, but I mostly come here for Michele. Yes, he makes the best panini. Have you tried…

I move on.

More street conversation, tiny dogs tripping over high paving stones or pulling their owners to a halt as they find an irresistible smell that must be investigated.

“Fifi! Come ON. We've talked about this.”

“You're a good dog. Daft as a brush, but…good.”

“How on earth did you manage to get so dirty so fast?! B-A-T-H for you.”

Again, I walk on, back towards home this time, stretching out the aches in my legs, lengthening my stride when I can, stepping around sudden people or loose children.

Eventually the sun will hide, and I'll settle down to read with the noise of the sea as my backdrop.

Life with a chronic illness has to carry on as normal, or you end up being one of those people who take to their beds when they don’t need to and almost invalid themselves out of life.

I understand it - there is a huge grieving process to be gone through; the loss of the person you thought you were has to be aligned with the person you now see yourself as. I count myself lucky in that who I am and who I see myself as has never been in question.

I am very much me. When asked how I identify, then I’m afraid the answer is just Me. Always has been and always will be. (Whatever you identify as is your privilege, and I’ll accept it. Unless you identify with the Trumpenmusken.)

Regardless of what others have tried to mould me into, the me that’s on the inside eventually surfaces. She won’t be told.

Whenever I have been job hunting, agencies always tried to tell me not to wear my silver jewellery, my bangles, not to show who I am or reveal my likes and dislikes but they missed a huge trick there. Those interviewers may have been the ones holding the job interview, but at the same time, I was also interviewing them.

If they do not want a Goth with curves, purple curls, a strong mind and a chronic illness then I most certainly do not want to work for them. If I cannot be me, then you don’t get me.

If you are the person who does not want me, then honestly? It will probably turn out that you are the person or place that I don’t need to be either. It’s also absolutely your loss.

Hands up, I have made a few mistakes over the years and got hurt when someone didn’t actually feel the same about me as they said they did, but looking back I know that I dodged quite a few bullets. Mostly work-wise, but some personal ones too.

Anyway, the reason I started this post was actually to talk about having a chronic illness but if you have ever met me you will know that my conversations are free range.

What I wanted to say was that yes, I have a chronic illness but due to genetics or simply the luck of the draw, I am not chronically ill. I never think of myself as ill. Even when I’ve been in hospital, I’ve always been just a person to whom something has happened.

This is not me, I don’t do ruffles but this is the sort of image that comes ot my mind when I think of being ill.

The sudden thought of “I have a chronic illness but I am not chronically ill” came to me whilst reading another ‘stack, and it made me run to the computer and start typing.

It also made me realise that the reason I can say with utter truthfulness to my neurologist that I am the luckiest woman ever, is that I truly do think I am.

My flavour of MS is relapsing remitting. They call it benign. I can assure you that when an attack hits it doesn’t feel benign, but then it (mostly) goes away again. I say mostly because it can leave tiny trails of non sparking evidence behind, where the nerves become non conductive or the skin forgets what it’s mean to do but…I’m still me and I am still in here, as determined as I can be.

My fingertips might be numb, but I can write, even if it does take some effort.

I can hold hands, I can hug and I can cook.

Yes, I have to re-learn the ways after each episode, but I am present enough still to do so.

Doing up a button is problematic? That’s what zips and press-studs are for.

I can’t feel a needle or a hair grip or a tissue on the floor to pick it up, but that’s where the Reaching Thing comes in. Or a lump of sticky BluTac.

When I can’t feel the floor then heavy boots get brought into play, laced up tight so I ‘feel’ the boot making contact, even if the soles of my feet and my toes feel carved from unyielding painful stone. Granite yet full of the most minute electrical crackles, sand between my toes and shades of what it was the week before.

Yet still there I am.

I can live a so called normal life, even after the acquisition of a chronic illness and the ‘life changing’ injuries of two broken shoulders. You’d better believe I leaned into every last thing that would help me when that happened, even down to utilising a pasta server’s curved handle to help me pull bra staps onto my shoulders.

People may have a disability, but often we are more disabled by the world and the attitudes in it. It’s not designed for people like us. It is designed for the ‘normal’ size and shape, and the able bodied. The attitudes which want us to force ourselves into gaps that are not made for us, not ones of “Let’s make the things fit the people instead of forcing people to fit the things.”

Accessibility for all, not just the ‘average Joe’.

We’ve been at -4°C overnight, and I have too much trepidation about ice and slipping to be brave, too many past out of control incidents where the earth slips away and suddenly you’re becoming very familiar with your own carpet fibres, the inside of the bath or the denizens of the slate in your garden. (I don’t want to hear from anyone who says “Pah! Call that cold and icy?” You are not me, you don’t have my physical embuggerances* and you will get Looked At.)

Sunday has now been designated walk day, and today will be ‘cook a thing you haven’t cooked before’ day. Along with a Drink All The Tea day, as I have restocked. Black tea with milk please, Builders’ choice.

I’ve got 1930s and 40s jazz playing, and I am writing so I don’t sit down on the sofa. Our reclining sofa is a place of snoozing for me, ever since it was the only place I could sleep when I broke my shoulders. I can now add the sofa to the list of places were I can fall asleep very easily. First on that list was a car ride. When I was a feckless baby who refused to sleep, Mum would put me in the car and drive me around for a while until I gave in. It seems to have ingrained itself, as even now I find it very hard to stay awake when I’m a passenger. You will be relieved to know that I do not drive.

I have been known to fall asleep on the back of a motorbike when being a commuting pillion, and also in 1992, sat on the stairs by the stage, leaning against the speakers at The Electric Ballroom when their Full Tilt goth night was on. This isn’t Full Tilt, it’s sadly no longer in existence, but this is the Ballroom.

I was also one of those commuters with the knack of falling asleep on the train and waking up right at my stop. I only ever missed it once, and I blame that on having a cold.

My Gaga (grandpa) John used to say he could fall asleep on a washing line, so it may be a family trait. Suffice it to say that if I want to see the day out without snoozing, I have to stay away from the sofa. Not ideal as it’s the best place to watch the TV, and many’s the occasion I have woken up at 3am still sat upright, with the remote in one hand and a very cold cup of tea on the table.

It has come in handy though as I have been excused Jury Duty. When I was first asked to go I called them and said there was no way I’d be useful, as it would be inevitable that I would fall asleep. They thanked me for my call, and agreed that I would not be an asset. I haven’t been asked since. I assume they want no danger of a mistrial!

Oh I say, we’ve made it to 4°C!

I shall go and celebrate with my first coffee of the day. (No, caffeine doesn’t keep me awake. Surprise!)

*Nod to Sir Terry Pratchett for that one.

Resolvere sounds gentle, and just what’s needed. Perhaps you need that too? Not to change all of yourself, but instead to let go of old things, old habits that don’t serve you any more instead of making new impossible ones then feeling bad when they don’t stick.

Untie the knots that hold you to the sad things of your past, and allow yourself that release.

Allow yourself to have fun, and stop not considering your own needs.

How often have women been called selfish, when what they were actually doing was something purely for themselves? Many of us childless cat women understand that all too well.

These spurious New Year resolutions are more often ways in which we deprive ourselves of something, or make ourselves promise to do the thing we don’t actually want to do, which is probably why we didn’t get around to doing it in the first place.

I don’t make New Year resolutions, I’ve never really seen the point. I’ve led a life where Things happen, and you deal with those Things. Which is to say a life like everyone else. Making any kind of grand plan is just a way of waving madly at Fate and saying “HI! I’M OVER HERE!”

I’ve never known what I wanted to be ‘when I grew up’. I have marvellous friends who had that vision seemingly from the get go and I applaud their resolve and their abilities but me? I am definitely more of a ‘Let’s just get to tomorrow and see what happens’ person.

Life has a way of derailing you, so you end up just rolling with the punches whilst hopefully dishing some out yourself when needed. I’ve been derailed and had to pivot quite a few times, so after a while you start to become a little worried when you get too settled but you also become that person who’s always quick to react whenever something happens that require fast mental reflexes. I have been told that I am very good in a crisis, but to be honest I’d rather not be in one, mine or anyone else’s.

I never used to like myself much. I don’t know why, but I suspect I was young and daft. Eventually I started to listen to those older and wiser than me, instead of just taking heed of the voice in my head.

More importantly I allowed myself to listen and believe their kind words.

So now? I like me. I think I’m ok as a person, and nothing about me needs changing so New Year New Me can get in the bin, along with the “It will all be better when…” mindset that the media seems to want us to have.

“Buy these!”

“Wear that!”

“You’ll be so much better if you only spend…spend…spend…”

We are the true constant, and we will always be there no matter what physical attributes we change. I am the common denominator, wherever I go.

Were I to have any resolutions at all they might be stay thoughtful, stay caring, stay kind.

(Oh, and never relinquish olive oil.)

I understand that wasn’t quite protocol, but I got her message. However. I didn’t eat much sugar anyway. I have never had sugary drinks, as I hate the taste of them, I always have done. I’ve also eaten a low or lower carb diet for as long as I can remember and I cook from scratch 99% of the time, even if that means cooking two different dinners.

I did not appreciate being shouted at and I am bored with always reeling off “I don’t eat that.” when they inevitably give me the list of things not to eat.

I also do not appreciate the accident of birth/genes/ancestry that gave me Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, thereby making losing weight arduous and glacial but there’s nothing I can do about that, so I don’t have anyone I can complain to.

T’was ever thus, though, should you happen to be a large woman who doesn’t weigh what she’s ‘supposed’ to.

I was a Good Girl, and signed on for an NHS funded scheme called Second Nature. I cannot lie, they have been brilliant. The health coaches all treat us like adults, and would never even dream of telling us off. It makes such a refreshing change from the usual blame culture of a lot of doctors.

I’ve opted to have an HBA1C blood test every three months, because I was feeling bloody minded when the nurse was ‘questioning’ me. I knew she was expecting me to shy away from testing, so of course…”Once a year? No thanks, we’ll do every three months thank you.” I know I’ve made a tiny rod for my own back, but it’s not much of a hassle as I have to have a liver function test done anyway. Might as well get them both out of the way at the same time.

The Second Nature forums are generally pretty good. The recipes they provide would also be very good were I not blessed with the Cyst Genie because their desserts and breakfasts all seem to rely upon a generous amount of oats.

I like oats, very much, but for somebody who is medically supposed to follow a low carb diet, the recipes are all too high in carbs for me. Some of the desserts have bananas and oats, which is a delicious double whammy of no. It’s a shame, but that’s just the way it is when you have an endocrine system that doesn’t play nicely.

The run up to Christmas has seen a lot of quite desperate posts from people who have worked themselves up into bundles of stress about holiday food, and what they can and cannot eat.

There are no rules with Second Nature, just guidelines and recommendations but the ‘Diet’ mentality has slowly started to creep in the nearer to Yule we get. It feels a little like people are hunting for restrictions, and when they can’t find them, they simply impose their own.

“Is [X] food allowed?” is the most asked question. The answer is usually “Yes, just don’t go overboard and make sure you keep up your veggie intake.” but that puts people in even more of spin.

“I think I’m eating too much. How much did your portion of chilli weigh?”

SN gives us a ‘balanced plate’ guide. Quite literally. It even has a picture of a plate and everything!

https://www.secondnature.io/guides/nutrition/balanced-diet?srsltid=AfmBOop3KEibAwneGuB036deeUYY3m6AnDKpTrmxlOtOrncASChHE1Yi

I’ve seen forum members vilify others for ‘not eating the SN way’ and cooking ‘the wrong things’ but the reality of it is that those are the billion dollar diet industry’s words leeching through. The blame and shame game wends its insidious, sly way into any exchange as we heap guilt upon ourselves because that’s what we’ve been taught we deserve as Bad Fatties .

I admit that I have always found it boring. I’ve never been one to discuss dieting at length, or declare that I ‘hate’ bits of my body. I don’t. That narrative just seems like a typical Daily Heil tactic purely to sell more copies or get more clicks.

“SEE HOW COLLEEN LOOKS NOW!” nonsense.*

Even when I was in a Slimming Club, I couldn’t join in with that kind of chat. I was just interested in eating tasty things and making sure that food was still enjoyable within the bounds of the Plan, none of the associated beating yourself up that went along with it.

I’m afraid that their two tablespoons of olive oil a day as an allowance was just not for me and I didn’t last that long there. A fat free diet is not made for me plus public weighing is deeply uncomfortable and should be banned.

I would just like to be able to eat normally but since I was nineteen the constant silent thought undercurrent has been ‘nope, that’s too high carb’ as I judge the food on offer. I do often wonder what it’s like to just eat food without constant inner evaluation and whether anybody else of ‘normal’ size has the inner monologue.

I think that’s why people fall off the diet wagon, because the constant thinking and evaluating gets too much, then you just say hang it all, I’ll be fat and not give a stuff.

It’s incredibly freeing, until your doctor glares at you again so you sheepishly grab the reins, haul yourself back on the wagon and ride off into the sugar free sunset.

*Spoiler: same as she did before, just a bit smaller/holding her breath/wearing a flattering dress.

I bought a coffee and a croissant for the lady who always sits on the floor outside Gregg’s, and wishes a cheery good morning to everyone. Many never reply but I am a well brought up lady, so she always gets a chat and a coffee. I was buying one anyone so an extra for her is easy.

I had a very silly ‘conversation’ with a child who sidled over to me upon seeing my TARDIS bag.

“Hewwo. Um. Your bag is cool and must have been given to you by a policeman because it says Police Box on it why does it say that but did you know….OOH PIGEON! A pigeon once sat on my head! It landed right there! It made a nest in my hair as well.”

“I don’t think it really did that, or it would have been there for days.”

[a shy Ribena smile confirms my suspicion]

“OH AND my dad's car that one over there it is cool and my mum's at work and and and...”

Papa called him away so they could go and collect Mama from work.

In truth, I have had the most conversational day despite the fact that I very much enjoy my own company and mostly prefer it.

In Gregg's: I met a mum her adult daughter. They had come from planning the funeral of their son/brother. The daughter, Tracy, had flown in from Queensland to sort it all out so they needed food, a coffee, respite, and permission to tell the estranged Dad and his evil new wife to f*** off. Permission was not only given, but also advice on possible restraining orders and reporting very abusive phone calls to the authorities.

“Ian’s girlfriend keeps on about inviting them to the funeral so his dad can say goodbye.”

“Were they close?”

“Absolutely not. His dad only ever called him when he wanted money. He’s an abusive shit.”

“Then he’s had 54 years to say what he wanted. It’s too late now.”

They went off with renewed determination to have the funeral they want and had blocked all Abusive People on their phones.

I moved on to the local cake shop/café as it’s peaceful in there, and Gregg’s was heaving.

There are also cakes that aren’t very sweet so every so often I have one as a special gift to myself.

I was just going to read quietly and had found my Kindle when my hair colour, as usual, started a conversation.

Carol, a very vivacious 84 year old, was having a coffee before meeting her grandson. She was so bursting with pride about her daughter and her family. I saw photos, we talked about her crook of an ex - my word she’d been through the mill; being essentially an unwitting mobster’s wife ended up with her in police protection. She spoke of her grandchildren, how she used to dance for hours at the Lyceum when she was a young girl working in Tottenham Court Road and also ran hurdles for Essex.

After recommending a singer/songwriter to me that she’d fallen for - “I just want to write to him and tell him how lovely he is!” - she took away one of my Invisible Disability badges with a smile bright as a new sun. I did have to convince her not to pay me for it because there’s a reason I always have them in my bag and payment is not it. I’ve given out so many over the years.

I left her buying a nice piece of cake to take to her grandson and made my way home.

I like talking to people. I am inherently interested in them and their stories - often I’ve found so many similarities in our lives and experiences even though we’ve been of totally different ages, races and creeds but eventually I will get to the stage where my brain is full, and I’ll seek the comfort of silence once more.

I doubt I’ll go out again until next week now, as I’m replete with words and stories and have no need for anything other than quietness.

Management allegedly* confirmed as enabling said ass and not listening to the women who complained he was an ass.

Gregg Wallace cites ‘only’ 13 women complained, thus establishing him as an ass anyway.

*you all know why that is there

The thing is, ‪I AM A MIDDLE CLASS WOMAN OF A CERTAIN AGE. Yes, yes I am. (Okay, I must confess that class confuses me and I don’t know where I fit but anyway…)

You see, when we get to this age, we stop giving any 🦆🦆🦆s about what people think and realise we CAN speak out about creeps. So we do, Potato face.

To quote “We're a news cycle away from Gregg Wallace being baptised in the Thames by Russell Brand aren't we?” and we all know this is entirely possible.

Because of the way that the patriarchy works, it reinforces itself all the time, and tries to prove that it’s not to blame. It sees itself as the victim, the object of unfair derision and accusations by ‘hysterical’ and whining women who should just be glad we’re allowed out to get a job.

The popularity of utter gobshites like Andrew Tate et al only serves to show that young boys are being fed a diet of ‘women are to blame for it all’ and sadly, it’s all they know so they turn to the loudest voices for some form of guidance.

I count myself increasingly lucky that the men I know are kind, decent and would stand beside me in a second. Yes, I have met ones that wouldn’t; the ones only interested in copping a feel or more if they can get away with it, or the ones who wear casual sexism and racism like badges of honour, but they do not represent every man. I know that. No need for a #NotAllMen tag here, please.

The problem is that the balance feels utterly skewed in favour of the misguided and the deliberately awful. You only have to look at who is president. (That walking bag of vileness deserves no capital P, as far as I am concerned, so he won’t get one.)

Honourable men have to get louder and louder and then even louder.

They have to stand up and be counted, and we need every single one of you. You may think you are only one voice, but the choir is made up of single voices.

Single voices that can become a thing of strength, beauty and emotional power.

And if you don't like it, scroll on because if I have to repost it every year then I damned well will.

It's thanks to men like my grandfather that we have the freedoms we have today and I can never fully express my gratitude.

It's because of them I donate to the Legion.

I don't actually give a toss what colour poppy you wear, just so long as we remember what it is actually for.

You can condemn war, and still support the men and women who give their lives.

If this annoys you, tough.

Dear Sirs,

I came across your list of POWs in Stalag Luft III and as soon as I saw Peter Butterworth's name I knew I had the right camp that my Grandfather was in.

He was Navigator John Walter Crowe and he remembered being in camp with Peter. I think he flew in a Lancaster.

My maternal Grandfather was a musician for many many years. He was a guitarist in a Latin band called The Four Monarchs and they were very popular here - all nice looking young men with that Errol Flynn moustache thing going on. The band was parted when they all went off to war and Grandad (John Crowe) ended up in prison camp for years. I believe he was in the same camp as Peter Butterworth at one point.

He'd been shot down over what he thought was Holland as the farmers were wearing Dutch clothing but it was a trick that the Germans used to fool airmen in just this situation. He was captured and taken to a camp where the Commandant interrogated him about something for hours. He had a pick, or a plectrum for his guitar in his pocket you see. It was made out of an old ruler with degree marks on it and they thought it was a fiendish new British guidance gadget. Once he told them what it was though, the commandant said "Tell me Mr Crowe, you do know of Burt Weedon? I play ze guitar too you see." They spent the next few hours talking music and guitars and then the commandant had to send him to the camp, albeit with a very heavy heart.

He made a toothbrush out of wood and string (this was even reported in our local paper when he came home!) so that he could stay clean and lived in hope of being rescued. They forced the prisoners, at Christmas, to walk to Poland from Germany. The men were chained in threes and if one died, they had no choice but to drag him with them. The route was lined with guards with rottweilers trained to kill and so they marched and they marched.

One night they all took shelter in a barn and were woken by a massive rumbling and an almighty roaring. Suddenly the wall of the barn caved in and through it came an American ( I think) tank. The lid (John called it that) popped open and a face looked out and said "Bloody hell Johnny Crowe - what the hell are you doing here?"

It was Grandad's next door neighbour from back home in East London. He was helping the Americans on a rescue mission. He threw Grandad a can of bully beef and a can of Christmas Pudding and then set about helping everyone else.

They were all medically and honourably discharged and he came home to marry Gran. She'd thought he was dead and then one day there he was on her doorstep. All 70lb (5 stone) of him.

He never ate bully beef or Christmas pudding again...

Aircraft Type: Stirling MK I (Heavy Bomber)
Serial number: EF 495
Radio call sign: OJ – R
Unit: 149 Sqn RAF

Summary:

Stirling EF 495 of 149 Sqn RAF took off from RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk, at 8.05pm on 27 September 1943, to attack Hanover, Germany.
On the way back a signal was received reporting position as 52.47N/02.43E.
At 12.57am on the 28th a weak distress signal was received indicating the aircraft was flying very low over the North sea. Nothing further was heard and the aircraft failed to return to base.

Crew:

RAAF 413386 Flt Sgt Hotchkis, G S Captain (Pilot)(Killed Never found)
RAF Sgt Crowe, J W (Navigator)(Bailed from the plane and became a POW)
RNZAF Flt Sgt Schollum, B J (Wireless Operator Air Gunner)(killed and never found)
RAF PO Bevan, C J W (Air Bomber)(killed and never found)
RAF Sgt Tweedie, D F (Flight Engineer)(Bailed from the plane and became POW)
RAF Sgt Lyons, P (Air Gunner)(POW)
RNZAF Sgt Andrews, C B (Air Gunner)(Killed and never found)

Sgts Crowe, Tweedie and Lyons all of the RAF became POWs, and in later statements at Luft III prison camp (The Great Escape) they reported that when they abandoned the aircraft the skipper was alive and well in the flying aircraft, and he endeavoured to try and fly the aircraft back to the UK.

German documents later established that the aircraft crashed near Lingen and all the remaining crew members were killed. Post war searches revealed no trace of the missing four members and it was recorded that they had lost their lives at sea.

David Bowie died.

I couldn’t imagine that voice had been stilled. For hours I hoped it was another stupid press stunt, but knew deep down it wasn’t. I’d seen what he looked like in the video for Black Star. He was the wrong colour. No amount of video editing could hide that. Knowing Bowie he’d probably made sure it wasn’t hidden.

It seemed utterly ridiculous to me how much loss I was feeling, especially as I’ve never been a huge fanatic about music stars. Don’t misunderstand me, I love music, and I love singers. I’ll listen to one song over and over, picking out different parts each time - following the bass line, or listening out for the way a singer shapes their words and manipulates the airflow to form their sounds, but I’ve never truly understood that archetypal ‘fan’ behaviour. The obsessions, the screaming or even the need to go to concerts…it doesn’t feel like a major part of my personality.

I absolutely appreciate the talent and the way the music makes me feel, and yes, I have been to concerts and thoroughly enjoyed them but I’m not sad if I can’t. I think I am very much a solo listener. The advent of earbuds have made my listening experience even more immersive.

The person behind the music…they’re just another human being after all and I try and see that more than anything. I doubt I could ever reach the level of dedication that a ‘superfan’ demonstrates, nor do I think I want to.

Bowie though. He’d transcended all my worlds. TV, film, art, photography, music. He was there before I was born and I was privileged enough to have him present in almost every decade of my life. He didn’t just write the soundtrack to it, he was the soundtrack, the voice and the faces.

He almost felt more than human. Given the roles he’d played I could almost believe he had transcended mere humanity and evolved into something else.

Every interview revealed another thing he could do and yet he never saw the remarkable in himself.

Listening to his music…the thought of it has been too much because the way he sang, the tones and the whole embouchure was so very distinct like vocal fingerprints - I couldn’t mistake it for anyone else and I knew the loss would be even more keenly felt.

Today I finally listened.