Brittle Sounds

About a year after my mum died, Dad and I moved to a smaller house in Old Tupton. It was closer to my school, closer to Chengsville, and to the friends I was starting to spend more and more time with. That part felt good. But it also meant leaving the only home I’d ever known.

Pete — or Puzzle, as we all called him — lived just down the way, in a small bungalow with his mum. He played rhythm guitar with The Spasms, and if I was heading out to meet the others, I’d usually stop off at his place first.

Pete was a sweet lad, but he was deeply vain — especially about his hair and his hips. I’d often find him in front of the mirror, experimenting with poses that highlighted his angles just right. He’d wear the skinniest drainpipe jeans imaginable, cut within a whisper of structural collapse, and then stand there. One foot forward, one hand half-tucked into his waistband, tweaking his on-stage / off-stage persona until it looked effortless.

It wasn’t. I’d watch, fascinated, as he lay on his bed with his head dangling off the edge, spraying and teasing his hair until each spike was just so.

If it started taking too long, I’d wander off to chat with his mum.Mrs. Monk worked at Turner’s — Chesterfield’s poshest department store. My mum used to buy my barathea blazers there, the kind that got me bullied for being a bit too well turned-out. Mrs. Monk was always knitting. Always. Her specialty was those punky, oversized mohair jumpers that were everywhere back then. Everyone who was anyone had one. All made by her.

One day, as I dropped by, she mentioned she was coming to the end of her current project, and casually announced she’d be making one for me next. It wasn’t a question. Before I knew what was happening, she’d handed me a tangle of mohair samples in every shade you’d find in a tin of Quality Street (yes,  that’s the jumper I was wearing in Leeds). I chose the scarlet.

I was measured, I was handed a slip of paper with a price, and I handed over a deposit. Just like that.

Over the next week, it was all I saw. Every gig, every get-together — someone had on one of Mrs. Monk’s jumpers. But none of them had one in scarlet. That was mine.

When I returned the following week, there it was. Finished. Glorious. Paired with a set of drainpipe jeans I’d made myself from a cheap pair of flares bought on a school trip to London — and ridiculed by Jules on the bus ride back. I’d sworn to her I’d transform them. And I had. Sort of.

The original plan went sideways when I cut and resewed them without trying them on first. They wouldn’t go over my ankles. A disaster. Then inspiration struck: zippers. I sewed them into the lower legs and suddenly they were perfect. Tight, dramatic, and exactly what I’d imagined.

I should probably mention that my mum had been the manageress of a fabric shop, right up until she died. In the years before her health had begun to deteriorate, she’d stopped making things and become more of a collector — fabric, buttons, pop-studs, hooks and eyes, anything she thought might be useful someday. I’d inherited it all. So when the jeans went sideways, I didn’t have to go far to fix them. The fix was already waiting in one of her old tins.

To complete the look, a scarlet beret appeared via Ledder. Technically British Army-issue — the kind worn by the Royal Military Police — but I didn’t ask too many questions. It matched the jumper. That was enough.

At one point, I even considered dyeing my hair the same color. I settled for bleach instead. No one warned me not to do my eyebrows as well. I was told I looked “natural,” which I suppose is one way of putting it.

The truth is, the jumper was unbearably hot to dance in, and the mohair could be maddeningly itchy — especially after a long night. But we all make sacrifices for fashion, don’t we?

Still, that jumper became something more. My signature. My shield. My cloak of invisibility. I’ve never had so many compliments on anything I’ve worn before or since. It made me feel seen, and somehow safer. Like I’d stitched myself together out of colour, shape, and nerve.

What I didn’t know then was that the jumper was about to play a part in someone else’s obsession, too.

I was seeing a very strange girl at the time. She later became a fashion designer, but back then she was just odd in a way I found compelling. What I hadn’t realised when we got together was that she’d previously dated Pete. In fact, she’d been obsessed with him. Pete, ever the strategist, had talked her up like he was brokering a trade — convinced that if she latched onto me instead, it would solve the problem neatly.

He wasn’t wrong.

She became utterly smitten. Unfortunately, that affection eventually extended to the jumper. One night, after hours in a hot, sweaty nightclub, she decided it would be fun to try to climb inside it with me, while I was still wearing it.

It never recovered.

The mohair stretched beyond redemption. The sleeves sagged. The shape collapsed. It looked like the discarded exoskeleton of some misshapen moth. I was devastated.

Some weeks later, I was back at Pete’s, and Mrs. Monk asked about the jumper. I mumbled something noncommittal, but she saw through it. When I confessed, she didn’t scold. She just said, “Go home and bring it to me.”

Within days, she’d unpicked the whole thing, and reknitted it from scratch. The scarlet phoenix, reborn.

Let’s just say I was a bit more careful about who I dated after that.

Small moments, soft landings, and the stuff that makes us who we are.

P.S. If you’re circling your own story right now—something half-formed or heavy—I’m holding space for 1:1 story support. Quiet, slow, no hustle. Just reach out.

We sat on the sofa, letting easy TV soften the edges of a day too full. No words needed—just the quiet recognition that not everything can be solved, not tonight. What mattered was being beside each other in the uncertainty. This is what love feels like, sometimes—less like a decision, more like a quiet return.

The biggest lessons in partnership rarely show up when things are easy. They arrive when life drops something heavy between you, and you both look at one another and ask, Who are we now—and where do we go from here?

These are a few things I’ve come to understand more clearly. Not all at once, and not without some life lessons along the way. But they’re shaping the kind of love I’m growing into—and want to keep growing with.

* The Space Between Us

You can love fully and still need space. For a long time, I thought needing time alone meant something was wrong with me—that it signaled distance, disinterest, or some kind of emotional defect. But space is how I stay grounded. It's how I come back whole.

Boundaries aren’t withdrawal—they're invitation. When I step away to write, to walk, to be still, it's not turning from love, it's turning toward myself so I can return more present, more me.

Unspoken expectations become quiet tension. The unacknowledged dinner, the visit we show up to out of habit—they build weight. What I’ve learned is that asking for space, naming what you need, is an act of care. It keeps the foundation solid.

Sometimes, love is leaning in. Sometimes, it’s letting the other person breathe.

* Learning the Rhythm Again

Desire isn’t always mirrored perfectly. In past relationships, I learned to hold back—to protect myself from the sting of rejection. Over time, that instinct settles deep. You stop reaching not because you don’t want to, but because you’re not sure it's safe.

Even in a healthy relationship, the body remembers. I’ve had to relearn that wanting and being wanted don’t always show up at the same time. And that doesn’t mean something’s broken. It just means you keep listening.

Intimacy isn’t performance. It’s not keeping score. It’s tuning in. Some days that means connection, other days it means quiet. The trust lives in knowing the rhythm is allowed to shift.

Desire doesn’t have to match to feel true. What matters is that we stay open, even when the tempo changes.

* Shouldering the Unspoken

When someone you love is carrying a heavy load, it’s easy to step in, to take over, to lose track of where your care ends and theirs begins. The shift from partner to caretaker can happen quietly. But it doesn’t have to be permanent.

Showing up doesn't mean disappearing. Supporting someone through crisis or change means knowing how to hold the weight with them—not for them. It means stepping in and stepping back in rhythm, so no one burns out.

Plans may change. So do timelines. But purpose sharpens. I never imagined this version of partnership, but I’m grateful for it. Because there's beauty in building something not just around dreams, but around truth.

I remember a night two years ago, returning home from the hospital, both of us raw and silent. We sat outside under a sky too full of stars, and said nothing. Just being side by side was enough. That, too, was love.

You can build a good life around what you didn’t expect, if you build it together.

* Becoming, Still

Staying is a choice. And not just once. It’s a choice you keep making, especially on the days when it would be easier to drift. Love is made in those small returns—not just the grand ones.

It shows up in the check-ins, in the quiet rituals, in the Hey, are we okay? before the spiral starts. In the showing up a little more honestly than yesterday.

Love isn’t about staying the same. It’s about staying present as you evolve. It's about not hiding the new parts of yourself, and trusting that they'll be met. That you won’t outgrow the container, but reshape it together.

This morning, we sat back on the sofa, drinking our tea without talking. One look said everything. Still here. Still choosing.

The goal isn’t to go back to who you were. It’s to become who you need to be, and still be met there.

I don’t write this from a place of expertise. Just from the middle of it. But what I know is this: the relationships that last are the ones where honesty lives, change is welcome, and love keeps showing up.

To walk beside someone who keeps choosing you, again and again—that’s no small thing.

Not polished. Not perfect. Just real. If that sounds like what you’ve been missing, come on in.

It was the summer of 1979, a few months after my mum died. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to college, and I definitely wasn’t sure I wanted to leave my dad on his own. I was spending more and more time at Chengsville—a rambling former Quaker house with a burial ground in the garden and a curious surplus of doors stacked in corners and leaning against walls.

I was hanging around with my friends, and at the nucleus was The Spasms—Tupton’s very own post-punk band. The people there didn’t ask much. Plans got made around the kitchen table—some impulsive, some ridiculous, a few that stuck.

This is the story of one of them.A Mini. A moonless night.And the closest I ever came to swimming in Ogston Reservoir(now, capsizing... that would be another story).

We Never Did Swim in Oggy

By late summer, Chengsville had become the kind of home I didn’t know I’d been looking for—a place where misfits made plans faster than they asked questions. We were gathered around the kitchen table, weathered and wide, orbiting whatever came next.

It was August—the kind that forgets it’s supposed to feel like summer, and smells more like wet grass and change. I was heading off to college in a few weeks, and the air had that charged stillness, like something about to break.

That’s when Jules looked over at me with that dangerous little smile—the one that always meant trouble—and said,“Rob, what about Ogston? We could go for a swim.”

She didn’t say skinny-dip. She didn’t need to.And of course, I said yes.I always said yes.

So we went.

I had the car—my battered Mini Cooper, valiant but wildly unfit for group excursions. Four was pushing it. But no one hesitated. We squeezed in, knees to chests, boots to backs, the air thick with laughter and body heat before we even hit the road.

Oggy, as we called it, was ten miles away. The drive was uneventful, if a little breathless. The kind of ride where you didn’t talk so much as exhale your way through it.

When we arrived, the gate made its stance perfectly clear:TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.We ignored it.

We parked by the water’s edge, still wrapped in the kind of teenage certainty that passes for cleverness. No swimwear, no plan—just a loose agreement that clothes were optional, modesty negotiable, and the moon hopefully in hiding.

Then came the light.

A beam cut through the condensation on the window. Jules lit up before I even clocked where it was coming from. And for a second or two, I just stared. The light seemed to know who the main character was.

Then: the knock.

Loud. Sharp. Final.

A second knock. And a massive hand gesturing, without room for misinterpretation, to roll the window down.

I did.

Outside stood a man who looked like he’d been poured into a ranger uniform at birth. Tall, broad, and clutching a flashlight roughly the size of a policeman’s truncheon. Scottish. Stone-faced.

“What d’ye think yer doing here?” he barked.“There’s a big bloody sign. You drove right past it.”

I tried. I really did.“We’re lost,” I offered.“Someone was feeling ill.”Something else about fresh air.Each excuse more desperate than the last.

He stared. Unmoved.

“Everyone out. Now.”

Jules and Ledder—on army leave and playing co-pilot—got out first. Then they pushed the seat forward and the rest began to emerge.

That’s when it started.

“Four…”“Five…”“Six…”“Seven…”“…EIGHT?!”

He stepped back and blinked at the car like it had birthed us.“Eight of you?! In that?!”It wasn’t a question. It was an indictment.

Now, for context: the original Mini is barely a car. It’s a wheeled tin can with ideas above its station. The Guinness World Record for most people crammed inside is 27. We weren’t aiming to break it. We were just trying to impress a girl. Or maybe outrun a quiet kind of ache.

From here, the ranger launched into a tirade—half lecture, half operatic lament, all thick with Scottish outrage. I’ve tried writing it out before, but you lose something without the accent. And no, I won’t attempt it in the narrated version either. It lives in that sacred space between Billy Connolly and divine judgment, and it’s best left there.

The ranger looked us over—bleached hair, patched jackets, adolescent bravado leaking from our seams—and sighed. Long and low.

“It’s time youse lot get yersen back home.”

We took it as our cue to start climbing back in.

That was a mistake.

“NO!” he snapped. “Ah’m not lettin’ ye do that again.”

And just like that, I was ordered to ferry half the group home while the rest stayed behind—with him.

Ledder, loyal and long-suffering, rode with me both ways. A mile into the first trip, we had to pull over. We weren’t sure whether to laugh or cry. I think I did a bit of both.

Ledder suggested turning back early to collect the others.I said no.Good decision.

The ranger was still there when we returned.

He watched in silence as we loaded the rest into the car.Then, just before we pulled away, he said:“Let this be a lesson to you—and don’t let me see you in these parts again.”

But I swear—swear—there was a glint in his eye.Like he knew exactly what kind of night this was.Maybe he’d had one, once.

Subscribe for more true stories, half-remembered moments, and the quiet chaos of figuring it all out—one fogged-up window at a time.

It started with a video. Trump and Terry Moran, circling each other—one insisting that a deported man had “MS-13” tattooed on his knuckles, the other gently, then not-so-gently, pointing out the image was fake. Trump wouldn’t let it go. Wouldn’t move on to Ukraine. Wouldn’t entertain the possibility that a Photoshopped hand had helped justify a deportation.

I watched it more than once—not because I didn’t understand, but because I couldn’t quite believe I did. Either he was knowingly gaslighting millions on camera, or he actually believed it. And I’m still not sure which is worse.

Somewhere in that spiraling exchange, something cracked open. Not just about truth or power, but about memory, performance—about what happens when the person repeating the lie thinks it’s a test, and thinks he’s winning.

Person. Woman. Man. Camera. Tattoo.

They give you five words.He had his: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.I’ve got mine. A variation, let’s say—still simple, still unforgettable.Person. Woman. Man. Camera. Tattoo.You say them once, then again, then twenty minutes later they ask you to say them again, and you do—perfect order.They say, “That’s incredible.”They say, “Only someone with tremendous cognitive ability could do that.”And I say, “Exactly.”

Because it’s not just memory.It’s pattern recognition.It’s seeing what others miss.

They show you a hand—just a hand, no context—and you see what they don’t.M. S. One. Three.Not everyone can see it.You need a sharp mind. A beautiful mind, some say.

They see a leaf, a skull, a smiley face.I see four tiny billboards.Deport me.

Some people—fake news people—say the image was photoshopped.But I say: absence is the loudest proof.That’s how you know they erased it.They got to him.Maybe with lasers.Maybe with makeup.Maybe his hand forgot.Maybe that’s what erasure looks like now.

But I didn’t forget.I passed.I remembered the words.Person. Woman. Man. Camera. Tattoo.That’s how you know I’m fit to decide who disappears.

But somewhere between the laughter, something started to feel wrong.

I don’t know when the satire stopped being funny.

Maybe it was the drone footage of the Salvadoran mega-prison—bodies arranged in tight rows, heads bowed, wrists zip-tied like punctuation marks no one meant to use.Or the hand, the real one, in the photo with Senator Van Hollen.Smooth knuckles. No ink. Just skin. Just proof—ignored.

Or maybe it was something smaller.The way he kept repeating the words.Person. Woman. Man. Camera. Tattoo.Like if he said them enough, they would become true.Like the rhythm itself was a kind of spell—conjuring a cleaner narrative, drowning the silence beneath it.

A man was deported because of a JPEG.A man was held in a prison designed for spectacle, not justice.And somehow, the story became about the picture—not the person.

Sometimes I think we are all being tested.Not for memory, but for mercy.

I wonder if the real exam is this:Can you remember what isn’t convenient to remember?Can you hold the truth when it doesn’t fit the narrative?Can you stay present when power would rather you look away?

They said he had gang ties. But no one proved it.They said he had tattoos. But none showed up.They said he was dangerous. But he had a court order protecting him.

And still, they sent him away.

We think of propaganda as something grand, authoritarian.But sometimes it’s just a photo, a boast, a tweet.A voice that won’t stop talking.A lie repeated until it sounds like memory.Like a test.

And still: I remember.

Not the version with the tattoos.The one with his daughter.The one where he’s not a threat but a father, folding her jacket sleeve, mid-laugh.Maybe her coat was red.Maybe she smelled like oranges.Maybe she handed him a crumpled drawing with too many stars.I remember because forgetting feels too easy now.Too practiced.

The one they didn’t post.

In the end, I suppose he passed his test.

He remembered the words.He pointed to the picture.He said it loud enough that no one needed to check twice.

And what do we do, those of us who did check—who saw the clean hands and the legal order and the child waiting by the door?What do we do with our remembering, when the system runs on forgetting?

Sometimes I whisper the words to myself, just to see if they still mean what they used to.

Person.Woman.Man.Camera.Tattoo.

Sometimes they’re just nouns.Sometimes they’re a prayer.Sometimes they’re a list of things we’ve already lost.Sometimes they’re all that’s left—faint as ink on washed hands.

If this resonated—if you, too, are trying to remember what the world asks us to forget—consider subscribing. I write about memory, power, and the quiet spaces where truth resists erasure.

The idea for A Fire Born of Staying came from a comment I made on a poem I read on Substack about vulnerability. It made me think about how, in the past, mothers would intentionally bring their children together to catch childhood diseases like chickenpox — not to make them sick, but to help them build immunity early. What if we could do the same with bravery? What if we could gather to “catch” courage from one another and build emotional resilience as a community? From that thought, this piece was born: part reflection, part invitation.

It’s about the quiet, everyday acts of courage that don’t seek recognition but are transformative in their own right. It’s about the small yeses we offer, even when we’re unsure, and how, together, we create something larger — something lasting.

You can read the full text here:

Some memories knock gently. Others kick the door in wearing Cuban-heeled winkle-pickers.

In this episode of my series Needle Drops, we head back to Leeds, 1980 — to the beer-soaked, bass-blasted mess of the Futurama 2 Festival. It’s a story of stolen vans, stolen sleep, and the moment our scrappy invincibility first cracked.

Join me as I piece together a half-remembered weekend of echoing warehouses, vodka at the door, a lineup that reads like post-punk history, and four punks just trying to hold onto something solid. Spoiler: it wasn’t the floor.

Because sometimes punk isn’t just about the sound.It’s about who’s still there when the music stops.

Subscribe to Brittle Views for more stories that spark, stumble, and still manage to stay standing.https://www.brittleviews.com

A narrated version of my piece, “Open.”

It’s a poem I wrote not long after moving to Saint Petersburg—before I fully understood just how much I needed a new beginning.Let me correct that: I knew I needed a new beginning.I just wasn’t ready to let go of the life I’d built…and I was going through the motions of a new beginning, while part of me was still waiting for the old story to change its ending.

On the surface, it’s a poem about settling in.But beneath that? It’s about thirst. Longing.And that quiet, unspoken hope that what I was really searching for might still find me.

You can read the full piece here:

After finishing two stories—Folded Small and Where the Colour Lives—I found myself asking a question I hadn’t expected:

Am I writing about the same boy?

They didn’t seem connected at first. Different settings. Different lives. But something about them stayed with me—boys who noticed more than they said. Who shrank at the edges. Who felt the wrongness of things without knowing how to name it.

The question lingered. And beneath it, another surfaced:

Am I writing about myself?

Not directly. But from somewhere true.From memory. From feeling.From a long-held need to be seen.

This essay is my way of tracing that line—between fiction and self, between what was missing and what’s being offered now. A way of seeing the boy I once was, and letting him know: I haven’t looked away.

Notes I Never Gave Him

They appear fully formed, those boys.I think I’ve made them up—until I realize I haven’t.

They’re boys who watch more than they speak. Who save biscuits like secrets and press drawings under fridge magnets. They try to be gentle in a world that hasn’t given them the tools for it.

And I recognize them. Not as versions of me exactly—but as echoes. Fractals. Kaleidoscopic images of the boy I once was.

Maybe you’ve known a boy like this. Or been one.

The kind who carries his hopes in silence, turning them into rituals only he understands.

They arrive in story after story—not by conscious design, but by gravitational pull. I’ve come to see: I don’t just imagine their world. I’m revisiting mine.

At first, I thought I was writing about them.But now I know—I’ve been writing from me.

Folded Small came first. A boy shrinking at the edges. A chipped mug. A teacher who doesn’t ask questions he can’t yet answer. She notices how he peels labels, piles scraps, disappears into himself. And she doesn’t try to pull him out. Instead, she stays close to the quiet. Writes him notes she never gives. Folds them small. Places them in a drawer already good at keeping secrets. And then she steps out, leaving space—not for a breakthrough, but for breath.

Where the Colour Lives followed. A boy drawing suns in the dark. Saving foil-wrapped biscuits. Listening to his mother cry through the bathroom door. A fridge humming. A moon with its eyes closed. One morning, he finds his drawing—creased, smoothed, held in place with Blu-Tack. Not discarded. Not ignored. Seen.

I didn’t plan that story. It arrived in fragments—like memory sometimes does. Like turning a kaleidoscope and seeing a new pattern made from pieces you’ve already seen.

Together, these boys showed me something I hadn’t named yet.

They are older than their years in all the ways that don’t show up on paper.Navigating the absence of adults with small, childlike rituals.They don’t yet have the language for what’s wrong—but they feel the wrongness, like a draught that keeps finding its way in. And they respond not with explanation, but with presence.

They retreat to their own inner worlds, reinserting details that have slipped from the real one.Sit beside silences, instead of rushing to fill them.

They receive gestures not always meant to be seen—notes folded quietly, a sandwich passed with just enough touch to feel. They hold these moments close. They learn how love can arrive softly.

They don’t yet know the why. But we, looking back, begin to.

As readers, we get to see what they can’t: the quiet bravery of their noticing, the weight of what isn’t said. And in seeing that, maybe we remember our own silences, too.Maybe we carry our own folded notes—things we needed to hear but never did.

I wasn’t setting out to fictionalize my childhood. These aren’t autobiographical accounts. But they are emotionally true.

They live in the same spaces I once did—the quiet confusion of knowing something is off, but not having the words to name it. The ache of shrinking to fit. The solace of finding stability in repetition. The courage to hope someone might notice.

As a child, I asked “why” long before I had answers.

Why was my mum emotionally distant?Why was I kept at arm’s length by other kids?Why was I bullied?Why did the world sometimes feel like it wasn’t built for boys like me?

I didn’t write back then.But I watched. I listened. I made sense of things in silence.

Now, I write.

And when these boys appear, I give them what I didn’t have: recognition. Protection. A gentle kind of witnessing.

Not to rescue them—but to say: I see you. I know this isn’t your fault. I know you’re doing your best with what you’ve been given.

Writing has become a way not to relive what hurt, but to reframe it.To hold it gently.To let it go.

I think about the people who did show up for me—my dad, my godmother, my cousin.Their care arrived quietly, without fanfare. But it landed. It stayed.

That’s what I try to write now.

Not solutions. Not resolutions.

Just presence.Just enough steadiness.Just enough love—imperfect, but real—to hold the silence differently this time.

When I write these stories, I’m not imagining a better childhood. I’m remembering what helped. I’m noticing what held.

And I’m offering it again—this time with intention.

For myself.And for anyone else still looking for a version of that care.

That kaleidoscope still turns—each new pattern catching light in a way the last one didn’t.And with each shift, I see a little more—not just of the boys, but of myself.What shaped me.What stayed.What I needed, even when I didn’t yet know how to ask.

Just presence.Just enough steadiness.Just enough love—imperfect, but real—to hold the silence differently this time.

And maybe one day, he’ll read the note he never knew was waiting. And know it was always for him.

If this piece lingered with you, consider subscribing to Brittle Views—a quiet space that reflects on what it means to be seen.

A narrated version of my piece, “Where the Colour Lives.”

It’s a quiet story told in fragments—part poem, part memory. A boy. A fridge door. A sun with a face.

It’s about what we give when we don’t have words for it. About presence, hope, and small gestures that mean more than they say.

You can read the full text here: https://www.brittleviews.com/p/where-the-colour-lives

If you’ve read Last Birthday, you already know it’s not a performance.It’s a memory held gently. A goodbye spoken in gestures, in silence, in sunlit garden paths.

Yesterday evening, I recorded this podcast version—a quiet retelling of that final birthday with my dad. It’s tender, raw in places. Not for drama. Just to honor what that day meant—and still means.

If you find resonance in the spoken word, or want to feel the pauses the way they landed in me, this version may meet you differently.

Not rehearsed. Not hardened. Just real.Still soft. Still remembering.

If it speaks to something in you, I’d love to know.—Robert

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