FebulousFebruary 2026: The Old Photograph

day five

The Fat Queer’s Statement 2012: a path to wellbeing

Sheree Bell et al

day four

Un-finding Narnia

Lel Meleyal

 We huddled together shivering and terrified in the bushes after being attacked by the great, white beast. We could still hear its screams and knew it was moving away. As the screeching racket became more distant our thumping hearts started to slow.

‘We’ve found Narnia!” I whispered to my cousin Bill.

Unlike me, Bill was not a reader and he did not understand. He thought I had said banana.

Bill was my closest friend, and we had spent every day together since he was born, five days after me, eight years before. Like most working class kids in the 60’s, we did not have umbrella parents, supervising our every move or entertaining us. We played outside and rarely went home so long as there was daylight, and we weren’t hungry.   I am not sure which of us was the leader but we made each other feel safe, and this explained many of the adventures we had. Unfortunately, the grown-ups sometimes got to know about our adventures and we were keen to avoid the kind of trouble we had occasionally experienced – such as the time we got a bus to a distant park and a search party came out to find us, or the time we climbed on glass roof of the kitchen lean-to and it cracked, or the time we ate a lot of dog biscuits to see what would happen. We both knew that we were not allowed on the railway tracks. That was a smacking offence, for sure.

We had followed the track for miles, or so it felt, leaping onto another track when a train passed by. We were thrilled by the noise, the smoke and whoosh of air and especially loved it when one of the drivers sounded their horn. I never felt in any danger. Just before we turned around to go home for tea we crossed the tracks to explore an iron fenced, wooded area. We slipped our skinny, soot smeared bodies through the rungs and crawled into the bushes. Through the lush green, waxy leaves we could see a magnificent gothic castle, topped by a pointed princess tower, tall chimneys and turrets. It was ivy-clad over yellow stone and red brick. The castle was surrounded by the lushest, greenest grass I had ever seen with exotic gardens dotted around – and a lake! It was completely breath-taking. We were both open mouthed in shock. That is when the great white beast attacked. Screaming into our faces with its red eyes locked onto us.

“I don’t care if you found banana you can’t tell your Mam – she will kill us”. I knew Bill was right when he took charge and said I could not go back for another look. It was too dangerous with the beast hanging around and so, reluctantly I followed him through the iron fence, back across the tracks and home. I felt disappointed. I had expected Narnia to be somewhere more magical than on the tracks leading to Hull railway station.

Our friends didn’t believe us of course but I knew what I had seen. I did once go back, alone and try to find it again, but the iron fence was no-where to be seen…….

Thirty years later, driving along a winding country lane in South Yorkshire I came face to face with the great white beast. I slammed on the brakes. It stood, in the middle of the road, shuddering and preening. A great arc of dazzling, shimmering quills. It stared at me with its angry red eyes and pointy beak before it slowly dropped its feathers and languidly walked through a hole in a roadside hedge. It was the most incredibly beautiful sight and I ached for it to come back. I heard the screaming ‘aaagh, aaagh, aaagh’ call – a sound which had never left my memory. A white peacock. A stunning, majestic, white feathered peacock.

I would like to say that I had a flash of understanding but that would be far from the truth. In the moment of seeing the peacock on that road, I had worked out that ‘the beast’ seen all those years before had been, in fact, a startled, rare albino bird, but what the hell was it doing next to a busy rail line in Hull? I felt a desperate urge to get back home to try to work it out.

Heart pounding, I pulled out the map and ran my fingers along the rail track from where it abutted our street. About a mile along, a large patch of green, with lake, was there, closeted by Victorian slums, railway track and industry. After almost forty years I had found my Narnia.

The building we had stumbled upon was Hymers College. A prestigious private school, established in 1893.

I am not sure that some mysteries are better solved.

Hymers College.

day three

JOURNEY

I’ve travelled the world

and stayed happily at home.

I’ve birthed well-loved children

and watched while they’ve grown.

I’ve ridden and run

and walked in the sand.

I’ve ranted and raged,

but held many a hand.

I’ve progressed in my life,

though I’ve needed a shove.

And I’ve moved right along

From self-harm to self-love.

But the best thing I’ve learned,

from this journey I chart.

If you’ve got good friends;

Keep them close to your heart.

Anon

day two

You cast your feathers to the wind,

She took you to the sea,

Winter winds and sand drifting out on river reach and flood land.

My own path of stone shores and chalk,

to choke with chained words and new visions.

JJ

day one

In Tibet,

I saw so much.

I saw genuine welcome in mugs of Yak butter tea,

Served with delight by very round ladies

in national dress.

I saw dizzying mountain passes,

With lakes as blue as a child’s painting

and I balanced breathlessly,

On the very roof of the World.

I saw families working vast fields of hay,

Using old scythes and new Chinese tractors.

Children with high rosy cheeks and shy smiles,

came to take offerings of coloured pencils.

And I saw tired mothers carrying toddlers

Overdressed to the point of immobility.

I saw a thousand prayers fluttering off to heaven

From mountains the Chinese would dedicate to Mammon.

I saw palaces tainted and enriched by the small change of the devoted.

I saw a people on the precipice of change.

And I saw the beginnings of us.

Meg Merrilees

LLanbrynmair

day twenty nine

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone

Joni Mitchell. Big Yellow Taxi

I had it all. Long term partner, two step children, a grandchild at whose birth I had been present.

No mortgage, sufficient income, reasonable health. Yes, I had it all.

And yet what had started out as exciting, loving, tender, had, over the many years together, slowly transmogrified into an unrecognisable stale, apathetic, antagonistic relationship.

Unable to accept that we had grown apart, unwilling to admit failure, unwilling to agree that it hadn’t lasted, we carried on with the farce, not recognising it for what it was. We were comfortable, we knew our lives well, we could live like this. So many people do, it wasn’t so bad, some of it was still good.

But one day enough was enough. I gave it up. I couldn’t live the lie any longer.

I began to realise what I had lost.

My old friends had been slowly pushed out by jealous tantrums, it was easier not to see them so I no longer had my old mates. My new friends were mainly my ex’s friends and chose sides – not mine!

My enjoyment of music had been eroded by the put downs over the years of my awful taste in music and my rubbish singing voice.

My self esteem was on the floor, after listening for so long to what a worthless, horrible person I was.

Oh my goddess, why did I stay all those years? I lost myself and barely realised it. A few years on and I’m back in touch with many of my old mates, I love my music and sing along whenever I want to. I’m so glad I rediscovered me. It’s worth the loss. I’ve gained so much more.

Anonymous, the world

day twenty eight

day twenty seven

Air to spare

I’m up in the sky high above the world as we know it and I’m coming to bury you brother.

Only nine hours ago she padded the beach hut floor towards me, every creak weighing heavy with the news of you.

Half drunk half sleep wholly partied out with friends and now. Now I’m sucked right back to the core of us and all that we came from.Raw on raw.

The kindness of her look the warmth of her hand on my back held my silent screaming denial. She folded me in to a loving hug as a cold white sliver of morning pierced my heart. A wailing, injured animal bellowed from my pit as friends concerned spluttered and spilled from their huts.

Suspended within hollow headphones and knees locked in economy class I can feel the regular breath of a stranger snoring beside me.

I am drifting through air, so much air, air to spare, and I try, try really hard to will life in to you in your few final moments.

When your world exploded inside your head did you know this was dying?  Did you see red? Did you feel you could fight it? Did you think of me and that we’d missed our chance? Did your thoughts come flooding? Did you feel yourself drowning? Or were you swimming in a sea of bloody confusion?

I’m up in the sky high above the world as we know it and I’m coming to bury you brother.

Fiona Thomson, Margate

day twenty six

Swagger

From a window I watched her swagger back towards our house from the avenue’s communal bottle bank. Not a ‘Jack-the-lad’ kind of gait, but a ‘content-with-the-world’ amble. Hands in trouser pockets, shoulders low and light, lengthened neck on a head held high.

The first time she came over to mine. I watched her through a window then too. She was in a kerfuffle. Not quite sure of where I lived, a little bit lost maybe, anxious certainly and her body told the story. Her black shirt tucked into jeans a little un-tucked in places. Body, picture frame square and sharp elbowed. Trying to manage the scruffy dog on a lead and a bottle in hand whilst working out which was my flat. I went to the door. Made it easy for her. She beamed when she saw me. I beamed right back.

She laughed when she saw the pocket I had made for the TV remote controls stitched to the sofa, made out of a pair of M & S knickers. The dog made itself at home. We cracked open the bottle. We carried right on laughing.

Over time the awkward edges of not knowing are replaced by the soft roundedness of intimate knowledge. She still teases me about the pant-pocket. Neither of us can tuck our shirt in these days, but that’s OK.

I watch her swagger and I feel a rush of love for her.

Lel Meleyal, Brighton.

For Cath

day twenty five

We position ourselves well when we meet

I walk in or she walks in

Theres nothing casual about it

Its been a long time – it always is

Theres been grave danger and more submergence

And what about all those drowning at sea

Every day..

Then we find our strange bit of happiness

Outside of everything we know

I’Il never work her out

Yet maybe never give up on

Love her for her freedom

Potential wisdom and ecstasy

Even when she doesnt bring them

I know they’re there.

Ali Cocks, Aberyswyth