When Pemberton Met Bubbs: A Tale of Two Bears

“Please look after this bear. Thank you.”

— Michael Bond, A Bear Called Paddington.

Once upon a few days after Thanksgiving Fran and I were on one of our daily video calls. She mentioned the 2014 movie Paddington she was watching. She’d spent Thanksgiving on her own but had taken steps to make it special for herself, with movies and good food. I don’t think I’ve seen the film but I’ve always had a fondness for the bear from Darkest Peru. I told Fran about my earliest recollections of Paddington on the BBC children’s TV show Blue Peter. The stories’ author Michael Bond was a cameraman for the show. He wrote several Paddington Bear stories for the Blue Peter annuals which I remember receiving at Christmas throughout my childhood. Bond’s inspiration for the books was finding a small lonely-looking teddy bear on a shelf in the toy department of Selfridges store in London on Christmas Eve 1956. He brought the bear home as a gift for his wife. They named him Paddington after the train station closest to their home. The first Paddington book was published two years later.

The fact that Paddington was named for somewhere significant to his owners reminded me of Pemberton Bear. Fran knew who I meant but couldn’t remember how he came into my life. I fetched Pemberton from his place beside my bed and held him close through the rest of our video call. Pemberton is a grizzly bear stuffed toy I sewed when I lived in London in the eighties. The pattern and fur fabric were a gift from a colleague. (Thank you, Marjorie.) I presented Pemberton to a dear friend for Christmas 1984. He was much loved and often cuddled, moving from place to place with my friend over the next twenty years. He returned to me after her death in 2005.

Diary sketch of my friend’s room at 24 Pemberton Drive with Pemberton Bear on the bed. December 1984.

He’s named for 24 Pemberton Drive in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The house was the centre of my social and emotional world for several years. Many of my closest friends lived there at one point or another. I was a frequent visitor during my final years at university and occupied one of the attic rooms for a few months after graduating in 1983.

Clay model of 24 Pemberton Drive, Bradford.

Fran asked me to wait a moment. She returned with her bear. “This is Bubbs,” she told me, holding him up to the camera so that he and Pemberton could meet properly for the first time. I invited her to write a little about him for this blog post.

Ever since I can remember, I wanted a teddy bear. I never wanted a Barbie doll. I was more interested in G.I. Joes and race cars and their tracks. Santa never came until my late twenties when my ex-husband gifted me a GUND teddy bear. I named him Bubbs. I don’t know why but it suited him. Later my ex gifted me a golden retriever. I named him Bo. Bo became my soul mate. Both Bubbs and Bo had that dark rich golden fur. Bo is gone now but resides in an oak box. Our ashes will be scattered together in the ocean when my time comes. Bubbs sits in his own chair next to my bed. He is so good looking with his green bow and fits nicely cradled in my arms. His eyes are clear. His nose is worn, but I pencil it in with a sharpie. On Thanksgiving weekend I watched all three Paddington movies cuddled on the couch with Bubbs. Marty and I introduced Bubbs and Pemberton on Saturday night and the four of us had a grand time.

It’s noteworthy that neither Bubbs nor Pemberton was a childhood bear. Bubbs came to Fran when she was in her late twenties. My friend was twenty-two when Pemberton entered her life. I still have my childhood teddy but whether they’ve been a lifelong companion or joined you midway through your journey bears aren’t only for children. Danny Jackson H. makes this clear in Why I Sleep with a Stuffed Animal Even Though I’m a Fully Grown Adult.

[...] when a teen or adult sleeps with a toy, we tend to assume that person is developmentally stunted. Or that they have a weird obsession with children’s items. Whatever the case may be, people generally don’t think it’s acceptable. Those people are just plain wrong.

The article cites a 2017 survey by Build-A-Bear Workshop that claims “four in ten adult Americans still sleep with a teddy bear at night. And many of those bears are the same bears kept from childhood.” It’s not only Americans. Fran reminded me of a scene from the British sitcom Mr Bean featuring Rowan Atkinson in the title role. I’m not a huge fan of Mr Bean but the scene Fran mentioned, in which he reads his teddy bear a bedtime story, is engaging. As she told me, “I love his teddy story!”

Reading to others — be they teddy bears or people — is for everyone. Fran and I have a history of reading to each other as I described several years ago in It’s Not Just for Kids: Reading Together for Fun and Friendship. One book we’ve read together is Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne, which Fran gifted me for my birthday last year. The stories are delightful in themselves but there’s also a mental health connection. According to a slightly tongue-in-cheek article on The Disorders of Characters in Winnie the Pooh by The Canadian Medical Association at Winniepedia (“the Wikia wiki for everything about that cubby, tubby, silly old bear Winnie the Pooh and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood”) Winnie has an eating disorder, Piglet has anxiety disorder, Tigger has ADHD, Kanga has social anxiety, Rabbit has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Christopher Robin has schizophrenia, and Eeyore “suffers from depression and is always sad.” For all that, there’s no hint of stigma or discrimination in the stories. There are confusions, frustrations, and grumbles but the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood are always there for one another. This is expressed beautifully in a quotation by mental health advocate, writer, and speaker AnneMoss Rogers.

The awesome thing about Eeyore is that even though he is clinically depressed, he still gets invited to participate in adventures and shenanigans with all of his friends. And they never expect him to pretend to feel happy, they just love him anyway and never ask him to change.

Rogers is no stranger to mental illness. Her youngest son took his life in 2015 at the age of twenty. A guest post at her Emotionally Naked blog describing child sexual abuse opens with a reference to a beloved childhood toy (“I wrapped my skinny arm around Pooh’s neck. I couldn’t go anywhere without him.”) and includes a quotation in which Pooh Bear seeks to reassure Christopher Robin. “Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” That line exemplifies the gentle wisdom to be found in Milne’s writing regarding friendship, courage, and living the simple life. Benjamin Hoff drew extensively from Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner for his 1982 book The Tao of Pooh in which he introduces the Eastern belief system of Taoism to a Western audience. Other examples of Pooh’s wisdom are not hard to find.

“A day spent with you is my favorite day. So today is my new favorite day.”

“You can’t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

“A friend is someone who helps you up when you’re down, and if they can’t, they lay down beside you and listen.”

The last of those echoes something Fran’s said about our friendship when she’s not doing so well. The following is excerpted from the Epilogue to our book High Tide, Low Tide.

It’s true when I say I would be dead if Marty hadn’t come along. So much hurt, so much pain, so much rejection, it made no sense to stay. Not only did he lend me his ear, he lent me his brain and lent me his heart. Mine were broken. He did not reach down a hand to pull me up from my dark hole. He came down and sat with me while I began rethreading, bit by bit, what could be mended. He let me baby step on his feet until I could dance on my own. To him it wasn’t about getting me to climb out. It was about being with me in all of it.

Pemberton wasn’t the only cuddly toy I made when I lived in London all those years ago. Others included two or three small teddy bears, budgerigars, an Old English Sheepdog, and several white rats. A few were made to order for colleagues, others were gifted to friends. I don’t know if they’re still cherished but I can hope they continue to bring a smile to their respective owners. Pemberton Bear’s fur isn’t as soft as it used to be. It’s matted in places. As Fran noted, Bubb’s nose requires occasional retouching. But matted fur and a worn nose aren’t defects or blemishes. They’re the result of and the reward for years of being loved. I remember my friend telling me that Pemberton lived on her sofa and was often cuddled. I think of that a lot. Margery Williams knew a thing or two about being loved. Her 1921 children’s book The Velveteen Rabbit is a recommended read for anyone in need of reminding what it means to be real.

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Pemberton and Bubbs are part of our respective lives. They are loved deeply and return comfort when comfort is needed. As Michael Bond put it in A Bear Called Paddington, “It’s nice having a bear about the house.”

Over to You (and Your Bear)

In this blog post Fran and I have shared a little about our beloved bears, Bubbs and Pemberton. Do you have a bear? Has he or she been with you since childhood or did you meet along the way? Perhaps it’s not a bear but another cuddly that means the world to you. We’d love to hear your story, either in the comments or via our contact page.

 

Photos by Martin Baker.

 

When You Say Meds You Mean Vitamins, Right?

Talk was like the vitamins of our friendship: Large daily doses kept it healthy.

— E. L. Konigsburg

This post was inspired by a recent video call with Fran. As we were talking I noticed the vitamin tablets I’d set out on my desk earlier in the day. I decided to take them there and then rather than wait until later and very likely forget.

“I’m just taking my meds,” I said, swilling them down with mouthfuls of room temperature coffee.

Fran waited until I’d finished then asked, “When you say meds you mean vitamins, right?”

I figured she just wanted to check I hadn’t contracted some prescribable health condition without telling her. “Yes,” I confirmed with a smile. Her reply caught me off guard.

“You call them meds because you want to be part of the club.”

I stopped myself laughing just in time. It was neither a joke nor a question. There was no need for Fran to elaborate which club she meant. Our book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder is dedicated to “the ill ones and the well ones.”

Well or ill, we are all people. Nevertheless, it is naive, disrespectful, and dangerous to downplay the impact illness has on those affected by it. Those who are ill are often treated differently — and poorly — compared to those that society considers able-bodied and (especially) able-minded. In consequence, they have particular life experiences, perceptions, expectations, and needs. To use Fran’s terminology, she is the ill one in our relationship; I am the well one. Nothing more or less is implied by our use of these terms.

My well one label is still valid. Earlier this year in A Few Thoughts On Turning Sixty-Four I summarised my health status. “I’ve never been what anyone would call fit,” I wrote, “and I carry more weight these days than I’m happy with, but I have no specific health issues and I’m not on any medication.” Since writing that I’ve shed thirty pounds in weight, so if anything I’m doing better than I was.

All that being true, why would I want to label myself an ill one? On a conscious level I don’t, but there’s an element of truth in Fran’s assertion that I harbour a desire to be “part of the club.” Most of my friends and family are card-carrying members. I don’t want to be ill but there are times when I feel very much on the outside looking in, unable to share or understand what life is like for some of the most important people in my life. This isn’t a new thing. The following excerpt from my 2021 article Belonging (Longing to Be) describes my sense of exclusion from spaces quite rightly reserved for others.

Around this time [2017] I began volunteering with Time to Change and other mental health groups and organisations, including Newcastle’s Recovery College (ReCoCo). I’ve written elsewhere how excited I was to join the ReCoCo family, and how that fell apart when I realised I never should have been there. Once again, I was on the outside looking in, this time from the other side of a line separating those with lived experience of mental ill health and those without. It hurt deeply, although I understood. Services need to be developed and delivered with, and where possible by, people with appropriate lived experience.

The past year has brought insight and a sense of acceptance. The following passage is taken from An Instrument for Living: How Am I Using My Words?, written in response to The Outsider by Colin Wilson.

I now view my lack of belonging as less a personal fault or failing and more a simple statement of fact. There are circles, collections, groupings of people — and there is me, out on the periphery, looking in from the outside. [These deliberations have] also helped me to recognise that the role of the Outsider is well-established, if not always envied or lauded.

There’s an irony at work here. The Outsiders Club boasts a singularly paradoxical membership, comprised as it is of those who don’t belong anywhere. I’m reminded of Russell’s paradox, named for British philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell. His proposition of “the set of all sets which do not contain themselves” broke set theory and with it German philosopher and logician Gottlob Frege’s quest for a comprehensive logical basis for mathematics. For more on Russell’s paradox check out this video by Australian physicist Jade Tan-Holmes or this one by philosophy professor Jeffrey Kaplan. Less erudite is Groucho Marx’s famous letter of resignation from the Friars’ Club in which he’s supposed to have confessed, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”

Twenty-five years ago I was a valid if temporary member of the ill ones club. I was hospitalised for ten days with severe abdominal pain and bleeding after which I was on anti-inflammatory medication for two years. The suggested diagnosis of Crohn’s disease was never confirmed. It’s interesting that for those two years I took my medication as and when prescribed, two tablets three times a day. I’m much less consistent with my vitamins. For the record, the tablets I took on my call with Fran were Multivitamins and Iron, High Strength Vitamin B, and High Strength Vitamin D. I occasionally take effervescent Vitamin C and even more occasionally a vegan omega-3 supplement. I take them supplement my vegetarian diet.

I’m grateful to Fran for picking me up on my funny-not-funny appropriation of the meds label. She reminded me that it’s inappropriate to claim membership of any club or group without the relevant credentials. Things change, especially as we age. There may come a day when I’m legitimately reaching for my meds but as Aragorn might have declaimed before the Black Gate, “It is not this day. This day we take our vitamins!”

 

Photo by Martin Baker.

 

"Can I Ask What You Do?" Two Coffee Shop Conversations That Reminded Me What Life's All About

Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.

— Julia Child

This post was inspired by two recent conversations in coffee shops. The first took place one Monday morning in Starbucks at Newcastle Airport. I was enjoying a little me time after returning the car I’d rented the previous week. My blogging EDC (everyday carry) kit was set out in front of me on the little table. My Moleskine diary and the Traveler’s Notebook that serves as a memory journal. My new Filofax Clipbook planner, a gift from a friend. My Lihit Lab pen case, my phone on its folding stand, and the larger of my two Bluetooth keyboards. I was working on my end of year blog post, drafting entries for January and February. I’m pretty much in a world of my own when I’m writing but at a certain point I became aware of someone standing just to my right. I looked up to find a young man waiting patiently for me to notice him. We shook hands and introduced ourselves. Moses was fascinated by my setup and asked how it all worked. I was more than happy to talk about it, remembering my excitement the first time I saw someone using such a combination. We talked for a few minutes about the technology and what I was writing. I invited him to sit with me but he had to meet a family member from their flight.

The encounter left me feeling invigorated but I didn’t think to blog about it until another coffee shop conversation a couple of weeks later. As I waited at the counter in my local Costa one of the baristas ventured to ask what I do for a living. She’d seen me writing there many times and thought I was perhaps a university professor. I told her I work in I. T. and that when she saw me writing I was working on my latest blog post. I mentioned my fourteen year transatlantic friendship with Fran and that we wrote a book together about how to support someone living with mental illness. I went on to describe the piece I was working on (To Tink or to Frog? How to Make Mistakes and Live Creatively) and how it relates to many of the mistakes we make in life including those that inevitably occur between friends. Before I took my drink over to my table I thanked Jade for asking and gave her a contact card with our blog and book details. (Note to self: make sure you can put your hand on a card at a moment’s notice, you never know when you might need to!)

I’m grateful to Moses and Jade for giving me the opportunity to talk about my writing — something I’m interested in and passionate about. I’m reminded me of a scene from the TV series After Life written by and starring English actor and comedian Ricky Gervais. I’m not keen on him personally but this scene resonates. His character Tony is sitting on a park bench talking with Anne, played by Penelope Wilton. I don’t know their back story but Tony shares that he’s come to the uncomfortable realisation that life isn’t all about him. “You can’t not care about the things you actually care about,” he says. Anne agrees and replies. “Happiness is amazing. It’s so amazing it doesn’t matter if it’s yours or not.” As the video description says, “That’s one of those lines that stays with you long after the episode ends. [...] Tony’s conversation with Anne on the bench is quiet but powerful — it reminds us that happiness doesn’t need to be permanent, perfect, or even ours. It’s enough to recognise it in others, to notice it when it appears. Simple. Profound. Utterly human.”

I love when people share their zest for life with me. As I’ve described previously in Second-hand Experience I live much of my life vicariously through the activities and experiences of my friends. I’d like to give a shoutout to three people I know through coffee shop conversations. Their interests and expertise are very different but all are passionate about what they do.

Founder of Soul Ceramiks, Chelsea is a ceramic artist based in the John Marley Centre here in Newcastle. I love the enthusiasm she has for her work and the inventivness of her designs. I haven’t attended her pottery workshops but I have friends who loved the experience. For details check out Soul Ceramiks on their website, Facebook, Instagram, and Etsy.

I’ve had some brilliant conversations over the years with Beth. Her new venture is La Toon Fruiterie which sells a wide range of candied fruits for collection or local delivery in and around Newcastle. For details including videos showing how the candied fruits are created check out La Toon Fruiterie on Facebook and Instagram. Tell her Marty sent you!

Given that Jade mistook me for a university professor my third shout out is to a fellow regular at Costa. Nagham El Alani isn’t a professor but she is an architect, design consultant, and lecturer in Interior and Architecture. She’s passionate about her work and has a blog where she shares her interest in embodied learning and innovative learning environments.

I hope my enthusiasm and passion come across as clearly and cleanly as Chelsea’s, Beth’s, and Nagham’s. It means a lot to me when someone is interested or intrigued enough to ask what I do or what I’m working on. Close friends and family know all about my blogging but it’s refreshing to share with someone who doesn’t know why I sit at the same table at Costa every Saturday typing away at my keyboard with my phone and tablet on their little stands. If you see me in a coffee shop or café don’t be shy. Wave a hand in front of my face or stand quietly at my side until I notice you’re there. A word of warning, however. There’s every chance you’ll end up in a future blog post!

Over to You

What are you passionate about? What inspires you and makes you happy? Do you welcome people asking you about it or do you prefer to be left alone to your own devices (pun intended)? I’d love to hear from you so feel free to share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below or via our contact page.

 

Photo by Kevin Grieve at Unsplash.

 

To Tink or to Frog? How to Make Mistakes and Live Creatively

I’m not going to lie, my favourite knitting jokes are just the explanations for how frogging and tinking got their names.

— nnaoam on Reddit

This post was inspired by a video I came across on social media. Lateral with Tom Scott is a comedy quiz podcast in which three people attempt to unravel a cryptic question or challenge posed by the fourth member of the team. In this episode the question was as follows.

Sarah is spending a relaxing evening at home. After a while, she sighs, and decides she needs to tink. After tinking for a while, she sighs again and decides she needs to frog. What is causing her to tink and frog?

If you’d like to watch the episode before I let the frog out of the bag, you’ll find the video here.

Assuming you’re ready to proceed, I can reveal that tinking and frogging are terms used in knitting. The description that follows is from an article by Pam MacKenzie at My Central Jersey. (Disappointingly, My Central Jersey is a news outlet serving Central New Jersey in the US. This article aside, it has nothing whatsoever to do with sweaters, pullovers, jumpers, or any other woollen goods.)

When confronted with a mistake [...] you can tink or you can frog. Tink is knit spelled backwards, and it refers to undoing one stitch at a time. This is a safe way to undo your knitting because if you do it correctly, you won’t drop a stitch. But when you have more than 320 stitches on the needle, as I do, and you have to go back about four rows, as I did, this could take forever. My knitting colleagues know that I prefer to frog, meaning I take the knitting off the needles and pull the yarn, undoing rows of stitches at a time. Frogging gets its name from “Rip it, rip it,” which sounds like a frog’s croak.

That’s all very cool, but you’re probably wondering why I decided to write a blog post about it. Do I harbour a secret knitting fetish? Are my non-blogging hours spent conjuring woolly hats and scarves from balls of yarn? Sadly, no. My knitting experience is limited to having creating one zip-up cardigan on my mother’s knitting machine when I was in my teens. What caught my attention isn’t knitting itself but the fact that the craft has these two responses to the mistakes that occur in any creative discipline. Tinking and frogging, I realised, have applications beyond the realm of yarn. (In researching a generic term for such crafts I came across the Polish word dziergać which means to crochet, knit, or embroider.)

Mistake? What Mistake?

One response to mistakes is to deny their existence. That’s the message of this short video by artist Sarah Pequero. The audio is taken from a speech on creativity given in 1991 by English actor and comedian John Cleese. I’m not a huge fan of his but these words are relevant to our topic.

Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake. True play is experiment. “What happens if I do this?” “What would happen if we did that?” “What if?” The very essence of playfulness is an openness to anything that may happen. The feeling that whatever happens it’s ok. So you cannot be playful if you’re frightened that moving in some direction will be wrong. Something you shouldn’t have done. You’re either free to play or you’re not. So the best way to get the confidence to do that is to know that while you’re being creative nothing is wrong.

There’s wisdom here. It’s healthy not to beat ourselves up when things go wrong, and to challenge the societal norms that tell us what we should and shouldn’t do. I’ve written previously about my aversion to shoulds. That said, and whether we label them mistakes or not, things do happen other than we desire, anticipate, or expect. Cleese challenges us to approach such moments playfully but what does that actually mean?

Tinking and frogging offer practical ways to proceed when things are other than we’d like them to be. Thinking about it, I realise I’ve employed both techniques in the past, without realising they had names. I’ll share a few examples of tinking and frogging in my writing, in creative journaling and planning, and in my friendships.

Writing

Almost everything I write is tinked. I rarely begin a piece of writing with a template or outline, or indeed any clear idea how it will turn out. I start with an opening sentence or two and proceed from there. I write in short bursts. A sentence, even a few words, at a time. I pause often to review what I’ve just written. I change a word here or there or swap short sections around. Only when that paragraph or section is complete to my satisfaction do I move on. If you watch my hands on the keyboard the most commonly employed key combinations are Ctrl + left arrow, Ctrl + right arrow, and backspace. In other words, I edit as I go. More creatively expressed, I tink. (The preceding five word sentence was tinked four times at least.)

When the piece is more or less complete, I edit it from the top. More tinking but like Sarah in the video, “after tinking for a while, [Martin] sighs again and decides [he] needs to frog.” Rather than delete longer passages I move them to the bottom of the document in case I change my mind later. (This happens a lot.) A kind of reverse frog. A gorf, if you will. Using this blog post as an example, I drafted a paragraph outlining the dictionary definition of the word “mistake” and its relevance to the concept of wrongness. Sitting immediately after the John Cleese quotation, that paragraph was tinked more times than I care to admit. I finally frogged it out. The post is stronger as a result.

Creative Journaling and Planning

I’ve kept a daily diary for over fifty years. I rarely correct errors in my diary unless I’ve inadvertently written the incorrect date. I don’t use corrective fluid or tape, strike things through, or rip pages out. My creative journaling is different. I keep a memory journal in a Passport size Traveler’s Notebook. The pages are filled with photos, stickers, tickets, and other ephemera. I often move, correct, or remove items I feel are wrong or poorly placed. Rarely, I’ll remove, cover up, or otherwise frog entire pages if they no longer sit well with me.

I recently renewed my relationship with Filofax planners. As I began completing one of the weekly spreads, I realised I’d incorrectly recorded where I’d been that day. I shared my frustration with my friend Robyn who is also into creative journaling.

M: I made a mistake! Today it was McDonald’s first, not Starbucks! Now I have to decide what to do. Tippex tape or replace the page. I have a spare.

R: Try Tippex or a sticker, and if you don’t like it use the spare page?

M: Good idea ...

R: *nod nod* It’s annoying to make mistakes. Using cut up bit of sticky notes or an actual decorative sticker is a way to make it into a nice thing though.

I used my corrective tape and carefully wrote “McDonald’s” on top. I wasn’t altogether convinced but it looked okay.

M: I suppose it’s good to get the first mistake out of the way.

R: Yes! And you can learn from them and what works for you.

M: I’m glad I was with you when I noticed because you understand and helped me navigate the disappointment.

The Tippexed correction didn’t sit well with me, however. I found a decorative sticker and used it to cover both my original error and its correction. Robyn agreed the sticker made the page more interesting and pretty to look at. It was a great example of the tink–frog process. I’ve taken to writing entries on sticky notes if I’m in any way uncertain where to place them on the pages of my planner. It makes tinking far more convenient.

Friendships and Relationships

It might seem odd to use the knitting terms tinking and frogging in the context of friendships. These twin techniques nevertheless offer an insight into handling the issues and problems that arise in any relationship. Not all difficulties are the same. Some are relatively small, minor, or situational. Others are much more serious and fundamental. In a recent conversation my friend Jen recalled a line from the Billy Joel song Second Wind “... about mistakes and how they are the only things you can truly call your own. I wonder if he’s right.”

M: I’m not sure they are the ONLY things you can call your own (memories for example) but I like the idea.

J: True. But making mistakes is just part of growing and learning. Mistakes can be an opportunity ... or they can just be what they are.

M: Yes indeed. Not everything has to be a “learning opportunity.” And what are “mistakes” anyway? Usually it’s what we call things that don’t work out how we wanted them to or anticipated they would.

Jen asked if there was a mistake I’ve made in my life that stands out as being especially horrible. I said there are things I’ve done or said that have turned out badly for me or other people, but that I wouldn’t necessarily call them mistakes or regrets. I’ve never understood what it means to regret something. We can’t go back and change things we have done. Jen asked what label I’d use instead. “If I’m thinking about when it’s happened in the past,” I replied, “with Fran or with other friends, I’d say ‘That time when I got it wrong.’”

Semantics aside, mistakes occur in any friendship or relationship worthy of the name. I agree with Jen that they can be an opportunity for learning and growth, for the individuals and for the connection itself. I’ve had friendships that deepened as a result of successfully navigating some issue or setback, and others where the best way forward was a reset, up to and including breakup. Outlined in my 2019 blog post How to Be Honest without Losing Your Friends the former response could be seen as tinking: unravelling to and reknitting forward from where the issue occurred. The latter case of radical frogging is described in my recent article You Feel like Someone I Knew a Long Time Ago — Why Are Friendship Breakups So Hard? Both responses are valid, though it’s not always easy to tell which is the more appropriate.

I’ll close with a short exchange I came across on social media.

do you ever start writing a comment on the internet and then think “oh what the fuck am i going on about” and delete it?

I also enjoy writing an entire paragraph, thinking “you know, I don’t actually need to be involved in this conversation,” and deleting it.

I didn’t think to save a link to the original post but those two comments brought a smile. I know both situations so well!

Over to You

In this post I’ve described the knitting terms tinking and frogging and discussed their more general application to the oopsie moments that inevitably occur in our lives and relationships. I find it helpful to remember that while some things can be unravelled and reworked relatively easily, others invite a more radical response. Do you find this distinction useful? How do you approach and respond to issues, mistakes, and other undesirable happenings in your life? Fran and I would love to hear from you, either in the comments below or via our contact page.

 

Photo by Alfonso Betancourt at Unsplash.

 

Our Top Posts of the Month (November 2025)

Check out our top posts for the past month. Posts are listed by the number of page views they attracted during the month, most popular first.

1. Twelve Songs That Remind Me What Caring Is All About
2. The Box on the Shelf: A Strategy for Handling Difficult Issues and Situations
3. One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy: Encounters With the Absurd Man
4. Supportive Disengagement: How to Be There for Your Friend When They Need Space
5. Shhhhhhh! A Friend’s Guide to Secrets
6. It’s Not Enough / Never Enough
7. I’m on My Way: Thoughts Inspired by Ed Sheeran’s “Castle on the Hill”
8. In a Solitude of the Sea: Exploring My Fascination With Disaster Documentaries
9. From Joe 90 to Marty: Celebrating the Boy I Was and the Man I Would Become
10. An Open Letter to My Bipolar Best Friend

Our most visited pages were:

1. Contact Us
2. Resources
3. Our Books
4. News and Appearances
5. About Us
6. Testimonials

 

Photo of Longbenton, Newcastle by Martin Baker.

 

You'll Never Walk Alone (Walking Alone)

You’ll never walk alone.

— Liverpool Football Club motto

This post was originally published for International Men’s Day 2025 at I’m NOT Disordered.

I’m grateful to Aimee [Wilson] for the opportunity to write this guest piece for International Men’s Day (IMD). For those who don’t know, IMD is marked every year on November 19. The purpose is to acknowledge the positive value men bring to the world, their families and communities, and raise awareness of men’s health, mental health, and well-being. The theme for 2025 is “Celebrating Men and Boys.”

With my best friend Fran Houston I blog at Gum on My Shoe on mental health and supportive friendships. I’ve written for IMD in the past but I was unsure how to approach this year’s theme until Aimee suggested I think back to when I was a boy. What did I imagine my life would be like when I grew up? What did I want to be? It was a great idea and you can read the piece it inspired on my blog here. Writing it was both interesting and challenging, so when Aimee suggested I explore that process in a separate post for I’m NOT Disordered, I leapt at the chance.

I’ll begin by noting that “think back to when you were a boy” is a challenge in itself when you’re in your sixty-fifth year! It’s something I’m reminded of every time I register for something online and I’m asked for my date of birth. Scrolling back to 1961 takes longer than it used to! The first thing I did was figure out how to supplement the few memories I have of my childhood. The main resources at my disposal were old photos, my diaries (I’ve kept a daily diary since I was fourteen), the poetry I wrote in my teens and twenties, and blog posts I’ve written in the past.

I find it helps to have a working title when I’m writing. I started off with “From Nitram to Marty: The Boy I Was and the Man I Became.” I chose that because Nitram (my name in reverse) was one of very few nicknames I’ve ever being given. Just to note, I’d hate to be called that now, so please don’t! I’ll answer to Martin, Marty, or pretty much anything as long as it isn’t too rude! The final title was close to my working one except that I swapped Nitram out for Joe 90. That’s another childhood nickname but one with fewer negative associations.

I also like to open my blog posts with a short quotation. I found an excellent one by singer Adam Ant (Stuart Leslie Goddard): “I became a man. Before that I was a little boy.” I love the research aspect of blogging and one thing I learned about the singer was the back story to his stage name. In a 2011 interview for the BBC, Goddard explained that he chose the name because “I really knew I wanted to be Adam, because Adam was the first man. Ant I chose because, if there’s a nuclear explosion, the ants will survive.” In the same interview he spoke of his struggles with bipolar disorder including being sectioned twice under the Mental Health Act.

Mental health needs a great deal of attention. It’s the final taboo and it needs to be faced and dealt with. It’s not something I’m ashamed of. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of. I did wrong things as a result of it. But there’s only one thing worse than making a mistake, and that’s not learning from it … and I’ve learnt from it.

— “Adam Ant on fame, depression and infamy” (BBC)

I can’t recall mental health ever being mentioned at home in any context, but the realities of mental illness are central to my friendship with Fran and to our book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder. They’re also highly relevant to my friendship with Aimee and to her blog here at I’m NOT Disordered.

The quotation I’ve chosen for this guest post for Aimee is “You’ll never walk alone.” The song from which it’s taken was written by Rodgers and Hammerstein for the musical Carousel. It was made popular in the sixties by Merseybeat group Gerry and the Pacemakers and was adopted as an anthem by Liverpool Football Club. There are a couple of reasons for my choosing it.

I was born in Liverpool and lived there until I left for university at the age of eighteen. The first of three photos I chose to illustrate my IMD post shows me posing awkwardly in the front garden of my childhood home, wearing my Liverpool FC football strip. I’m maybe eight or nine years old. I was useless at sports but football was something boys my age were expected to be interested in. I tried my best but it didn’t work. I’ve never understood the passion men and women of all ages have for their local and national teams. It’s one of many things I’ve never “got” and places me outside of things to this day. For that reason amongst others my choice of “You’ll never walk alone” is deeply ironic.

The second photo I chose was from my University of Bradford Student Union Card. I used it on the back cover of the anthology of my poetry I self-published decades later. Alongside my diary, poetry was how I processed what I was going through emotionally in my teens and early twenties.

The third photo was a recent one in which I’m wearing my Live2Lives “you are enough” t-shirt. It’s an important message, and more personally relevant than “You’ll never walk alone.” Whether we live with mental health issues or not, we often do walk alone, or at least it feels that way. Recognising we’re enough just as we are, with all our insecurities, hang-ups, and problems, is the most valuable of self-realisations. I’m reminded of social media creator AK Przy (Anna Przybylski). She’s been described as “the viral role model of boundary-setting and self-acceptance.” With the tagine “Keep it up, cutie, I’m so frickin’ proud of you,” her videos are a breath of fresh air and powerfully validating.

Writing “From Joe 90 to Marty” helped me appreciate the boy-to-man journey I’ve been on for the past sixty-four years. In many ways I’m still the boy standing awkwardly in the garden, wondering why the things others are passionate about hold no interest for me at all. It’s significant that the photo shows me standing in the garden rather than on the playing field. I’ve never felt on the pitch with the rest of the team. When I left home at eighteen I was taking my first steps into the arena, trying my best to figure out the rules of the game.

As an adult (at sixty-four I can hardly deny the label) I still feel — I still am — an outsider. But I’m at ease with that now. As I wrote in an article to be published on my blog later this year, “I now view my lack of belonging as less a personal fault or failing and more a simple statement of fact. There are circles, collections, groupings of people — and there is me, out on the periphery, looking in from the outside.” I’ve made peace with that. I have strong friendships. I am loved, valued, and supported. I’m rarely lonely (and it’s ok when I am) but as many do, I walk alone. I’ll close with two quotations by writers I admire. The wolf connection is coincidental, if pertinent.

Our friends — how distant, how mute, how seldom visited and little known. And I, too, am dim to my friends and unknown; a phantom, sometimes seen, often not. Life is a dream surely.

— Virginia Woolf, The Waves

I am in truth the Steppenwolf that I often call myself; that beast astray that finds neither home nor joy nor nourishment in a world that is strange and incomprehensible to him.

— Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

I’m grateful to Aimee for the opportunity to further explore my connection to my childhood and the piece I wrote for IMD: From Joe 90 to Marty: Celebrating the Boy I Was and the Man I Would Become. For more on International Men’s Day check out the official International Men’s Day website and International Men’s Day in the UK.

 

Photo by Mario Azzi at Unsplash

 

Celebrating Friendship and Connection by the Sea

This post was inspired by a trip to the coast with my friend and fellow mental health blogger Aimee Wilson. In what’s become something of a tradition we’d arranged to visit the Christmas Market at Spanish City in Whitley Bay. I was looking forward to the day. There’s always something to take away from our get-togethers, be it a new blogging idea, a collaboration to pursue, or just some great conversation and laughter.

We weren’t meeting until early afternoon, so I spent an hour or two at my favourite coffee shop before heading to the coast. I arrived in Whitley Bay with an hour or so to spare. Fran was online and I took her with me on a video call as I set off to explore a little. I pointed out a few places I know including The Fire Station pub and Sambuca, an Italian restaurant I’ve been to with Aimee. I found myself in the vicinity of the Park View shopping mall and remembered a coffee shop I’ve visited a couple of times before. There was one free table next to an enormous Christmas tree decked with red and gold baubles. Someone in a Grinch costume was entertaining passers by. I bought myself a drink and we sat talking awhile. Me with my double espresso in a Whitley Bay mall, Fran with her filter coffee three thousand miles away in Portland, Maine.

Aimee messaged that she was on her way, so we headed off to meet her. Fran loved the views from the promenade. I pointed out the turbines of the Blyth Offshore Wind Farm and St Mary’s lighthouse away in the distance. I took photos and Fran captured her own memories by taking screenshots of our video call. It’s fun to see things through someone else’s eyes that way. We met up with Aimee outside Spanish City. It was a merry meeting, with selfies of the three of us and the chance for Fran and Aimee to talk together for a few minutes. Surprisingly, they’d never done so despite having been friends with me for many years. I’d have liked to take Fran around the market but I knew from experience how little space there is with all the stalls and people. We ended our call with a promise from me to take plenty of photos!

Aimee had bought our tickets in advance, so within minutes we had our entry wristbands and were inside. Almost immediately she fell into conversation with one of the stallholders, a brilliant photographer called Phil Benton. I stepped back and soaked in the atmosphere. Spanish City is an amazing building and it’s always decorated splendidly for the festive season. I took photographs for Fran including a selfie with one of the huge Nutcracker mannequins. Aimee was still talking so I headed off around the stalls on my own. Around is the appropriate word, because the market stalls were arranged on either side of the circular balcony, overlooking the thirty-foot Christmas tree and Trenchers restaurant on the floor below. I remembered several of the stalls from previous years. There’s a rich mix of art and craft work, Christmas decorations, food and drink, and regionally-themed gifts of all kinds.

Paying more attention than I was to what was on sale and chatting to stallholders as she went, Aimee hadn’t moved far by the time I caught up with her. One of the many things I love about Aimee is how naturally she engages with people. It’s a joy to watch, all the more so because it’s something I can’t do at all. I’m okay once the opening has been made but I can’t do that initial bit. I’d completed a lap of the room having said no more than “Hello” to anyone.

As I re-joined Aimee she was talking with Stacey and Jamie McNeill of Fox Under the Moon. Aimee introduced me as her friend who also has a mental health blog and has written a book. I was blown away by the generosity of the introduction and felt instantly at ease. I told Stacey and Jamie about my transatlantic friendship with Fran, our book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder, and how our blog focuses on mental health and supportive friendship. I even remembered to offer one of my contact cards, something I learned from Aimee a long time ago. Stacey shared some of their personal journey that led them to found Fox Under the Moon which features her words and artwork. The following is excerpted from their website.

My ‘Fox Under The Moon’ artwork series is for all ages. It is inspired by the simplicity of everyday life, and the complicated emotions that go with it. Through my artwork you will meet an anxious, but inquisitive fox and the wise old moon. Along with their friends, I hope that their warm and whimsical world can bring some encouragement and love to yours.

I treated myself to a pack of greetings cards and a desk calendar, both of which are simply stunning. Their website is also beautifully designed and a delight to navigate. They happily posed for a photo, Stacey holding a copy of her book Fox Under the Μoon: Seasons of Comfort and Hope. Before we moved on I asked Stacey if she’d like a hug and was delighted to receive big hugs from them both!

Aimee and I looked round the rest of the market then went for a meal at the restaurant next door. The food and conversation were excellent. We enjoyed showing each other the items we’d bought at the market and planning our next get-together. When we parted I was struck by how peaceful and still the sea and sky appeared. As I headed home I reflected on how wonderful the day had been. Sharing time with Fran. Fran and Aimee meeting in person for the first time. (I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last!) Meeting Stacey and Jamie. Marty and Aimee time together. Days like this — moments like this — remind me how good life can be and the value there is in connection.

Thank you.

You can find Fox Under the Moon on their website, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Find Aimee Wilson on her award-winning blog I’m NOT Disordered, Instagram, and X/Twitter.

 

Photos by Martin Baker