Gum on My Shoe

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 c...

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 Chri...

I became a man. Before that I was a little boy. — Adam Ant (Stuart Leslie Goddard) Observed each year on November 19, International Men’s Day (IMD) celebrates the positive value men bring to the world, their families and communities, and raises awareness of men’s health and well-being. The theme for 2025 is “Celebrating Men and Boys.” I was unsure how to approach the topic until my friend and fellow blogger Aimee Wilson 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? For the purpose of this blog post I’ll define “when I was a boy” as the period of my life up to and including 1979. I turned eighteen that March but I was far less mature than my age might suggest. I knew little of the world beyond my immediate family, school, and the local environment of West Derby on the outskirts of Liverpool. It was a pivotal year for me. My father died in April. I took my A-level exams in June, passed them all, and l...

Very few writers treat writing [...] as an instrument for living, not as an aim in itself. — Colin Wilson ( The Outsider ) I met John earlier this year at the bar of the Wateredge Inn in Ambleside. Our ten minute encounter inspired two blog posts: One Must Imagine Marty and John Happy: Two Strangers Discuss the Absurd in an Ambleside Pub and Miserable Places: My Welsh Nightmare . In the course of our conversation John recommended a book to me. Colin Wilson’s The Outsider isn’t an easy read but several passages resonated with me. In one, the author relates the story of the Duke of Ch’i and his wheelwright. The message is that the legacy we leave behind cannot capture or convey the essence of our skills and knowledge. The essence of who we are. This is highly relevant to articles I’ve written about end of life planning, especially How Much Do You Want to Know Me? Preparing to Write My Obituary . It’s a topic I’m likely to explore further in the future. For now, I can admit th...

      In a solitude of the Sea       Deep from human vanity, And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she. — Thomas Hardy, “The Convergence of the Twain (Lines on the loss of the ‘Titanic’)” Content warning: discussion of tragedy including loss of life “The Convergence of the Twain (Lines on the loss of the ‘Titanic’)” by Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) has been one of my favourite poems since I discovered it at the age of sixteen as part of my GCE O-level English Literature syllabus. I failed the subject with an overall grade of U (Unclassified) but Hardy’s poetry made a great impression on me. I can still recite most of Convergence from memory. Hardy spoke to my teenage predilection for fatalism and irony. There are echoes of this in my own poetry written at that time, such as these lines from “I heard today that (she) may be leaving.” Weave out, dark Destiny, thy web before my eyes; For what now seems t...

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. Twelve Songs That Remind Me What Caring Is All About The Box on the Shelf: A Strategy for Handling Difficult Issues and Situations Shhhhhhh! A Friend’s Guide to Secrets I’m on My Way: Thoughts Inspired by Ed Sheeran’s “Castle on the Hill” One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy: Encounters With the Absurd Man Supportive Disengagement: How to Be There for Your Friend When They Need Space Seven Hours on Sun-beds (I’m Not a Beach Person) Thank You Anyway: The Gift of Ingratitude It’s Not Enough / Never Enough It’s Time to Talk. But What If You Don’t Want To? Our most visited pages were: Contact Us Our Books About Us Testimonials News and Appearances Resources   Photo of sunflowers on Holy Island by Martin Baker.