Howdy, thanks for checking in again on my Photo-wotsit-Blog – and indeed, welcome if you’re a newcomer, thanks for stopping by, I really appreciate it, especially right now. This year has been a stinky eh? Lockdowns, tier restrictions, self isolations, not seeing people, friends and family, or just in general, stay two metres back, I can’t breathe. There are days when the only conversations I have are with myself. And oh my Gog am I boring!?! Will you have two biscuits with your tea this time Jay? No Jay, it’ll make you fat, won’t it? Yes but what else is there to do? I’ve cleaned and everything and my Bowels are empty, so, ya know! Give me a Hob nob, stat! Whilst my family are working or in school, I’ve remained rooted in the home, becoming the de-facto house-hub and speculative cook (if it’s on a plate, warm and beige I’m a winner winner chicken dinner, besides edibility is just an opinion and perhaps not even a real word).

I’ve dealt with the last Lockdown days/weeks/months by getting out and walking regularly, for miles and miles and miles and miles. Sometimes I’ll plan a route, I’ll even take cereal bars just in case. Other times I just wander about, often with my camera in hand, or just my phone, that works too. Not that I’ve had any photographic breakthroughs or my eye has improved, but the camera keeps me company and occupies the mind. I’ll chunter away to myself as I go, because company is hard to find these days, so having a second opinion, albeit my own, nagging away, gees me up, like a biscuit. I walk most days, winding through local suburbs mostly – I stick to the sideroads, round the backs of places, I like finding spots where people have stashed things, as is our nature.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t really felt like writing at all these last few months, and this is just a short update. I’ve struggled with how reduced I’ve felt, unnecessary and frequently on my own. I don’t dwell naturally on the negative side on things, but I have suffered from depression in the past. I have a wonderful partner and family who have supported me through those times and this time too. But then, the house empties for work and school leaving me alone, the reduction opens out like a yawn, an intake of breath that becomes a sob that wells up with emptiness. I feel stupid and needy, I’m 52, man up for fucks sake, get on with it, you’ve got people who need you and, you know, people are dying out there, families have lost so much, people working around the clock saving lives, running themselves into the ground, so stop feeling sorry for yourself, dumbass. I have friends who’ve lost loved ones, friends who’ve worked non-stop at the coal face.

Susan, she who encircles my heart, works in a school and has had a difficult time of it. I’ve had it easy compared to the Government meddling she’s had to deal with, the constant shifting of pandemic goalposts have caused a multitude of hemi-parasthetic problems. Essentially she’s run ragged most days, a new headache every day Huxley Pig, oink oink. One morning, as she left, she said how lonely she often felt at school now, with social distancing, class bubbles and office divisions, she rarely sees people to talk or engage with. I felt like I’d been hit with an icy club in the guts, and a coldness crept over me. I think Sue noticed at the time, she instinctively asked if I was okay. Of course I said I was fine, and we kissed and she left for work as normal.

As I closed the door, before the latch had even clicked, I was sobbing. Great big irrational sobs, heaving like a drunkard in the ditch. Stupid, needless, cold and selfish sobs of pity and oh my Gog, is that what this is, how I’m feeling, loneliness??? I congratulated myself between the sobs of self-knowledge, wallowing in those dark cold moments, I felt selfish and hated myself. One of the key signs of depression is just that, a selfishly cunning feeling that you deserve it.

I hadn’t realised I had fallen so far so fast so fucking predictably like all those typical statistical umbilical morons they quote regularly on the always o’clock news, the hidden in their homes suffering in silent loathing because that’s not you right, you don’t think that such a news story, especially a 2020 news-story, would ever apply to you. Those tears and that gut wrenching coldness isn’t a fucking statistic, is it tho, it’s been happening to me like a stealth bomb that went off right under my nose. I never saw it because I ignored it, willfully ignorant despite knowing, oh I know, but I didn’t, I haven’t, not me never, not again, no I didn’t want to acknowledge it.

Recognising and acknowledging that there’s something up, well, it’s not quite the same as your car failing its MOT or finding a leak in your roof. I know that, genetically, I carry that depressive tendency with me, it gallops through my mother’s side of the family with mock abandon, the Sluagh that haunts the living, slyly collecting the family album of us all it seems. Denying that side of me, saying no it’s not there plays right into its deceitful lair, because I’m there in the chair, nails picking at the stitching. Hold your water, Sybil. I’ve struggled with sleep and laid awake in a torpor of dull clangourous thoughts, how I could have done things better, why people don’t like me and why I always say things that amount to nothing and contribute nothing, because I’m not all that and no one misses me. Useless useless useless. It all makes sense when the right way of thinking misses the correct turn.

When I started this Photo-Blog, many moons ago, it was with the intent on covering a project that I’ve been working on these last eighteen months or so. Documenting Birmingham’s decrepit and oft abandoned subways and underpasses. To be honest, during these Lockdowns and extended periods of social distancing, I’ve found deep and meaningful communion with the project, embracing the mapping out of locations and documenting them with gusto and sometime foolish abandon. I say foolish, but really it’s just me, it’s what I do, I am not complicated, I am simple and selfish by design. It’s not even very original, as projects go, but I’ve thrown myself at it bedamning the consequences, perhaps daring Covid to come at me, because by Gog I’m finding these places come what may. I needed too, because it meant too much, I’d invested so much time, effort and thought to countenance anything less than completion.

I documented the very last subway last week, in Great Barr of all places, out on the green belted fringes of Brum. A narrow tunnel beneath the wide dual carriages of the A34, beside the 51 bus stop and portakabinesque Memorial Hall, just beyond the quantum entanglement of the Alphonsus motorway junction (I had to look that up, Alphonsus is its name, who knew?). In many ways this subway is the absolute epitome of a Subway, bleak, rigorously functional and entirely devoid of aesthetic flamboyances. It is what it is, an absolutely straight tunnel beneath the road, wide enough for two people to walk side by side. A quick cop and feel down here for canoodling teens would be a clammy, acidic experience, I imagine (shudder…). A latter-day pedestrian crossing immediately above is, perhaps, a sign that this place, has had its card marked and will disappear soon enough beneath the asphalt.

When I’d finished my photos I realised that, that in some ways, my journey had reached its end, there was no where else to go. I felt curiously hollow, like the subway I’d just documented, bleak and unornamented. A bit grubby too, in need of a lick and a promise. ‘Is that it?’ echoed through the deepness of my Khazad-dûm, because automatically I’m set to the negative at the moment. I actually kicked myself, a quick heel to the shin, bringing me up sharp. A course correction if you will. Things are far better than I feel. And counting your blessings really does make you take stock.

The act of taking photos does actually make me feel good, a dopamine fix of mine. It has become manna to my soul. I guess that stems from when I was recuperating after my spinal op a few years ago, to get fit and well afterwards I was encouraged to walk regularly. I wasn’t really that into photography back then. I soon discovered that solitary walking around the city can be a little boring, without a purpose. I’m no jogger going around and around and around, you’ve met me right? Jogging ain’t a good look on me. Sue bought me a camera, and a new path opened before me. Photography has never been about artistic expression for me, instead a form of image therapy. Physical and psychological reparations going hand in hand.

So, to suddenly face the end of actually taking my project photos felt like such a loss! And, bearing in mind how I’ve been feeling during lockdown, well, I wandered away from the Walsall Road Subway almost in mourning. As it was I had already been upset on the way out to Great Barr after passing the Birchfield Subways and the Perry Barr Flyover whilst on the bus. The wholesale devastation that I saw made me feel physically sick to the stomach – thankfully there was no one near me on the bus so my gasps of shock as I clawed at the windows didn’t provoke any comment. What am I, a loony mental or what? With a proclivity for the un- p.c., accidental Tourettes, foot firmly in mouth.

The thing is I knew it was happening but, I guess, not having seen the destruction of the subways at first hand had insulated me from the violent truth of it. Six months ago I spent a couple of happy afternoons marvelling at this unlikely series of underground diagonals and the immense concrete bridge suspended over the incessant river of traffic. In many ways walking the Birchfield Island transported me back to the city of my youth, when the subways were how we navigated Brum. To see it, stripped of it’s wonderfully geometric decor and slaughtered, the passion that welled up within me was deeply unsettling. BASTARDS! BASTARDS! BASTARDS! I found myself muttering.

Maybe I am mental after all….

I realised long ago I have an addictive personality, flatter me watch what happens, it’s dreadful. Take the biscuits away, I’m an empty cap and beard. But that’s the depressive talking, so be mindful of me. Writing is also a form of therapy for me, long pre-dating photography and other diversions. At 52 I’m aware of who I am and my pitfalls, and how to navigate, or at least recognise that I need to course correct and I will seek out hugs from my loved ones.

I mentioned my blessings, so here’s another one, because it’s the untwisted version of what I said earlier. I’ve finally finished the photography of Birmingham remaining subways and their related concrete spaces. I have fucking done it. Completion is a positive word, despite my initial negativity. I can move on to the next stage, which in fact I am in the process of doing. I have a zine coming out early in the new year, courtesy of ADM Publishing, featuring a small selection of photos from across the entire Subway project. I’ve received very positive feedback from the publisher, I’m pinching myself in a good way and my shins are intact. I feel incredibly lucky and hopeful, because negativity won’t be the boss of me!

I may even treat myself to a biscuit 😋

If you’re feeling alone or things are getting too much for you, talk to someone. Tell them how you feel. Don’t suffer in silence, you deserve to be listened too and sharing how you feel really does help. You can also talk in confidence to the wonderful people at the Samaritans, whose freephone number is 116 123.