And before you start saying, “But Bob, we have GPS…”
Yes.
I have satnav on my phone too.
And it’s bloody brilliant.
Until your phone battery dies.
Or your GPS stops working.
Then suddenly you’re standing in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no idea where you are, or how the hell you’re getting from there to where you need to be.
Map reading is one of those skills the Army taught me that has stayed useful long after I left.
And actually, I’d put basic first aid right alongside it.
Neither skill is particularly glamorous.
Neither is something you think about every day.
But when you need them…
You really, really need them.
So perhaps these are two skills we should all learn.
Because technology is wonderful.
But sometimes knowing how to read a map and patch someone up is worth a hell of a lot more than having 5% battery left.
I think this last week has probably been the pinnacle of my 2026 journey.
But before we get into that, let’s rewind a little.
At the start of the year I spotted an advert on Instagram looking for volunteer photographers for Torbay Pride.
Now, being me, I thought…
Why not?
So I threw my hat into the ring.
Somehow, they said yes.
And suddenly I found myself being one of the volunteer photographers for Torbay Pride.
My first proper photography gig.
And I bloody loved it.
Something had happened.
That little spark had caught light.
So when my hometown of Narnia announced its own Pride in July, I did what any sensible person would do.
I sent them a cheeky email asking if they needed a photographer.
Apparently, nobody had thought of that.
So, by a mixture of enthusiasm, timing and possibly nobody else putting their hand up, I became the official Pride photographer.
Which brings us to last week.
Totnes Pride.
Another fantastic day. Another camera full of photographs. Another reminder of just how much I love doing this.
And then came the inevitable bit.
The bit where I sat down afterwards and started looking through hundreds of photographs.
Yes, they were in focus.
Yes, they were clear.
But…
Did they have that something?
Probably not.
And when you combine that with a healthy dollop of imposter syndrome and failing to score in a poetry competition, it’s fair to say I was being a little hard on myself.
Then Friday happened.
One of the Pride volunteers contacted me.
She sent me a lovely photograph of me in action with my camera.
Then came the unexpected bit.
She was looking for a volunteer photographer to photograph 80s music legend Howard Jones while he had his portrait painted, followed by an auction raising money for a local youth music charity.
Would I be interested?
Well…
Yes.
Obviously.
I didn’t even need to think about it.
More experience.
More hours behind the camera.
A chance to build my portfolio.
And, quite frankly, an excuse to take photographs.
What’s not to like?
Then, as if the universe was trying to make its point, some of my astrophotography started producing some rather lovely results too.
And suddenly that slump didn’t seem quite so deep.
Perhaps I’d just forgotten something fairly obvious.
I’m still learning.
I’m still finding my eye.
Not every photograph is going to be the photograph.
And that’s okay.
You take the next one.
You learn.
You keep going.
Sometimes you just need to stop judging the last frame long enough to notice that you’re already holding the camera for the next one.
And maybe there’s something to be said for simply being there for that moment, rather than worrying too much about what comes afterwards.
Anyway…
The camera’s charged.
There are more photographs to take.
And apparently, I’ve got a portrait of Howard Jones to go and shoot.
It’s one of those questions that sounds wonderfully simple.
You rub the lamp. The genie appears.
Three seconds later, you’re suddenly faced with the biggest decision of your life.
And I’m guessing most people would go for something fairly obvious.
£100 million in the bank. A mansion. Fame.
Maybe becoming a bestselling author, a world-famous photographer, or whatever else happens to float your particular boat.
And don’t get me wrong, I’d quite happily take the £100 million, but there’s a problem. If I became a successful poet or photographer because some magical blue bloke handed it to me, I’m not sure I’d want it. I want to know that I earned it.
Every poem. Every photograph. Every little bit of progress.
The mistakes. The failures. The hours nobody sees.
That’s where the meaning comes from.
So if the genie stood in front of me today and said: “Bob, you get one wish. Anything you want.” My answer would probably surprise you.
I wouldn’t ask for money. I wouldn’t ask for fame. I wouldn’t even ask for anything for myself. I’d wish for one thing.
I would wish to eliminate child sexual abuse.
Completely. Everywhere. No exceptions. No child ever having to experience it. No teenager carrying a secret they’re terrified to tell anyone.
No adult waking up decades later and realising that something that happened in childhood has somehow followed them through and affected their entire life.
Because I know what it’s like.
I’m a survivor of child sexual abuse.
It happened more than forty years ago.
Forty.
Years.
And yet here I am, all these decades later, still thinking about it. Finally talking about it. Still understanding that something that lasted for a relatively small part of my childhood managed to leave fingerprints all over the man I became.
That’s the thing about abuse.
People sometimes imagine that when the abuse stops, the damage stops too.
It doesn’t necessarily work like that.
The perpetrator might walk away.
The child grows up. Life moves on. People get married. Have children. Build careers. Take photographs. Write books. Stand on beaches. Have therapy.
Laugh. Love… Live.
But sometimes, the past comes along for the ride. It sits quietly in the passenger seat. You might not notice it for years. Then something happens: A smell. A place. A memory.
A conversation.
A particular feeling.
And suddenly that little passenger taps you on the shoulder and reminds you that it’s still there.
That’s why my wish wouldn’t be about making me rich. It wouldn’t even be about erasing my own past. Because if I could magically remove what happened to me, I’d also remove part of the journey that made me who I am today.
And despite everything… I don’t want to erase myself, now.
I want to erase the reason children need to become survivors in the first place.
That’s the difference.
I don’t want a world where we become really good at helping people pick up the pieces.
I want a world where fewer people have pieces to pick up.
I want children to grow up knowing what safety feels like.
I want survivors to know that they will be believed when they find the strength to tell someone what happened, or is happening.
I want them to understand that their bodies belong to them.
That saying no means no.
That adults are supposed to protect children, not exploit them.
And perhaps most importantly…
I want survivors to know that what happened to them wasn’t their fault.
Not then. Not now. Never.
Because shame has a nasty habit of attaching itself to the wrong person: The child carries it. The teenager carries it. The adult carries it. Sometimes, to their grave.
Meanwhile, the person responsible may carry absolutely none of it.
That’s backwards. The shame belongs with the person who caused the harm, not the person who survived it.
So yes, if that genie ever does turn up, lamp in hand, waiting patiently for my answer… I know exactly what I’ll ask for… I’d simply look him in the eye and say:
“Make sure no child ever has to become a survivor of sexual abuse again.”
And if that sounds like an impossible wish… perhaps it is.
But I’ve spent enough of my life being told that some things are impossible. Sometimes impossible just means we haven’t tried hard enough yet.
So until that genie turns up, perhaps the rest of us have a part to play.
Listen. Believe. Protect. Educate.
Speak when silence would make things easier for the wrong person.
And when a survivor finally finds the courage to say those words:
“This happened to me.”
Don’t ask them why they didn’t tell someone sooner. Don’t brush it off with a throwaway comment. Don’t ask what they were wearing. Don’t ask what they did to cause it. Don’t ask why they didn’t fight or scream.
Just listen.
Believe them.
And do remind them of something they may have spent years struggling to believe themselves:
It wasn’t their fault.
Forty years later, I’m still here. Still writing. Still taking photographs. Still telling stories. Still trying to turn some of the darker parts of my life into something that might help somebody else. Perhaps that’s the closest thing I have to magic.Not changing the past, but using what happened to me to try to make somebody else’s future a little safer.
And if I only ever get one wish… That’s the one I’ll choose.
Which relationship has taught you the most about yourself?
Mrs Bob.
There really isn’t anyone else who comes close.
I suppose the obvious answer would be that she’s taught me about love.
And she has.
She’s taught me about patience.
Definitely that.
Although, to be fair, she’s probably had to teach me more about patience than most people would consider reasonable.
But the biggest thing Mrs Bob has taught me is actually about myself.
She’s allowed me to grow.
And, let’s be honest, she’s allowed me to mature into the person I am today.
I wasn’t a finished product when we met.
Far from it.
I was still figuring out who I was, what I wanted, and probably making far more mistakes than I’d care to admit.
Some of those mistakes were mine.
Some were lessons I simply hadn’t learned yet.
And some were things I didn’t even realise I needed to learn.
Mrs Bob never tried to turn me into somebody else.
She just gave me the space to become more myself.
And I think there’s a huge difference between those two things.
She’s the calm to my fire.
Where I can be passionate, impulsive, stubborn and occasionally a complete pain in the arse, she has this remarkable ability to bring me back down to earth.
Not by changing me.
Not by trying to silence me.
Just by being there.
Sometimes that’s all you need.
Someone who knows when to let you burn brightly…
And when to quietly remind you that perhaps setting fire to everything isn’t the best solution.
Over the years, she’s seen the versions of me that I’m proud of.
And the versions I’m not.
She’s seen the good days.
The bad days.
The days where I’ve been convinced I had everything figured out.
And the days where I quite clearly didn’t have a bloody clue.
And somehow, through all of that, she’s still here.
Still beside me.
Still encouraging me to grow.
Still putting up with me.
Which, frankly, deserves some sort of medal.
I often think we underestimate what it means to really know another person.
Not just knowing their favourite food or what makes them laugh.
But knowing their fears.
Their insecurities.
Their strengths.
Their weaknesses.
Knowing what they’re capable of, even when they don’t know themselves.
Mrs Bob has done that for me.
She’s helped me see parts of myself that I couldn’t see.
She’s encouraged me when I doubted myself.
She’s challenged me when I needed challenging.
And she’s given me the freedom to become the person I was supposed to be.
So, which relationship has taught me the most about myself?
That’s easy.
Mrs Bob.
Because I’m not the same man I was when we first met.
I’m calmer.
I’m more comfortable in my own skin.
I’ve learned that vulnerability isn’t weakness.
I’ve learned that asking for help doesn’t make you less of a man.
And I’ve learned that sometimes the person who helps you become yourself isn’t the person who tells you who to be.
It’s the person who stands beside you while you work it out.
I’m the person I am today because of a lot of people, a lot of experiences, a lot of mistakes and a ridiculous number of lessons.
But Mrs Bob?
She’s been there for the whole bloody journey.
And I wouldn’t want to have travelled it with anyone else.
If you could start a new business right now, what would it be?
If I’m being completely honest, the obvious answer would probably be photography.
I love photography.
It’s gone from being something I did with my phone, wandering around taking pictures of anything that caught my eye, to something I genuinely want to get better at.
Nature.
Birds.
Beaches.
People.
Events.
The occasional photograph that makes me stop and think, bloody hell, I actually took that.
I’ve even started doing photography work at events, and there’s something rather lovely about being able to turn something you enjoy into something people are willing to pay you for.
So yes.
If I was being sensible…
A photography business.
Easy.
Except…
I think I’d love to own a comic book shop.
Yep.
A comic book shop.
Because apparently being a bloke in his fifties who already has far too many hobbies, books and bits of geekery apparently isn’t enough.
I need premises.
And stock.
And shelves.
Lots and lots of shelves.
I’ve loved comics and graphic novels for years.
I’ve rambled before about how Watchmen was my first graphic novel and how that started a lifelong love affair with comic books.
And the more I think about it, the more I realise that owning a comic shop wouldn’t really be about selling comics.
Not entirely.
It would be about creating somewhere people actually want to go.
A proper little geeky Aladdin’s cave.
Comics.
Graphic novels.
Maybe some collectables.
Games.
A few bits of nostalgia.
Somewhere you could walk in looking for the latest issue of something and end up having a forty-minute conversation about Batman.
Or Transformers.
Or why the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were considerably better than they had any right to be.
Somewhere you could discover comics for the first time.
Somewhere adults could rediscover the things they loved when they were younger.
And somewhere people could simply geek out without having to explain themselves.
I think I’d like that.
There’s something quite appealing about having a little shop that feels like your place.
Not some huge corporate business.
Just a little independent shop, run by a bloke who probably knows far too much about fictional characters and not nearly enough about accounting.
So maybe photography is the sensible answer.
It’s something I’m passionate about.
Something I’m already doing.
Something I’m increasingly taking seriously.
But the comic shop?
That’s the one that makes me smile when I think about it.
And perhaps that tells me something.
Because sometimes the business you could build isn’t necessarily the business you’d love to build.
And if I ever do open one…
You’ll probably find me behind the counter with a camera around my neck, a comic in my hand, and absolutely no idea what I’m doing.
Which, if we’re being honest, is pretty much how I approach most things.
That makes them sound as though I’ve discovered some secret formula for life.
I haven’t.
If I had, I’d probably be considerably more organised.
And significantly less likely to walk into a room and immediately forget why the hell I went there.
But over the years, I’ve picked up a few little things that seem to make life slightly easier.
Nothing revolutionary.
No twelve-step morning routine involving seventeen different types of herbal tea.
Just a few things that seem to work for me.
Don’t Carry Everything (The Art of Letting Go)
This is probably the biggest one.
For a long time, I spent an incredible amount of energy carrying things that had already happened, you know.
Arguments.
Regrets.
Things people had said.
Things I wished I’d said.
Things I couldn’t change, no matter how many times I replayed them in my head.
Meditation has helped me with that.
Not by magically emptying my mind.
Anyone who knows me will understand how unlikely that sounds.
Instead, it’s taught me to notice my thoughts without automatically climbing aboard every single one of them.
Sometimes you just have to acknowledge something.
Learn whatever lesson there is to learn.
And then put the bloody thing down.
You don’t have to carry everything just because you once picked it up.
Some things belong in the past.
Leave them there.
Go outside
Another incredibly complicated life hack.
Leave the house.
Go for a walk.
Look at the sky.
Watch the birds.
Stand by the sea.
Get rained on.
Apparently, I’m particularly good at that last one.
There’s something about getting away from four walls and screens that resets the brain.
Sometimes the solution to a problem isn’t another hour staring at it.
Sometimes it’s a walk and a coffee.
Sometimes it’s feeding the crows.
Sometimes it’s standing in the sea with wet shorts and wondering why you thought that was a good idea in the first place.
And sometimes…
that’s enough.
We spend so much time trying to do things that we forget there’s value in simply being somewhere.
Outside.
Breathing.
Looking.
Listening.
Being present.
Write shit down
My brain has always been a noisy place.
So I write.
Sometimes it’s poetry.
Sometimes it’s complete nonsense.
Sometimes it’s a sentence that eventually becomes something.
And sometimes it’s simply a case of getting the thoughts out of my head and onto a piece of paper before they start having a bloody committee meeting in there.
There’s something strangely powerful about seeing a thought written down.
It becomes something outside of you.
You can look at it.
Question it.
Rearrange it.
Understand it.
Or decide that actually, it was rubbish…
…and throw it away.
Writing started for me as a way of processing thoughts and emotions.
Twenty years later, I’m still doing it.
Apparently, I’ve committed to the bit.
And I’m quite glad I did.
Protect you time
We live in a world that seems determined to fill every available second.
Notifications.
Messages.
News.
Social media.
Emails.
Opinions.
More opinions about the opinions.
Sometimes you need to switch the bloody lot off.
Read a book.
Play a game.
Sit in the shed.
Take photographs.
Write.
Watch the birds.
Drink a coffee.
Do absolutely nothing.
And yes, I know that doing nothing sounds like the sort of thing we’re all supposed to feel guilty about.
But doing nothing isn’t necessarily wasting time.
Sometimes doing nothing is exactly what your brain needs.
We don’t have to be productive every minute of every day.
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is stop.
Fucking ask for help
This one took me far too long to learn.
I’ve still got the scars
I used to think asking for help meant
Not being able to “Man Up”
admitting weakness.
It doesn’t.
Sometimes it means recognising that you’re human.
We aren’t designed to carry everything alone.
If something is too heavy, put it down.
If you don’t know what to do, ask someone who does.
If you’re struggling, tell someone.
That isn’t failure.
It’s being sensible.
There’s a strange idea that we’re somehow supposed to have all the answers.
We’re not.
None of us do.
Sometimes strength isn’t about carrying something until your back breaks.
Sometimes strength is saying:
“I can’t carry this on my own.”
And letting somebody give you a hand.
Finally…
Don’t wait for everything to be perfect before you enjoy your life.
