New Transmission

Saturday’s breath hung heavy in Skem,
where the Conny stood like a concrete castle—
grey as a raincloud’s promise,
its slabs slick with chip grease and yesterday’s drizzle.
A town built for tomorrows,
but tomorrow packed up and left.
Mam’s chin-deep in chat at the Chemist,
her voice dancing with the Pharmacist’s sighs.
Me? Six years old,
hands buried in a sheepskin coat too big for dreams.
And there they were—
felt tips, blazing like bonfire night
in a world rationed of colour.
I stared.
Why not me?
Pocket money’s been binned
‘cause I cried when Lassie didn’t come home.
Soft lads don’t last long in Skem—
they tell you that before your milk teeth fall.
So I did it.
Quick as a whisper,
slipped ‘em down the coat,
heart thudding like the bassline
from the 375 to Liverpool.
Back home, Mam’s eyes—X-ray sharp—
caught the colours before I could hide the guilt.
“Where’d you get these?”
And I folded,
‘cause lies sting worse than the belt,
and truth’s the only coin that spends in our house.
She marched me through town,
past shuttered shops and walls that wept graffiti,
to the station—brick and bleak,
Thatcher’s smile carved in every cold corner.
She said, “Lock him up.”
And they did.
Bars taller than dreams,
paint flaking like old hope,
the stink of piss and polish thick in the air.
Hours passed—
me, six years old,
a felon for wanting colour.
That was my first taste of the law—
not for scrapping, not for nicking a car stereo,
but for wanting to draw the world
brighter than Skem ever dared to be.
They said:
“You’ve got to pick a pocket or two.”
I did.
And it cost me—
but Christ, those colours sang louder
than the silence ever could.

What if the things that once saved you—cartoons, pop songs, rebellion—couldn’t anymore? What if you had to find a new language to survive?

The Cartoon Didn’t Save Me is a deeply personal poetry collection tracing a journey through trauma, identity, and healing. Born from therapy notes and rediscovered in solitude, these poems span four transformative decades.

Beginning in the 1980s, the collection explores a childhood shaped by abuse and isolation, where cartoons and pop culture offered fleeting refuge and the first sparks of creative voice. The 1990s bring rebellion and excess—years of noise, addiction, and a growing distance from self, where poetry, once a lifeline, is lost in the chaos of survival.

Only in recent years, through sobriety and spiritual practice, does poetry return—not as pastime, but as a vital means of expression and transformation. 

In the quiet of recovery and pandemic solitude, a new language emerges...

Blending raw honesty with surreal imagery, humour with darkness, The Cartoon Didn’t Save Me is a lyrical memoir of survival. 

It speaks to anyone navigating mental health, recovery, and the rediscovery of voice. 

Through nostalgia, ritual, and art, these poems illuminate a life rebuilt from fragments.

For anyone who ever tried to outrun their past—and found themselves instead.

Echo Arcade