This series of 5 short poems explores the theme of solitude and was inspired by periods of isolation at home while my family visited with relatives abroad. The narrator arrives back at the family home alone, a house that was once filled with love and the sounds of a young child is now empty and silent. Over the course of the next few days and weeks his imagination, sense of loss, and inability to deal with simple domesticities collide in a surreal dreamlike silliness that threatens to unhinge his humanity.

To accompany these poems I asked the artist and documentary filmmaker Momentori Madrassi to make a series of arty films which were narrated by Klaus Vankerman (think Werner Herzog). A sparse improvised piano soundtrack was additionally provided by Bernardo Boniffe.

Unfortunately Momentori never completed the fifth film, as he walked out of the project after a blazing argument with me when I suggested the final film should include a sequence where I as buried alive in a coffin full of baked beans!”

Sorry Luv is a radio play created by Nic Treadwell. It is set somewhere in a suburb of the Black Country.

Baz is having a few problems with his "Waterworks", so Jules sends him to the doctors where he gets more than he bargained for.

Sorry Luv "The Qacks" - develeoped, recorded and edited by Nic Treadwell. Copyright 2024 NT Productions

Additional Sound effedts sourced from Freesound.org

Music sourced from Free Music Arhive under creative commons license.

https://freemusicarchive.org

Prelude No 21 by Chris Zabriskie

In Eternity - by Andrwkn

https://freesound.org/people/Andrewkn/

This is an audio version of an article written for my Letter From Storyville substack, in which I review a new book of poetry by the author Whitley Strieber.

A Hidden Garden, the poems of Whitley Strieber, is published by Walker & Collier and is available from most online bookshops.

Further information on Whitley Strieber can be found at Unknowncountry.com.

A fictional poetical testimony based on true life experiences of travelling on overcrowded trains on a daily basis.

Share with your local train provider if they are taking the piss!

In this podcast, I reflect on my encounter with the childhood hip disorder, Perthes, and recount some of the barbaric treatments myslef and my fellow sufferers had to put up with back in the 1970s.

Ultimately, I learn that writing a funny silly peom about the whole sorry episode, in a northern accident, may not bring closure, but does help to place the illness in the context of a wider life of shite.

A personal reflection and tribute to Brendan Higgins who died in January 2024. Big Bren was a writer who was well known around Birmingham for his unforgetable poetical outbursts at events over many many years. He also fronted the avant garde free jazz banf Big Bren's Combo, was a novelist, playwright, actor, facilitator and event organiser.

In this podcast I reflect my friendship with Bren , his creative output and his legacy.

Including poetry, music and more from the man himself.

Further infomration about Brendan can be found @ Big Bren's Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/308653259223097/

In Oct 1973 the Midwest United States experienced a UFO flap that ignited the imagination of the country. Sightings of strange light, craft and beings flooded the TV and Radio.

One such strange incident happended one rainy night in Zanesville, Ohio. Seventy five year old Eric Gillan (suffering with the late the stages of Alzheimer's disease) woke up in the middle of the night and saw a strange light out of the window of his care home .

What happend next would have a profound effect on him and his son Will.

Written and narrated by Nic Treadwell (C) 2023.

Angelsong - written by Marc Cohn & released Atlantic Records 1991

Help and support for families affected by Alzheimer's

https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/

https://www.alz.org/