This Saturday, I’ll be joining Hannah Sackville-Bryant on BBC Upload to talk about the essay “Tell me there’ll be Saturdays”.
Catch it live on BBC Radio Leeds, Sheffield, York, or Humberside, from 6pm-8pm or on the BBC Sounds app.
Looking forward to it!
This has just got real.
Stories. Songs. Seasons. collection available to pre-order now. Out December 2026.
And if you’re in Leeds, tickets for the live event are available to pre-order now.
All info and links here: storiessongsseasons.substack.com/p/stories-so...
A setlist from a gig l did with my band "Far From Havana" 22 years ago this summer. It was an outdoor gig and it rained so heavily the audience watched from their cars and beeped their horns in place of clapping. We were as dreadful as our name suggests but we thought we had made it.
For the first time, I've added audio, a reading of the piece to live alongside the words. This is something I hope to be better at as time goes on!
Your support here would mean a lot, have a read or a listen, subscribe, or tip on Ko-Fi. It all helps.
ko-fi.com/itstomshiels
A short piece about Saturday's in the 90s - local football, Saturday night TV, and that feeling of belonging that technology seems to be eroding.
storiessongsseasons.substack.com/p/tell-me-th...
I’ve got bacon for sandwiches in the pan, lamb shoulder slow cooking in the oven, lemon cheese cake chilling in the fridge next to an Easter egg. Now I just need some good songs on and the day is complete. Happy Easter Sunday.
My Substack has had a bit of a face lift.
Find out more here and follow along for news of what’s coming between now and the end of the year.
storiessongsseasons.substack.com/p/introducin...
A lovely relative sorted us out with this bumper pack recently. It makes the day brighter.
Thank you. My mum was only 55. Far too young. The shock takes longer to dissipate than expected. I’m sorry too for your loss. One day at a time, as they say.
From the archive, I spoke to Christy Moore a few years ago about the song Lisdoonvarna. Have a read…
open.substack.com/pub/itstomsh...
32 years younger husband to be precise. ☺️
It’s a crazy world!
I’ve had the potato thing a few times, but it was sort of good natured and it stopped when I asked for it stop. I know sometimes people want to feel they can relax and joke around, but if someone doesn’t find it funny, then it needs to stop.
This exact thing happened to me regularly when working in hospitality when I first moved to Leeds. That was about eight years ago, and I thought that then it would have been a thing of the past.
If you want there to be more people like Alan Bennett in 21st century Britain, provide funding for local authority arts programmes and restore BBC and Arts Council funding to what it once was!
The bag you’ve yet to pay to put on the plane. Madness!
A screenshot of an airline booking page through Aer Lingus from Leeds to Belfast and back, this weekend, with the grand total of £1094.16 before bags are added.
Shame on Aer Lingus, what kind of price is this for a “saver” flight to Belfast from Leeds and back this weekend?! This is before you even add a bag.
Yorkshire Tea’s sponsorship of Simon Armitage’s ‘Shed’ podcast is genius.
I’m up at the kettle every time he asks his guest “shall we have a cup of tea?”
And of course, having no Punjana or Barry’s, it’s always Yorkshire.
“Do try to be alive to things all day, not bored or superior to others or critical or clever or full of notions and opinions. Remember that life is eternally passing - for others as for yourself and they too have to endure it in the lonely cell of themselves”
- John McGahern, 1961
The front cover of Séamas O’Reilly’s book Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?
A few days after my mum’s funeral in Nov, I had an 8 hr ferry journey ahead of me. I was mooching about Waterstones and came across this wonderful book by @seamas.bsky.social. Serendipity. Can’t quite believe I’d never come across his work before, with us both being from Derry. The book is a tonic.
What does going to the dentist and Gregory Campbell making an arse of himself have in common?
open.substack.com/pub/itstomsh...
I’m an Ambassador for this brilliant charity, Bookbanks, giving away books with food parcels at food banks. There are two part-time jobs going for Regional Leads in London and East Anglia.
Link below.
Please share far and wide :)
The cliffs and the sea at Sliabh Liag, Co. Donegal.
Up Sliabh Liag.
A throwback to being in my happy place back in September 2021. An Grianán Fort, County Donegal.
@jenhoganjourno.bsky.social writes: “Children are starting junior infants lacking many of the very basic skills we would have taken for granted 10 years ago, such as how to have a conversation, how to play with toys, how to pretend, how to focus on a task for more than two minutes.”
Terrifying.
54 years ago today ,the British Parachute regiment invaded Derry's Bogside and murdered 14 men and boys .The murderers are protected by their government and the PPS.
The murderers LIED to two inquires,still no justice.
