The Banana Flats… The banana arm!

Coming Home, Finding SHIPS

After teaching English in Bangkok, I’ve recently found myself back in the classroom — this time with foreign students learning English in the city I once called near-to-home, Bristol. There’s something grounding about being in that space again: the rhythm of lessons, the challenge of unlocking language for young learners or teens, the small triumphs when a student suddenly clicks. Teaching has always sharpened my ear for dialogue, but it’s also reminded me of the resilience, humour, and contradictions people carry — the very stuff of drama.

In the middle of this, SHIPS started to come alive for me. What began as fragments and half-ideas — memories of growing up mixed-race in the Banana Flats, echoes of working-class Edinburgh, questions about identity and survival — suddenly had flesh and blood. As I was guiding students through words, I realised I was finding my own: Connor and Alex’s voices, broken but defiant, started to speak.

It feels like a strange symmetry — teaching abroad while writing a play so deeply rooted in home. But maybe that’s what SHIPS is really about: the pull between leaving and returning, between drifting and belonging.

Welcome to my first blog! Join me on the journey of bringing my stage play SHIPS to life — from the first words on the page to its premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026

SHIPS...

From St Albans to Scotland (via Haunted Nunnery!)

Right now, I’m in St Albans teaching English to a group of Chilean teenagers. They’re brilliant — funny, curious, full of energy — and, like teenagers everywhere, they love to talk. A lot. Preparing lessons for them keeps me on my toes: so much material to get ready, so little time to breathe.

What really makes this stint memorable, though, is where I’m staying. For the next three weeks, my home is… an old nunnery. Yep. Stone walls, creaking floors, and the kind of atmosphere that makes you wonder what’s lurking in the shadows. Apparently, it’s haunted by the ghosts of long-dead nuns. I haven’t spotted one yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

Of course, while I’m here teaching and dodging ghosts, my mind drifts back to SHIPS, my play heading to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2026. That’s where my real energy is, but the bills don’t pay themselves. And soon, I’ll also need to head back to Bangkok — collect my things, say my goodbyes, and close that chapter (but not forever) before fully stepping into the next one.

Fourteen Beds and Counting

Since getting back from Bangkok in July, I’ve slept in fourteen different places. My neck and back are shot. There’s a kind of tired that’s more than physical -the kind that seeps into your bones when you’ve been living out of a suitcase, wondering each day where you’ll be sleeping next. But the choice was mine. I made it. I’ll just have to lie in it I guess.

My friends have been unbelievably kind — offering couches, spare rooms, floor space, coffee. I’m grateful beyond words. But I’m also exhausted.

Still, I hit a small milestone this week: I finished my first-ever Arts Council application for SHIPS. I’ve never done one before. It was tough -long days, endless drafts, too much coffee -but I did it. A first. Now it’s in, and I just have to wait and see what happens.

I’m heading up to Edinburgh in a few days -to see my mum, my sister, a few old friends, and to check out a bar I’d love to use as a location for SHIPS. Got a meeting lined up to see how it goes.

Tired, yes. But there’s a flicker of momentum. Maybe that’s enough for now.

Breaking Through the Noise

Trying to get a play on at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2026 feels like banging my head against a wall. I’m a working-class, mixed-race writer from Leith, telling a story rooted in where I grew up -the contradictions of class, identity, trauma and the grit and humour of survival. SHIPS is the most personal piece I’ve ever written. But getting it staged? That’s another story.

I left Bangkok, where I’d been teaching, to return to England. At first, I thought it was just for a while -to teach, to get some stability -but I quickly realised I can’t go back. If I’m serious about getting SHIPS on its feet, I can’t do it from thousands of miles away. Edinburgh, the UK is where I need to be.

I’ve sent out dozens of emails -producers, organisations. Polished my pitches. Most of them vanish into the void. A few polite rejections here and there, but mostly silence. And that silence chips away at you — makes you wonder if it’s about the work, or about who gets to hold the keys in this profession. Because let’s be honest: theatre, especially at this level, is still a middle-class white world.

Meanwhile, here I am, teaching English to pay the bills, producing (if you can call it that), the play myself, trying to scrape together funding while keeping myself sane as I wear every hat at once. It’s exhausting. Unsustainable. Some days it feels impossible. But I can’t stop because I know why I’m doing it: voices like mine matter and stories like SHIPS — messy, working-class, mixed-race — don’t just deserve a stage, they’re long overdue. And even if the doors don’t open easily, I’ll keep knocking, pushing: Even if I have to break down the walls myself to get there.

But trying to get it on stage has shown me just how tough it is...

Edinburgh Again

Back in Edinburgh — seeing my mum, catching up with old friends, and trying (really trying) to find the right people for SHIPS. Actors, a producer, anyone mad enough to help bring this thing to life. It’s not easy.

Took a chance the other night and walked into a bar I used to avoid years ago — rough back then, but now… not so bad. Ended up meeting an actor who’s been in The Acid House, Gangs of New York, Valhalla Rising, Outlaw King, even that new Cadbury advert. Said he’s trying to retire, but he’s a Leither like me — so I’m working on him.

It’s these strange little encounters that keep me going. Maybe the right people turn up when you least expect them. Hoping to lock down a bar location for SHIPS this weekend. Slowly, step by step, the play is starting to find its feet here — right where it belongs.

Reflections on Bell English Going into Administration

Last week we received the sad, shocking and unexpected news that Bell English, one of the UK’s most respected providers of English education, announced that it is going into administration.

Even as I write this, it still feels surreal. Bell has been more than just a workplace -it’s been a community built on passion, professionalism, and genuine care for learners from all over the world.

From the very beginning, I understood why Bell held such a strong reputation. Its approach to education -rooted in cultural exchange, academic excellence, and human connection -made it a truly special place to work. The atmosphere among staff was warm and collaborative, and there was a real sense that what we were doing mattered.

The news has hit staff and teachers hard. Many have spent years, even decades, building careers, friendships, and a sense of pride in being part of something meaningful. Real people with families, mortgages, and commitments, now facing sudden uncertainty. It’s a sobering reminder of how fragile even long-established institutions can be in a changing educational landscape.

As colleagues and students process the news, there’s an overwhelming sense of sadness but also solidarity. Teachers are reaching out to support one another, sharing opportunities and words of encouragement. It’s a testament to the resilience and compassion that define the language teaching community -qualities that Bell itself always championed. Its influence will live on in the countless teachers and learners it inspired across the world, and its impact is lasting. The dedication, professionalism, and kindness of its teachers will carry forward into whatever comes next -in classrooms around the world, in new schools, and in the memories of the students we’ve taught.

For those of us who’ve had the privilege of working under its name, it’s the closing of a chapter in our professional and personal lives. For me, it has been a genuine honour. I’ll remember it not just for its legacy, but for the people -colleagues, friends, students, who made it such a special place to be. And I’ll miss sleeping at the HAUNTED nunnery!

Back in Edinburgh
Reflections on creative resilience, impostor syndrome, and a little bit of Edinburgh magic.

I’m back in Edinburgh. Couldn’t do the next stage of SHIPS from Bangkok or Bath — it needed to happen here, on these damp streets that shaped me.

But being back has been tricky. When emails don’t come back when I need them to, it hits hard. It feeds that old voice in my head that whispers: “You’re not good enough. You can’t write. They’ve finally seen through you.”

Then there was Bell -she collapsed, leaving behind a whole load of unresolved chaos that needed sorting. I was running on fumes, trying to stay afloat.

And then, out of nowhere — Monday changed everything.

I had a brilliant meeting with a producer -real progress at last. On my way to celebrate with a glass of wine, I bumped into Irvine Welsh — well, not exactly bumped, more crossed paths on a wet, windy Edinburgh crossing. He DJ-ed at the Arches Bar -the very place I want to use as the main location for SHIPS.

Later, while sitting in the Playhouse Theatre bar celebrating, the phone rang. It was Donna, Director of Operations at the Arches, the message I had been waiting for. The location’s booked -and an invite to the opening of her new wine café followed. Perfect timing.

I was on a high. Then, as always, came the comedown -that post-adrenaline crash where all you want is a bed and silence.

Anthony Hopkins once said: “Humans are complex. Out of turmoil comes creative power.” He’s right. Chaos can break you or push you forward.

I’ve had my break -lost, scared, told I wasn’t good enough. Maybe bullied, maybe just beaten down. But I’m not there anymore. I can see the horizon again. Feel the sun on my face. I’m heading toward something recognisable, something real.

I’ll keep doing the best I can. We’re all going to be dead someday -might as well make it interesting while we’re here.

Now, as I write this, Irvine’s on the telly being interviewed at the Leith Dockers Club -the same place we held my dad’s funeral reception, one of the reasons I have LEITH tattooed on my arm.

Full circle, maybe.

We are nothing -yet we are everything.

Tags: #WritingJourney #Edinburgh #FringeTheatre #CreativeProcess #ImpostorSyndrome #ShipsPlay

A Funny Thing Happened as I Was Leafleting in Leith

I was flyering in Leith, the place where I grew up, was formed. It’s in my blood, it’s on my tattooed arm, and for the first time, it dawned on me that returning with my play SHIPS was less like coming home and more like stepping onto a battlefield I didn’t know existed.

I was excited. SHIPS will premiere at Leith Arches, cast and crew from Leith or Edinburgh, performed on location in the place that raised me. It’s my love letter to Leith: rough-edged, contradictory, funny, painful, real. So, there I was, leaflets in hand, ready to give locals a chance to be part of something that actually represents them.

Enter: The Bakery.

A trendy spot, run by one of our American cousins, with the confidence of someone who has lived here for seven years yet speaks like he founded the docks.

Before I could even finish my sentence, he refused to display my flyer and launched into a full monologue about how the Edinburgh Festival “is fucking over my Leith” with its poshness, its mess, its exclusivity and its gentrification of “the place I belong.” My flyers, my play, was contributing to this gentrification… while standing in the middle of the very gentrification he claimed to despise: expensive bread, industrial-chic interior, and a panoramic view of the Banana Flats from his refurbished, pricey, ex distillery, bedroom window. An entitled standpoint from someone who makes money selling bread to festival punters? Therefore, no flyer. Not on his window. Not on his wall. Not in his ethical sourdough kingdom.

He didn’t want to hear that a mixed-race, working-class Leither was literally in front of him saying, “I’m trying to do something for Leith.” trying to create something positive in the community. It became a battle about his beliefs instead of a conversation about opportunity. “You’ve already lost the battle with me. You will clearly never understand” he told me. What an ex-Leither had to contribute didn’t matter. His revolution didn’t have space for nuance.

I stepped outside genuinely rattled. Was I the problem? Was he the problem? Was Leith the problem? The answer, thankfully, was no. I took a breath and tried again -this time one block down in a bookshop-café run by hipsters who nearly hugged my flyers, then a pub full of beanies who were equally welcoming. My anxiety finally dissolved somewhere between a pint and a polite “Good luck, pal.”

Then I walked into the Central Bar, where the short film of SHIPS was shot, and met two shaven-headed brothers covered in tattoos. Hearts supporters (I’m a Hibby). One, built like a bull, looked like he could, and might, snap me in half; turned out he loves musicals and sang West Side Story at me. He used to be a racist thug. Covered in old white supremist tattoos. Now he’s a hugger. His younger brother? Once in the same scene, had “seen the light,” left that life, and become a tattoo artist. Reformed, knows actors, took my flyer, gave me his card. Suddenly, I had a meeting, a potential cast connection, and possibly a new tattoo. We ended the night hugging.

So, I’ve been thinking about what the baker said. About the festival. About gentrification. About who gets to claim Leith. Like everything here, the truth is mixed… Leith isn’t divided about the festival. Leith is the festival!

Some Leithers love and embrace the festival, think that the Fringe is cultural gold with its energy, its creativity, its escape from the Old Town madness. Others think it’s elitist posh nonsense, hate the disruption, crowds, rising prices, resent the “poshness” creeping in. Leith is changing, yes. But it has always been changing. And the people who complain loudest about gentrification are often part of it.

Both are right. Both are wrong. Contradictory. Loud. Loving. Suspicious. Heartbreaking. Hilarious. And both will still be in the same pub later, arguing about Hearts and ordering chips. Yet through all of this, there is still the same Leith heart: warm, blunt, contradictory, welcoming, unpredictable, hilarious. A place where hipsters, bakers, punters, creatives, reformed hooligans, and returning Leithers all collide.

Leith will never speak with one voice. That’s why it’s perfect. That’s why I came home. And that’s why SHIPS belongs here.

Even the bad encounters have value. Sometimes they give you a story. Sometimes, they give you a hug from a man with Nazi tattoos who loves musicals.

Only in Leith.