If you could start a new business right now, what would it be? If I could start a new business right now, I think I’d open a second-hand vinyl record shop. At my age, and… More
Take me back to Giggleswick
Take me back to Giggleswick
when evening settles on the stone,
when the hills turn dark behind the trees
and every road seems to lead home.
There are lights behind the windows,
shadows moving on the walls,
someone laughing in a kitchen,
someone waiting for a call.
And Settle carries on below me,
quiet beneath the evening sky.
Shops are closing, cars are leaving,
but I don’t really want to say goodbye.
For somewhere beyond the railway,
beyond the hills and fields of green,
there must be another road to follow,
another place I’ve never seen.
Yet I have walked these lanes for years
and still they sometimes seem brand new;
the same old hills, the same old houses,
but somehow I am passing through.
I wonder what the strangers think,
walking home beneath the rain.
What they lost, what they remember,
what they hope to find again.
And perhaps that’s all we’re doing —
passing through this little town,
carrying our private stories
while the evening settles down.
So if you’re lonely, walk beside me.
We don’t have to say a word.
Some things sound much better
when they’re simply left unheard.
And if tomorrow takes us somewhere,
let it take us where it will.
I’ll remember these old valleys
and the road that climbs the hill.
Because England isn’t always grand,
or painted bright beneath the sun.
Sometimes it’s just a quiet evening,
and knowing where you have come from.
And when the last light leaves the hills
and darkness gathers at the door,
I’ll still be here in Giggleswick —
perhaps a little lost,
but looking for a little more.
Steve Halstead.
Karma
Do you believe in karma?
Yes, I do believe in karma.
I’ve had people take advantage of my generosity and kindness over the years. I’ve helped people who probably took me for granted, and at the time I’ve wondered why I bother.
But I’ve never really believed that it makes people happier. You can take advantage of someone, get what you want and walk away with something — but I don’t think that necessarily adds much to your life.
I’ve always had a feeling that things have a way of coming back around. Perhaps it isn’t always karma in some great mysterious sense. Maybe it’s simply that the way we treat people eventually catches up with us.
My motto is still:
What goes around, comes around.
I don’t sit around waiting for karma to catch up with anyone. I’d rather just get on with my own life, try to treat people well and keep being generous where I can.
Although these days, perhaps I’m just a little more careful about who I’m generous to.
And if karma does exist, I’m quite happy to let it get on with its job.
Hope for the best
How do you write what people actually want to read?
If I ever discover the answer to this, I’ll let you know.
At the moment, my writing strategy is remarkably simple: I write about whatever happens to interest me and then hope somebody else finds it interesting too.
There is, of course, a flaw in this plan.
Hardly anybody reads the stuff.
I can spend an hour carefully crafting a poem, agonising over every word, moving commas around as though they are going to change the course of literature — and then publish it to the sound of complete silence.
Meanwhile, somewhere on the internet, someone has written “Five Things I Learned From Owning a Slightly Annoying Cat” and attracted 47,000 readers.
So perhaps the secret isn’t writing what people want to read.
Perhaps it’s writing what you want to write, finding the occasional person who enjoys it, and being grateful they stopped scrolling long enough to read it.
That’s certainly my business model.
No followers. No influencer ambitions. No carefully researched algorithms.
Just me, a keyboard and the faint hope that someone, somewhere, is actually reading this.
If you are, thank you.
You’ve just made my statistics look considerably better.
Why not?
What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?
Probably the day we changed our car on a complete whim.
We were out shopping when I got a text saying that my car finance was in equity and asking if I’d like to trade it in for a newer one.
I’d never really been happy with the car, so rather than doing the sensible thing and thinking about it for a few days, we more or less dropped everything and went straight to the dealership.
And it wasn’t even a case of trading it for the same make. We decided to change manufacturers completely.
One minute we were out shopping, the next we were choosing a different car.
Not exactly the most dramatic spontaneous decision in the world, perhaps, but for someone who normally likes to think things through, it was about as impulsive as I get.
Self help me?
How do you make time for self-care?
I’m not sure I’ve ever deliberately made time for self-help. For most of my life, if I had an hour spare, I’d probably find something that needed doing instead.
Work came first, family came first, jobs around the house came first — and somehow I always seemed to come somewhere near the bottom of the list.
These days I’m getting a little better at it.
For me, self-help isn’t necessarily sitting down with a book telling me how to become a better version of myself. It can be going for a walk, playing the piano, reading something I enjoy, writing, or simply sitting with a cup of tea and doing absolutely nothing productive for a change.
And, rather surprisingly, giving up alcohol has become a big part of it. I’ve discovered that when you remove the drink, you don’t just remove the drink. You get some of your time, energy and headspace back as well.
I think I’m finally learning that looking after yourself isn’t selfish. You can’t spend your whole life maintaining everything and everyone else and then wonder why you’re running on empty.
So my approach to self-help these days is fairly simple:
Do a little more of what makes me feel alive, a little less of what makes me miserable, and occasionally sit down with a cup of tea and pretend I’m not supposed to be doing something else.
Greek meze
What’s the best local dish you’ve ever eaten while traveling?
It’s got to be the Greek meze — a meal that seems to have no beginning and certainly no end. Dish after dish arrives at the table: grilled meats, fresh fish, olives, salads, halloumi, dips and warm bread, each one inviting you to try just a little more. It is never rushed. You sit, talk, laugh and eat while the plates keep appearing. Somehow, a Greek meze becomes much more than a meal; it is an evening, a conversation and a little taste of everything that makes Cyprus so easy to fall in love with.
A place in time
What’s a place you visited that felt like home?
If I had to choose a place in Europe that feels like home, it would have to be Cyprus.
There was something about the laid-back way of life that just suited us. People seemed to have time for each other, life moved at a gentler pace, and we found it surprisingly easy to settle in and become part of the community. We loved it so much that visiting wasn’t enough — we bought a house and ended up staying for seventeen years.
Cyprus became much more than somewhere we went on holiday. It became a chapter of our lives, filled with familiar faces, favourite places and memories that still feel like yesterday.
Another place that has always felt special to us is Arizona. We loved the contrast of the warm winter weather in the south and then setting off on a road trip north, watching the landscape change completely as we headed towards the snow-covered Grand Canyon.
There were so many memorable days out. Horse riding around Tucson, exploring the incredible red rocks of Sedona, driving up Mount Lemmon as the desert gradually gave way to pine forests and cooler air, and wandering through Tombstone, where it felt as though we’d stepped back into another century.
I particularly remember the drives out from Scottsdale along the prairie trails, where the landscape seemed to stretch forever. There was something wonderfully open and peaceful about those journeys — just the road, the enormous sky and that feeling that there was always another place around the next bend.
And then there was the Grand Canyon. Leaving the warmth of the south and driving north into the snow was an experience in itself. Arizona seemed to contain several completely different worlds within one state.
Perhaps that’s what makes somewhere feel like home. It isn’t necessarily where you were born or where you spent most of your life. Sometimes it’s simply a place where you feel comfortable, where you make memories, and where life seems to fit you.
Cyprus gave us seventeen years of that feeling. Arizona gave us a different version of it. And both still have a little piece of us.
Listen to your mother
What’s one thing you wish you had started doing earlier in life?
What’s one thing I wish I had started doing earlier in life?
Probably learning to take life a little easier.
I sometimes think I should have started my business earlier. Not because I wanted to work more, but because I might have learned sooner that success doesn’t necessarily come from working yourself into the ground. I wish I had learned earlier that working hard doesn’t mean pushing yourself to the limit every day. It means finding a sustainable pace and giving yourself enough space to keep going.
I was never particularly good at dealing with stress. I tended to push through it, carry on, and tell myself that was simply what you did. Looking back, I think learning how to handle stress would have been just as valuable as learning how to work hard.
And then there’s the obvious one: I wish I had stopped drinking alcohol about ten years earlier.
It took me a long time to recognise how much it was affecting me. At the time, I probably wouldn’t have described myself as someone with a serious problem. I was only drinking what seemed like a small amount—around three bottles of beer a night—but even that was enough to affect my sleep, energy and mood. It was simply part of my routine, part of relaxing, part of socialising. But gradually I noticed the tiredness, the poor sleep, the irritability and the feeling that the next day was something to get through.
It’s at times like this I wish I’d listened to what my mother says.
Someone might ask, “Why? What did she say?”
I’d reply, “I don’t know. I didn’t listen.”
If I could go back, I wouldn’t tell my younger self to stop enjoying life.
I’d tell him that there are better ways to enjoy it.
Perhaps that’s what getting older gives you: not the chance to change the past, but the ability to understand it a little better.
And maybe that’s why I’m not particularly interested in regrets anymore.
I’m more interested in what I can start doing now.
E.T.
If you could pick any fictional animal to be your lifelong companion (like a Pokémon or fantasy pet), what would it be?
If I Could Pick a Fictional Animal for a Pet
Without hesitation, I’d choose E.T.
I was 21 when I first saw the film, and I absolutely loved him. There was something about this strange little creature that made him feel more human than many of the humans around him.
I loved the film so much that I bought the music — a little wind-up E.T. that played the theme tune. I’m not sure what possessed me to buy it, but I obviously needed a tiny musical reminder of the film sitting around the house.
And then there was the ending.
I remember sitting in the cinema, watching E.T. dying, and finding myself sobbing. What makes me smile now is that I wasn’t the only one. The whole cinema seemed to be sniffling and crying together.
Then, when he came back to life, there was this enormous collective sigh of relief around the cinema.
Twenty-one years old, surrounded by strangers, and completely emotionally destroyed by a fictional alien.
So yes, if I could choose any fictional animal as a pet, it would be E.T.
The Invisible Man
If you had to switch lives with a fictional character for a week, who would you choose?
Go to be the invisible man for hundreds of reasons
I’m not going to bother with a image
