“Especially at Christmas I remember my best school friend Tammy, who left this earth in 2022, too soon at just 56.

I met Tammy at age 11, so we enjoyed 45 years of friendship, totally understanding each other and knowing how each other would think.

Tam’s parents took her out of boarding school at 11 and let her loose in the local comprehensive school I attended. We soon hooked up due to a mutual love of music, fashion, art, design and photography. Tam was my partner in crime through all the stuff we got up to at school. We even went off to college together at the age of 17, attending the same arts course at Leeds Poly, lodging in digs together for the most wonderful, happy two years ever.

The next 30 years saw many ups and downs as life ticked along for us both in different parts of the country, but our friendship stood the test of time. Tam was a true one-off: creative, fun and thoughtful. She could be a bit of a rascal but was generous to the last, even during tough financial times.

She enjoyed nothing better than showering those dear to her with beautiful, thoughtful gifts during the festive season. It was always plain to see that she got as much pleasure in sourcing the gifts and wrapping them in such a sophisticated manner that you were reluctant to spoil the package by opening it. It all gave her such joy.

The latter years of Tam’s life were dogged with health issues and some mental demons, both of which prevented her from leaving the house. This didn’t stop her surfing the net to keep finding the best gifts and wrapping paper you could imagine.

Every year she would buy me a few new trimmings for my tree, often handmade from other craft folk. She was always keen to support other makers and small businesses, as she was a fiercely independent woman. I treasure these exquisite little things, and now Tam is no longer in this world they mean even more to me as I carefully unwrap them from the tissue paper every year and bring Tam’s spirit into the house.

I’m not a religious person, so Christmas is generally little more than eating different food. I do however feel a spirituality around the Winter Solstice; the thinning of the veil, seeing into other worlds and remembering those I’ve lost. They’re out there in otherworldly places, and yet still all around me. Every year I celebrate and embrace the return of the light and all the hope and optimism that the New Year may bring.

I suppose the most treasured festive decorations are the two space mice, the last ones Tam bought me before she died. It’s quite spooky: she was very into sci-fi, and I do like to think of her flying high up in the universe as a space mouse.

I only discovered Penfriend in the last two or three years, so Laura’s music was not something I’d managed to share with Tam. She would’ve loved it I’m sure. She would have thought the artwork was awesome, and the spirit of knuckling down and creating the whole package yourself was something my pal would have been so impressed with.”

Sally Roydhouse

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“In the early days of your incarnation as Penfriend, when COVID was still “a thing”, I used my time to have the dullest midlife crisis ever.

I painted small Subbuteo teams. I baked cakes. And, apparently, I ordered a “build your own ukelele” kit online. A drunken late night purchase from somewhere in China.

It arrived with no instructions at all.

Eventually, with nothing else to do, I decided that it would be a nice lockdown project for me and my then three-year old daughter. We used our daily allocated outside time to sit in the downstairs car park and we sanded, and glued, and painted the rickety bits of wood.

It was decided early on (by my daughter) that the ukulele would be pink. So we made it bright pink. And over the course of a few weeks it came together, and we had our own, imperfectly formed uke. We spent 400% more than the original purchase price to complete it, adding new strings, new tuning heads and more paint than was required.

The ukulele barely stays in tune. Even now, neither of us can play it with anything approaching competence. But it’s a nice reminder of a grim time for everyone. We made it together.

Every so often, Niamh will go and get it from her room and bash away at it. Part-covered in stickers from bands of various vintages – including Penfriend, obviously – it won’t ever provide perfect sound.

But it is ours, which more than makes up for the imperfections.”

Paul and Niamh McGreal

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“Simply put, it’s something I made in school. But to me it comes bundled with a whole host of emotions and reflections on my personality, for better or worse.

The main thing that tickles me about this odd wooden column is it wasn’t supposed to be that. At all.

In woodwork class we were tasked with making an object with the lathe. The “super fast” and “super dangerous-looking” huge mechanical lathe, I might add. I’ll never forget nervously holding on to a chisel and slowly guiding it towards a rapidly spinning piece of wood, visions of losing limbs imprinted on my eyelids.

What was I trying to make? Well, in a move very indicative of my life at school, by shrinking back from my peers and living within my own head I had vastly overestimated what was possible.

I had a habit of rather ignoring the task set in class, instead doing something that interested me more, usually overreaching and failing in the process. I had morphed “use the lathe to carve a candle holder” within my brain to “I’m going to make a sphere”.

A…sphere.

I was reading the Red Dwarf book “Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers” at the time, and felt the burning desire to make a planet with a sign poking out saying “Slow Down”. If you look closely you can still see the remnants of a broken stick poking out of the top.

Turns out making a perfectly smooth sphere using a lathe and chisel was somewhat beyond the ability of a 14- year-old not very inclined to follow instructions. Looking back I’m quite astonished we were allowed unsupervised use of this machine…

On first attempt the chisel was wrenched from my hand by the lathe and went clattering about the room. On my second and third attempts I simply held on for dear life, and the end result is the weirdly flanged thing you can see.

The fact I still possess this object at all is pretty remarkable. My Dad was in the RAF which meant frequent moves from house to house. I attended five schools in total and never found any way of coping with a whole new bunch of people each time.

All in all I had a miserable time at school, and don’t hold on to much from those grey years. Yet something about this wooden wotsit keeps me clinging on to it.

When I look at it now I think about how something meaningful can be crafted if you at least try. I think that everything has to start from something. My ignorance of what was possible led to the creation of something tangible. When I look to my utmost proudest achievements now I can trace them back to pushing myself to try.

My desire to express myself through writing meant that, long after I left university, I reached out to a student-based website that published unpaid work to help you build a portfolio. It was time-consuming, but emboldened me enough to be cheeky and approach Ginger Wildheart’s manager for an interview. And I got it!

This experience later got me paid work writing for online blogs, which ultimately led to publication in a print magazine: something that makes me dizzy with pride whenever I think about it.

My odd wooden column reminds me that unhappy schooling helped shape the person I am now, the person who has achieved the things I take pride in. It reminds me that first tries are invariably scrappy, but are better than not trying at all. It reminds me that overreaching can bring more enduring results than playing safe.

This item has never sat in a box. Even with frequent house moves it has never gotten packed away and forgotten. I always keep it within view as a reminder of all these things: if you hold on tightly and press ahead, the shape that needs to be carved will bloom forth within your hands.”

Michael Record

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“My cat, Steven, is a large (but not fat) 10 year old Palomino tabby.

In August 2021 my 17 year old cat, Paddy, died suddenly. He was the last of six cats my late wife Suzy and I had lived with, who came to us as rescues over the years between 1997 and 2008 – the year of Suzy’s passing.

I was devastated. For months I did not know if I wanted to live with another cat.

In November 2021 my friend Bettina Solas noticed a local Facebook post about a cat who needed a new home. His human, Julie, was in hospital and headed to extended rehab, possibly never returning home. Sadly that turned out to be the case.

Friends of Julie’s had been caring for Steven at her flat but he was lonesome; he’d been living there by himself for nearly two months, and they realised they had to plan for his possible rehoming.

Bettina, a good friend of me and my cats for several years, contacted me. She knew I wasn’t ready, but she also knew it was probably time. I tentatively agreed, and arranged to meet Steven. We got along nicely after a couple of visits; he was in decent health but needed a bit of love and care.

Julie’s future was still uncertain, so I proposed that I foster him until everyone knew whether she was coming home. Her friend, Pam, gratefully agreed, and I brought him home on 12th November. He had a nervous first five days, then something actually rather spooky happened.

There was a pillow on my couch that Paddy had habitually called his own, and while Steven gradually began to sit on the couch beside me, he resolutely refused to approach this pillow.

One afternoon he was sleeping next to me, when he suddenly awoke – alert as if he’d heard some sound I had not. He turned to look at a large photo of Paddy that hangs on my wall. He stared at it for a moment, got up and stepped over and onto Paddy’s pillow.

Steven looked at the photo again, and at me, then settled down and went back to sleep. It was genuinely unnerving.

Ever since that day he has acted completely at home here, and we have been close trusting friends and family for the past three years.”

Robert Marcum

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