One of the most important intense interests is following the Welsh band the Manic Street Preachers. Within them I unknowingly found a queer community and a disability community. It’s started with just liking the music, buying CDs from Our Price with money made from babysitting at £2 an hour. The band particularly missing guitarist/lyricist Richey Edwards; openly talked about mental health and what we would look back now as neurodivergence. Bassist Nicky Wire would dress androgynously on stage with glitter, skirts, feather boa and tiara. He wrote one song with lyrics “I wish I had been born a girl”. Despite all members of the band being straight white men, in a world with zero queer visibility, this was the queerness I could access. (Watch Loves Sweet Exile video!) Through internet forums I met other fans, we would meet hours before shows and queue to get to the front. Once I queued over night and other times we had parties with tea and cake. I am still friends with some of these people, 25 years later. This photo was taken at Brighton Centre 12/12/02, the first time I saw them live, taken on a cheap film camera.

This top was released by Topshop and Topman in collaboration with Calm (Campaign Against Living Miserably) for World Mental Health Day 2019. The front of the T-shirt crosses out the word 'Collected' and writes above it 'Connected'. On the back of the t-shirt, it has instructions on 'how to handle with care', in the format of typical washing instructions. The instructions include information about how to access the CALM helpline. This t-shirt has been a great conversation starter over the years and led to some really important conversations within the community about mental health and access.