Guardian City

16/11/2025

"My name used to mean something. Tulloch Foxton. They would come out the taverns to hear me play. I could make ’em cry, thinking of the girls they left behind or lost along the way. They’d say, Tulloch, ou take me to places. I’d say, I know darlin’. I could make ’em remember, make ’em forget, sitting in the dark, waiting for me. I’d follow Billy ‘the Bird Man’ Budgie – remember ’im? – and he’d whistle all these bird noises and, bless ’im, they’d whistle back, wanting to get me on. Where’s Tulloch, they’d shout, stampin’ and cavortin'. Causin' a riot. Got as though the manager put me on last because half the stalls would leave when I was done. 15 minutes. That’s all it took me. They’d say to me after, Tulloch you was doing that just for me, weren’t ya? Playing just for me. And I’d say, yes, darlin’, just for you, and I’d run a finger down their cheeks cos they’d been sobbin’ quietly. Long time ago now though. I was a pretty little thing."
https://www.instagram.com/p/DRHkPt0CHT0/

02/11/2025

Lady Beade Taunton, On Butterflies and Their Melancholy Tendency to Perish in Company (1843 OT), recounts the unhappy case of Professor Lyle Fenn, the noted lepidopterist who abandoned his studies for 40 years owing to his wife’s violent allergy to butterflies - kept secret until their wedding night. Upon her welcome death he resumed his work with such zeal that he is said to have fashioned for himself a suit from their shed wings. During the lock-in winter of 1799 OT he vanished; neighbours later spoke of a man flying above the rooftops on wings of green and ruby. In his study was found only a cocoon, six foot long, ripped and empty.

25/10/2025

Jally Port sells walnuts. She’s absolutely the best at selling walnuts. She sells them well and to all sorts. She likes a deal, so be prepared to haggle, even over a walnut. Crazy right? There was this one man, she says, who bought walnuts every day, same time every day, and then one day – nothing. Jally Port is not the kind of woman to lose a customer – her margins are slender, her product niche – so she tracked him down (figuring out which was he was travelling, which was his likely place of work, asked around, that kind of stuff). What she found at his home was the man half buried under a pile of nut rinds, skins and shells. Turns out he was buying from everybody, not just Jally. Peanuts, chestnuts, brazil nuts. Dig me out of here, he says. Jally says, You learnt your lesson, old man? The man said he had. Fewer nuts. And exclusively from Jally Port? He agreed. Signed a document to that effect. Swore on a walnut, which to Jally is, like, the toppest of swears. Everyone’s happy. That’s why Jally Port is the best walnut seller in Guardian City.

10/08/2025

https://guardiancity.co.uk/the-man-who-walks-with-a-hundred-hungry-paws/

Caterpillar Flood trades tiny portraits for meat, feeding the strays who follow him through Guardian City’s alleys like a living ribbon.

21/06/2025

Abel Nutkin has been fined for defacing 24 adverts across Guardian City. His defence? That Nutkin’s Spread belongs to him — in name, spirit, and recipe.

He claims theft. The court wasn’t convinced. We spoke to Mr Nutkin to find out what, exactly, is going on.

Full interview

Abel Nutkin defaced 24 chocolate spread posters in a week, claiming a condiment conspiracy. He says it's not madness - it's self-defence.

24/04/2025

💔 “I broke up with my boyfriend four months ago. It’s sad, but I’m past it now. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it, truly – because it was my first real heartbreak – but I think I can make it part of me. If you asked me four months ago… that was a different story. I was at the end. He didn’t cheat or anything. We just weren’t right for one another, and that’s worse. Like, if we had met a year later, or he liked reading a little more. Tiny differences. What helped was… he started showing up in mirrors and reflections – not as himself, exactly, but gestures. The way he used to rub his eyes when tired. The slope of his shoulder. It didn’t scare me. It felt like he was giving me space to feel it all. Like he was helping me let go. Now I see people in the street looking sad and I feel for them. It’s like I suddenly see so much sadness everywhere. Before, I thought happiness was inevitable. Now I understand you have to work at it – and even that might not be enough. These are tough lessons.”

22/04/2025

“I can’t take the steps anymore. Haven’t since I was 17. My life’s become very two-dimensional, and I do miss the top deck of a bus, or the view from an upper storey. Sadly, that’s beyond me now. I’m no longer embarrassed to say it – not that stairs frighten me, exactly. That would be too strong. I’m not afraid of the stairs themselves, the treads or the banisters. But when you realise – that each step is a step closer to – well, not doom. I don’t want to be melodramatic. Just – at the top, I feel depleted. As though an entire decade has passed just getting there. It’s not a fitness thing. I’m fit as a fiddle. It's just feeling. Like the stairs know how this ends for me."

16/04/2025

“I’m doing pottery now. That’s my new passion. First off, it was conversational French, then ballroom dancing, then I did a season at the music hall as the back end of a cow. You’ve got to have something to get you up in the morning, that’s what I say. For a couple of years after the wife died, I sat around the house. Then I saw this advert for needlework classes. I thought I might meet someone. But that wasn’t the point. Point! Ha! You should see my house, all these embroideries on the walls. Now it’s pots. Pots, pots, pots. Everyone will be getting pots for birthdays.” 🎩🏺

14/04/2025

“I saved up enough money to get out of the city. I just wanted to get out. Woke up one morning and thought, there has to be something better. I don’t think I’ve ever walked on grass. Or seen the sea. I worked for a publishing company bundling up magazines, 12 hours a day. It was back breaking. After that, I worked behind a bar, cleaning up slops and taking all the cheap comments with a smile. Slept about three hours a day. I was exhausted. But all that money went towards a ticket. I bought a map, hung it on the wall. I’d ring all these place names – Elarrow by the Mere, Thistledown Reach, Wimbrook Vale. One morning, that was it. I thought - now or never. Went to the railway station, bought a ticket the furthest place my money could take me. They said, you can’t take the dog. I said, What? They said, You can’t take the dog on the train. I said, it’s my dog, it’s my Mitsy. They said, rules is rules. So I turned round and went back home. Didn’t think twice. Still got the ticket, still got the dog. You think I’m crazy? What you got?”

12/03/2025

📢 INTERVIEW: Bella Morgan – The Bitter Rival Who Changed Everything 🎭

Twenty years ago, a scathing review nearly ended Bella Morgan’s career before it began. Instead, it made her a star. Now, she returns to the role that defined her.

🎭 Read about the rivalry, the betrayal, and the night she found her true power on stage.

🖋️ Another intriguing tale from Guardian City 🎩

🔗 Read the full story

Twenty years after her star-making debut, Bella Morgan revisits the role that made her—and the man who tried to stop her.