​On 17th October 2012 I attended a Simon Armitage event at Manchester Literature Festival. Simon was reading his Stanza Stones poems - 6 poems on the theme of water that had been carved into rocks along England’s Pennine spine.

Nine months previously I’d had a kidney transplant and I was desperate to make the most of the opportunity that greatly improved health afforded to me but, as in the final words of the ‘Mist’ poem shown in the fourth picture, I was feeling more than a little lost as to what to do.

At the end of the event and pretty much on a whim and with little hope of a ‘yes’ I asked Simon if I might publish the poems. He surprised me and in September 2013 my publication of 'In Memory of Water' in book form with Simon's poetry complemented by wood engravings by Hilary Paynter was launched.

I published these broadsides of the poems in 2022 to mark the 10th anniversary of what seemed like a daft idea that turned out to be the best thing I’ve ever done. I’ve got to meet and work with some wonderful poets and artists since then and can, finally, feel some modest sense of pride in the things I can contribute. More details can be seen at Fine Press Poetry.

I originally did 30 copies of the broadsides. They were letterpress printed by John Grice at the Evergreen Press on hand-made Merriman paper. The 6 individual poems are on individual sheets, there is a title page and a colophon sheet. The 8 sheets are enclosed in a ribbon tied card cover.

As they proved very popular I then did a further 20 copies which were designated as 'out of series' on a mould made Saunders Waterford paper.