‘Don’t Please Tell Anybody’
is now available!
£12 + P&P
Buy now from our Big Cartel store.
Don’t Please Tell Anybody is a project 30 years in the making, that being the length of time I’ve been collecting these lost notes and hundreds more like them.
Handwritten text always attracts my attention, perhaps because it is increasingly rare—but it’s the torn fragments of text that fascinates me the most. Tears can mean ‘canceled’, ‘hidden’ or ‘destroyed’ and there’s almost always a story in there somewhere. Filling in the gaps puts you in the story too.
Over the years I’ve collected and reassembled hundreds of notes and letters and have now compiled the most intriguing of these into a single, handsome volume.
This 52 page, singer-stitched softback is printed in an edition of 200 and is the debut publication of Nudge Press. Don’t Please tell Anybody can be signed and optionally inscribed to you, or another recipient. Half of the books have already been reserved or sold, so grab your copy now!
Don’t Please Tell Anybody is...
‘Triggering!’
More gap than substance
Archeological eavesdropping
Sent, read, ripped, dropped
Quietly haunting
A peek into fragile and fiery private lives
Washed-out words; tear-soaked, fragmented life
‘We always knew you were a jigsaw piece and I was the lid’
‘People say lost to history but history is the record of all that’s not lost’
Street finds illuminate human life in Birmingham
Half-shredded confessions. Mangled love notes. Fractured arguments.
Tiny human dramas scattered across pavements like emotional confetti
Your name written for the last time
The urgent need to deny and reject
Public domain
Don’t Please Tell Anybody is a project 30 years in the making, that being the time I’ve collected these lost notes and hundreds more.
The torn-up notes fascinate me the most. My inner Sherlock delights in carefully recovering the fragments, reassembling them like shattered ancient history and then inferring the stories’ lost details. The urgent words and their inflamed response being recorded on the same page—as presented here—is something that neither player would have ever seen. It’s an uneasy feeling to even partially reveal such intensely personal moments, these unrequested repairs. But that’s what writers and artists do—we explore and reflect on the human landscape, finding hope and meaning in anguish and disorder.
How do I find the fragments?
Notes like these are common and widespread, lying in the streets of all cities but going unnoticed in their littered form as no one is looking for them. A glimpse of handwriting on torn paper should always warrant closer perusal and you will likely find more fragments nearby. A neat cluster means a fresh drop, still to be distributed by the currents of the turning world. A wider diffusion may also signal a more enthusiastic dispersal, for the shrewder shredder leaves gaps between drops, intending the message to be gone for good. If you arrive late to the scene and details are missing, then you must fill in the gaps yourself, detective style. Soon you will start finding these game pieces everywhere…but only if you are looking.
Ben Waddington
Birmingham, June 2026
