Matt Reilly Tells Us The story behind the ‘luv deeper than the Tyne’ card. February 02 2015

The story behind the ‘luv deeper than the Tyne’ card. 

 A lot of writers have their own personal special space to write in: a home office, a particular corner of a room, or a table set aside to work on. At home, we have a spare bedroom that I’ve converted into a makeshift office, with a desk to write at. It’s nice, well lit, and comfortable. And yet … I find that I do some of my best (short) writing in completely the opposite conditions. The ‘luv deeper than the Tyne’ card is one such example.  

 For me, sitting bored and uncomfortable on public transport drives me to distraction. And my distraction is usually either reading or writing. Given the short distances that I usually commute, the writing has to be short. So it usually ends up being a quick poem or a flash fiction (flash fictions are very short stories, such as this one that I wrote in the space of a 20-minute bus journey across Newcastle in 2012: http://www.mattreilly.com/flash-fiction-lifes-too-short/). 

 The idea for the ‘luv deeper than the Tyne’ rhyme came to me in the most appropriate of places: I was commuting home from work on a Metro from Newcastle to Gateshead. If you don’t live in Newcastle, then let me tell you: this is a journey that’s worth taking. The journey is worth doing even if you only take the Metro for one stop, from Newcastle to Gateshead or vice versa. Because for 10 seconds of the Metro journey, you get a stunning view looking straight down the Tyne at four of the river’s beautiful bridges.  

 And so there I was, staring at the view that I’m lucky enough to see every day, when the phrase ‘my love for you runs deeper than the Tyne’ popped into my head. Out of nowhere, just like that, boom. I quickly grabbed my phone (much handier than pen and paper) and sent that line to myself on an email. The next morning, on my way back across the water to work, I emailed my completed four-line Geordie dialect rhyme to Jo Burrows (Bykerlass). Jo then started creating the wonderful visuals to complement my words on the card. It’s amazing to hear that our ‘Tyne’ card is currently Jo’s best-selling Valentine’s card! It just goes to show that good ideas can come to you in the most random of places. Just make sure you write them down!