When Boris the fantail arrived in Callum Percy’s life in 2020, the 29-year-old trainee teacher was immediately smitten. Boris had been discovered by a family friend in a dishevelled state after what looked like a run-in with a sparrow hawk, its blond-white tail as fluffy as a cumulus cloud.
“We called him Boris after the prime minister as his feathers were all over the place when we found him,” Callum laughs as his 13-strong flock of fantails, frillbacks and capuchines coo in the aviary behind him. He and his girlfriend, Serena Mihaila, 24, also a trainee teacher, installed the 6ft by 4ft wooden and mesh aviary and nesting area in the garden of their Derby home earlier this year.

For now, Callum and Serena are fancy birders – they keep their frilled, coloured and crested feathered friends for the sheer pleasure of appreciating their looks. But next year, when the couple buy their own home, they would like to start exhibiting at shows. That means upstaging Boris and co with some purer-breed pigeons, such as frillbacks with more erect frills or capuchines with elaborate, super-fluffy head crests. At show, these headturners will be assessed for their appearance, good breeding and how they sit in their handlers’ hands.

Along with fancy birders, there are two other distinct groups of pigeoneers: keepers of long-distance pigeons for the racing circuit, as kept by King Charles on his Norfolk estate in Sandringham; and performance pigeon enthusiasts, such as those who keep Birmingham rollers – first bred in the West Midlands city in the 1860s for their ability to perform aerial acrobatics – and high-flying breeds, such as teddies and Indian pearls, prized for their soaring flight.

As 20-something pigeoneers, Callum and Serena are no longer a rare species. Since the pandemic, the Royal Pigeon Racing Association has reported a rising interest from younger people in pigeon-keeping. In the US, according to Phillip Fry, host of the All About Pigeons Podcast, which covers Europe, Australia and the US, 80% of the new intake of his pigeon racing clubs are aged 20 or below, a demographic matched in Europe, says Fry. The rise of “one loft racing”, in which pigeoneers buy a bird and send it to be raised with other pigeons in a shared loft where they are then raced against each other, has increased access to the sport for younger enthusiasts. “You now no longer need outdoor space or infrastructure like lofts to dabble,” says Fry. Plus, “pigeons are usually cheap to purchase and feed, they are very hardy and they don’t present the ethical problems you can have with pet birds, such as parrots, which are often trapped in the wild to be sold as pets.”

Callum is perfectly aware that his hobby does seem odd to some of his contemporaries. “When you tell them you keep pigeons, they think of town pigeons – the rock pigeons you see in cities that people call, unfairly I think, ‘rats of the sky’,” he says. “But if I have a bad day, I head into the aviary and Boris pets me and does a little dance, or I stroke one of my frillbacks, with their soft, curly down, and I feel really at peace.” That said, relations within the aviary are not always peaceful. Boris’s son, Brian, recently seduced a female fantail named Marilyn, introduced to the aviary as a mate for Boris. “It can be a bit tricky managing the pigeons’ romantic lives,” he admits.

Keelie Wright, 19, former UK Young Pigeon Fancier of the Year and winner of the coveted “Best Racing Pigeon” award at the British Homing World Show of the Year 2024, the Crufts of pigeon-keeping, believes this is an exciting time for the sport. “Young pigeoneers are causing a stir in a traditional scene that can sometimes live up to the flat cap and pipe-smoking stereotypes. There’s a bit of a rebirth with all the new blood after years of being seen as a dying hobby.”

Nicknamed “pigeon girl” in her home town of Magheralin, County Down, Keelie decided to stay close to home for her undergraduate degree, so she could spend her weekends mucking out the loft of more than 200 pigeons she shares with her father and grandad. All of the birds are related and bred down from a Belgian fast-racing line of Heremans-Ceusters that her dad first bought in the 2000s.

Keelie exhibits her birds “through the wire” (for their breeding and appearance in the cage) and “out of the pen” (for their feel and handling in the judges’ hands). “I tend to do best through the wire as our birds are good-looking,” she coos. From April to August, she races her birds: dropping them at sites in Penzance and St Malo in France, to fly back to Magheralin in clocked times.

Fellow racer Trent Lightfoot, 15, runs a one-loft race for owners under the age of 16 from his family home in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. Fifty-five young bird owners have entered his Northwest Junior One Loft Race in its inaugural year, for £50 an entry. The birds race back to the loft from “hotspots” (drop-off points) in Marlborough, Worcester and Stow on the Wold. Trent and his mum, Lisa Lightfoot, have secured sponsorship from seed companies Triple S and Benzing to reduce the birds’ upkeep costs. With Lisa on camera, Trent broadcasts the birds’ progress on Facebook live once a week.

“Staging the race means I get to race amazing pigeons from some amazing fanciers that I wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise,” says Trent, who also keeps sheep, chickens, ducks and turkeys on the family’s smallholding. Keen to spread the joy of pigeon-keeping as a sport for young people, “the love they have for home, the way they find their way back from afar” fills him with wonder. “I also love it when the tame ones sit on my head and shoulders.”

For ecologist Rob Dunn, it’s not only the fancy birds that deserve our love and attention. In 2007, the academic coined the term “the pigeon paradox” to account for the fact that the most common creatures that humans encounter in our urban world – rats, insects and city pigeons – are actively disliked or rarely noticed. If we could learn to connect with these urban creatures instead, says Dunn, we’d be more attuned to nature and, in turn, to the importance of animal conservation.

It’s an idea that speaks to Nottingham pigeon champion Hannah Hall, 28, who went viral on TikTok in 2022 after recounting her meeting with Penny, a “scraggly” fledgling pigeon who decided to sit on her lap in a pub beer garden in Nottingham. Hall adopted the ailing pigeon, which other pub-goers had been shooing away, taking the bird home perched on her shoulder. She named the baby rock pigeon Penny with TikTokers’ help, and quickly became a mainstay of #pigeontok, where millions of social media users watch videos that exhibit a different side of the urban bird more often viewed as a pest than as a pet. (The 2024 breakout star of this online trend is Pidge, a bird adopted as a “purse pigeon” from a trash can by 26-year-old New Yorker Abby Jardine and who now accompanies her on adventures around the Big Apple.) Earlier this year, Hall founded Penny’s Pigeon Aid in tribute to her feathered pal, an advocacy group to rehabilitate pigeons’ reputation and combat what she sees as a rise in “anti-pigeon propaganda”.
“People are unkind towards pigeons and don’t see them as living things,” Hall says. The NHS worker is campaigning for measures to reduce the plastic and fishing litter that can wrap around birds’ necks, and a ban on anti-pigeon spikes in UK cities. Due to conflict with humans, town pigeons live an average of four years, whereas loft-kept pigeons live up to the age of 20. “I’d like there to be a pigeon appreciation day in the UK [as there is in the US] and I’d love to stage a celebratory ‘pigeon parade’ in Nottingham,” she says.

Pigeon spectacles already feature in the lives of Bilal Liaquat, 29, and wife Sadaf, 24. The couple have kept pigeons on the balcony of their Chiswick flat, and in a friend’s garden in Birmingham, since they moved to the UK from Pakistan in 2019. Bilal loves watching footage of tumbling roller pigeons, but the couple’s particular passion is for teddies, a high-flying performance pigeon first bred in the Pakistani city of Kasoor in 1963.
“I love that they fly high, it makes me feel so happy to watch them,” Bilal says. “The birds are calm with our two small children, too,” Sadaf adds. “They are nice to have as pets.” Bilal and Sadaf fly their birds in high-flight competitions in Pakistan, painting their wings pink and yellow so they can be spotted among a black mass of other birds. The 115,000 subscribers on Bilal’s YouTube channel, Bilal’s Pigeon Sport, tune in for weekly breeding tips in English and Urdu and to watch the soaring flights, his birds carving fluid arabesques against the skies of Lahore and west London.

Bilal, like other bird keepers, admits that his hobby presents increasing challenges. Brexit red tape has inhibited imports of birds from prime racing breeders in Belgium and Germany, pigeons are being killed in number by peregrine falcons and sparrowhawks as populations of these birds of prey boom, and bird flu has led to intermittent bans on races from the continent. But back in Derby, Callum and Serena’s toddler son, Sami, has taken to the family’s feathered friends, particularly Boris, and a chirpy king pigeon called Kong. The couple’s more curious friends now come to hang out in the couple’s aviary and Callum plans to install a seating area so visitors can sit amid his perching birds. Serena tells me that pigeons are traditionally kept in her native Romania to teach children responsibility towards animals, though less sentimental eastern Europeans also keep pigeons for meat and for their eggs that taste like quails’ eggs. “I don’t like to eat them though, I’m quite squeamish,” she says.

There’s a bright future for these misunderstood avians in the Percy-Mihaila home, if not, alas, for Boris’s love life. “Yes, Brian and Marilyn are still an item,” Callum says of his aviary’s social dynamics. “Pigeons tend to be together for life once they’re bonded, you see.” He pauses: “Boris is taking it quite well though.” A bird coos. “That was Boris agreeing,” he laughs.

Douglas Russell, a senior curator at London’s Natural History Museum, was examining a collection of nests gathered on the island of Guam when he made an unsettling discovery.

“The nests had been picked up more than 100 years ago, and I was curating them with the aim of adding them to the museum’s main collection. They turned out to be one of the most tragic, saddest accumulations of objects I’ve ever had to deal with,” Russell told the Observer last week.

In almost every case, the nests belonged to birds that had once thrived on the western Pacific island but which were now extinct. “A dozen species, many unique to Guam, had been wiped out since those nests had been collected. All that was left was this grim reminder of wildlife that once flourished on the island.”

As to the cause of this devastation, conservationists blame brown tree snakes, which were brought to the island on US transport – probably as stowaways on military ships – at the end of the second world war. These expert climbers spend their time on high branches, where they eat birds and their eggs. They slowly swept through Guam’s forests during the latter half of the last century.

Huge numbers of indigenous mammals, lizards and birds, including the Guam rail and the Guam flycatcher, were wiped out in its wake. Within a few decades, Boiga irregularis had silenced the island’s forests.

It is an unsettling story that will be highlighted at Birds: Brilliant and Bizarre, which opens on 24 May at the Natural History Museum. The exhibition will reveal how birds evolved from a group of meat-eating dinosaurs called theropods and eventually spread across the planet to settle on all its continents.

Today there are more than 11,000 species of birds on Earth and the exhibition will reveal the many strange ways they have found to survive. Some bathe in formic acid to kill off parasites. Others, such as the vampire finch, suck blood for food.

The show will also focus on the impact that humans are having on birds and their habitats, and the story of the brown tree snake will provide a key display that will include an image of one of the Guam flycatcher’s nests that Russell has studied, a symbol of a species lost to the world because of human interference.

“Nests have only one purpose,” said Russell, whose book, Interesting Bird Nests and Eggs, will be published in September. “They exist to help to nurture future generations of life, and there is something particularly tragic about looking at a nest which will never see a live bird within it.”

Many efforts are being made to restore the fortunes of Guam’s lost birds, including an international project backed by the Zoological Society of London and several US universities. It aims to return Guam kingfishers to the wild this year using birds bred from members of the species that were rescued just before the kingfishers succumbed to the predations of the brown tree snake. These captive-bred birds will be released on another Pacific island, Palmyra Atoll, which is free of predators.

However, the loss of these birds has had other worrying impacts on their habitat, as revealed in a paper in Nature Communications. Scientists at Iowa State University and other research centres found that the removal of birds that once thrived on local fruits on Guam “resulted in the complete loss of seed dispersal there”. The result has been a reduction in the growth of local trees and a big decline in the health of ecosystems across the island, an observation that underlines the key role of birds in maintaining the health of habitats across the planet.

“When you take out a whole group of organisms – for example, its birdlife – from an ecosystem, you don’t just lose those organisms. The whole ecosystem itself suffers, as we are finding out on Guam,” added Russell.

This is particularly worrying given that brown tree snakes’ homes have been spotted in recent years on Saipan, an island north of Guam, added Russell. “There is now a risk, an absolutely devastating one, that brown tree snakes could become established there. And that, of course, would have a terrible impact on the birdlife and habitats of the island.

“Birds are fantastic creatures but they are now very vulnerable to the effects of human behaviour. People should come from the exhibition with a sense that we must learn from our failures, and most importantly, protect and cherish what we’ve got left.”

A growing number of couples, a new report says, are Living Apart Together – “LAT.” So: this is when you maintain both a romantic relationship and your own private home, and it’s led by older women who (according to Brides magazine) are prioritising a newfound freedom. “After years of taking care of their husbands and children, these women seek a new chapter where their individual needs are at the forefront.” I mean, I love it, obviously. I love that this is the new “When I’m an old woman I shall wear purple”, when I’m an old woman I shall get my own bedroom, these women finding their voices, their sexuality, their freedom in their 50s, but it also highlights how, the world being the way it is, these versions of utopia are only available to the wealthy.

Who wouldn’t want their own house just so, their bathroom untouched by other feet, unlittered with half-empty bottles of Head & Shoulders shampoo? Who would honestly say no, if money were no object, to a room of their own and all the nudity, slobbiness, collecting of curios and war rugs that implies? It’s like when parents break up and the modern advice is for their children to remain in the family house while the parents move into separate flats. Three homes! If they had the luxury of those kinds of choices, I counter, perhaps the parents wouldn’t have broken up in the first place. It reminds me of the best divorce I’ve ever heard about, where the parents simply moved into different wings of their manor house and the children didn’t really notice anything had changed at all.

But the fact that it requires sometimes impossible-seeming levels of privilege to live a beautiful and satisfying life doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. The pitch and quantity of discourse right now around polyamory has reached the stage where someone clever on social media wryly suggested it was the new “wild swimming”. And yes, they had a point! Three or four points perhaps, not limited to our fervid delvings into the sex lives of New Yorkers or the sense that one short sharp shock can cure all ills, or the fear of a filthy death.

Personally, I can’t get enough of these stories, of the reminders, as with LAT, that relationships are not made of stone, that they are plastic and can be moulded or broken into brand new shapes. I admire, from afar, all these people’s unwillingness to compromise on the only life they will ever lead.

The thing all these conversations circle, but rarely land directly on, is how monogamy as we play it is so much harder than most people like to admit. I write this in the garden, the wifi patchy, as I lick out the white core of a Tunnock’s teacake and watch my boyfriend of some decades mow the lawn, the first hot day of the year. Monogamy has its benefits. It does – as well as things like sexual safety, we as individuals are seen as safer prospects socially when in monogamous relationships. But there are drawbacks, too, not least a lack of freedom and light to middling boredom.

We treat monogamy as the barometer of a successful relationship, rather than, say, comfort, or having a laugh, which for some raises the bar so high the relationship is destined to fail. Nothing is natural, not monogamy or nonmonogamy – there are huge variations in how humans form relationships, but the thing that makes the best ones succeed I guess, is trust and mutual integrity.

We should try to be honest, is the thing. Which, of course, is often easier said than done, not just with partners, but with ourselves. Yes, we enjoy the ways marriage provides an established structure within which we can create a family; yes, we like the way his arms look in a white T-shirt or the pitch of her laugh, but – is it not the case that many people choose cohabiting and monogamy at least in part to stop having to choose? You take a person and then you can relax. The story is written for us.

Part of the LAT thing that appeals to me the most, as well as the shampoo and war rug bit, is the clear way it positions its inhabitants as individuals. They are confident in their commitment to each other, but also in their freedom to live, sprawl, eat pasta alone in bed, etc, in ways that are rarely seen in depictions of serious adult relationships. These people can dip in and out of domestic responsibility and care, and sex and conversation, never having to fight over the washing up or the broadband bill, unless maybe they fancy it tonight, as a kink.

Even those of us in relationships that can’t quite afford two whole rents might be inspired or influenced by the ways LAT reframes monogamy, by the way it exposes its pressures. I like how, instead of being defined by their coupledom, these men and women remain individuals, just people in the world.

Email Eva at [email protected] or follow her on X @EvaWiseman

The question I am mid-40s and married. My husband is good at dealing with life. He never worries, is never insecure, always positive, has unlimited energy and always has a solution for everything. He deals with our kids seemingly without effort, doesn’t set many rules and never worries if they eat enough vegetables or go to bed too late. Everything is a breeze; rules are to be broken and life must be enjoyed.

I am not like that. I like to abide by rules and routines, and I get irritated quickly and think of all the possible consequences of any particular action. The problem is that he always corrects me (and often in front of the kids), gives me unwanted advice repeatedly, telling me that things are “easy” and that my worries are “nonsense”.

We’ve had counselling, but he feels he has the right to give me “feedback” whenever he wants, even though the therapist disagreed. He doesn’t understand how I feel since he means well and only wants to “make me better”. He is a very sweet man, but his stubbornness in not understanding that I’m not like him is driving me mad.

Philippa’s answer Generally speaking, there are two types of people – those who like to go with the flow and people who like to plan. Let’s call them the Flows and Structureds. You are the Structured type and your husband is a Flow. Flows are people who can react to what’s happening in the moment and Structureds are people who, well, prefer to have a structure. What is important for your husband to know is that you cannot scold the second type to be like the first type, nor can you bully the first type to be like the second.

The fact that you are different may have been part of what attracted you to each other in the first place. We are often attracted to people who have a personality trait that we haven’t and, paradoxically, when couples come to relationship counselling, it is these very traits that were once novel enough to be attractive that can start to cause problems. His way isn’t right. Your way isn’t right. There isn’t a “right way”. What you each have is your preferred way.

To feel relaxed, you personally need to have structure, planning and children who eat vegetables from time to time. For him to feel relaxed he needs to be in the moment and deal with things as they arise. You’d probably prefer to have the children in bed with clean teeth and a story before they cry with tiredness, whereas he’ll cover them with a blanket after they’ve fallen asleep on the sofa.

His way suits him so well that he cannot understand why everyone isn’t like him. What he doesn’t know yet is that you cannot just leap from being a Structured into being a Flow – that’s not how your brain is wired. What he needs to do is respect the way your brain works.

The key is to understand that you each have your preferences particular to you, because you are two different people. Your children will understand that you prefer a structured routine, and that Dad prefers no rules. Individual people each have their own way of feeling most comfortable and it’s fine for Mum and Dad to have different boundaries – you are two different people with different needs.

I would like his “correcting” of you to stop. It isn’t a matter of being correct or incorrect, it’s a matter of your individual feeling. You feel happier, safer, more secure when you know, for example, when and how the money is coming in to pay the bills, and he feels happier just to trust that it will. It is a matter of your individual feelings, not a matter of who is right. When you each learn to acknowledge each other’s preferences, it will be a good model for the children to learn to respect feelings different from their own. The goal should not be for one of you to win a particular disagreement, but to understand each other’s feelings and know where each of you is coming from. When he thoroughly understands how you feel and you get where he is coming from, the next stage is to find a compromise. I don’t think he understands yet that having some order and planning is what you need, not just want, to feel calm and OK.

Another hint is to replace “you statements” like, “you are incorrect”, to “I statements”. For example, “I prefer to do it like this.” My suggestion is that you show your husband this column, so he can see how unhappy your current pattern together is making you (I’m sure he doesn’t want you to be unhappy). See if he can understand that you cannot change the way your brain is wired just because he thinks it would be a good idea.

For further help on how to cope with differences read my book The Book You Want Everyone You Love to Read, where I have a chapter on How We Argue with more information on how clashing personality types can aim for mutual understanding and compromise. This can help prevent people getting bogged down with winning or losing, or winning at a loved one’s expense.

Philippa Perry will be appearing at the Also Festival, 12-14 July 2024 (also-festival.com)

Every week Philippa Perry addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Philippa, please send your problem to [email protected]. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions

They’re the artwork the public rarely sees: the custom personal portraits hanging in homes, maybe above a mantelpiece, in a study or a bedroom; images of ourselves, family and other loved ones, sometimes even our pets.

With selfies available to anyone with a smartphone and professional photography affordable and accessible, the desire for a painted portrait speaks to the pull of tradition and its unique process – the artist’s interpretation of the subject that often reveals more than just a likeness.

“There’s something that happens in that closeness, that one-on-one contact,” says Joanna Gilmour, a curator at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. “You can’t define it or quantify it.”

The popularity of portraiture prizes, including the Archibald and the Darling, as well as the success of the ABC TV series Anh’s Brush with Fame, confirms that the artform is here to stay. “We’re hardwired to respond to people whether we like it or not, and portraits have such an effective way of [tapping into] that,” Gilmour says. “It is an incredibly accessible genre.”

While we love to look at portraits, commissioning one is another thing entirely. Portrait commission fees can range from $5,000 to $20,000 and beyond, depending on the scope of the work, materials used, process and time commitment, as well as the artist’s profile.

Few portraitists in Australia experience enough demand to make it a full-time occupation. Even Ralph Heimans, whose Portraiture. Power. Influence exhibition now at the National Portrait Gallery includes paintings of Queen Mary of Denmark, King Charles III and Dame Judi Dench, had to leave Australia to make a go of it.

Although it might be niche, Gilmour has no doubt the personal portrait will endure. “People commission a portrait because they want an image of the people they love and admire. They’ve been making portraits for those reasons for as long as portraits have been made.”

Here three Australians share the painted portraits that hang in their homes – and the stories behind them.

‘I became fascinated about how it might look’

Wendy Brown’s reaction to her husband’s desire to commission a portrait of her wasn’t initially positive. She was horrified. “It’s my worst nightmare,” the surgeon says.

The idea came to her husband, the Melbourne art collector and property developer Andrew Cook, out of a desire to express his love for his wife and admiration for her achievements. Brown eventually came around to the idea. “I guess I became a bit fascinated about how it might look,” she says.

Cook knew Yvette Coppersmith’s portrait work, and says he was struck by how so much comes through her works. “You feel like you’re getting a glimpse of someone’s interior life.” He contacted Coppersmith’s gallery and, after the Archibald prize-winning artist met the couple, she accepted the commission.

Over the following months, Coppersmith compiled a dossier of reference points from historical paintings for inspiration and spent hours with Brown experimenting with different poses, clothing, colours and facial expressions.

The process took about a year while Coppersmith worked around other commissions and exhibitions. “That time allows you to problem solve. It may not take 12 months to paint, but it takes 12 months for things to settle,” says Coppersmith.

The portrait shows a side of Brown that is very different from her medical persona. An “intimacy”, Coppersmith says, that is much more challenging to achieve in an institutional commission. “This is the self they get to have at home; it’s a visual anchor to remind you of how you like to feel.”

For Brown, it’s more than just a beautiful painting. “Yvette has taken me with her on a journey as she’s created this piece of art,” she says. “It’s been a really precious gift.”

‘The best present I’ve ever received’

When Mikhayla Carey decided to commission a portrait of their three children for her husband, Jarwin, she knew there could only be one artist for the job. Having already painted several portraits of the extended Carey clan, the work by Bundjalung and Biripai woman and artist Noni Cragg was a family favourite.

The portrait was planned as a Christmas surprise, so neither Jarwin nor their children knew anything about it. Carey sent Cragg multiple photos and notes about Koda, Arlo and Nala to help the artist capture the children’s personalities and connection to Gumbaynggirr Country on the New South Wales north coast where the family lives.

First Nations portraits have always played an important role in Cragg’s practice. “I want to celebrate people who historically have not been celebrated in fine art institutions – people of colour, women and gender-diverse people,” she says.

In every portrait she typically includes plants, animals and birds that are significant to her subjects and their country. For the Carey commission, that meant painting a ngarlaa, the turtle Nala was named after, and a jaawan (lyrebird) for Jarwin. She also included an Aboriginal flag and local birds and plants.

Painted in Sydney, where Cragg is based, Carey only saw the final work when the family opened the package together. “When Jarwin saw it he said, ‘This is the best present I’ve ever received.’”

The portrait hangs in the family’s dining room, and the children love showing it to visitors. Carey says Jarwin vows it’s the first object he would rescue if they ever had a house fire.

“If anything happened to it, I would be so heartbroken because I know that it will never be able to be replaced,” she says. “It’s priceless.”

‘It was very healing’

After surviving breast cancer, Avis Tolcher continued to live with the devastating psychological impact of events in her past. So when the then 60-year-old former dancer asked artist Yvonne East to paint her, she was looking for more than just a flattering likeness.

Tolcher had seen an exhibition of East’s work at the Murray Bridge Regional Gallery in South Australia and was inspired to commission a portrait of her own. “The paintings were beautiful, even if the subject matter wasn’t. I thought, maybe I could cure myself if I could see myself like that?”

Tolcher requested a nude portrait that showed her mastectomy scars, so after agreeing to the commission, East took some time to consider how she would approach the work. “For about two months, I didn’t do anything. It was a simmering, simmering, simmering. Then I woke up one morning and could see it in my mind’s eye. I rang her up and said, ‘Let’s do the sitting.’” Three days later, the portrait was finished.

Tolcher invited East and some close friends to an “unveiling” at home. When the curtain was removed, “Avis stood completely still and put her hand up to cover her mouth,” recalls East. “Everyone was quiet, and she said in a fragile but clear voice, ‘Oh my god … I am beautiful.’”

“It was very healing,” says Tolcher. “And everybody there understood just what it meant to me.”

For years, the portrait hung in her living room where visitors could see it, but after meeting her second husband, David, it now hangs above the four-poster bed he made for her. Tolcher says the painting will always be “absolutely precious” to her.

Oleksandr Usyk is the first undisputed world heavyweight champion this century after he defeated Tyson Fury, in a compelling fight, on a split decision in the early hours of Sunday morning. Usyk added Fury’s WBC title to the IBF, WBA and WBO belts he already owned when he was deservedly given the verdict 115-112 by the first judge and 114-113 by the third official. The middle scorecard was called 114-113 in favour of Fury – but he had been almost knocked out in the ninth round when he staggered across the ring drunkenly. He was given a standing count of eight and saved by the bell.

An absorbing and highly technical, if brutal, contest had shifted in momentum when Usyk had a dominant round in the eighth. A right hook and left cross nailed Fury. And then, suddenly surging with new conviction, Usyk landed a shuddering left which rocked Fury. Blood began to pour from Fury’s nose and he was marked up around the left eye.

Usyk poured on the pressure in the ninth and landed an incredible barrage of 14 unanswered blows. Fury reeled under the assault, swaying and stumbling helplessly, his eyes glazed. The referee could have stopped the fight but, with Fury being held up by the sagging ropes, he gave the stricken fighter time to try to stand upright before he began counting to eight. It seemed an exceedingly long count.

Fury, as always, showed great resilience in the next two rounds and he was competitive – but both the 10th and 11th were won by Usyk, who landed the harder blows. Before the last round Fury stretched his arm out to touch gloves with Usyk as he nodded in admiration.

A sharp combination from Usyk scored early but two straight right hands from Fury proved that he was still trying to win the fight. But Usyk unleashed a thrilling string of punches in a fitting conclusion to a gripping and often magnificent contest.

At the outset of the drama, waiting in their opposing corners both fighters looked to the heavens and crossed themselves just before the opening bell. It was as if they knew they were about to enter dark terrain and be pushed to the limit.

The height difference was obvious, with Fury being six inches taller, but Usyk was immediately effective as he jabbed to the body, again and again. Fury shook his head and wagged his tongue in apparent jest. But then Usyk nailed him with a jolting overhand left near the end of the round. Fury looked out at the crowd and pulled a face as he again played the joker.

Usyk began round two impressively with a slick combination. Fury found his rhythm and a right uppercut caught Usyk. The crowd roared as Fury then sank two hefty right hands to the body before settling back behind the jab. But Usyk remained the aggressor, setting a fast pace.

Usyk moved in and out, showing his slick skills, clipping Fury with glancing blows. But the hardest punch of the third round came from Fury as he hurt Usyk to the body. The Ukrainian backed Fury briefly into a neutral corner and cuffed him with a couple of sharp shots in the fourth. Fury responded and, with his herky-jerky movement, he boxed beautifully. There was a brief clash of heads but Fury kept working the body with powerful and draining blows in the fifth. These were hard punches that threatened to dismantle Usyk.

In the sixth a series of crunching right uppercuts shook Usyk to his core. Fury was in the groove, tagging the Ukrainian again and again, and at the bell he waggled his tongue at the crowd to suggest that he was now in control. He was wrong. Fury used the right uppercut to the body with punishing, repetitive force in the seventh but Usyk, resolute as ever, ended the round clipping the bigger man with crisp combinations. His brilliance was about to flourish – but great credit should also be paid to Fury, who lost for the first time in his 36th fight.

An Olympic champion in 2012, and the former undisputed cruiserweight world champion, Usyk had the severe disadvantage of being more than two stone lighter than the giant King of the Gypsies who stands 6ft 9in tall and weighed 18st 10lb. But the 37-year-old Usyk is a master technician with an iron will and clarity of purpose. Having fought 350 times as an amateur, he has never lost in 22 bouts as a professional and now has reached the summit of his remarkable career.

Lennox Lewis was the last undisputed world heavyweight champion when he defeated Evander Holyfield to win all the belts in Las Vegas in 1999. Almost 25 years later both those great old champions were at ringside in Riyadh to watch their successors. Fury was brave and admirable but the imperious Usyk can now join the pantheon of heavyweight kings.

Tony O’Reilly, one of Ireland’s leading business figures, has died at the age of 88.

O’Reilly, who had a career in the media as well as being an international rugby player for Ireland and the British and Irish Lions, died in St Vincent’s hospital in Dublin on Saturday.

Ireland’s deputy premier, Micheál Martin, said O’Reilly had an “extraordinary impact on Irish business, sport, media and society”.

In a statement, his family said: “In the coming days there will be many worthy tributes made to Tony O’Reilly’s unique and extraordinary achievements in the fields of business and sport, as well as to his extraordinary philanthropic vision, which was best evidenced by the establishment of the Ireland Funds at a dark time in this island’s history. But, for us, he was a dearly loved dad and a grandad.

“He lived one of the great lives and we were fortunate to spend time with him in recent weeks as that great life drew to a close.”

Born in Dublin in 1936, O’Reilly made his international debut for Ireland in rugby in 1955 and soon became the youngest player to be selected for the Lions.

In his business career he pioneered the dairy brand Kerrygold, turning it into one of Ireland’s most well-known global consumer brands.

He later became the chair of the food giant Heinz and in 1973 took control of Independent Newspapers, publisher of the Irish Independent, Sunday Independent and Evening Herald.

He was also known for his philanthropy, setting up the Ireland Funds, which gave money from US donors into reconciliation projects around the Irish border.

O’Reilly, who had joint Irish and British nationality, was knighted in the 2001 New Year Honours by the late Queen Elizabeth II “for long and distinguished service to Northern Ireland”.

Martin said on X: “Saddened to learn of the passing of Tony O’Reilly, a pioneering spirit who had an extraordinary impact on Irish business, sport, media and society.

“Through the Ireland Funds, Tony changed the global narrative on peace and reconciliation on this island. My deepest sympathies to his children, family and friends.”

As news of his death emerged, the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) posted on X: “A legend of the game has passed. Our deepest sympathies to his family and friends.”

O’Reilly was the father of six children.

It was 2015, and my then-boyfriend and I were living in Canada on working holiday visas from Australia. In the dead of a Toronto winter, I got a job at a restaurant that hosted open mic nights every Sunday, and as a singer-songwriter myself, I was excited to perform.

The open-mic host, David, a bespectacled guy with a neat haircut, bore a striking resemblance to Buddy Holly or Ferris Bueller. He played a few songs to warm up the crowd, and I was instantly impressed – and jealous of his talent.

David and I quickly bonded over a love for 60s pop and Ben Folds Five. We were both in relationships, but always found reasons to talk to each other at work. Soon, we began to collaborate musically.

I would hear stories from others about David’s “wild past”, but the David I met was on a long sober streak, very mild-mannered and a fitness fanatic. One night at the restaurant, he was talking about resting heart rates and exercise, and I started making fun of him for being a nerd. He asked if he could check my pulse and took my hand in his and held my wrist. He held my gaze a little too long and we both pulled away.

I wrote David a note, addressing my feelings and admitting it was more than a friendship, and that because of this I didn’t think we should have any more contact (I even asked our boss to stop rostering us for the same shifts). David read the note, memorised it and wrote a song inspired by the note, which he sent to me in a voice memo. He then put the note through the restaurant’s paper shredder to destroy the evidence.

A couple of months later, in late 2017, I released a solo album of indie piano pop. My touring band fell through at the last minute, so I asked David, who had just ended his relationship, if he would accompany me on guitar and backing vocals for a couple of Canadian shows. We hadn’t been talking but we were each secretly giddy about having an excuse to steal away together.

We spent the first night in Ottawa at a friend’s place, and made a big deal about bringing an extra mattress into the spare room for one of us to sleep on, then wound up sleeping in the same bed – only I slept in a sleeping bag so we definitely weren’t touching. David put his arm around me as we slept and I couldn’t stop smiling.

After the tour, I told David I needed some time alone so I could figure out my relationship. To complicate matters, my work visa for Canada was about to expire.

David and I had no contact for about a month until he reached out and invited me on a songwriting trip to Los Angeles. It was February 2018 and I had finally ended my relationship.

In LA, we hiked to the top of Runyon Canyon where I gave him an ultimatum that addressed the reality of my situation: due to my expiring Canadian visa, he would either need to marry me or never see me again. Without hesitation, he got down on one knee and proposed. “YES!” I responded, and then in my excitement I flashed my boobs to the city below. The spontaneity and wild abandon it took for David to make a decision like that was immensely attractive to me. That night, we were the only two people in LA – no one else in the world existed or mattered.

Back in Canada, we married at Toronto City Hall. In David, I saw a future that wasn’t claustrophobic or boring or routine. We formed a band – a duo called the Tryouts – toured, partied and cycled everywhere. Our first single, Washer, about our proposal, was a song we wrote together in the back yard of our LA Airbnb the day after our engagement.

In late 2020, pandemic pressures prompted us to relocate to Australia, to my hometown of Newcastle.

Our band and our relationship are intertwined. David is very open about his feelings, and has an enviable ability to put them succinctly into songs, even the most embarrassing details, which I find so endearing. We may be flawed, but that’s what makes us so perfect together.

Follow the Tryouts on Instagram for their latest music and tour dates

If you frequent coastal towns or suburbs around Australia, you might be familiar with the sight of large, speedy ebikes zooming along the footpath. Fat bikes, as they’re commonly known, have been described as the monster trucks of the cycling world. With wide, thick tyres and seats big enough for two, the electric bicycles are designed to handle sand and off-road terrain.

But they have also garnered a cult status among young people, who are using them to get around with friends, take their surfboard to the beach and commute to school.

The bikes are popular among teenagers aged 14 to 19, with the bestselling model retailing for $2,770. Their uptake has benefits – taking cars off the road, giving young people freedom and time outdoors – but there are concerns over safety for both riders and pedestrians.

Harold Scruby, the chief executive of the Pedestrian Council, points to a lack of regulation and the illegal modification of fat bikes beyond the parameters of a bicycle, which essentially makes it like “riding a motorbike on a footpath”.

He believes the “technology is going to outstrip the infrastructure and the legislation and the ability to enforce by light years”.

“And now it’s happening and suddenly because police and governments haven’t been enforcing it, and they haven’t been ready with the right regulation and enforcement regime, it’s literally out of control,” Scruby said.

The mayor of Sydney’s Northern Beaches council, Sue Heins, said the speeding in particular was an “accident waiting to happen” and that it is “a matter of time” before a pedestrian is hit by a fat bike and killed.

In fact, there have been incidents already. A three year old was left with a broken leg after being hit by a teenager on a fat bike in Sydney’s south in April.

The Northern Beaches council has this week launched an education blitz on the use of ebikes on public roads and pathways. In New South Wales, anyone under 16 can legally ride bikes on the footpath but the council has received more than 80 complaints about speeding, near misses and injury – which the mayor suspects is “only the tip of the iceberg”.

“[The speed is] obviously frightening people as they were walking along,” Heins said, as well as the “element of surprise” because the ebikes are “so silent and quiet”.

“It’s just a great way to get out and about and, of course, we’re happy that there are less cars on the road [but children’s] lack of understanding of basic road rules, or that element of surprise and unpredictability around people, was one of the issues we decided we really needed to address.”

The mayor of Sutherland shire in Sydney’s south, Carmelo Pesce, described a similar situation in Cronulla, with teenagers riding fat bikes through the mall and along The Esplanade, and the council receiving “numerous, numerous complaints” regarding speed.

“I’ve witnessed it myself. I’ve seen kids travelling up one-way streets the wrong way with no helmets, doubling two people, and they’re travelling at a speed of 40km/h,” he said.

NSW police said they have been working since last May to educate young people on the risks and have issued 244 cautions. A spokesperson said that “in some cases, police took riders home and spoke with their parents”.

The owner of Manly Bikes, Francisco Furman, said he has had to turn young people away on numerous occasions who have asked for illegal modifications. He has also refused to sell fat bikes to the parents of children as young as eight years old.

“I saw the kid jumping on the bike and she couldn’t even touch the floor,” he said.

Furman believes education is key to tackling the issue of electric bikes on footpaths. He suggested schools could play a role in checking that bikes have not been modified and ensuring helmet use, or that police could give safety talks to students.

He also said parents should be educated about the potential risks to ensure their children are complying with the law.

The rules and regulations on the use of ebikes differ between states and territories, but there is a common thread: ebikes must be pedal-powered primarily and cannot have more than 200W of power or up to 250W if the ebike is a pedelec – meaning the motor will cut out once the speed hits 25km/h and it needs to be pedalled rather than using a throttle. In NSW, however, a pedelec can have up to 500W of power.

Anything modified above these parameters would be considered a motorbike, with riders needing a licence. But because the main cohort using these bikes is children, it opens up “all kinds of issues” when it comes to regulation, Heins said.

“It means that even if someone is hit by a bike, can they claim personal injury insurance?” she said. “There’s a whole black hole here where yet again, innovation has moved at such a speech that legislation and regulation hasn’t kept up with it.”

Some states have unique laws. In Western Australia you must be at least 16 to ride an ebike with the motor engaged, and in Victoria, only children 13 and under can ride their bike on the footpath.

The issue seems to be less common outside NSW. Northern Territory police have never issued an infringement for ebikes or escooters and the Tasmanian Department of State Growth said there were only two instances of an ebike being involved in a crash with a pedestrian in the past 10 years.

Scruby from the Pedestrian Council wants a major review, including tougher penalties and a national regulatory approach.

“Anyone riding a NSW-approved pedelec – 500W – crossing the state line, like Albury to Wodonga, will automatically be riding an unregistered, uninsured motorbike. And the repercussions of that, if they hit someone, would be like riding a motorbike on a footpath and hitting someone and causing grievous bodily harm,” he said. “It’s a jailable offence.”

The chief executive of Bicycle NSW, Peter McLean, said there was no single solution and that it is “less to do with what you’re riding and more about how you’re riding”.

“It’s about the regulation at a federal government level – little bit at the state. It’s about the educational awareness, it’s about the infrastructure, it’s about the common sense as well,” he said. “I hate to not have the silver bullet, but there really is a dozen different answers to this complicated problem.”

“Cut the crap” and “Fishes not faeces” read some of the many colourful slogans at Gyllyngvase Beach in Falmouth where hundreds of protesters gathered on Saturday to demand action over the scourge of sewage pollution in British waterways.

Wearing fancy dress and waving inflated plastic poops, they paddled into the bay on surfboards, kayaks and standup paddle boards – as did protesters at more than 30 other events across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – with the Cornish charity Surfers Against Sewage leading the way.

“We know exactly what’s going in the sea,” Demi Taylor, one of several key speakers, told the Falmouth crowd. “No matter what the water companies try to tell us, if it looks like poo, it smells like poo and it tastes like poo, it probably is poo!

“We’re here today to say the ocean doesn’t owe us anything; in fact we owe the ocean absolutely everything. At least we have the choice about whether we go into the sea [when it’s polluted] – the marine life out there doesn’t. So we’re here advocating on behalf of the environment.”

Statistics show there were more than 464,056 sewage spills in England’s rivers and coastlines in 2023 – a 54% increase on the previous year – totalling more than 3.6m hours. South West Water, the local utility, accounted for 58,249 of those spills, totalling 530,737 hours.

Lauren Holford attended the protest with her partner Mike and their two-year-old son Roo. “We’re here because we love going swimming in the ocean. But there have been so many sewage alerts locally – it felt like there was one every day at one point,” she said. “We’re also thinking about future generations. What’s it going to be like for them?”

Giles Bristow, chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage, told the crowd: “This is our beach, our ocean, and we are reclaiming this place from the polluters. A year ago today we had an apology from the water companies, but did they change? No. Pollution events jumped last year, apparently because it was raining. It’s a shame they didn’t know it rains here.”

Under exceptional circumstances, water companies are permitted to allow sewage into waterways, but Bristow said this was intended for “really heavy rain, to stop it backing up into people’s houses”.

“The definition of ‘exceptional’ feels like it’s become more and more loose, and it’s almost become an operational exercise to keep costs down,” he said. “But we cannot keep putting people’s health at risk and allowing companies to profit from polluting the environment.”

Sewage has become an especially topical issue. In Brixham, Devon, there have been 46 confirmed cases of cryptosporidiosis, a waterborne parasite that causes diarrhoea, forcing locals to boil their tap water before drinking it. And in Cumbria’s Lake Windermere, it was just revealed that 10m litres of raw sewage were accidentally pumped into the beauty spot in late February.

“Look at the news, it’s horrendous,” said Taylor, a surf film festival director. “Everyone should have access to clean water and clean air, they are just basic human rights.”

Bristow said there were many factors causing the problems, but although Surfers Against Sewage was a charity that rendered it “beyond party politics”, it was time for a change of regulation as well as greater imagination in planning. “We’re not sure as an organisation whether nationalisation of waterways is the right way forward because it hasn’t exactly worked in the devolved countries, but we certainly want to have a nature-led approach to solutions. We need to think about rewilding, rewooding, slow run-off and soft urban areas.

“At present, we’ve got a growing population, climate change and increased urban development. We’ve also got Victorian water systems, and we’ve been building badly on top of those systems for the past 100 years. We haven’t been investing properly to keep people safe.”

And yet, according to analysis, the water companies paid £2.5bn in shareholder dividends in the past two years and added £8.2bn to their net debt from 2021-23. Taylor said: “I don’t know any other industry in which you can fail so catastrophically and do your job so badly and yet receive a great reward in terms of cash.”

As the protest wound down, Natalie Pramuk, a marine management student at Exeter University, exited the water. Despite the grim cause for the paddle-out, she was in optimistic mood. “This is the first time I’ve done a paddle-out,” she said. “It was exciting. The energy was really good and it was a powerful movement of people coming together – all different people who care about the sea for many different reasons. It’s really empowering. I hope this raises awareness.”

Chris Hines, co-founder of Surfers Against Sewage, arrived in Falmouth after the paddle-out and said: “We campaigned hard through the 90s and there was a massive investment – £5.5bn worth of sewage treatment works were built – but unfortunately everybody has taken their eye off the ball and the water companies have pulled their pants down and started shitting in the sea again.

“I’m immensely proud to see how many people came today and to see the spirit of people who use the sea. If you love something, you’ll do anything you can to protect it. People are clearly angry and they’re going to make change happen again.”