Blue and black silhouetted birds in flight across the upper back, with the script lettering Sometimes you've gotta fall before you fly, in a Lettering style on the shoulder blade.

Flock of birds and script quote on upper back

Lettering · Back · Colour · Photo

A flock of birds in flight, drawn as solid silhouettes with blue and dark shading, rises from the top of the shoulder blade and sweeps down across the upper back. Below them, a line of black cursive script reads Sometimes you've gotta fall before you fly, with smooth, even strokes. The blue ink dominates the birds, and the photo is taken close up with soft natural light.

Lettering Back Bird Flock Script Quote Flight

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The starlings came back to the pit heap this week, hundreds of them, lifting off the slag in one dark sheet the way they did when you were small enough to sit on the wall and count them. Mam says they know the shift times better than the men do. The wages dropped again on Friday, so I'm not sure which of us is the cleverer.

Mr Rutherford called a meeting in the Welfare hall on Thursday. Half the lads wanted to walk out, the rest wanted to keep their heads down and their tallies filled. I stood at the back with my cap in my hands and said nothing, which you'll tell me is my trouble in a nutshell.

Old Jack Pringle fell from the cage ladder last spring and broke both legs, and he's the one who taught me that saying. He sat up in the infirmary bed with his plaster cast like a bundle of firewood and told me you have to come down hard before you learn to lift. I thought he meant the pit. I'm not sure now.

I've put my name down for the apprenticeship at the yard in Sunderland, the one you wrote about in the spring. Post me back by Friday if you think I'm mad, or don't bother if you think I'm right. The starlings had gone by the time I finished reading your letter, and I took that as a sign, though I couldn't tell you of what. Love, Tom.