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The 3rd August 2020 – 3rd August 2021 was Stephen and Yhana‘s first year on YouTube – To celebrate they are sharing one video a day across all of their favourite social media platforms – Facebook Page, Twitter and Website, as well as a daily shout out on their youtube community page. – So please check often incase you missed any of their videos during that first year.
They have also published their very first youtube almanac – Which was released 3rd august 2021.
The book will be available to buy via Amazon shortly – Although you can get a free signed copy by signing up and supporting their journey on Patreon
All Patreon‘s will get a regular mention on YouTube and on their channel publications – As your support is very much appreciated and will help to purchase filming equipment and trips to historical sites, so they can keep their films coming.
Acid | A True Edwardian Story of Tragic Events
Acid | 13 Terrifying True Stories For Halloween | Story
By 1908, life started to fall apart for Selina Aylott, she had been carrying a lot of pain from times passed and wasn’t the strongest of people to deal with such burdens. I guess these feelings ate away at her slowly, and off cause times were different then and the understanding of mental health low in comparison to what it is today. Her daughter’s father-in-law, William Reubon Plaskett was categorized as insane and had for the longest time been a patient of a Mental Institution. The thought of ending up in a place like this would have been unimaginable to Selina. Although deep down she knew she needed help but had no one to turn too. Sometimes when the pain gets hard, you can begin to take things out on your loved ones, or self-harm in one way or another.
Welcome to the 10th of our 13 terrifying stories for Halloween, today we are going to take a deep dive into the life of Selina Aylott, and the last days of her life. This is a true story, and makes up just one of the dark and twisted tales that exist in my family history.
Yhana and I would like to thank everyone for watching, every time someone views our videos you give us both encouragement to do what we love, let us know how we are doing, drop us a comment and for more upcoming episodes please subscribe to the channel. From Yhana and I, we hope you Enjoy the story.
In 1908, Selina’s relationship with her daughter Lily Clark was beginning to break apart. Until eventually it ended all together. Lily left her home at 54 Sutherland Road and vowed never to see Selina again. The reasons behind this have been lost with time, and maybe the pain from the death of her young daughter Lily May in 1904 still held firm and maybe even the pain that Lily carried towards her mother, for not being there for her as a child.
Lily Clark left her home in December 1908, now homeless and deeply depressed. On the 12th December she was found in a state of delirium in Postmaster Row, Tower Hamlets and taken by an officer to a local workhouse to recover. She was discharged a month later the 9th January 1909.
For Selina Stress and anxiety continued to get worse for until eventually through these family troubles and varying worries she decided to end it all.
Can we truly answer, why? someone decides that life is not worth living, why they decide to commit self-murder. Or is it only the person committing the act that knows their reasons or believes it to be. Its one of those fundamental questions that leaves no answers and very often just more questions. The burden of a loved one committing suicide can weigh heavily on the souls of family and friends, guilt often falls into play.
For the person considering suicide; all it takes is a simple trigger to commit your body into eternity.
Selina’s reason for wanting death was certainly depression, and in the end her soul couldn’t take anymore. She bought a bottle of Hydrochloric Acid, and when the moment came she unfastened the cap and began to drink.
She sat there in the corner recoiling the voices coming softly from the noise of children in the street, which sporadically went over and over again inside of her pounding head, face covered over with an old tea towel pulled haplessly down from the small work surface above her. Tea now spoiled and cold sat forgotten and abandoned next to her upon the bare floor in an old chipped blue cup. There was air in this room just a moment ago, she could taste it and feel it as she inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with life giving oxygen. Now it had gone!
She had been struggling for breath for almost ten minutes, trying to calm her self – from an overwhelming panic that had besieged her. Pain panged in her stomach and twinges of sudden knots like shock treatment watered her eyes. Compunction overcame her and she begged silently to herself, wheezing for air and clutching her stomach. With a twinge of pain, a tightening of knots the walls bore down on her almost suffocating, the rusted hinged door closed shut, the window fastened, like there was no window at all. She tried in desperation to breathe, it was hopelessness – the pain was excruciating and her extreme anxiety was crushing her lungs.
Whoop-whoop.
Whoop-whoop.
Was this what drowning would be like, is this what happens if you try to suffocate yourself.
Not that she gave a damn, she wanted to stop breathing, wanted to stop living, anything would be better than the throbbing from inside her guts and the overwhelming sensation from between her legs. She had never felt anything like this before! The pain of it all, of all combined, the actual pain and actual loss she was feeling were more then she could envision. Whoop-whoop.
A bead of sweat ran down along her forehead, her face was a flushed red and saliva prominently hung from the corner of her mouth. She wanted to scream out loudly, she wanted to tell the world how much she hated it, she wanted to grasp the tea cup firmly in her hands and smash it, anything to forget about the hurting and conscious grief.
What felt very near an eternity her throat tight and dry began to ease ever slower. The sounds of her whooping coughs and her splutters fading and her breathing regained a balance as her body welcomed the influx and gentle flow of fresh oxygen. For a moment, she thought the worst was over. Her head rested heavily upon the cold wall, the towel still draped over most of her face and silent tears replaced the anguish that she wanted to scream. Then she felt the trickling sensation, a warm irritating flow upon her inside thigh. Had she pissed herself, was it a bead of sweat or was she bleeding. At that moment, the pain began again. Her chastisement scourging her because intolerably she took on too much. Slowly she pulled herself up from the floor. She clambered for her bed feeling the entirety of lost emotion from with inside of her, locking it away defending it as though it was her misery and hers alone. Heavily her body dropped down upon the bed and she held tightly her stomach To forget it ever happened. To find a reason if any, that this was not her fault. An unnerving darkness slowly descended upon her, heavy like rocks. A jolt of pain, the trickling sensation of blood followed hence forth, a last frantic thought. She had killed herself and was about to die.”
Selina’s Letter
My Dearest Samuel and Clara
This is the hardest letter I have ever had to write, and if your reading it. Than it means only one thing. I am no longer with you. Please don’t be sad for my passing, life is far too difficult as it is, and I know more than anyone the pain that life can cause.
Please remember I will always be beside you, I will always be looking down on you and when you need me I will be there.
Clara will you please have my box of keepsakes fetched to you, I leave everything within for you. Samuel, I leave my love and I thank you for the years we have spent together.
Why I am going I need not say; you can guess. The one who has caused me to go I can’t say, and even if I did, it would do no one any good. My only wish is that I will find May waiting for me, I miss her dreadfully. She has been my worry for so long, she is alone.
Pawn whatever you need too, my gold ring, my gold locket, I daresay they will fetch a few a little money; enough to contribute to a basic funeral.
My body may be found in my room, or I may decide to go further. I cannot fix on the certain place till the time comes, If my death brings shame on the family, I am sorry for that.
Clara, I have left you a dreadful lot of hard work to do for me, I know, but when it is all over I am sure you must think it is the best thing I could do, and what I ought to have done five years ago and saved my family all the disgrace of these last five years. Now, for your own sake and the sake of your family, don’t scream or faint, or do anything like that when you read this, as I must warn you it is very shocking; but it can’t be helped now. I have been unhappy for a very long time.
“My mind is slowly but surely going. I only hope it will last one more week. I wonder if anyone else ever felt as nervous as I do about death. I am going out tomorrow to finish up the last of my business. Then I shall have nothing else to do but wait for Monday. I am starving myself this week as much as possible to be too weak to struggle and so my stomach is empty, as I dread a slow death more than anything else… I hope it is quick.
“Goodbye, Clara, Goodbye Samuel. Pray for me.”
- Published: 28 October 2020
- Location: Poplar, London
- Duration: 13:44
- Photography – Stephen Robert Kuta / Yhana Kuta
- Written by – Stephen Robert Kuta
Music –
After The Tragedy by Damon Greene
Music Licensed by Epidemic Sound
Stephen and Yhana – History and Adventure Hunters Almanac
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On the 30th of January, 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). In the following weeks, the virus quickly spread worldwide, forcing the governments of affected countries to implement lockdown measures to decrease transmission rates and prevent the overload of hospital emergency rooms.
The United Kingdom implemented lockdown on the 16th of March, 2020 and from this date and up until the 3rd August, 2021 the UK had suffered three national lockdowns which all included Restrictive measures on border controls, closing of schools, markets, restaurants, nonessential shops, bars, entertainment and leisure facilities, as well as a ban on all public and private events and gatherings. In between these lockdowns we saw tier systems and heavy restrictions on how we all lived our lives.
We all decided on different approaches on how we spent that free time as many people were on Furlough as their businesses were shut, only key-workers carried out their working duties. Although I continued working as a key-worker, I still had a lot more free time as Yhana was not at school.
Both Yhana and I spent those first few months experimenting with tiktok and photography, we explored our home village of Great Leighs and took some incredible photographs as spring and eventually summer took hold.
Tiktok was a short-lived adventure for us, although we enjoyed it all the same — tiktok like so many Social Media platforms had exploded during the pandemic but none more so then YouTube.
In 2020 alone YouTube had more than 9 billion views globally
66% of people used YouTube to develop a new hobby in 2020, and a whopping 94% of people in India used YouTube to learn to do things themselves, Whilst Globally, 82% used YouTube to the same. What were they learning to do, exactly?
• Views of beauty tutorials increased nearly 50% in 2020.
• There was a 90% increase in bike maintenance and repair videos.
• Daily views of videos with “raising chickens” in the title increased 160%.
• Videos related to learning guitar saw 160 million views from mid-March to mid-April.
• Videos about container gardening saw 6 million views in the same period.
• There was a 215% increase in daily uploads of videos related to self-care.
• There was a 458% increase in daily views of videos about making sourdough bread and a 200% increase in daily views of recipe videos for bubble tea.
• Videos of how-to videos for home haircuts also spiked in April.
Even though these giant increases in YouTube views began as early as March 2020, it took Yhana and I up until August of that year to begin our own channel, and Yhana’s encouragement certainly helped on that matter.
So it began, 3 August 2020 – We went out and filmed our very first video. To be honest I wasn’t sure what our plan would be for our channel, I had a rough idea of what kind of content I would like Yhana and I to make and as a historian I looked at the channel as a way to record at least one year of our life, not just any year either, but our life during the Covid-19 Pandemic. So for me, it was a great way to record a piece of social history.
This book in front of you developed from that period of our lives also, and is a showcase / diary / almanac of all the videos we created, many of the photographs we took, the treasure hunts we went on and some of the incredible finds we discovered just a short walk from where we lived. In truth, those finds would never have been discovered if it wasn’t for lockdown.
So for prosperity, social history, a window into our lives during the Covid-19 pandemic and a transparent visual look at what its like to create a YouTube channel in that first year including channelytics, descriptions of videos, thumbnail artwork, viewer comments and more.
We have written this full guide, our first joint book –
Stephen and Yhana – History and Adventure Hunters Almanac.
The book is available to buy through Amazon and via all good bookshops.
LINK BELOW –
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