Sunrise in Liverpool is a beautiful thing. The
apartment, a swish habitat city pad looks over the back of the Youth Courts. “Are
they cells?” said Pete the producer as we stood drinking tea by the window.   The
view is of the  dark roof tops and grand
buildings of Liverpool gradually becoming golden
under the rising sun. Liverpool – The Golden City.

 Pete Moser and myself spend the morning
revising scripts and yesterdays work  for  The
Long Walk  an extraordinary event to
be performed in Liverpol in March 08. Then we Visit Fiona
Gasper Artistic Project Manager, and old friend,  for Liverpool
City of Culture 08. Fiona introduces us to Phil
Redmond who pops into and then back out of her office and then it’s off to
the train station.

I’m
punching in my number for my cash point and a voice comes from over my shoulder  “excuse me”. I
don’t even turn around “I’m busy”.  Maybe
it’s living in London
but a conversation with a stranger while drawing out cash is not cool. I finish my business and  turn to see a tall
latte coloured dreadlocked man with  a Liverpool lilt of an accent.

“Are you lemn Sissay” he says. I confirm his
speculation. And he thanks me for being open about my experiences in my writing and asks me for a hug. He is chaplain at a prison, a Buddhist who was brought
up in care himself.  After a
short conversation he says “we survived it, we did okay”. 

Sometimes meeting people who have been in
care is like being a vietnam
vet. But we weren’t old enough to be veterans, our wars were in our childhoods. Stop the action,
in the middle of this busy station there are two black men hugging.  Look again. Two children, hug in a storm.