The train arrives late. Not good. 12.20pm.   It’s raining so I must be in Manchester,  land
of rainbows.    I am on stage at 1.30pm
in Stretford  a short walk from Manchester
United’s Football Ground.   The moment I step out of Piccadilly Station,  I get a phone call requesting I write an
introduction for a book for homeless people in Rochdale. It’s the result of a
workshop I did a while ago.   I agree to
do it.  Only problem is they want it
today. 

I hot foot it to The Malmaison hotel and bump into Stuart Maconie  as  I
step out of the lift. Both he and his colleague had listened to Child of The
State and just gave me a lot of broadcaster love for it. We’re both from the
same area – Wigan.  I’ve known him to
say hello to over the years.  We swap. I
get out  the lift while they get in  conversing through a  strange dance.  “Are you not angry” says his friend. “I’ve
been angry” I reply.  The lift beeps its goodbye and   I bustle into my room  change swiftly,   rush
outside  and catch a cab to Stretford High School.

It’s years since I read poems in a school.  The rain picks up some more and batters the
taxi with tiny  thumping  fists. Go
back go back.  I arrive in good time
where  Chris Hirst the cheery teacher
meets me at the door and tells me the young people have been studying my poems “It’s been  a Lemn Sissay day” he
says as we rush through the corridors. 
“Barack Obama” shouts one of the older students as  we pass.   That they relate a new black face in a suit
to a president is something.   A
few minutes later, 1.30pm,  I stand in front of one hundred students (yr 7) and  read my poems for forty five minutes and
then take questions.  Their questions are
erudite and fun to answer. It’s a pleasure to be there with them, an honour too. 

Chris gives me a lift back to the hotel   at 4pm and I am a buzz with the adrenalin.  I  go
to market
street as much to feel Manchester as to buy a shirt.  A quote from one of my poems is emblazoned
onto hoardings on the corner of Lever Street. “Everytime Piccadilly grows – I
expand. Lemn Sissay”    I
miss this city.  it's good to see it changing. But some things never do.  I drop  into Boots the chemist  to buy
an electric toothbrush and the woman behind the counter says  “how are you love?”. I don’t know her but she
asks me how I am in a way that can only be done here in the north. I want to hug her.

I get back to the hotel after dropping into Pizza Express
for some dinner, and write the introduction and email  it to Stepping
Stone,  the North West based Charity
for the homeless.  At 8pm on television
while writing this blog on channel four there's a programme about Witch doctors in Nigeria
exposed by a charity from England  called
Stepping Stones.   The main protagonist
is a northern man: Could it be the same charity?  But How am I? How are you love? How am I?