I wake up with Andrew in mind. I’m tired.  Tomorrow I will be one month sober.  And Andrews passing is a sobering reminder of the poison.  Today myself and the
journalist are at a house gathering at Gary Younge’s House. Gary  is the Guardian correspondent for New York. He’s back in London to pick up a honorary Degree from Edinburgh University and he’s also speaking at The Marxism Today conference in London.

I too am speaking at the conference later in the evening with Chidlrens Poet Laureate Michael Rosen. It’s a really good party. I see Simon Hattenstone and Paul Gilroy and many other good people. I pride myself in drinking water and chat about kite flying with someone.  I talk with Simon about the passing of Bernard Manning. A  complex man Bernard.  But this northern “comedian” typified confirmed and legitimized the abusers at whose hands Andrew and myself suffered from throughout our childhood. Simon is the person who got myself and The Journalist together two years ago.    I stay for an hour go
home get changed and go to The Conference.

It’s a packed left field audience and the reading goes down well. I read a poem for Andrew it’s called Mourning Breaks and this is how I introduce it. “Andrew has died. I am reading this poem, not for him. I am reading it for me!”.

Michael Rosen reads brilliantly from his new book Fighters For Life and then kindly he gives me a lift home.   It’s been a tiring, tiring  weekend but a fulfilling one.