Off Camera #1

Stepping into Curzon Street, from the left, I reimagined years gone by as a black and white photograph, sepia even, with me in the foreground, a trolleybus in the background making its slow rattle up St Ann’s Well Road, torn in the top left hand corner and badly creased at the bottom right - the actual photograph, that is. There’s me, school cap, satchel, blazer – I had a satchel then – waving and smiling, short trousers, a hint of sadness just behind the eyes. Plump, nicely plump, not fat, nondescript knees. Off frame, just out of reach, the touch from my mother’s hand, her fingers just in shot, obscuring the view of a tall brick chimney. Red brick, you can almost feel the glow. The pavement, lifted slightly by the outlying cobbled stones, the dust on the endless, crooked pavement, the kerb weathered down, far too close to the street and far too close to the people who walk there.

Here missus, some firewood for you! as it crashed down in the back yard, the dismantled debris from the old Player’s factory that blocked the sun from the back window where I’d sit and count the rain. We’ve got a gas fire! she shouted, my mother, we don’t need your wood you cheeky gets!