Picture Book Moss Side

They started out as a bunch of houses built a thousand years ago when there were no coloured people about. St Bees Street, Fairlawn Road, Monton Street, Moss Lane East. James knew these roads by heart. He'd passed them often enough on the way to church. St Bees, the houses with four floors and a cellar with no windows. Carl lived at Number 2 with his mum, dad and ten brothers and sisters. He was the youngest, so he had his own bedroom. James didn't know anyone with their own bedroom, not even Mum and Dad. It was Carl that James first heard it from.

'We're goner have a brand new house in the sky,' he said.

No-one believed him, but no-one said anything because his sister was the Cock of Greenheys. But when James went to church the next Sunday, he couldn't go the normal route because of the bulldozers, cranes and barbed-wire fences. They were still there next week, but this time there were no houses. Like a bomb had exploded. A winter wonderland of bricks, dirt and old shopping trolleys. There was even an old abandoned broken-down car, just right for being Jim Clark. But when he returned next week the car was gone and instead there were men in police uniforms and captain hats.

'Clear off you cheeky bugger.'

(Forever and ever amen, pages 143 to 144)