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into my car. As I sat there eating and drinking, I looked around. I noticed the opposite corner was now fenced in, with the area behind the fence appearing to contain trees. I recalled that in my days as a boy living just down the road, the piece of land had been occupied by an old building that had been bombed during the Second World War. Although part of it had remained, there had been a section where the roof had completely disappeared, leaving only two or three wooden beams remaining. There had been a huge bomb crater below this, which my friends and I used to swing over on a rope suspended from a beam. I quail now to think about what could have happened to us, but in those days we were just lads doing the things that lads do.

      I remembered the cocky watchman who used to guard the other building on the site. It contained what we called ‘Toby sugar’. Whilst the watchman’s back was turned we would take as much of the rough brown sugar as we could, run home with it and put it into a pan to turn it into toffee. Many were the times our mothers were mystified as to how one of their once clean cooking pots had been filled with a sticky brown mess.

      I finished my sandwich and turned the car around. I drove slowly down Brasenose Road looking for the exact spot where my grandmother’s house had stood. The small side streets still remained, but had been terminated after about 50 yards, ending in a blank brick wall. I managed to locate my grandmother’s precisely by counting the streets up from the iron bridge that still remained over a canal. The home I had loved and that had been my refuge as a child had now been replaced by a building bearing the name Bootle Car & Commercial Limited. Nothing remained to suggest that once upon a time this had been an area where people had lived in a closely knit community.

      I got out of my car and walked slowly along the streets that had been so familiar to me as a young boy. I walked towards an area where St Alexander’s church had once stood, with the school I had attended as a youngster next door.

      I recalled the day I had ‘borrowed’ my aunt’s new bicycle. The bike had been far too large for me, so I had had to stand on the pedals to propel it forward, my legs being far too short to actually sit on the saddle and ride it normally. I recalled hearing my grandmother’s voice shouting to me to ‘Come back at once!’ I had ignored her shouts, but, despite pedalling for all I was worth, I could not outstrip her. When she caught up with me I received a resounding clip around the ear and a long telling-off, not only for taking the bicycle without permission but also, even more importantly, for ignoring my grandmother. In those days I had been something of an imp and was known locally as ‘Dennis the Menace’ after the famous cartoon character.

      I continued to stroll around, marvelling at how some places had altered so radically and yet others had remained almost the same as I remembered them. As I walked across St John’s Road and under the railway bridge, I suddenly heard someone shouting my name. I turned and saw a middle-aged woman standing waving at me. From a distance I didn’t recognize her, but as I drew closer her face seemed somewhat familiar. As I reached her, she gripped my hand and said, ‘Derek, I thought that was you! Whatever are you doing here? You’re the last person I expected to see today, but it’s strange you know, because I was only thinking about you the other day.’

      She introduced herself as Maggie. ‘You’ll remember me as Maggie Dawlish,’ she said, ‘but I was married for nearly 40 years to Don Petrie. You never knew him, because he wasn’t from around these parts.’

      Of course I remembered Maggie. She had once been very friendly with my older sister Barbara and had often played in my grandmother’s house. Obviously she had changed over the years and now very much had the look of her mother. Mrs Dawlish had always been kind to us children. There’d always been the treat of a biscuit and a glass of lemonade to hand.

      I told Maggie that I had been passing through the area and had felt compelled to stop and take a look around my old stamping ground. ‘Isn’t that strange?’ she commented. ‘Here’s me thinking about you and then you tell me you just felt the need to stop off around here.’

      Maggie told me that her husband had passed away the previous year and as her four children had all now married, she was living alone.

      ‘I know! Why don’t you come to mine and have a cup of tea and a catch-up?’ she suggested. ‘I only live a minute away around the corner.’

      I explained that I didn’t have long to spare but would gladly accept her offer of a hot drink.

      True to Maggie’s word, we had walked no more than 50 yards before we were entering her neat terraced house. She had not moved far from her roots in all the years that had passed.

      She ushered me into her front lounge and settled me down in an armchair set in the bay window. She then went through to the kitchen and as I heard her bustling around preparing the tea, I drank in the atmosphere of the home. There was a lovely calm and peaceful feel about the place. I knew that this had been a happy home with lots of good memories. In fact Maggie’s home was just as I remembered her own mother’s home – welcoming and warm. Like most of the people in the area, the Dawlish family had not had much money, but mere money could not buy the wealth of a solid family who cared about the people who lived around them.

      Maggie came back through with a tray containing two mugs of tea and a sugar basin. ‘We may go back a long time, but I don’t know whether you take sugar or not,’ she laughed.

      I smiled. Still the same Maggie – the years had not changed her quick wit and jocular outlook on life.

      We had been sitting for no more than 15 or 20 minutes drinking our tea when I became aware of the presence of a spirit in the room. I expanded my consciousness and opened myself up to the spirit world. I could sense that the spirit was a man and I picked up a feeling of joviality and gladness to be in the home. I immediately assumed that this was Don, the husband that Maggie had been telling me about and whom she still missed greatly.

      Sure enough, a minute or so later, the spirit form of a man began to build beside the armchair in which Maggie was sitting. He was of medium height, around five foot seven or eight inches, and of stocky build. I had the distinct impression that the weight he carried had only been gained in the latter years. As a youth he had been muscular and tough. I picked up the scent and the feel of the sea, of long journeys over the rolling oceans, of hard work and long hours. The spirit man rolled up his right shirt-sleeve and pointed to the tattoo of an anchor on his arm. I realized that this was symbolic – in life he had not had such a tattoo, but it was a way of indicating to me his lifetime working at sea.

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