I feel an urge to share an episode with you that has nothing to do with the subject matter of this blog. It occurred the other day when I was in my local Somerfields, (hold on to your horses now, this could get exciting), and I got to the counter with my product of choice – a four-pack of Grolsch. Oh joy. There is a connection, a tenuous one, but a connection nonetheless. The drinks in question were for James, a boy, or should I say man, who will be telling me his story later in the week. By the by, don’t get any funny ideas about me plying my subjects with alcohol in order to elicit better stories from them. The beer was James’s idea and I quote, ‘Sorry to cancel our interview. How about next week? You’ll get more out of me because I will be back on the booze by then’.
Anyway, there I am, standing at the counter with my four pack and the lady behind the till gives me a funny look. She takes a deep breath and asks the words I thought I would never hear again. ‘Have you got any ID please?’ Time, momentarily, stood still.
I am six weeks shy of my thirty-ninth birthday.
Her face was a picture when I produced my driver’s license. ’You do realize this is a great compliment’ she stumbled. Compliment? Reader, I didn’t walk home from the supermarket with my four-pack that afternoon. I floated.
Back to the point….Did I score any stories on my trip up north? Well, that remains to be seen. There were certainly some very fine guests in attendance at my aunts’ 70th birthday party. A lovely, green eye-shadowed teacher from Algeria, who sadly didn’t land in Britain until her thirties, so she is not within one of only two parameters that I have carved out for my collection of stories, one being that the subjects must ‘feel’ British. They don’t have to have been born here, but they need to have had their formative experiences in this country. She was interested to hear about The Virginity Project and we talked at length about the issues facing young Muslims in the UK today. Fingers crossed, she might be able to facilitate an interview between myself and one of her Muslim contacts, men, women, I am not fussy.
So in between burping babies and haranguing teenage cousins of the once removed variety, cousins who do all sorts of interesting stuff like study philosophy at university, the sort of stuff I probably could have done, had I the inclination and/or pulled my finger out long enough to open a book at that age, it was a top class day out. With a bit of gentle pestering on my part, hopefully interviews will be forthcoming and ‘Sheffield – The Return’, will be on the cards soon.
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