General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

This:

The sun has dropped over the rooftops of Gloucester Road as the boys of Pemberton Primary trot down to St Cuthbert's to play the auld enemy.

They look splendid in their gold and black shirts as they go past. It is early autumn and soon the nights will draw in. I am going the other way, home through Wiltshire Place and up Norley. I am still at Robert Lewis and the happiest days of my young life are coming to an end: soon we will make the move to Pem Primary, the two schools merging as one.

As I cross Ormskirk Road, my throat is already sore, and within three weeks I will feel the beginnings of the illness that will lay me low and put my young life at risk.

The schools are coming out and everywhere kids are heading home. It is September, 1963, and a time that I will never forget. The midnight fire will soon burn, night after night, casting ghostly shadows on the wall...