When we were two little boys.

I remember a house viewing, I remember a thick smell of pipe smoke, or maybe cigar smoke, though I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time. I remember a cheerful family with soft West Indian accents, I remember the old man of the house sat at a piano. I think I remember pots and pans being hung up everywhere, but I can’t think how that might have worked.

I remember becoming overwhelmed with frustration and bursting into tears because the sums in front of me wouldn’t make sense. I distinctly remember calling the teacher ‘mum’ and the laughter that followed. I remember it taking me months to acknowledge the distinction between ‘are’ and ‘our’ thanks to the accents I was surrounded with. I remember when Kirsty showed up to school wearing perfume and sat in front of me, how the nape of her neck suddenly became the centre of the universe. I remember the expansive rush that shot through my head as I breathed it in, something I wouldn’t experience again for nearly 25 years and in quite different circumstances.

I remember the doughy black girl from across the street, who had the hair and the combs that I didn’t understand, asking me to marry her as we played outside her kitchen window, and me turning her down because of the scented neighbour from school. Well, I don’t actually remember saying “No.”, it’s more than likely I just ran home without speaking and didn’t see her again for a while. All very childish at the time, but probably a fairly telling moment, looking back. I don’t remember that girl’s name.

I remember the first time I cycled ‘round the block’ and that feeling of guilty terror as I found myself in unfamiliar surroundings out of sight of home. I don’t remember how I felt when I got back onto my road, but I know I’ll have been at the bottom of a reasonably steep hill, so it’s possible I felt annoyed and resolved never to get myself into that mess again.

I remember hiding behind the settee when Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video first came on TV. I remember standing terrified with my brother in Ben & Kirsty’s back garden while Ben pretended to ‘change’ into the wolf. I remember Kirsty discouraging him but clearly not being impressed.

I remember dad taking us to watch the Stock cars just up the road, I remember it being very cold, very loud, but mostly I remember he bought us pie. I remember playing cars on the terraces of the same stadium as the rugby took place on a slightly sunnier day.

I remember my brother running headfirst into the corner of our pebble-dashed house. I may or may not have pushed him.

Bradford is my hometown, it’s where I’m from, but this is the sum total of the memories I have from actually living there and, let’s be honest, there’s a strong chance I’ve invented half of those, I spent most of my pre-teenage years believing I had a false finger because of a scar that has grown from when I trapped it in a door as a toddler. Turns out I’d had a dream at some point about having it snipped off in A&E, it was only when I was telling the tale to a friend at school that I realised it probably wasn’t true.

My dreams are usually a lot more fun than my memories anyway, apart from those ones where I get trapped in a box, I'm not so into them.