Drew Payne

Liam really needed to realise this. It's a hard lesson to learn, that your parent is a crap one, but his mother's lack of caring and love lead to Liam's actions. It's another way to show that he isn't a "cold-hearted killer", just a boy who made a bad decision.

Liam sat down next to Ed on the sofa, in the Common Room, that evening. He’d spent an hour finally finishing off an essay for Mrs Williams. He just couldn’t get into it and kept restarting it and restarting it. Finally, he just wrote it, just got it down on paper. It was crap, not his best work, but Mrs Williams would know what to do with it. As he sank back into the sofa, Ed said: “Everyone wants to watch that Celebrity Love on the Beach shit,” Ed’s voice dripping with disappointment.

But Liam is growing up and maturing, and he is living in a very supportive environment. I wanted to show that here. Also, it gave me the chance to revisit his awful mother and show someone with no insight, who can't change their behaviour.

It's nearly three years since he's seen his mother and Liam has had some really good quality care and therapy since then. This is also a unique chance for Liam, to see his mother when he wasn't there, i.e. strutting her stuff on a reality dating show. The last time he saw his mother, Liam barely had a relationship with anyone else. Now he has a therapeutic relationship with Aiden and Janet, a good friendship with Mark and a very close and caring relationship with Ed. These people have changed his life, and he isn't the same person he was when he killed Rhys Clarke. Many, many years ago, a very heavily pregnant friend of mine went to a wedding with her family. She was the only person in her group who couldn't drink. She watched the antics of her drunken mother and was horrified. She saw how badly behaved her mother was and was horrified. That story has stuck with me ever since, I've used it in another story, I thought it would work so well here, Liam gets to see how badly behaved his mother is when he isn't there.

Liam sat on the sofa, in the Common Room with his book on his lap. Like this, he could just look down at his book, quietly read it, and no one would notice him doing so. It was a Tuesday evening, so there was little chance of anything on the television there that would interest him. He glanced down at his book and began to read the first paragraph on the left-hand page. “It’s starting now,” Ed said, as his elbow nudged Liam in his side. “What is?” Liam looked up from his book and at th

A small time Dublin thief (we’re never told his name) suddenly finds himself out of his depth. Used to stealing cash and jewels, which he can easily fence and sell on, he now finds that the paintings he stole, from a country house, are a Rembrandt, a Gainborough and two Guardis. How does he sell them, for a good profit, without alerting the police? And the police are becoming more and more interested in him because his alcoholic mother has been loose-lipped around her new friend. This story was originally included in Toibin’s collection Mothers and Sons. In June, 2006, Picador published it as part of their Picador Shots, pocket-sized books containing one story. The premise of this story is interesting, a criminal falls into a personal existential angst because he has stolen paintings he can’t easily sell, and is facing trusting people he doesn’t know. Unfortunately, the excursion of this story just fades away. Toibin spends a lot of time on the thief’s past. At first this is interesting, but when so much space is given over to it, it means we get so little on thief’s present day life. Why is his falling apart? We have little discussion of that, so little time is given to thief’s current relationship with his mother and we’re not even told thief’s wife’s name. What is most disappointing, is the ending. This story doesn’t end as much as it just fades out with an unexpected event, running opposite to the story’s narrative. It felt as Toibin hit his word limit and had to hastily bring this story to an end. The ending was so disappointing that it left a sour taste in my mouth. I wanted to like this story but was disappointed by its poor ending and the way Toibin did not explore his interesting premise. Maybe other stories in Mothers and Sons are better, but I hope this one wasn’t the best. Find it here on Amazon

I know there are good people who are religious. I know good Christians, good Muslims, good Jews; but I am torn because I also know the harm religions do to people, the hate they foster and the pain they cause. My series of blogs is about how I overcame the harm done to me, in the name of Evangelical Christianity, just because I'm gay. The problem for me is how deeply religions abuse their power and encourage hate, and I don't know how we stop them from doing this. It's far more complicated than saying ban them all. These are just some of the examples of these abuses: Salman Rushdie: Losing an eye upsets me every day BBC confronts man who abused boy in secretive Christian church The Gay Pastor, The Conservative Megachurch And The Fight Ripping Apart A Suburb Gay vicar who couldn’t marry in his own church says policy looks ‘ridiculous’ and ‘primitive’ Life after shunning: what I faced after coming out as a queer Jehovah’s witness Catholic priest says sorry for KKK cross burning on black couple's lawn The Woman in the Wall: Ruth Wilson drama examines Magdalene Laundries Church of England facing LGBTQ+ ‘safeguarding’ crisis due to internal homophobia Jayne Ozanne resigns from General Synod over its ‘callous disregard’ for LGBTQ+ people What do we do about this?

Eve was framed! They blamed black people for not being white. They blamed disabled people for not being able-bodied. They blamed poor people for not being rich. Evangelical Christianity seems to worship straight, white men. It is certainly geared up to give them power. It makes me so uncomfortable.

But if there weren't any gays, then Evangelical Christians would have to invent us, because who else would they blame when people ignore them?

So many religions talk a lot about love and yet there are so many people who experienced the opposite from them. Power corrupts, and making people fearful keeps you in power. It's all so distasteful, damages the vulnerable and shits all over those genuine people trying to follow that religion.

Wow, I wish I'd met religious leaders as open-minded as the ones you did. As a child, I remember people telling me that "every word" of the bible is true and that it was a sin to question it. Yes, I questioned stoning a woman to death for being raped in a city and not crying out for help, I question how a man can live in a fish's stomach for three days, and I really question the poor translation of the verses that have been used to condemn LGBT people. I also wish I'd had your religious education, not the Christian indoctrination I received. But, unfortunately, we can't go back in time and change what happened, what we can do is speak out and hope to influence modern education.

I like the comparison of good people in religion. Here you have good people working within a religion so why can't the rest of the religion reflect them? It's a way to hold up a mirror to a religion's faults and failings. I know several good people who are also Anglicans. I compare them to the leadership of the Church of England. Those people are good, welcoming and non-judgmental, yet the leadership is the opposite. The leadership promote homophobia, fail to deal with any of the failings of their church, fail to move their church forward to make it relevant to our society. This church has a history of covering up abuse, an unforgivable crime. This church is the opposite of these good people. I know why these people stay but I am disgusted by how their church's leadership betrays them. As human beings, we do seem to have a need to believe in something, and many people get comfort from their beliefs, but it the way religions have abused and used their position in society, that is so wrong, the naked grabbing for power. The harm, pain and suffering they have caused, wheeling their power, is unforgivable. So much hate comes out of religion and it is unforgivable. It's the old saying, "No one fought a war for the right not to believe in God." If we could abolish organised religion, and just allow people to believe in peace, maybe our world could improve. I know the man who groped me justified what he did, he probably saw it as him offering me comfort, but what he did was plain wrong and no justification will change that. It was abuse. I've heard several abusers, over the years, justify their actions, use their religion to do so, and I never believed a word of it. Abuse is wrong, no matter how screwed up you are.

I feel very uncomfortable about religious education in schools. My religious education at school was just indoctrination into Christianity, I learnt nothing about any other religion. If religion has to be taught in schools it should be taught critically, encourage children to ask questions, and teach it as part of other subjects, such as history or geography. History, how religion played a part in historical societies. You can't teach the Tudors with teaching about religion and its effects on their society. Geography, how can you look at another country without examining how religion affects that society, or how being a non-religious society works. And "intelligent design" ISN'T a scientific subject!

Those people were worse than evil, they were stupid. They didn't once question how harmful their actions were. I'm now writing about what happened when I did leave. It was so eye-opening to realise how much I was lied to.

I don't know if I'd go that far. I know a lot of religious (Christian) people and they are wonderful and very good people. But religion does seem to attract evil and/or corrupt people. The lack of transparency and accountability in many religions, especially in Evangelical Christianity, enables these people to flourish. HM, here, at the time believed what he was doing was "right", but much later, when the claims of sexual abuse carried out by another True Freedom Trust councillor came out, HM denied that True Freedom Trust did any harm. HM has now retired from TFT and claims gay Christians can have romantic and sexual relationships (!!).

At the time it was called “The Trial of the Century,” though many people have forgotten it now, and others question that title. There have been higher-profile trials since then, but Simpson’s trial did deliver shocks and forced questions about the American justice system. On 12 June 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson, Simpson’s ex-wife, and her friend, Ron Goldman, were brutally stabbed to death on the doorstep of her home. A mountain of evidence pointed to Simpson as their killer but, over a year later, he was found not guilty of their murders. How did this happen? Jeffrey Toobin is a writer and former lawyer, and at the time, wrote frequently about the Simpson trial. His book chronicles the events from Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman’s tragic murders through to Simpson being found guilty for them, at his second trial. Toobin has a very critical view of what happened, and he is very analytical. He provides the backgrounds to all the main players in this story, using this to outline that person’s personality and several of their flaws. Toobin’s critical view isn’t biased, he sees faults and failings in both Simpson’s prosecution and defence lawyers. The majority of this book is taken up with Simpson’s murder trial, it was over a year long. Toobin analyses the defence and prosecution strategies, finding both lacking, and the judges behaviour. He also looks at the witnesses and the ups and downs of the trial. All through this, he doesn’t hide away from the mountain of evidence that showed Simpson’s guilt. Toobin doesn’t write about the trial in isolation, he also writes about the wider environment in Los Angles, at the time, and what was happening within the jury. When Simpson’s not guilty verdict is reached, in the criminal trial, there is no surprise. Toobin has laid out the evidence of how this occurred. But Toobin does not stop there. He also covers Simpson’s second trial, the civil trial were he was sued for wrongful death by Nicole Brown Simpson’s and Ron Goldman’s families, and how he lost that trial. This is a fascinating and insightful read. Toobin has researched his subject, in great depth, but he has also analysed that research and is critical of his findings. All this gives the reader so much understanding of what was happening and why it happened. There is no shock, when the reader reaches the verdict in Simpson’s criminal trial, because Toobin has laid out what was happening and why it was happening. Simpson’s trial might not have been “The Trial of the Century,” but the fallout from it was shocking. This book doesn’t just explain how that happened but why it did. It is also written in an easy, readable style. It is well worth the time it takes to read. Find it here on Amazon

I stand by my criticism that Goodbye to Berlin was dishonest, that Isherwood “straight washed” so much of this narrative. I’m not alone in that criticism. Isherwood wrote Christopher and His Kind to tell the real story of what happened to him in Berlin, to counteract the self-censorship of Goodbye to Berlin. Goodbye to Berlin isn’t Christopher and His Kind. They are two very different books. My review and criticism is of the former. I still stand by my biggest criticism of this book is that, for the majority of its text, it ignores the political situation playing out in Berlin, at this time. Isherwood did say, many times, that when he first went to Berlin he wasn’t a political animal, but could he have missed the rise of the Nazi party? This wasn’t like the change of a Prime Minister or President, this was a very big and loud political sea change. Even someone as apolitical as Isherwood says he was then could not have failed to see what was happening and experience the change in the culture of the city and Germany as a whole. This isn’t just my opinion; it is based on reading an awful lot about this time. Even if he had still straight washed his story (which he didn’t do very well), Isherwood had the chance here to tell a story about what really happened in Berlin at this time, how the rise of Nazism took hold and affected the people living there. He was a first-hand witness to it. But Goodbye to Berlin misses this on so many levels. I was so disappointed in it. This is my personal review of this book, but I didn’t set out to just give my opinion, I wanted to justify that opinion by referring back to the book. It is no good just saying, “I didn’t like this book.” I need to say and show why I felt that, and justify my stance. Which I hope I did. I do find it very strange that you relate almost all your criticism of my review back to the TV movie Christopher and His Kind when my review is of the book Goodbye to Berlin.

I am working to a theme here, I won't give it away, and I do know where this story will end. Yes, they are two very damaged souls, but is that all there is to them?

Thank you. I've thought about and worked out a lot about Liam and Ed's relationship. I want to show them navigating their way around their relationship, they are only 15 and 14. They are both very damaged souls, look what Ed did to survive at school, but they also care about each other.

Liam dumped the laundry basket down on his bed. He’d have to empty it and his jeans were only just covering his underpants but Ed would see his underpants. He could just grab all his clothes and shove them into his wardrobe though Ed would think he was crazy. Ed dropped down onto Liam’s bed, next to the laundry basket. “Hurry up and we can go and watch TV,” Ed said. “Is there anything on?” “I don’t know. If its shit, you can read your book.” “Okay.” He’d have to be

Thank you for your feedback. You were so young when your mother died, that must have been so hard. My husband lost his mother when he was 16 and that was very hard for him. That sharp pain of grief does ease over time but sometimes the loss doesn't. My husband and I keep the memories of our mothers alive by talking about them. Our mothers never met but we like to imagine what would have happened if they did. They were both very different women and it would have been "fun", well much later it would have been. Take care of yourself.

Unfortunately, for some people, it's still their experience now. That breaks my heart, not what happened back then.

(This is part of a continuing series about how I tried to come out as gay in an Evangelical Christian environment. If you haven’t read my other essays in this series, please find them here, they will put this essay into context) Spring 1985 “I don’t believe you’re homosexual,” he said. “I believe you’re bisexual, mostly heterosexual, and this is a phase you are going through.” I just nodded my agreement, what else could I do? We were sat together in the tiny study of his house. He was the curate of the church I attended, in suburban Liverpool. It was an extremely Evangelical church, everything was right or wrong, no grey areas, from a very simplistic reading of the bible, but it was also the place I was desperately trying to belong to. I wanted to be accepted by this congregation, these people, because I believed they were my only chance at finding friendship. But there was a secret stain on my soul, I am gay, and back then Evangelical Christians saw it as a sin so bad it was only punishable by hell (I know many still believe that). I was eighteen then and so deeply closeted. I had locked that closet door and wasn’t letting in a spark of light. No one could know I was gay, if they did I could risk losing all of my friends, and I was lonely enough. The thought of being friendless was terrifying. But my secret was eating away inside of me. There was the fear of being found out but there was also the isolation. There was no one I could talk to and be my real self with, I had to constantly monitor what I said, again and again I had to pretend to be straight, again and again I had to hide so much of myself. I longed to be open with someone about my sexuality. (Deep down I longed for a boyfriend but that was too much to express. But I still believed that if I had gay sex, it would be a sin that would condemn me to hell forever). I was so deeply depressed, but back then I didn’t even recognise that, I found it was just my normal, melancholic personality. Several months before that day I hit a watershed moment. I saw an advert for an organisation called the True Freedom Trust (TFT), in the back of my Christian youth magazine, they claimed to have an alternative to the “homosexual lifestyle” through Christianity. I had been seeing its founder, HM, since then for counselling. He said his belief was just being gay wasn’t a sin but any kind of gay sex was, the only “acceptable” lifestyle was that of celibacy. I jumped at that, when I first heard it, it was my fire escape from hell (Though as time passed, it proved nothing of the sort). HM said that I needed to confide in someone, at my church, about my sexuality. He suggested my church’s curate. I was unsure but was convinced by HM. HM said he had met the curate and he was the right man to support me. I wasn’t sure but HM said this was the right thing to do. The curate was a middle-aged man who had trained for the Anglican ministry after a life of low paid jobs and then a long time in adult education. He had deeply Evangelical beliefs, which he would talk about at any opportunity, especially his views on sex, which were just as Evangelical. He talked about masculine Christianity and for Christian leaders to be strong and real men. I screwed up what little courage I had, this would only be the second person I told about my sexuality, and asked the curate if I could see him. There was something I needed to talk to him about. On a weekday afternoon, I visited him, at his home, sat in his tiny study with him, and I told him I thought I was gay. I actually said I thought I was homosexual and that I’d been having homosexual feelings. That was when he told me he believed I wasn’t, that I was just a confused heterosexual. I was stunned, this wasn’t the reaction I had been expecting, or even fearing, and I had no answer for him but to agree with him. How could I have argued? What could I have said? I didn’t have the strength, back then, to tell him that I don’t have a heterosexual bone in my body, which is what I would do now. I just agreed with him, because that was what I was sure he wanted me to say, and in that I wasn’t wrong. Then he told me he’d had of vision of me, a vision given to him by God. He saw me dressed in a suit and tie, not wearing my glasses, with my hair short, neat and tidy, taking a girl out on a date to the cinema. If I followed this vision then I would truly find happiness and be the man God wanted me to be, he said. I felt a terrible kick of fear. How could this be a vision from God, it was so wrong. Without my glasses I am very short-sighted, which makes most activities difficult, at best. My hair is thick and curly and in any style that is short, it rebels against it, sticking out at odd angles, it is never neat when short. I hate wearing a suit and tie, even then I did. Suit jackets show off my round shoulders, I’m never comfortable with a tie pushed up to my neck, and shirts never stay tucked into my trousers. My mother always complained about how badly suits hung off me, but I am just genetically unsuited to them. But taking a girl on a date, that was the most confusing part of his vision. Was he telling me to stay and follow the TFT’s ex-gay counselling? I was begging God, each night, to turn me straight, but that prayer went unanswered, every time. Did the curate’s vision mean I was failing? His words felt like a command, telling me the way I should be living, but a goal I was falling so far short of. I didn’t argue with the curate, I didn’t tell him what he said was certainly a lie, when he called me heterosexual, but I couldn’t. I had such a negative view of myself, I hated so much of myself, that denying myself and agreeing with him was all I could think of to do. As I left his study, and his home, I again agreed with him, he said I wasn’t gay, only a confused heterosexual. He was so wrong. I felt so betrayed, after seeing him. I had gone to him for help and support but he’d denied me that by denying what I said to him. How could he have turned it into such a lie, something that was so untrue? (Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I realise that man was deeply homophobic. It was his homophobia that drove him to deny my sexuality and to come up with that ridiculous vision of me. But I didn’t know that, back then) After that afternoon, the curate behaved as if I had never told him I was gay, he just ignored it as if I had never said a word to him. He carried on talking to me about me finding a girlfriend and his preaching, at church, got increasingly homophobic. I got the message though, he didn’t want to hear any more about me being gay. The impression was made, did anyone at church want to know I’m gay? No they didn’t. I had to stay firmly closeted because being gay was something to be ashamed of. Not what I needed to hear at that moment. Drew Find the next story in this series here

It is 1930s Berlin and “Christopher Isherwood” is enjoying the notorious nightlife and culture of the city. Isherwood is an upper-class Englishman, surviving by teaching English to different citizens of the city, as he explores a life very different to his previous one, that opens him up to a diverse cast of characters. This book has become a modern classic, the basis of the musical and film Cabaret, but don’t expect a novelization of Cabaret here. The musical was inspired by this novel but the two are very different. This book is written in the form of a collection of novellas and diary entries. Unfortunately, this style does not help this book. Several of the novellas overlap in the time they cover. The Sally Bowls novella covers a long time period, causing Bowls to appear as a minor character in other novellas, which can make the reading confusing, you don’t know when a particular story is set. Worse than its haphazard structure, is the feeling of dishonesty to this book. It was published in 1939, with all the social prejudices of the time. The narrator is called “Christopher Isherwood” which gives this book an air of honesty, that these events happened and Isherwood has only simply fictionalised them. “Christopher Isherwood” is such an edited character, he’s portrayed as so sexless, but the truth of the man bleeds through in places. At one-point Sally Bowls is being romanced by an American businessman who buys her and the narrator expensive presents, without explanation, though the subtext is that the narrator is also sexually involved with the American businessman. Later the narrator lodges with a working-class Berlin family, though it is never mentioned about his desire to be closer to the family’s bisexual son Otto. Later still the narrator is pursued by a rich Jewish man, with almost constant invitations to spend weekends at his lodge, though the sexual nature of their relationship is never mentioned. But, in one section, the narrator spends a holiday as the houseguest of a gay couple, though it is a very negative and stereotyped portrayal. The most disappointing element of this book is its politics. A Jewish young woman is characterised as shallow, only interested in clothes. But the worst is how this book largely ignores the rise of the Nazis. It is set between 1929 and 1932, when the Nazis were rising to power, but they only appear in the last quarter of the book. There is such a varied cast of characters and it would have been fascinating to have their reactions to the rise of the Nazis. But this is such a wasted opportunity. Even with the constraints and prejudices of 1939, this book could have been so much more honest, even for a work of fiction. Isherwood was there and experienced Berlin life but he diluted it here. This book has been given the reputation as the great novel of pre-war Berlin life, unfortunately it just isn’t. Find it here on Amazon

Last month I forgot my mother’s birthday. I was writing on my computer, glanced down at the bottom right corner of the screen, and saw the date. It was my mother’s birthday, or it would have been. My mother died twenty-three years ago. At first, after her death, I used the date of her birthday as a time to remember her. Using the date of her death for this was too much, too morbid and too negative. Her birthday was in January, in the cold winter after Christmas, and was always celebrated quietly. When she was alive, I would arrange to post a card and present to her, in time for it. After her death, I would take time, on what would have been her birthday, to remember something about her. I would remember some story or anecdote about her, good or bad. It was my way of remembering her, of keeping her memory alive. My mother had been ill for a long time with cancer and I had told myself I was prepared, I knew what was happening. Shortly after her diagnosis, she’d had surgery and radiotherapy for it. I wasn’t able to see her, at that time, and didn’t physically see her until two months afterwards. When I did visit my parents I was shocked at how tired and worn she looked. She was sat in the house’s conservatory, reading a magazine, when I arrived, and she looked so old and frail, sitting there in that armchair. Everyone had told me how well she had done since her surgery, how well she had recovered and how she had returned to health, but looking at her, that day, I knew she was ill, I could see it. I kept quiet though, everyone, including her, were being so positive, and how could I rob them of that? I kept it to myself, but I knew my mother was dying. She declined slowly over the following six years, her health failing her, as my father failed to cope looking after her. I lived two hundred and fifty miles away from them, and I was the only healthcare professional in my family, so my role fell to providing advice at the end of the telephone. I told myself to prepare, to be ready for when she would die. To prepare myself for my family’s reactions, to be the strong one because I had seen this coming. She died in a hospice, were she was comfortable and well cared for. I had seen her two days before and said goodbye to her, it was clear then to everyone she was dying. I received a call, from my brother, that Tuesday morning, that she had died. She had died in one of the few moments when no one was sitting next to her bed, in a quiet moment when she was left alone. I was prepared for this news, I wasn’t shocked, I was expecting this. I called my partner and told him. The next day, I was due in work and I was prepared. I had accepted the fact my mother was dying, her death was just the final part of that. So I went into work. I spent the first hour or so of my shift just wandering around the ward, but I wasn’t connected to why I was there. Mid-morning, I went into the ward’s office, where my manager was. She looked up at me and in surprise asked me what was wrong. “My mother died yesterday,” I replied. “What the hell are you doing here?” she said. "I don't know," I said and burst into tears. She sent me home, telling me not to come back to work until after the funeral. She was right. Grief is a strange and messy thing. I thought I was prepared for it but I wasn’t, how could I be because I didn’t know where it would take me. I didn’t cry at her funeral, sat there in the front pew next to my partner, but I did cry when I was set off by stupid, little things. The sight of her favourite flowers in a shop, the memory of her suddenly leaping into my mind, the sound of a piece of music that she had loved. The strange, physical things that made me remember her. I had thought I was prepared because intellectually I knew the course of grief, I had studied it, I knew the theory and evidence behind the stages of grieving. But I didn’t know them emotionally, I hadn’t lived them. Losing a parent is never easy, I found it especially hard because I was only in my early-thirties. I was at the age when people were beginning to expect their parents to retire as they entered “old age”. But my parents were in their early forties when I was born. When I entered my thirties, my parents were entering the end of their lives. I felt cut off from my peers, they couldn’t relate to what was happening to me, their parents were alive and well, were I was living through this too soon in my life. Fortunately, my partner knew exactly what I was facing, he’d lost his mother when he was sixteen. He knew about feeling too young for what was happening. But as time passed, that grief faded, as all emotions do. Marking what would have been her birthday became less and less urgent, and at some point I forgot to do it. I can’t remember when I did last mark my mother’s birthday, I stopped doing it so long ago, but I didn’t forget my mother. She had been such a large and dominating part of my life for so long. She had shown me and taught me so many different things, most of which she never meant to. She had been a woman of very strong opinions, opinions that were not to be questioned, and faced with this I had learnt how to argue. My mother, unwittingly, had taught me to argue, because if I wanted to do what I wanted, as a child and adolescent, then I had to win my arguments. The first time I won an argument against her I was fourteen, and it was a glorious moment. I had learnt how to use logic to defeat a steadfast opinion. It is a skill I have used many, many times since. Watching my mother, as a child, learning why she held her opinions, showed me how to watch and understand other people, a skill I am so grateful to have because it aids me so much as a writer. So many things still remind me of her, and I have a partner who I can share these with, even if it’s just a short memory, and he does the same about his mother. We keep those women alive in our memories. That day, as I looked at the date on my computer’s screen, it occurred to me that if she was still alive, it would have been so easy to buy her a birthday present. I could have gone onto Amazon, found the gift I wanted, bought it, and had them gift wrap it and deliver it straight to her. So much more easy. But my mother died before e-commerce became such an easy part of our lives. So much has changed in our world in the relatively short time since her death, would she even recognise our world? Would she even like our world? When I realised what the date was, I texted my partner and told him. He replied, “Blimey, how old would she have been?” “94,” I texted back. Drew