On Cullen Street, Liverpool



I admire detachment. To pilfer from Beerbohm quite so directly is, I am sure, an act of lèse majesté against the Prince of Minor Writers but- in my defence- he was adept at doing the same and, more importantly, it is true. I have sat in bars and theatres and churches and allowed a smile to creep across my lips at a joke unshared, I have delighted in observing their goings on as an outsider, I have even kept my head when round about me others were in the process of detaching parts of theirs. 

It is, I plead, no southern superciliousness nor introverted shyness masked behind bravado. Instead, I think of detachment as necessary- not as a monstrous refusal to embrace sympathy or empathy, but rather an acknowledgement that some nests are better left unpoked. A chance for those of us who delight in throwing ourselves in to all and sundry to pick not only our battles but our festivals too. Perhaps this is why I admire it so; detachment seems to me to be as much discernment as it is pure sang-froid.

Such is what I claim to believe. Yet, such belief only goes so far in reality. As far as the patch of grass and mud at the end of Cullen Street in Liverpool to be precise. Whether carved out of the uniform rows of terraces by the council or by the Luftwaffe or by dry rot, I could not say but it is there as a gathering place, strewn with the material consequences of the lives lived about it. There meets on this patch a group- ecumenical in nature, indeed as varied in age and sex and faith as might be possible this side of Martian contact- gathered originally by a good and brave and holy Methodist minister who was determined to show love to the Roma community who live thereabouts (and to whom neighbourliness was, I regret to say, not always directed) and invited others to join her. I was one such part of this most mixed of bands- although, whilst I have seen both High Church court shoe and Baptist sensible hiking boot spattered there with Merseyside mud- I confess I am yet to gaze upon such glorious scars inflicted on Humanist sock and sandal.

Then again, confessional detail is of little relevance to those we meet there. The children arrive first- rushing on from stage right at the parcels of books and toys and snacks lovingly prepared for them by others more charitable and Christ-like than I. Then their mothers, joking and spitting sunflower seeds as they lift their skirts over the slipperiness below. Finally come the men- fathers and elder brothers, smoking and more silent but the best appreciators of a visual joke- a slip or slide in the mud, a ball lost from one of the games, a seed husk ejected awry- that I have ever encountered. My cassock’s train, assumed by many to be only for swishing along the rose-scented marble of shrine churches, garners immediate attention. Detachment is thrown out amid questions in many tongues, a flurry of tugs and pokes and a curious desire for engagement. It is joyful- deeply, nourishingly so- I only hope that, in the crisps and the games of catch and the jokes, I give as much as I receive.

It is not that I have undergone a transformation of my self there, that Cullen Street leads not to the Smithdown Road but to Damascus or that the mud is some sort of Pool of Siloam, removing the shackles placed on me by cruel, inhibitive society. No- I still admire detachment, indeed I think it necessary, but entering that roadside arena of absolute engagement where detachment is, at best, foolish and, in reality, impossible, I realise that for the most part we balance the two. Men, islands, and all that. Such knowledge (if such nonsensical musings might escape too much censure by masquerading as such) is too wonderful for me- and certainly would be lampooned or- more likely- drowned out if introduced to that litter strewn clearing in the forest of bricks and tarmac.

Regardless, it is there, buffeted by the metal benches, the railway sleepers and the hopefully placed bin, that my admiration for detachment finds its limitations. It finds it, too in churches, theatres, and bars, but scarcely with quite the same interrupting immediacy. I feel again, as I write, the tug at my sleeve.

‘For me?’ I query, as small fingers proffer a single, mud daubed curl of orange puffed corn.

I pretend to eat it enthusiastically- which, I suppose, a truly detached person would not- and it wedges halfway down my cassock sleeve, depositing cheese powder and unidentified effluence. It is testament to my past as a class clown that I hold these to be stains worth bearing for an act that earns a laugh.

Then, as quickly as they arrive, they are gone. So too am I, no longer stood amid organised chaos but instead detached again. No detachment of my own choosing this, rather it is a necessary lack of engagement- imposed distance not amused disinterest. When detachment becomes, once again, a knowing smile or some act of wry cool-headedness worthy of admiration, a treat to myself instead of the enforced medicine of us all, I must go back to the corner of Cullen Street. I hope the lessons there learned might come back to me as quickly as they do now.

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