Again, weeks passed with no contact from Christina and then it happened, the ‘different’ dream that Patrick had predicted:

There is a small cobbled lane in Durham City that was my playground, my fantasy world and my daily journey to school. One side of the lane was flanked by “ conker” trees and on the other, empty derelict buildings that we used as “Gang Headquarters” (after all, we were only around nine or ten years old and a Gang Hut was a necessity). Anyway, there I was in my dream, halfway down that lane, when my Mother appeared by my side. She was wearing a golden yellow dress and looked much younger, actually rather like she would have looked when I was a boy – except I was now a grown man - both in my dream and in ‘reality’. Neither she nor I seemed surprised to be together again. “Will you come with me to church next Sunday?” I said. “Yes” she replied. “Have you taken your tablets Mam?” “Oh, I don’t need them now”, she answered. Then we walked together, over the ancient cobbles, down Paradise Lane.

No trace remains of that old cobbled alley, near Elvet Bridge, by the river banks and the old boathouse that is now an expensive restaurant. The tree-spirits and the ghosts of the old men with their flat caps and clay pipes, wander the multi-storey car park, newly built on the suffocating earth. But the lane as it was then, still lives on in my memory.

When I was a boy, I used to think that “Paradise Lane” was a strange name for such a neglected little footpath.

I don’t anymore.