"If I never saw the sunshine I wouldn't mind the rain"
Where I grew up, all I can remember is a grey sky that seemed to go on for days upon months upon years. I only ever read stories of the sun in the books about Gods and Monsters, and even then some Greek bloke had flown too close to it and fell out of the sky (why use wax when you've got Bostick?). Given that, I never felt the glow of the sun on my skin. My great Aunt Vera was the first in the area of have a sun-lap, but I was never allowed to stand in front of it, but it was my job to hold it for hours at a time for a packet of sweets and a penny for my trouble.
I used to dream of the sun, but never saw it. I therefore grew up a boy with little knowledge of whether I would be anything or little knowledge of what I could see in truer light. I think that that made me the man I am today. Back then I had nothing to break my heart. I seemed not to want for something that I could never get. I didn't think that I wanted to fly like the Greek because he had tried too hard and had fallen from the sky. Having fallen from Uncle Garth's backyard wall near the railway I understood what it was to fall from the sky and I didn't want it.
I remember it being my tenth birthday and I was taken to Liverpool to meet my Dad's family and see the famous Anfield. I didn't care for football and never have, but my Dad made it sound like an adventure. When we arrived in to the town, we headed down to the docks to meet my Uncles and waited under the Liver Buildings. It was then that I saw the sun. it broke through the maddening, angry black cloud that seems too hang only over the shore side towns. It broke through and hit me sending a thrill of warmth. I closed my eyes and lost myself in the bright blindness. That same day my dad bought me my first atlas and I saw places around the world that I wanted to find the sun in.
When the sun didn't shine from the sky, I opened up that Atlas and let the sun from the pages warm my face and fill my head full of dreams. It never brightened outside my house, but within the light was so bright that you had to cover your eyes. People have always said that I have had a sunny disposition and that is why. Always an optimist... whether some-ones pissing on my chips or it's raining on my parade I'll look for something bright in it. Even if it is the slow warm and quietly ungratifying sense of revenge.
