It had been one of those long, hot summer days you get sometimes, even in the north of England. The sun had warmed the flags that paved the street, and was now sinking slowly behind the slate-tiled, terraced roofs. A few boys kicked a battered football around at the end of the street, their cries somehow muted by the humid weight of the air. Occasional traffic droned softly past on the main road a few streets away.
The city of Liverpool, 1949.
He reached up and tilted the helmet a little further forward on his head, absently trying to shield his eyes from the sun's last rays. The blue uniform had cooked him mercilessly all day, his feet hurt, and the thought of soaking them in a bowl of cool water was about the only thing keeping him going. All the same, it hadn't been a bad day. Apart from scattering a few mischief-making nippers from time to time, he'd had precious little to do. Sometimes a policeman's lot wasn't quite so bad after all.
"Evenin' Sean. Not been bad today, has it?"
He nodded and smiled at Shirley McGrath as she echoed his thoughts from her front step, but he didn't stop to chat. His feet were too hot for such an idle interruption. Only a couple of streets left now, then back to the station, a quick report, and home.
He turned the penultimate corner and stopped abruptly, his nose not six inches from a very unexpected obstruction.
A police box.
Someone had put a police box on his beat and not told him about it! He started to walk round it in disbelief, and nearly tripped over the second unexpected obstruction of the day.
The little man sat with his back leaning against the weathered, blue side of the police box. His fedora was tipped forward casting an obviously welcomed shadow over his cat-green eyes, his fingers picked restlessly across the strings of a battered acoustic guitar.
Sean stepped back and studied the box. It certainly wasn't new; its paint was faded and chipped, the windows liberally begrimed, and its generally battered appearance made it look like it had been standing there for years.
But it hadn't been there that morning.
He turned back to the little man.
"Did this arrive since you've been here?"
The little man smiled. "Oh, we arrived at more or less the same time, officer." There was a faint Scots burr in his voice, and another quality, authority perhaps, that was a little unexpected from this crumpled, unassuming figure.
He continued, "I don't think it'll be here much longer, either. I rather got the impression that it was, er, in transit."
Sean scowled briefly, thinking of cold winter nights when a haven like this would have been most welcome, and then returned his attention to the guitar-playing oddity at his feet.
Slowly a melody formed from the man's almost random strumming, sounding clean, correct. Sounding right. Almost right, anyway. The little man shook his head slightly and flashed Sean a grin.
"Stringed instruments were never my forte. The recorder perhaps, once upon a time. Not now, though."
He kept trying, ironing the rough edges from the chord-changes, inserting the odd trill here and there.
Sean heard a footstep, and turned to look down at the boy that stood behind him, all dirty face and tousled hair.
"Evening, John."
"Evening, Mr O'Leary! What time is it?"
The standing joke was as old as the hills, and far older than the seven or eight years of the boy who insisted on using it every time they met. Not that he minded. The lad was a bit wild, but Sean preferred that to the gormless puddings that some of them were.
He reached tolerantly into his pocket for his watch, but the little man was quicker. He glanced casually at the sun.
"Three and a half minutes past eight." he said, then looked across at them with a mischievous glint in his eye. "Roughly." he added.
Sean glanced quickly at the watch in his hand and noted that it said gone five past. Then he recalled that it was prone to gain a little, and wondered briefly why he wasn't surprised. Before he could ponder the point further the little man nodded to himself as the last piece of tune fell into place, and quietly he began to sing.
The tune was simple, the lyrics moving, and for some reason it seemed instantly familiar to Sean. Even though he'd never heard it before in his life. His sore feet were forgotten, for the time being anyway, as long as the man played. The boy was similarly entranced, his usual boisterousness left behind by the magic of the music, and after a couple of verses he was even mouthing the words of the chorus.
"John? John! What are you doing?" The boy's guardian descended as an irresistible force, shattering the semi-hypnotic spell with a shower of sound and movement.
"I've told you about botherin' people before. You know it's past your bedtime!"
"I never!"
"I've been all over the street lookin' for you!" She flashed a flustered, apologetic smile at the little man, who touched the brim of his hat in response, then turned her attention to the policeman.
"Honestly Sean, I don't know what I'm going to do with this one!"
"Hangin's too good for 'em, Mrs Smith!" Sean laughed.
"Aw! Auntie Mimi! Do I 'ave to go in?"
The boy's protestations were ignored and he was scooped up, turned and propelled in a flurry of skirt, apron, and recriminations back up the street.
The little man watched them go, his expression unreadable. "There's a storm coming," he said.
Sean frowned, "The radio said it were set fair."
"Oh, it won't arrive for a decade or so yet," the man answered, his eyes still fixed on the boy's departing back. "And I don't think it'll be a such bad thing even then. People need a storm now and again to shake them up and make them think. The trick is in turning the storm the right way."
Sean sighed. This was getting too deep for him, and his feet were increasing their bid for his attention. As the last edge of the sun dipped below the rooftops he murmured a farewell to the little man, then turned and walked away to complete his beat.
At the end of the next street he paused as a faint groaning and wheezing sounded somewhere behind him, then he shrugged and continued towards the station and a bowl of cool water for his feet. Although he wasn't aware of it, he was softly humming the song that the little man had been playing for the boy.
In time, it would be heard again.
...all we are saying,
is "Give peace a chance"...
Frank Beaney, 1995