BELFAST. EARLY 1970s. I am a fourteen-year-old boy on a shopping expedition with my mother. Objective: the purchase of a new overcoat for school, and church, and general overall nice presentation. Few things in life are more exquisitely embarrassing for a young boy than such a shopping trip with his mother. Each has in mind a completely different kind of coat, and the endless parade before shop assistants and posing in front of mirrors is a delight for one and the purest form of torture for the other.

To make matters worse, I have a bad, feverish cold, the day is freezing, the shops are too hot and Belfast is a very, very dangerous place.