What’s Happening on Starling Street?

a collaborative play about the lives and dreams of the inhabitants of Starling Street

Introduction

‘What’s happening on Starling Street?’ is a collaborative play produced by participants of the ‘On the Write Wavelength’ project, hosted by Phoenix FM and funded by The Big Lottery Fund.

The project ran weekly sessions during which the students explored different literary styles and techniques to create poetic character portraits of the people that live on Starling Street, a fictional street in West Yorkshire. At the end of the project, these character portraits were all woven together to create a play for radio broadcast which used Dylan Thomas’s play ‘Under Milk Wood’ as a model.

The authors of ‘What’s Happening On Starling Street’ are as follows:

Ross Kightly, Faye Lockwood, Marion Oxley, Julie Rose Clark, Daniel Bickerton, John Ling, Joel Duncan, Robyn Wells-Eldredge, Nuala Robinson, Gaia Holmes, Winston Plowes, Turner Cockroft.

Prologue

1st Voice: Welcome to Starling Street, a street in West Yorkshire, a street with terraced houses. Some of the houses have wheelie bins in the gardens, some have precarious mounds of bulging bin bags, some have barking dogs tied to drainpipes with fraying ropes, some have bald, clean concrete yards that are scrubbed with hot water and fairy liquid once a week, some have tangled forests of weeds, some have neat flower beds full of big, red well-tended roses and pots of mint and basil, some have rotten washing lines full of broken plastic pegs, some have bleached white washing lines full of tea towels or jeans or bright kurtas and dupattas.

Imagine a street where, at 6 o clock, the air is a fusion of smells, a fragrant chorus of gravy and masala and chips and beef and hot paratha and pizza and cumin and toast and cinnamon and there are different worlds in every kitchen. There is hot sesame oil smouldering in woks, stacks of roti snug in ovens, pierogi puffing up in pans, ready meals bubbling under their cellophane lids, dhal simmering on hobs, yoghurt thickening on the pipes, chips crisping in deep-fat fryers. There are seeds and spices being pulped and ground in pestles. There is dough proving in airing cupboards. There are tables being laid with bread and salt and bowls and knives and forks and bottles of wine and steaming plates of chapattis and chopsticks and pudding bowls and jugs of water…

Imagine you can hear the dreams, the hopes, the fears and the wishes of all the people who live on the street.

Come with us…Join us now. Stay with us. We will let you listen to their lives…

Night falls on Starling Street

2nd Voice: It’s night on Starling Street.

There is the distant humming that comes from the pub down the road. You can hear out-of tune singing, glasses smashing, fights breaking out.

The street is lit up by a row of street lamps that give off on orange glow. A fly has made its way into the top of one and is hitting itself against the glass, is buzzing, buzzing…

It’s an autumn night and the moon is on full display. It is brighter than any light from the street lamps.

The wind sweeps its way from one end of the street to the other, knocking little stones against the walls, swirling leaves around in circles.

Hushhhh...

You can hear the clouds racing over in the dark sky, trying to fight the brightness of the moon.

Listen…

Listen, you can hear their restless shifting, the creak of their beds, their heavy night time breathing, the whisper of their sheets. You can hear their dreams…

1st voice: At number 1, Sharon Shaw, tucked in to bed, neat as origami, is trying not to think of the little silver and blue box of Lambert & Butler cigarettes she keeps in her sock drawer, just in case. She is trying not to think of the calm that enters her body with each drag, the way the smoke seems to click her bones in to place. Non-smoker for a month now. She’s tried gum and patches and e-cigarettes but what’s been working for her is origami.

She has folded her way through the withdrawal symptoms. She has folded her way through 28 days without the click and flare of lighting up in the cold rain outside the school gates. She has folded her way through bad news and boredom. She has folded her way through awkward parents’ evenings.

Her house is full of her creations: swans and rabbits, cats and parrots sculpted out of squares of bright, thick origami paper. They’re everywhere: on the book shelves, on the TV, in the fruit bowl on the kitchen table. Crushed elephants in the bottom of her handbag. Parakeets flying from the hand rail on the stairs. Orange paper foxes lurking on the top of the bathroom mirror. Green paper frogs in the cutlery drawer. Sharon Shaw, trying not to think of the little silver and blue box of Lambert and Butler cigarettes she keeps in her sock drawer is falling asleep and dreaming of folding…

Sharon Shaw: Folding a life in half could be a good thing or a bad thing. It could hide half a person or cover them. Folding a memory is like storing it away, to one day be re-opened, without blocking or removing it. Logic can be folded to create a neater version that makes half the sense but is twice as much fun.

When you fold love in half you get half a heart that cannot be fully given. You could fold anything in half but it wouldn’t disappear, it would be the same on the inside still. Inside a lie is the guilt, betrayal and truth, only covered by falseness folded up.

Happiness can only be folded a limited number of times before you realise it can’t get any smaller, it is only being compressed.

When you fold a direction, it can go anywhere but the destination will be different. If you fold your dreams they could change shape but they may still come true.

Folding death in half would be just as dark, covered by denial and the stubbornness of letting go. Folding the pages of life, or closing the chapter, can lead to new things and new beginnings

1st voice: In sleep. Sharon Shaw is thinking of her 7 year old daughter snoring gently in the bedroom next door. She is thinking how she’s a bad mother, how she disappoints her with her bad habits, her

clumsy packed lunches, her short temper, her fag-ash-Lily stink…

Sharon Shaw: Oh let me be a calm and silky mother, all reason, good bread and punctuality. Let me fold her lunchbox sandwiches into doughy angels who will keep her safe.

1st voice: She is thinking about the man-sized space in her double bed, the gap in her daughter’s life.

Sharon Shaw: Let me fold her a sturdy new father out of expensive ivory paper.

2nd voice: Sunlight strikes the darkness with its last rays of light. Dexter walks to his home on Starling Street. A cold breeze hits his face as the night winds get stronger. He looks up, sees Jupiter overhead. He goes into his house, climbs up the stairs and goes to the telescope in his bedroom. Whilst almost everyone else on the street is fast asleep, blanketed beneath their thick, heavy dreams, Dexter is wide awake, stargazing and thinking...

Dexter: There is one thing we all dream of and that is going into space to see all the stars and planets. Just imagine the feeling of discovering something new. Just imagine that sense of adventure. Stepping off this planet and looking down on earth from above would be brilliant, the stars shining and us, one step closer to standing on a different world, breathing in alien air , dreaming of new worlds inhabited by humans. A new beginning.

Listen everyone! Stop what you’re doing and listen to me! Get off the sofa or out of bed. Go outside! Look up! Look beyond the light pollution! Looking at the night sky can be fascinating. Just looking up as the moonlight shines in your eyes and the many billions of stars sparkle and glide across the night sky. Just think about how special you all are and how impressively smart you all are to dream of such things as the many options and possibilities there are out there!

I believe that every single star up in the night sky is an angel guiding us through life’s many possibilities and impossibilities, but my other belief is that those stars out there stand for dreams people need to catch. It’s never too late to follow your dreams. Reach up and catch those dreams…

1st voice: At number 3, Fred’s head, starved of stars, is full of the spark and crack and grind of the day-in, day-out racket of the merciless production line…

Fred: The spanner on nut, the bolt locked tight, steel on steel, cold on cold. The spanner on nut, the bolt locked tight, steel on steel, cold on cold. The spanner on nut, the bolt locked tight, steel on steel, cold on cold. The spanner on nut, the bolt locked tight, steel on steel, cold on cold. The spanner on nut, the bolt locked tight, steel on steel, cold on cold…

2nd voice: At number 4, Asma Akhtar, usually asleep by now, is thinking about her cousin’s wedding in Pakistan in two week’s time, hoping the presents she sent have arrived. Asma Akhtar is listening to the gentle, whispery snore of her husband and remembering the excitement of her own wedding twenty years ago and the delicious fizz and frenzy of preparation- all the choosing of fabrics, the sheen of silk, the fittings, the jewelled shoes, the glitter, the dazzle, the glow . She is remembering the joyful greens and yellows and golds of her Mehndi night and how her favourite sister, Raheela, couldn’t stop giggling. She’s remembering the heady Sandalwood scent of Ubtan paste, the burn and weight of it on

her face where her mother had rubbed it in. She’s remembering the sugary taste of the little sweets that graced every table of every day and then…

Buses! Suddenly Asma’s head is full of buses all driving madly like giant bumper cars- the 504, the 508, the 503 and, on the side of the road her eldest daughter Saima is standing with her brand new college bag full of unused pens and sharpened pencils and empty notebooks shouting through the dream to her, ‘Mum, which bus do I catch?! I don’t know which bus to catch!’ Asma finds herself walking through the dream towards her, handing her a sticky little parcel of Gulab Jamun sweets wrapped in a bus timetable, grabbing Saima’s hands and writing 503, 503,503 all over the back of them with a cone of freshly mixed henna paste…

1st voice: Down the road at number 5 lies droop-eyed soi-disant sage ‘Sad Sack’ Samuel Sanders, mercilessly mocked pedagogue; his derided vision-aids now in sleep become steel-sprung symbols of sovereignty over the Street; from his supreme vantage point, he sees midnight mutate into bright, impossible ingots, poured by neighbourhood lackeys into mountain-sized moulds, golden suns of youthful vigour; he alone in his black bear dream sees this homing spirit shine before clumsy dream chair-topple into a curtailed death of waking into grey light of another school day.

2nd voice: In number 6, Monica Matthews, 78, child of the dead, mother of no one is lying in her bed, checking the house in her head.

Monica: Door locked. Check. Good. Lights out. Check. Good. Fire off- no hum and hiss, no gassy breath on the honey comb. Check. Good. Door locked. Check. Double check. Good. You can’t be too careful here. Check. Things aren’t as they were here. Check. Some of them on this street, smoking funny stuff by the bus stop. Ruffians. Check. Can’t be trusted. Check. Setting the bins on fire. Check. Stealing my morning milk. Check. Trust…is it still a word? Who can I trust to change a lightbulb? Who can I trust to draw my pension when my legs are bad? Me, check, Monica Matthews, 78, child of the dead, mother of no one…

2nd voice: dreams of bolts and padlocks. She dreams of little gold and silver keys swimming around the air above her head like glittering minnows. Monica Matthews, 78, child of the dead, mother of no one dreams of the men she never loved, the babies she never bred. She dreams of light and locks and porridge sputting on a pan on the childhood range in that big kitchen that always smelled of jam and pudding. She is remembering the rip of leaving that sweet, plummy haven to go to school and be taught by icy Mrs Martin, the teacher that shrunk her all those years ago, the teacher that pruned the buds of ambition before they had time to bloom. Monica shudders, grabs her tepid hotwater bottle as she remembers Mrs Martin’s voice…

Monica: Her voice was like an empty eggshell that been unintentionally crushed. It was a cold voice that got colder. It was the last echo of someone crying for help through the distant darkness of the unknown. Her voice shuddered at its own reflection and shrunk in the bold surroundings of consciousness. There was no colour left in her voice. It was empty, shallow, transparent. Her voice was like a vacuum in outer space, still, but still there. It tasted of flavourless water and felt as if all hope had been drowned.

2nd voice: Strange how such a mean, thin voice has stayed with her for all these years, lodged itself under her fingernails. Strange how it echoes in her head condemning her for her loneliness. Your fault, your fault, it says. Monica wakes, tries to shake it off. Turns on the radio and drowns it with the midnight news…

1st voice: In number 7, the house with plant pots of mint and basil in the yard , Kelly Kismet, paid ladler of soups and stews at Moorland View care home, unpaid ladler of soups and stews at the soup kitchen, the salvation army, the luncheon club, volunteer at the Shelter shop, Help The Aged, Cancer Research, The cats protection league, knitter of socks for babies in Africa, knitter of blankets for the RSPCA strays, marzipan-hearted, kind as whole milk and melting butter, tries to sleep but is nagged by wolves and the sadness of other people’s lives. She lies like a flower, pressed by the weight of the world, crushed by the frowns and worries that cast their shadows on Starling Street. She thinks of the gaunt girl at number 17, all hollows and ribs and sharp elbows, her big, hungry eyes lost in bruises of bad makeup. She thinks of the lonely old woman at number 6. She thinks of the weary teacher at number 5. She would like to bake them all cakes, leave them outside their houses smelling of caramel and blazing with candles in the stagnant, dingy dawn. Tomorrow, she thinks, I will spread my goodwill. I will light up the sky and make it brighter.

Kelly Kismet: I will light up all the clocks as it’s time to be bright. I will find the darkest places on earth and share myself with them. I will light up thoughts, negative thoughts, and make them lighter. I will give my light to faces and make them smile. I will light up the trees and flowers and they will glow.

I will go to every corner in every room in every house on the street and at night I will be a street lamp. I will make sure the street is lit up. And I will be the light for those who are alone. I will light fear and drive t away. I will be the planets and stars that glow in the distance. I will be the light of dreams and make the subconscious happy and I will return when the sun rises to brighten another day.

2nd voice: Jeff lives at number 8, Starling Street. He is eating his Jeff-o-cakes and Smarties.

The clock rings. It’s Jeff O’ clock. He gets off his seat and dances like a dad.

Jeff is fat. He dances to lose weight. His girlfriend Jess joins him for moral support.

Jess is slim. She eats less. She does yoga by day and by night, in dreams, she’s a Scottish ogre that eats wild vermin. Every night Jeff dreams about those living Jeff-o-cakes...

Jeff: Jeff-o-cakes, Jeff-o-cakes. They send me crazy, the violent and cakey malfunction of Jeff-o-cakes. I run rampant wanting them. Jeff-o-cakes, Jeff-o-cakes chasing me through the night. Jess runs ragged every time she sees me going into the cupboard to get my Jeff-o-cakes, ‘What the hell woman! Those are mine,’ I say in a dark, chocolatey voice. When this happens Jess usually storms out of the house, arms full of Jeff-o-cakes, taking them away from me, singing ‘There ain’t no mountain high enough…’

2nd voice: Beside him in bed Jess dreams of…

Jess:…rats for a feast and Jeff eating the fat off his own body…well, I think even I’m going crazy thinking about Jeff eating himself…that’s what you get for telling your husband to slim down and not eat Jeff-o-cakes…Ha! Will you look at that! Jeff eating himself and Jeff-o-cakes. Is there something going on?

1st Voice: At number 9, Sadie in bed, awake or not, sees the shadow of the train, in her inflated state, forgets where the station is, lolls and rolls and holds the quilt of grass so tight the ground buckles and the train pufffuckles to a stop so far to the right of the station. She scratches her head, flops out of bed, says…

Sadie: I hate being late, must get to Number 28, take a piece of my mind on a plate, shove it in her face, it’s her fault this state I’m in, she’s to blame, can’t win. it’s the same with the oddery and doddery the shuddery and stutter suddenly conspiringly Yorkshiringly blocking my way to her door, to knock at her door, knock down her door.

1st voice: It’s a shame, James, her lodger, her, lover, has left her, has moved to Number 28.

2nd Voice: In number 10, Harriet, who is prone to deep thinking, listens to the sounds of her neighbours, wonders what lives they lived before they washed up on Starling Street. She thinks about her own roots, where she came from, the things that shaped her.

Harriet: I come from a terraced house with a red carpet and cream walls. From tarmac, pavements and streets with brick walls, from the smell of cleaning products, lavender and tea tree. I’m from the sound of dogs barking, kids playing, pop music.

I’m from Heinz beans, Warburton’s bread, Haribo sweets, Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. I’m from a father who pretended to be a crocodile and let me and my sister climb on him, a father who listened to meatloaf and Johnny cash, who brought friends (although strangers to me) to the house on a Friday, who would wake up later than everybody else, and stay up later to watch tv, who would drag me kicking and screaming on trips out in his car – the long way. And a mother who walked me to school every morning, cleaned the house, who used to sleep in the day time, who would always laugh at my jokes, a mother who used to burn the toast.

I’m from a family that was quite religious, attended meeting on Sundays and Tuesdays and Thursdays, and used to read the bible, a family who went to Brewster’s and Charlie Fast Tracks.

I’m from playing out in the street, riding my bike around the block, ball games like Kirby, and neighbours having food fights, hiding from parents, sitting on a swing looking up at the sky. I’m from after school club, playing the piano, going swimming, collecting Smash Hits magazines, dance classes. I’m from playing Ludo and Connect 4 and Guess who? and cheating at 3D snakes and ladders.

I’m from dotted wallpaper with dogs on, the view of hills from the attic bedroom, shelves and boxes of little toys, the two doors that led to complete darkness .

I’m from Matilda, Jumanji, Titanic, and Coronation Street, countless football matches, Sabrina the Teenage witch, Drake and Josh, SpongeBob Squarepants, That’s So Raven, Doctor Who. I’m from “Will the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up, please stand up”, “I must confess, this loneliness is killing me…” and “Right Here, Right Now, Right here, here, here, here, here…”

I’m from the memory of going on holiday to Fuerteventura, seeing a cat sat on a rock, nearly getting pushed off a cable car because I was too small to get on, the singing competition where I sang ‘I’m a Barbie Girl’ and getting lost on the way back from the swimming pool to the hotel. Always getting lost.

1st Voice: Alone in Number 11 Patrick now regrets his lies, remembers Grace and her dainty feet as they walked on Starling Street, and how their romance began with an embroidered sheet of stars, how their shabby clothes looked grand, as they gazed beyond the chimney stacks and how he felt he didn’t fit in a wonderland as grand as this and added a bit of fairy tale and then another bit until their world  was lit with embroidery so blinding he did not see her walk away could make no sense of it.

2nd voice: In number 12 Rick dreams he’s cruising down the long, wide roads of the Nevada desert in a slick, shiny streak of a car. Sunglasses on. Smouldering Marlboro glowing at the edge of his mouth, dry, hot, big, rich American air roaring through the open windows…

or, more realistically, he dreams he’s still in that same slick, shiny streak of a car but up on the tops of Norland, nudging 90, dodging sheep and tractors as the early morning sun blooms around the high rise tower blocks of Sowerby Bridge…

1st voice: In number 13, Seline, just back from a camping trip, grass and beetles tangled in her hair, lovely mud beneath her fingernails, feels restrained in her clean, neat bed, misses the sound of rain on the tent, misses lying with her face pressed against the earth, misses the crackle and hum of worms in the dirt, the steady pulse of nature beating through her body. Seline wishes she was still in the fields able to stick out her tongue and lick the stars. Seline dreams of living…

Seline: …in a house made of nature. The door would be covered in sand that doesn't blow off in an arch shape into the hallway where there are branches in a vertical line that lead to the main living room. Past another door made of solid sand is a room that has clouds instead of carpet. You can bounce around or just walk in normally. If you look up the ceiling is transparent and has the illusion of being a doorway into space. When you press the light switch the stars light up and shoot past at random intervals. There is another switch to turn rain, wind or snow on or off. The sofas are made of wood with giant leaves stretching across each seat. Pieces of rock and soil that you might find in fields are attached together in a frame style to form the windows.

2nd voice: For Saroush at number 14, night is escape, a journey to better times…he falls asleep to his usual dreams of when he was back home and thinks of his family, his house and everything he owned.

It’s all changed now. ‘It’s boring here,’ he thinks,’ even my hair cut, even my beard.’ He think back to the time they were all in the same room. People were actually happy, no such thing as low mood. Bold aromas of saffron and the sweet milky scent of Shole Zard floating around, cheery music and creative sounds. Green, blue, yellow coloured walls. Intricate patterns fill them all. Life was so much better back then. But now, for him, it will never be the same again.

1st voice: In number 15, Miss Delilah Darling stars once again on the stage of Starling Street. In brazen-breasted bustier gripping the flagging flesh, tight-corseted and mottled flesh, Miss Darling moves siren-sinuously in the curtain-drawn window gliding glissando with her partner, Mr Percival Highbottom who unfortunately decamped with a younger dance partner of the pert bottom quarter of a century ago on the Brighton boardwalk, twirling and whirling, satin ballroom steps, gliding and sliding in the spotlight of her memory until she curtseys to the thunderous applause of stars.

2nd voice: In number 16 Stick-man-Stan is sprinting in his sleep as the Punch and Judy holders of his hands battle with each other

At number 18 Marc is dreaming of sundogs, moon dogs, fractals and fox fire. He is dreaming of dazzling diamond lights and the green sorcery of the aurora borealis. Marc is dreaming of bright, beautiful, unpaintable things.

1st voice: Still awake at number 21, Greg has made a fire in his yard from a stack of old Metros and the wood-wormed kitchen chairs he’s been waiting for the council to take. He stands outside watching his neon pink wig burn in his bonfire. The wig represents the woman he used to dress up as. He has decided it is a new chapter in his life. The aspect of his personality he used to express through her has changed. He feels like he is letting go of a part of himself but it’s good in a sense not to keep hanging on to the past. He is happy with himself and the memories he has made. He is alone. He wants this time to himself to process the changes and think about where he wants to be in the next chapter of his life…

Soon he will watch the last of his other self glow then fade then turn to ash and he will go to bed and dream of…

Greg: The colour red…little red polka dresses, sparkly red tights the colour of post boxes, red lipstick the colour of murder…Those were the days but those days are over. Those days are now smouldering in the front yard, seasoning the street with their smoke.

1st Voice; Greg has a lot of associations with red. On ‘normal’ days he wears mainly blue with dark stripes but always small elements of red that shine through. Red. The colour of his ex-wife’s hair before it turned grey. Before the divorce.

Greg: Those were the days. Red. The colour of my first car. I remember the excitement of picking it out from the crowd. This one was special. I had it for years until the glossy red paint grew rough, turned to orange rust. Until the engine fell out. I remember a pair of red woollen socks my mum gave to me as a present. Bright red, the colour of Heinz ketchup. One of them ended up in the wrong wash and its red leaked out into other items of clothing. The washing machine bled from its barrel.

2nd voice: Like Greg, Lucy, at number 17, is still awake.

Lucy has always been a night person. She loves to stay awake after everyone has gone to sleep. At the time, it feels like a brilliant idea to her, like sleep is a waste of time. But by morning, of course, (or in her case - afternoon), she never wants to get up.

She turns the TV on and listens to salespeople trying to sell their products, she likes it as background noise.

Lucy looks in a mirror and decides she doesn't like her face. Maybe it's just the light. Light from the moon. She must fix this. How could she go to sleep feeling like she doesn't look good. She must be beautiful in her dreams. She rumages through her nocturnal make-up bag. All the products have probably expired as the exipry date is never very clear in the light of the moon.

She starts applying her make-up in the dark. She has to feel where her eyes are and hope she doesn't get mascara on her nose. Her lipstick has smudged, but she can't see. The moon is not shining on that part of her face. So it is good enough for her.

Joel: Oops it's my turn already, I've not created a character for Starling Street yet. Shall we just create one now? Okay, we'll make a man called... oh I don't know, shall we call him Robin. Yeah, I'll make him about sixty years old and go from there...In this Starling Street, me as a writer and you as listeners don't officially belong, but we still can observe. Sometimes I like to take a peek into worlds I have created . Try it with me, blend your souls into the world we are continuously developing in our imagination and we will break the barrier between fiction and reality. Don't just listen, but imagine our invisible presences are there.

Okay, Robin's not awake yet so let’s take in his surroundings. His bedroom's not the absolute worst in terms of untidiness I've ever seen. The room does smell lightly of body odour, but not enough to assume he doesn't take care of himself. He has a couple of wardrobes opposite his bed that have small holes in them, I'm no Sherlock Holmes but I guess these used to hold mirrors in place. Poor Robin has a self esteem issue I'm guessing, I don't know. There's a lot we don't know about him, tell you what, give me some time and I'll sneak in a conversation. Writers have rules about not talking to their creations, because it can get messy. So keep this a secret between me and you.

1st voice: In number 23, Katya and Tomasz Kowalski lie together in a soft lovers knot. Tomasz has his face buried in his wife’s hair which still harbours the cakey custard Cream and Macaroon scent of the United Biscuit factory where she works every day. Katya is dreaming she’s still there on the production line, but instead of biscuits, it’s peacocks, live peacocks that she’s packing. She’s supposed to fold up their glorious, flashing tail feathers like a fan and wrap the birds in big cellophane bundles but, instead, she strokes their jewelled heads and lets them dip their beaks in to her cupped hand to nibble the crushed gingernut and Hobnob sweepings she’s scooped from the floor to feed them. This is a recurring dream and not one that troubles her…

2nd voice: Though it’s just a street full of potholes, spewing bins, weeds, grates and terraced houses, Starling Street has a heart that beats and a soul that feels beneath its tarmac. The residents are its ‘children’, its ‘family’. It feels their rare joy. It feels their discontent like a steam roller. Often, it feels unwanted. Often it feels lost. Starling Street ponders this notion in the quiet of the night when all its inhabitants are tucked up in their beds and cats and the shooting stars do their evening rounds on tiptoe and the wind tones down its roar to a whisper. Where do lost streets go? It asks the concrete paving stones, the man- hole covers. Where do lost street go?, it asks itself.

The voice of Starling Street: Maybe lost streets look on maps when they don’t know where to go but they never find themselves. There is no ‘YOU ARE HERE’ or any starting point. It’s as if they don’t exist and fear they never will again. Maybe lost streets go to the moon and help the stars shine back at the earth. Maybe they go to another dimension where houses are upside down and street lamps glow at a 90 degree angle. Maybe lost streets go to dreams and remind people of where they used to live. Maybe lost streets burn away into darkness when they lose the people that found them before.

1st voice: Starling Street wishes they could hear its voice. If they could hear its voice it would tell them…

The voice of Starling Street: You do not have to get up every morning. You can lie in bed and just be conscious of doing nothing...take in the surroundings and learn to appreciate them. Appreciate the silence. No news is good news.

1st voice: Starling Street wants to reassure them. It wants to tell them…

The voice of Starling Street: Forget you’re in a bad phase where you’re constantly arguing with friends and family. It’s ok to argue sometimes. That’s what apologies are for. Tomorrow will be another day. Life will go on, but for tonight, enjoy the peace

1st voice: Starling Street worries about its children, wishes it could sing them to sleep with a song of love, a lullaby. It wishes it could sing them the sacred and secret song that it learned from the wise old roads who lay here before:

The Voice of Starling Street: This is the one song everyone would like to learn. This song has the power to bring back lost memories, memories that are stored in the subconscious part of the brain from a long time ago. This is the song that will change the way people see themselves and help them to remember the good times. It will make them feel happy as if they are reliving their memories. This song has the power to remind people what they have lost.

2nd voice: There have been so many dreams dreamed here on Starling Street. There have been dark dreams, light dreams. There have been soft dreams, sharp dreams, dreams that whisper, dreams that roar. There have been dreams of escape and dreams of capture.

There have been dreams of people that don’t exist, gathering, talking, playing. There have been dreams of rooms dark with evil where fear resides, waiting to catch its next victim. There have been dreams of wishes and hopes fulfilled. There have been dreams of death. There have been dreams of the mess that cannot consciously be sorted through. There have been dreams of melting faces, floating spiders and talking trees. There have been dreams of flashes of light, sun, wind, rain and snow. There has been peace and the calm that follows a storm.

There have been dreams of trees, mornings spiced with birdsong, dreams of gardens loud with flowers. There have been dreams of harmony, dreams of community, dreams of the whole street singing the same sweet song.

But let us leave this place for now. Follow me; let’s walk through the darkness, through the dreams until we find ourselves at the start of another day…

Morning on Starling Street

1st voice: It is morning on Starling Street. The corner shop shutters clatter up. On kitchen tables rice crispies crackle. Cats wait by their 7'o'clock bowls. Kettles bubble.

Light slides through the edges of curtains, engines rumble and roar, wind attempts to lift parts of roofs causing ceilings to yell little creaks.

A car door slams and someone on Radio 4 discusses the cost of care.

A baby cries. A mother swears and sighs. A dog whines.

Dry Nescafe granules rattle in to mugs.

Microwaves ping proudly after warming their pots of Oats-so-simple.

An alarm goes off.

Curtains are whooshed open.

There’s the echo of something heavy plopping into a bin, a door clicks shut, the veins of half dreams run thin.

Jackdaws jangle amongst the brambles, crushed cans, the tangle of last night’s beer, broken hearts, smashed bottles of tears.

In the corner shop, the still-warm morning papers exude the scent of their newsy ink... Bread and vodka, baked beans and bacon are bought. Coins clunk and ring in the till as the people of Starling Street pick the grit of dreams from the corners of their eyes. Let’s observe them now as they get on with their daily lives. Look…

3rd voice: Here comes Suzie, full and fifty with her toy dogs Clare and Claude. Her hair is this year’s shade of coal. Her car is this year’s shade of new. She loves her shrubs and hanging baskets, but leaves them dying on the vine. Her man does everything that’s needed while Suzie in the sun reclines.

Her man is hyperactive Henry hosing down the her and his of cars and motorbikes and trailers greasing wheels and pipes and pulleys, ladders, drains, snow ploughs and sprinklers, walking dogs and gathering poo, filling bins with last year’s projects, mind always on something new.

1st voice: Marc is half-asleep and he can see a really bright light. He opens one eye and looks at the giant diamond floating in the sky. It hovers on one spot whilst spinning and giving off rays of colour. Almost blinded by this light, he shuts his eye again and turns his head face-down on the pillow. On the other side of the room is the rainbow streak, the smaller, ticking diamond, and the tiny crumbling diamonds pouring from the wall. He hears the sound of them hitting the floor and dives out of bed to catch them. The floor doesn’t match how he sees it. But this knocks him back into realising that the diamonds he caught are the pieces from inside the wall, covered in dust and dried paint. He lets it fall as if he was running his hands through sand. The ticking diamond tells him it’s time to come back to reality, and that clocks never look that good. The giant hovering diamond soon dissolves back into the brightly shining sun. Marc can no longer deny the evidence that he is not in his own little diamond world. And he needs to fix the hole in his wall…

3rd voice: There goes restless rushing Rachel wrapped to the eyes in sobercoat and sensible Marks and Spencer scarf, brushing along her breathless brood of daring ducklings dancing down to the bus stop, to be bussed up the hill to windy Hebden, while she windily hurries and worries her way to work. Her sister, slow coach several Sarah stones heavier heaves  her mingle scoffing Pringles, giggle, gaggle, wriggle, wrangle til scooped up by the bright eyed bus to wimble away their Hebden day.

1st voice: At number 17 there is no smell of toast, no melting butter or sizzling bacon, no fried eggs spitting, no ping, no snap-crackle-and-pop. At number 17 the poor kitchen table is bare except for a meagre scraping of sunlight spreading itself thinly across the wood.

Lucy wakes up to another dreadful day. She holds the mirror close up to her face. The pale, green-eyed girl is not what she sees. She winces in disgust and reaches for her keys. Reluctantly, she drags herself out of bed. Intrusive thoughts are filling her head. She opens the locked window, to breathe in air and feels the wind blowing her hair. The smells from outside come flooding in. It makes her feel sick, so she goes to the sink. She’s so pale, the worn-out wallpaper looks bright. She pulls down the blinds to cover the light. She thinks about eating and starts to cry. She needs to avoid food but does not want to die.

No toast, no butter, no fried eggs, no bacon. Just a bitter black cup of coffee without sugar.

Lucy: This is a cup full of sadness and misery…

1st voice: she thinks…

Lucy: It is old and tired of being filled, picked up and put down, washed and sent to wait for the next round. Many people have drunk coffee on a bad day from the cup of sorrow in the hope that it will soothe them, but it never does. When you look at the cup of sorrows you remember sad memories and a sense of loss and disappointment comes over you. When you drink the coffee you think about your life and whether there’s any point to it. You almost lose the motivation to finish drinking it and it sits there growing cold, full of coffee-flavoured tears with your downcast reflection glowing back.

1st voice: Lucy frowns as she drains the last drop of darkness from the cup of sorrows, shoulders her heavy bag full of books, leaves the house and sets off to college, almost bumps in to Mary and her man…

3rd voice: Mary, mischievous fairy, with turned up nose, voluptuous hair, arresting thighs in sin tight lycra, bound for gym and slim and swim. She grins while clutching arm in arm her bald bespectacled boring beau on his way to respectable rows of sleepless electronic Windows. He wears her like a macho shout. Night after night she wears him out.

1st voice: In number 8 Jess is in her fluffy pink dressing gown on her yoga mat doing the praying mantis on the living room floor. There are limp mouse tails hanging from her pockets like cooked spaghetti. Jeff waddles past her into the kitchen. Supple Jess of the elastic legs leaps up behind him. Jeff gets Jeff-o-cake and Tunnocks wafers out of the cupboard. Jess snatches them off him. Puts them back. Gets out a heavy, healthy looking box of sugar free muesli. Pours some into a bowl. It looks grey. She adds milk, fat-free milk which also looks grey. Jeff sits down, stares at his uninviting breakfast. He’s sure he sees red rat’s eye’s staring at him from amongst the raisins.

2nd voice: It’s a wonderful life, moans the piping with pump-start-up in number 5; water creaks, moves sluggish toward feeble warmth, tentative expansion-clicks of antiquated radiators drag Deputy Sam, pudgy left-hand-man of Tyrant Boss, ‘Widely-Respected Head Teacher’ Mr Jones, into full gloom of waking to wavering resolve as almost palpable waves of bacon aroma ascend the stairs from the alchemical kitchen where his soon-to-be-ex-lover rattles a hellish invitation to relapse into a bacon, egg, sausage, fried bread, hash-brown orgy of ‘something to set you up proper for your day of toil at the chalk-face, Poopsie-Bear’... but he rattles an open packet of Special K and prepares to take his first Sahara mouthful.  Milk’s turned in the night, curd in the carton with foul sour whey to pour into his hand basin. He will begin today, as every Monday from Time Immemorial with feral Year Ten.

Joel:. it's me Joel, I'm back and ready for the conversation with Robin, my character on starling street

“Robin, don't freak out,” I say to him in the calmest voice I can manage. It must have worked too because he has taken his concentration off the tree he’s been staring at in his front garden There is no frantic expression on his face or worry in his eyes though. In fact he is so calm, it's making me nervous.

Okay, lets give him a different voice to mine, it will make him sound more authentic. I start to ask him, “why aren't you...”

Robin:...afraid? Because I knew you'd come some day.

Joel: Who do you think I am, Robin?

Robin: Death, stop playing games with me. I've been waiting ten years, now take me to my wife!

Joel: I will do that, but I need to ask you a question first.” I am playing along of course. I can't tell him who I really am, the writer of his whole existence. “What do you fill your mornings with?”

Robin: The same starlings that chirped at the top of their lungs when she died start singing at a certain time every morning. So I wait for them and collect my thoughts and I remember my dreams because, most nights, I lucid dream. Then, sometimes I write about them in that journal over there.

Joel: When you say she, you are referring to?” I have paused to encourage him to say her name. I have given Robin life in this fictional world but his wife is someone he has created himself, I don't know anything about her.

Robin: You took her away from me you inconsiderate tool! My lovely Annie stolen from my life, and you don't even know her name?

Joel: Now he is getting really frustrated, he has thrown his chair on its side and he's looking around his bedroom for me, though at the moment who he thinks I am is death that's going to take him to his wife. I am holding my arms up in surrender position though he obviously can't see me because in reality I'm not really there.

“Robin, calm down this will be all over soon. I promise, you have my word. Once I have asked you a few more questions I will take you quickly just like I did with Annie.” The words are out of my mouth and now that I have just said that happened, it has become a reality . So now I have got to think of how she died in order to prevent a plot hole in the narrative. What might have taken her life? She could have died of a stroke. What am I even saying? She could have, I am the author, she did die of a stroke.

Robin: You're going to give me a stroke aren't you? To end my life I mean, because that's how Annie died

Joel: I can see his hand trembling with nerves. He's never obviously thought about death.

“Robin, I need you to answer a few more questions as if I have no idea who you are. Please, it's important you just comply. Once I've got this information, you and your wife can be together.” He is looking at me now like he's ready for what I might ask. “The first question is describe yourself in one word?”

Robin: Alive...

Joel: Guys, I feel a lump in my throat coming on. I've just thought him into existence and, accidentally, I have made his life hell, or at least it seems that way. Even though in reality, twenty minutes ago he didn't even exist, to him his life is real. So I ask him, “Have you had a good life?”

Robin: Ups and downs really, my daughter’s wedding was the best thing in recent memory. Worst is... well you know what.

Joel: Wait a second. Robin is real because I've made him for you, because you turned up early. It's partly your fault! Help me think of a way I can out of this! I can't have the other characters on Starling street living with a depressed old man. I am going to write him out of existence. I refuse to just erase him so I will write him back with his wife, but for that I have to kill him…

Just take comfort in the fact he will be spending eternity with his wife, right? We all love happy endings, don't we? Maybe I will write Robin and Annie into another happier world some time... but for now keep quiet about what we just did.

1st voice: Along the street, unaware of this exchange between Joel and Robin, Harriet Harvey sits on the doorstep with a bucket-sized mug of Nescafe and biscuits for dunking warming her slippered toes in the thin spring sunlight watching the ants on the path.

She watches the ants every morning before she goes to work. She breaks off a small corner of a Bourbon Cream and drops it. Sees the diplomatic ants getting busy, doing their stuff, levelling her day with their industrious harmony. She thinks of failing relationships and war and arguments, stars falling out of the sky, the moon’s shine being nudged behind the clouds and she wonders how different the world would be if we behaved like ants

Harriet Harvey: If we could speak like ants…if we could work in a team without having to communicate and everyone would know their roles and get on with things.

If we could carry objects that weigh more than ourselves and be equally as productive as playful.

If we could run around freely without the complex situations of everyday life.

If there was just nature and the basic necessities to keep things going…and the end would not be anticipated or even something to worry about. Danger would await but with the absence of fear.

1st voice: An ant crawls up Harriet’s leg as she contemplates a better world. The alarm on her mobile phone begins to ring reminding her she has to go to work…

2nd voice: Ah, here’s Sadie dashing off to town! Sadie who hates being late. Sadie, with a watch on each wrist and her handbag bulging with timetables…

3rd voice: In number 23, Katya and Tomasz happily share the breakfast table with good crunchy toast and cups of thick black coffee and saucers of broken biscuits and sunlight, fat swathes of buttery sunlight. Katya pushes her hand into a warm beam of it and Tomasz’s ring twinkles on her finger, glitters in his eyes and on his lips. He leans over to kiss her cheek. Even though she’s just had a shower he can still smell custard and vanilla beneath the scent of soap. They both wish they could stay there all day drinking coffee at the sun-soaked table. Loving the world and each other. Loving the way the day sparkles and blesses everything with its shine.

2nd voice: In number 4, Asma Akhta is making eggs and toast for her family of five. It’s fried eggs for

Rashid, soft boiled for Saima, hard boiled for Hasan and poached for her husband. Asma seems to have six hands as she zips around the kitchen slotting bread into the toaster, plopping eggs in to pans, flipping, cracking, buttering, slicing. The kids arrive at the table one by one, soapy and steaming from the shower. Soon, in an hour or two when the house is empty, Asma will scrape shells and crusts off plates. She’ll scoop the damp molehills of towels off the bathroom floor. She’ll make herself a big mug of tea and relish the peace in her now clean, quiet kitchen…

3rd voice: Hush now, here’s invisible Nara, silver haired and softly spoken, trying hard not to be noticed  wild child now widowed and broken, nudging her nervous noiseless day to eke it out the Co-op way, her bullying Bill now smoked to death, watches from the urn by the fire.

2nd voice: Quiet old Fred at number 3 lives all alone, do you know his story, have you met him yet? He was just one of many, but now few are left. The world he lived in has been and gone. His world was the tyranny of the mindless production line:

Fred: The spanner on nut, the bolt locked tight, steel on steel, cold on cold. No emotion, creative thought, just right or wrong, that is all. Concentration focus, or to fail. Two choices simple, make no mistake. On to the next one, then the next, then the next, then the next, then, finally, energy gone, spent. Another day, endured and ended, on the tortuous production line. Weeks and months, years and years, working like a robot was my toil. A simple cog in a big machine, I rotated and spun like a wheel. I then, emptied of my soul, now old; I fell off the end, of the production line.

I earned my wage, to keep the wolves from the door, and barred it to the outside world. But inside my castle, now freed from toil, I find time to contemplate: My mind rejuvenates at last, I think back to when I was a lad, when all was wonder to be explored, before work sapped my strength and dulled my senses. The first spark of hope turns into flame, soon raging fire burns within me, energy felt, like I never had, when working man on production line.

From dusty shelves I now pull down, books on how to make model aeroplanes, how to read music, write, and play the games that made me laugh when young. To make good the years toil robbed from me, every day I now count as precious. You now know a bit about quiet old Fred, who lives at number 3.

3rd voice: Curling cats scurry from under the tyres of rolling-in-it Rick whose prancing Porsche prowls down the potholed un-adopted street unaware of cats or kids or mums or dads or older folk too poor to pay for proper paving, too rich to see from way up there.

1st voice: It’s all cakes-baking, knitting and chaos in the house of kind Kelly Kismet. Things boil and bubble in pots and pans. Fried kippers for the hungry street-cats, custard for the tarts. The air smells of hot pastry, fish and vanilla. Kelly Kismet frantically knits and purls. Socks and blankets for the needy. There’s wool in her cornflakes. Wool tangled round the kettle. Nearly time for work. Kind Kelly

Kismet knits against the clock, knits and purls against the tic-toc of time, knits and purls as the cats miow in her yard, begging for their breakfast…

2nd voice: At number 2 Dexter gets up, his head still pulsing with last night’s stars. He thinks about other worlds, about the possibility of humans inhabiting other planets as he tucks into his full English breakfast. He stares into the black hole of his coffee cup and thinks about changing his own story.

In his head he goes back to the past and sees what used to be, creates a paradox within himself by imagining what it would have been like to change the past by creating a new future. For example, one day he saw someone jump off a high bridge to commit suicide. He couldn’t do a thing. If there was such a thing as transdimensional travel (time travel), he would go to the past and save that person, but if there was such a thing as time travel, things like that could change things for the world like a ripple effect . If he saved that person, things in the world might change.

But maybe there is a reason why real time travel would be dangerous to the human species. That’s why he tries to change what happens in his head...Dexter looks at his empty breakfast plate streaked with grease and ketchup and ponders the complex notion of time travel…

Dexter: I’ve changed so many things that could have been, to make me feel better about myself. It is weird and dangerous for me, but it is better than real time travel...The statistics of me actually changing my past with the repercussions for changing not just my own but the people’s around me are a billion to non. It makes me feel good that time travel isn’t real and that I can’t actually change my past. I just change my story as it makes me feel better. That’s the safest way…

2nd voice: He fills the sink with hot water and Fairy liquid. Drops his plate in, watches it disappear into the foam like a comet burning itself out…

1st voice: At number 4 Greg sits on his garden wall with his legs crossed and his arms folded. He watches birds fly past. A cat comes alongside and stops to look up at him. He says ‘hi’ to the cat. It blinks at him and carries on walking. Greg stays on his wall for over an hour then hops off, goes back inside and sits on the floor. He looks at his front wall and studies the textured patterns. He likes the way the curved lines never meet, how they run in different directions. He gets a notepad out of a drawer and starts to sketch the different patterns he sees in his own mind.

1st voice: Monica sits at the table in her lonely kitchen with a huge teapot, as big as Africa, steaming away in the sunlight.

Monica: A pot of tea for 3, for one, for me, for only me, myself and I. Morning Monica…

1st voice: she says to herself

Monica: Would you like a cup or 3 of tea to set you up for the day? Yes please dear. A nice cup of tea and some toast would go down well. Jam and toast for me my dear. Toast with that nice posh jam on to

cheer myself up. Good jam that. I’d make some myself if I had a son or a daughter, if I had a husband, if I had someone whose life I needed to sweeten. I’d make bread and cakes if I had another mouth to feed but there’s no point is there my dear? It’s just me and thee my dear…Maybe I could make a cake for the thin little thing at number 17. She could do with a nice bit of fat to fill all those gaps she carries. Doesn’t anyone else on the street notice that she’s shrinking? Maybe I could make her a nice little cake, a small, shy cake full of healthy fruit…bet she goes for the healthy stuff…just a shy little cake so I don’t scare her…or maybe I could make a sturdy brown loaf for quiet Fred…something to soak up the fat from his breakfast bacon…something to make him whistle as he walks to the shop. He always used to whistle. He’d whistle in the morning when he walked to work in his clean overalls and he’d whistle in the evening when he came home oily...He doesn’t seem to whistle any more. I wonder if he’s lonely? We don’t talk much…just hellos, goodmornings, send a Christmas card every year…kind chap he is. Changed a lightbulb for me once. Good man. Keeps himself to himself…I wonder if he’s lonely

3rd Voice: Stick man Stan from number 16 fuelled on fruit juice figs and muesli trotting by in tights and trainers has no time for smiles and greetings. Keeps a wife behind closed curtains, drives a dark mysterious van. Rumour has it every weekend he’s a Punch and Judy man.

1st voice: At number 14, Saroush shields his eyes and tuts at the sun blazing through the window. He hates the sun and avoids it whenever possible. He’d rather sit indoors all day watching rubbish TV or standing behind the counter of the shop where he works. From his living room chair he can hear people being joyful outside and visualizes shooting them like little birds. Children are gathering in groups. Everyone’s sitting outside in a brighter mood because of the sun. From where he’s sitting he can see a woman sitting quietly in her garden watching people as they walk past and chat about their days. Saroush has to walk through the strong UV rays to get from his house to the car. The children, on their lazy way to school, bark at his feet, get in his way. He gets quite annoyed but wants to avoid conflict with their parents. Saroush has learned that most people don’t like him to reveal his true colours, his true self. Most people don’t want to listen to the difficult tales of his past.

2nd Voice: Look! What’s that glitter, that dazzling light sparkling outside number 15? It’s Delilah Darling hanging out the twinkling, freshly washed dresses of her dreams, arousing the interest of all the shine-starved magpies in the boughs of the trees in Peter’s Park…

‘What’s all that about?’ Patrick from number 11 wonders as he observes the frenzy and the sparkle on his way to the shop to buy the morning paper.

3rd Voice: The flapping feathery racket attracts the attention of the 4-legged ambassadors, the cats of Starling Street. They leave the possibility of kippers in Kelly Kismet’s yard to ponder the palaver of squawking magpies. Here they are. A furry mob: Brinkley, Bubble, Ben and The Blackster.

Brinkley roams from house to house in a daily ritual of a 5 course meal from tins and pouches and whatever else he can thieve. If he wanted, he could maintain his matted fur better but keeps it as it is to look more deserving.

Bubble is an indoor cat. She’s almost too fat and certainly too lazy to use the cat flap which her owner feels he had to build a ramp up to, to help her through.

Ben is the butcher of Starling Street. No rat, bird, mouse of mole is his equal.

The Blackster lives under cars, has an almost permanent black streak down his ginger back from brushing against the sumps. He’s almost blind. Stays alive by sensing vibrations.

1st voice: In number 1, a cheeky ray of sunlight nudges Sharon Shaw awake, coaxes her out of bed. Her daughter’s up already watching cartoons. ‘What do you want for breakfast?’ Sharon asks her, ‘toast and red jam with no bits?’

Someone walks past the open window smoking a cigarette and Sharon’s cravings kick in. She grabs a square of paper from the easy-access stack she keeps on the table, drops bread into the toaster, makes the 1st fold.

‘Can you make me another dragon,’ her daughter asks, ‘a big, nasty dragon to gobble up my stupid maths books?’ ‘Can I have chocolate in my lunch box like Amy does instead of a stupid apple? Can I have jam in my sandwiches instead of stinky cheese? Can you make Amy a dragon too?’

Sharon catches the toast as it pops. Spreads it with butter and jam. Plates it up. Cuts it into triangles. Hands it to her daughter who scowls at it ‘Awwwww! I wanted soldiers with blood on them…you know…cut in bits…in strips like granny does them for my boiled eggs…’ Sharon makes the 2nd fold and the 3rd fold. Picks up a lighter from beside the cooker. Clicks it in to flame just for the sound. Folds. Clicks. Folds. Clicks.

‘What you doing mummy?’ asks her daughter. ‘You smoking another invisible ciggy? Make it into soldiers for me mummy’ she says putting her uneaten toast on the table. ‘…make it into soldiers with blood on them mummy…will you make me another dragon mummy…a red dragon like the one you did me when I fell off my bike?’

Sharon folds. Clicks. Folds. Looks at her daughter’s uneaten toast, the clock on the wall. Begins to panic.

2nd voice: At number 13, Seline awakens. She is aware that she’s awake but keeps her eyes shut to savour the moments between her subconscious and the world that awaits. Trees do not have to sleep. They do not dream.

Seline sits up and starts swaying gently from side to side. She wishes she could stay in one place, in the same spot for her whole life but Seline is a human being. She has to get up and go out. She stands in the centre of her bathroom and the rain is bouncing off the transparent ceiling and streaming down the walls. She opens the latch above her head and, just like the leaves on a tree, she lets the rain pour down her and drip off the edges of her fingers. Seline doesn’t wear make-up. Trees don’t need make-up to be beautiful.

1st voice: This morning, if you go into Daphne’s at Number 20 you will see a leather chair and a

pouffe. The sofa has two china dolls given to her by Princess So and So in Saudi Arabia. ‘Sit down’, she says, Quick intake of breath.’ No, not there, here... Tea? No, don’t move, you’ll break something’… Suddenly, a gushing smile as she handles the table cloth. ‘Hand made in Bulgaria’, she says, affectionately. She has knowledge of fine crochet and china. Her fingers are pink and unscarred, often flung to flutter in the air when not suffering fools gladly. Other times she holds them stiff and makes short dismissive gestures. There are porcelain angels everywhere.

Daphne: I like the feel of things. touching, caressing silk and velvet next to my skin. Love the soft white texture of my china angels, resistant to the touch but so easily warmed when cupped to my breast. Their whiteness is an aromatherapy room. Their scent, precious oils. They speak in dulcet tones from the sideboard, top of kitchen cupboards, hall, bathroom, bedside table. They speak in songs, in chorus, and sometimes at night one of them whispers.

This is the time I like best.

1st Voice: Sometimes she whispers. You don’t ask. It’s none of our business. But some of the residents of Starling Street want you to ask. Some of them have secrets, things they want to tell you. Listen, Lucy, the thin girl from number 17 has something to say…

Lucy: I’ve never told anyone this, but I used to go through my mum’s bag when she wasn’t looking. There was a picture of her and this other man, they looked a similar age. She must have been older than when she and dad got married. I have no relatives I know of that look like him, I am too scared to ask my mum who he is.

Monica: I never posted that letter. I still have it, old and brown, smelling of my mother, folded in to the will I will never write.

Samuel: I’ve never told anyone this: I once ‘marked’ a whole batch of essays using the fabled ‘staircase method’ - I stood on the landing outside the door of my untidy bedroom-cum-study and held the bunch of papers up…let them fall and come to rest. The ones that made it down farthest to the lowest steps received the best marks. I did do a quick cross-check. It wasn’t a million miles off. No, really, it wasn’t.  And at least the brats got their work back after not too long a time. Positive reinforcement.  Role modelling.  Get on with it. Do unto others as you would…

Fred: You might think me boring, dull, not much fun, hardly entertaining. Think of when you’re out of town, and off to see a show, variety acts with lots of spice, now that’s what you call fun. Remember when you saw that funny guy dressed up, a happy clown tapping out the rhythm and dancing with a mop. Well here’s a little secret: I like to make folks laugh, that’s my way of loving people. That clown is me. Quiet old Fred at number 3.

Jess: I love eating Jeff-o-cakes. Jeff doesn’t know this but, some mornings when I’m out jogging, I buy a big bag of Jeff-o-cakes then trot to the park and scoff the whole, naughty, sticky, chocolatey lot in one go with all the wee dogs and all the hungry pigeons watching on. Yum. I love ma Jeff-o-cakes!

Harriet: I really want to be an ant.

Sharon: I am making me and my daughter a big origami boat so that one night we can climb in to it and sail somewhere hot. Somewhere far away from here. Spain or Jamaica. Somewhere where it’s ok to drink cocktails at ten in the morning.

Kelly Kismet: Sometimes I want to smash plates in the kitchen for no particular reason. Sometimes I want to elbow my way to the front of the bus queue. Sometimes I want to take a break from smiling and being nice and knitting blankets for the world and his wife. Sometimes I want to purl unmentionables into a muff or a scarf. Sometimes I want people to ask me ‘How are you today Kelly Kismet?’

Dexter: I like to hide my smartness from the world. If you see me on the street at look into my eyes you won’t notice the great sparkle of my knowledge. I will say nothing. I put the cap on my telescope, fold away my star charts and pretend to be normal . You’d never guess what I know or who I am. I am the closed secret of myself.

Seline: I have never seen or spoken to any of my cousins but I imagine what they’re like in great detail and write stories about them. I hope they will find my stories if they ever get published and know that they are based on them.

2nd voice: Sometimes Starling Street wishes it were a street leading to the sea in a cosy Welsh village…

The voice of Starling Street: … where all the houses are painted the colours of ice cream and French Fancies and my rooves are raucous and busy with bickering gulls and my residents know who’s sad or lonely. They know who needs a cuddle, how many sugars everyone takes in their tea and they’re all happy, leaning on walls and gates to natter with each other, all singing, as they sweep the sand and the cockles and the runaway shells from their neat little yards.