No offence to me, Curator, but you'll be sure to keep the bitterness entrenched with that kind of tone. I suppose if you'd been born a Prod you'd have been applauding Trimble and Paisley as they danced arm-in-arm down the Garvaghy Road. And you might as well face it - the biggest factor deciding whose side you're on is the accident of birth. The ones who interest me are the ones who can get into the other side's shoes and see things from the other perspective, and there are a few.

I did live on Malone Road - well a road between that and Lisburn Road - for a few months in 1973. The local newsagent wrapped my Morning Star in another paper (not paid for) if there were others in the shop, so he wouldn't be seen selling it. I knew and spoke to virtually no-one in that area and was glad to get out of it. I got my music and education in the Old House bar in Albert Street, which you may be too young to remember, and from people like Des Wilson, who inherited my piano.

Sorry if it pisses you off, but the coming generation is going to put most of the shit behind it. More and more integrated schools are being opened, and still they can't come close to meeting the rocketing demand for places. Of course, integrated education could have been the norm many years ago if the Catholic church had been prepared to forego some of its baleful influence on young minds. Now people are at last turning their backs on all organised religion anyway, providing further grounds for optimism.