When I was a student I seemed rather prone
to being accosted by panhandlers –
which conflicted me. Was I being kind,
or conned? I remember one incident
particularly – at Liverpool’s Pier Head –
that was an impromptu lesson about
the British Empire’s maritime past.
I had disembarked from the Woodside Ferry
and was crossing the cobbles to the bus
for the Student’s Union on Brownlow Hill
to join some friends for an evening of Guinness
when a man, old enough to be my father,
stopped me politely. He was wearing a tie,
but ill-matched jacket and trousers. He explained
that he was a Lascar from Chennai;
showed me his Merchant Navy passbook
with lists of ships he had sailed on, and ports
he had travelled to; showed me the long, deep scar
livid on his right leg, that had stranded him
at the city’s Merchant Seamen’s Mission;
and that I had a very, very kind face.
I cannot remember how much I gave him.
It took me many years to realise
that to be kind is to be privileged.
By David Selzer