Men Move Aside for You in a Foreign Country? Notice That.
When it comes to writing, I never ignore what’s calling me.
And I don’t mean that in some ethereal way. I mean it in a real way. A real way where you stop in a street in a foreign city and notice something you didn’t expect, and which births an entire book in your head in one moment.
The memoir I’ve written about my eight trips to Liverpool over four decades was born in Bold Street: my favourite street in the city (my friend Paul introduced me to this place decades ago), mainly because it holds News from Nowhere, my favourite bookshop on Earth, and at the top of the street near the Bombed-Out Church: Zorba, one of the best Greek restaurants in town. In 2014, Stu and I closed the place down eating spanakopita with the owners and drinking Turkish raki and then stumbling our way back to our flat in Rodney Street in the middle of the night.
In 2023, I travelled to Liverpool on my own. I didn’t know what exactly I was looking for. I just knew it was the first time I’d had the city to myself.
I had to spend an afternoon in Bold Street. It wasn’t the street itself that made me want to write a book. It was the men in the street. Dig:
“After buying a book by a local author, I re-enter the throng on Bold Street. A group of young men in their twenties are coming toward me. They walk four abreast, punching one another on the shoulder and yelling, “You tosser!” to each other. The verbal abuse and laughter grow nearer, and I prepare to move over. There’s plenty of room for me as the street is wide enough to handle a large amount of pedestrian traffic.
One of them sees me coming, nudges his mate, and they split down the middle to let me through. The banter doesn’t stop and the insults spill over my head. One is a tosser, and by all accounts, another is a wanker. But without a word about it, they stand aside and let me pass. I say, ‘Cheers’ on my way through.
From then on, I notice it happening. Not always at the Pier Head or in the Cavern Quarter, where many people aren’t local, but on the business streets near where I’m staying, in the lobby of the Crowne Plaza, and in the narrow aisles of the neighbourhood Tesco and Sainsbury’s where I go to get honey for my tea and prosecco for my balcony evenings. ”
The young men who moved aside for me caused a book to start in my mind. I have Tanis MacDonald and Lorri Neilsen Glenn to thank for actively noticing when this was happening to me. Tanis’ book, Straggle: Adventures in Walking while Female, mentions this phenomenon, and Lorri is the fabulous friend who introduced me to Patriarchy Chicken: a fun game in which you don’t get out of men’s way. The occasional bruised arm is the risk we take for seeing how much room some men think they’re entitled to. Airports and busy farmers’ markets are great places to test this out.
I’ve written about Liverpool before. My third book, fake Paul, is set partly in the Liverpools of 1962 and 2004; the streets and alleys of my 2017 novel, Nuala: A Fable, are based on the layout of Liverpool’s city centre for any sharp reader who cares to map it out.
I have always known I wanted to write a book purely about my time in Liverpool. I just didn’t realize it would be about growing old in a city where I don’t live. When these boys moved aside for me, the book formed instantly: how a woman grows old in a foreign city. I’ve been coming to Liverpool since I was eighteen and I’m now sixty. The idea formed: a memoir of how a Canadian woman grown into herself and into a city over decades.
The book is written, and I will be submitting it in the next few months.
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A random interaction I had at the docks solidified part of what I want to say about this. Stu and I wandered down to the Pump House pub in Albert Dock one afternoon in 2025 after a full day of sightseeing. I tapped a table on the way by in the courtyard and told Stu, “This table was where I met your cousins on my solo trip here in 2004. I’ve told you about that sun-soaked afternoon drinking wine and eating chicken wings on a Wednesday in July. Your cousins are shit-disturbers! They stole two pink cowboy hats from a couple of gals at a Hen Do that day. Alan has one of them to this day.”
A couple was sitting at the table at which I'd gestured. As we were passing to enter the pub and order a drink, the two of them called to us: “Hey! Sit here. I’m Dominic and this is Ali. Join us!”
Why not? Stu sat down, I left my backpack at their table, and I went in to order drinks.
They weren’t local and were in town on business. Dominic asked in the kindest way, “Why Liverpool?” At first I answered, “Why not?” and then answered his question for real. “I’ve been coming here for forty years. It’s the city of my soul. Why does anyone go anywhere?”
He asked me a ton of questions about the city, and when they had to leave, he said, “You have cultural credit.” I asked what that meant. “It means that you have more knowledge of this place than some locals.”
I’m not sure that’s true, but it felt nice to hear it.
On our way back to the bus at Liverpool One station, I noticed once again that I never had to move for men.
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All of this to say: when a writing idea hits, notice it. Keep it. Write it. Let it sit. Write it again. Write it again. Send it.