Wilmington

It is my last week end in North Carolina. I drive to Wilmington, south, to the coast. It is only 120 miles from Raleigh but the trees are all hung with Spanish Moss. I haven't seen that before here. There is moisture in the air and yet the humidity is quite tolerable. Perhaps I have become accustomed, though I did not believe that I did could.

This trip is to see places that I will not see again. Wilmington sits on the Cape Fear river and the city wraps itself around a wide glut. The USS North Carolina is berthed on the river and I decide to visit this vast cold war bemoth. There are alligators in the river and the banks are lined with low concrete walls to keep them there. There is a stiff breeze and I feel much more comfortable than this climate usually allows. The ship bristles with armaments designed to kill its kin. Toward the bow you can see where the threat of the Japanese in the Pacific was addressed. Hurried, desperate four man anti - aircraft placements sit like ugly grey firecrackers. A crude symbiosis, gall like, there effectiveness is attested to by the survival of their host.

I step inside a sixteen inch gun emplacement - it is like stepping into a bread oven. The breeze has no effect on the glare of hot sun on 20mm steel. A man sits inside sipping water from a large bottle. He tells me that 12 men worked to feed this gun, with 8 more below to feed them. No one knows how they trained to fit and work like demons with greek fire surrounding them. Few now are left who care. I know that in this tiny, hell-hot prison they were more than the sum of their parts and that each of them defined themselves by the work they done there 'till the day they died.

I leave the ship with its traditions and its sense of how it fitted into a world that no longer exists and I make my way into the city to eat. The food is familiar to me know, shrimp and grits, biscuit and Queso Blanco. Peach crisp to follow. I leave to drive back to Raleigh through thunderstorms and heavy rain. I have learned to welcome the rain in this land. It is not the cold bone rotting ever present visitation that I suffer in my native land. Here it nourishes the land and is held by the trees against the time when it will not fall.

It is midnight when I make it back to the hotel, but I am glad that I went to Wilmington and I do not believe that I will not travel that road ever again.

Charlotte

This is my last night in this city, I may well never return. I have been here a little over a week and I am surprised by the strength of feeling I have at the prospect of leaving. A part on me has come to love this place, the people who live here and the community that makes it the way that it is. I know I will miss this place.

Tonight, I wandered around the town to see again the places that I have begun to know. There is a cross-roads right in the centre of town with four statues that stand, one in each corner. This spot was where two Indian trading routes crossed, where the white man first met the native and began to trade. Nearby stands a building that housed the last Confederate Cabinet meeting that ratified the surrender to Union troops. There is a street that I have not ventured down and I think it is because of the lurid orange "Hooters" sign that advertises itself about half way down. Tonight I walk down and find the first Presbyterian Church, established by the first settlers . There is an old graveyard attached, most of the stones are unreadable, but I glimpse at names from home. Mitchell, Spratt, Polk, McBride and dates from 1770.

They came to this place and made it what it is. A restless, dour, easily offended people, but they were the best of us. We feel their loss even yet. I am glad that I came here to do them honour.

Shrimp 'n Grits

Today I went to meet a lady called Valerie Pearce. An attorney, she is Acting Director of the Children and Family Law centre. She was waiting for me at the entrance to her Office suite and she showed me into a conference room where around 10 people were waiting for me. Intelligent and with a fierce grasp of their subject, they asked questions of me for about an hour and a half. It felt a little like a job interview, except they were genuinely interested in what I had to say about the UK system. The children of Mecklenburg County are in good hands with these professionals to look out for them. Valerie, Kevin and Renee formed the core of the group and I sensed the passion that they brought to their work. They responded so well to my questioning that, had I been hiring, I would not have let them out of the room until they had signed a contract. That simple.

Around 1300 most of the group had to get back to work but Valerie and Kevin took me to lunch at Mervs. A busy noisy wonderfully atmospheric Soul Food restaurant. The food was amazing. Shrimp and grits, yellow grits mind, not the inferior white sort, was as good a meal as anything I have had in world class restaurants. Collared greens and mac and cheese had vibrant and loud colours and flavour, fried catfish with Yams was creamy and subtle. Okra and tomato, slimy yet satisfying. Fried Green Tomatoes as a starter. And all this within 30 minutes. I wanted to pay, but Kevin insisted. I am in his debt for the time he took to share with me and for his generosity of spirit as well as for buying me such a wonderful dinner. The name "Soul Food" is deserved, for mine felt nourished at the end of the meal.

Back at the office I momentarily forgot his name as we were saying goodbye. He had to remind me. I could see that he felt disappointed by this idiot who spent all morning in his company and couldn't even get his name right. I would go a long way to put that right, if I could.

Judge Lou Trosch

At 6'9"Lou is a big man, who moves with the ease and grace of the basketball player he was in his youth. He has the easy southern charm that is endemic in Charlotte but he couples this with a sharp mind and a deep sense on natural justice. If I were a child in trouble in Mecklenburg County, I would want to come up in his Court. I spent today observing his Youth Court. The American system is similar in many respects to the UK system, yet hauntingly different. In many ways it is perhaps more joined up and for this reason, it may well have the edge.

More later. I am in Starbucks and they are closing.

Deputy Chief Sheriff Felicia McAdoo

I've just had a meeting with the Chief Deputy Sheriff of Mecklenburg County. An African American lady of great grace and intelligence. It was a very useful meeting from the point of view of the study, as the Sheriff's Department deals directly with offenders and offender programmes. Again I have learned a great deal. It is a little disconcerting to note that she was armed throughout the meeting. I know it comes with the uniform, but the post is administrative and managerial. Is it necessary to be armed in such circumstances. It is not for me to question the practises of other countries and jurisdictions. It is a comment, no more than that.

More meetings coming up, so more later.

The District Attorney

Today I met the DA of Mecklenburg County. A very nice, hard working lady who has a wicked sense of humour, is an unsettlingly accurate mimic and who makes the law work on the ground for the children who come within her sphere of influence. She is also very articulate and I learned a lot about a very different system from her.

I have spent the last six hours writing up my notes and I know have a much better idea about how the individual projects I have been looking at fit within the system. Thankfully, I feel a little less thick and I am grateful to Mrs Long for this as well.

I also feel a great tiredness. To the County Jail tomorrow, early. So this is a short posting, I must sleep.

Elthestan

For some reason today, I have been thinking about Elthelstan, the great grandson of Alfred the Great. He was the first real King of England and he introduced fairly radical changes to the legal system that pertained at the time, many of which are with us to this day.

For example, he introduced a law that said if you were convicted of stealing and you were under 12 you need not necessarily be hung. He also introduced the concept of a period of imprisonment followed by a fine - which was quite radical for its time. On the down side he was quite keen on the trial by fire, water and the like, but hey, it was late 10th - early 11th Century.

I looked around Mecklenburg County Courthouse today, just to get my bearings. It is a new, very imposing building, built close to the jail, which is four separate but linked high rise blocks. The old Courthouse is nearby and appears to be undergoing refurbishment. The new one has quotations from the great and the good carved into it's walls, including some from a personal hero Cicero. His name means chickpea by the way, did you know that?

Anyway, whilst the footie is on and the hotel is quiet I intend to ready myself for the meetings tomorrow. I have noticed a lot more police and other security on the streets and all are armed. Still the place feels secure and people appear happy - there is no air of fear or the like. And so gentle reader, I bid you adieu until the morrow.