I dreamed a dream . . . . I dreamed last night of a love of long ago. She came to declare her love for me. I dreamed she loved me but I didn't love her. I tried to put her off, I allowed my indifference to show, but my coldness did not deter her. Her love for me danced in her eyes, her eyes drowned me in love. I felt myself being drawn into her innocence and goodness. Her face was radiant with love, and slowly my heart started to sing at the joy of her love, my soul melted into love for her. Her love for me was selfless and undemanding. She didn't demand love in return, to be allowed to love me was all she asked. Allowing myself to return her love and to love her for loving me swept all my pain and cynicism away. I woke up laughing, engulfed in the most complete feeling of happiness I have ever felt. Dreams give us so much happiness if they are good dreams, and can give us so much terror as well. But the terror of our dreams can never come near what many people lived through every day, nightmare lives, with never a day off. Imagine a child in care in this country in the cold days of the 20 th century, abandoned to the high walls of Victorian institutions, whether reformatory school or orphanage. And imagine that child being abused, physically, sexually, or mentally, by an adult dressed in black, daily, imagine the fear, the terror, and time stretching out, limitless before him, no hope of rescue, as day follows grim day. Cold, often hungry, unloved, unwanted, how did they survive? How did they emerge from the nightmare of cruelty sane? But they did, and some of them then told us their story. And we, society, can never make up to those children for what they lost. But we must try, whatever the cost. CLIVE GERAGHTY. Cover