I never met or spoke with Nicole. I noticed her at the petrol station on Scotland Road in a sleeping bag. I thought no more of it, I was busy busy drive in get fuel get gone. A couple of weeks later I noticed that she was not in her usual spot, when I left the petrol station I noticed that she was on the pavement just outside the garage, I looked at her and made eye contact, she just looked like a lost soul, she wasn’t begging or offering anything, just sat there wrapped in a sleeping bag. She looked a gentle kind person. The same thing happened a couple of weeks later and again we made eye contact, for no more than a few seconds and she smiled and I drove away. A couple of weeks later I was driving past and noticed that she wasn’t there. After another week or so I called for fuel and asked the cashier about the girl in the sleeping bag and she told me that there had been an accident and that she had been killed.

The wagon that delivered stock to the garage had reversed over her whilst she was asleep on the pavement. I checked the news to find out what had happened and then found out her name.

The trip we are undertaking is mostly about Simon and I recreating a cycling trip we did 50 years ago in 1976 it is a nostalgia trip and a test of ourselves but I thought it might be an opportunity to raise some money in memory of Nicole our very brief wordless connection has stayed with me and is the reason why I chose the Whitechapel centre who work for similar people across Liverpool.