mid - January 2007

It's a cold windy day. I walk past the Home Office building to get to the Unity Centre and on the street between the two I see several solitary figures walking head down. Some I recognise, some I don't but they are unmistakably going to sign in, faces hardened and resigned, worried.

I arrive in the office and it is crowded. A couple are sitting on the sofa, a volunteer beside them writing on a form. Two people are standing in front of the desk writing their names down, two people are behind the desk talking. Two men are huddled over a form in the other corner. I climb over, move past and round the people and put my jacket on a chair at the back.

One of the men greets me with a hug, happy new year, it's been too long. It is the man from Sudan who is translating for a new arrival, a young man from Palestine. We take his details and then those of a man from Iraq who has also recently arrived. The three of them share a joke in Arabic, I look up with questioning eyes looking for a translation and am given some word of reassurance.

Meanwhile the couple have left. Their country of origin will not take them back, their claim for asylum here has been refused and they have no travel documents. A Scottish woman who lives besidet the centre is being helped to sort out a problem with the electricity in her flat.

The man from Sudan tells me about his week. The Home Office officials came to get him and took him in a van to Liverpool. He says that he made trouble. He asked to stop the van so he could pee. When they asked him his religion he said he has none. He refused translators because he didn't trust them. They did a medical exam in Liverpool asked him more questions and then brought him back to Glasgow. He was pissed off about it, anxiously telling and retelling the story until I understood what had happenned.

People come and go, can you look after these keys, this phone, this bag. The office is constantly busy. People who are early for their signing time at the Home Office sit and wait. New arrivals rummage in the back room and take clothes that have been donated to us. The landlord comes in for the overdue rent. A man tells me his story to write up to increase publicity about his case.

Today I spoke with a civil engineer, a nurse, the captain of a boat and many more whose profession I didn't ask. I saw their registration cards with their photographs and "employment prohibited" typed on them.