The evening sun touched on the shell of a derelict block of flats turning the sheets of corrugated iron boarding up its windows a warm shade of rusty red. A gust of wind blew an empty beer can across the deserted yard, its rattle coming to an abrupt halt as it hit the bottom of a rusted-through sign which read "No ball games".
The Torrens estate is north Belfast at its most neglected and deprived. Wedged between the staunchly republican Oldpark, Ardoyne and Cliftonville areas, the loyalist enclave has developed a siege mentality which took aback even the hard-boiled canvassers from the Progressive Unionist Party.
"My God, this looks like Coronation Street after it's been hit by the Hiroshima bomb," one mumbled.
Suddenly the eerie silence was broken as the PUP's silver people carrier with posters of the party's council candidate, Mr Billy Hutchinson, plastered all over it entered the courtyard, loyalist tunes cheerfully blaring through its loudspeaker. "Billy Hutchinson - for progress, peace and Ulster," it roared.
Being a grassroots loyalist party, the PUP, which politically represents the Ulster Volunteer Force, seemed to be the natural choice of many Torrens residents. With two potential unionist council seats up for grabs in the Oldpark district, Mr Hutchinson patiently explained to a bewildered middle-aged man in a Rangers jumper the difference between the white Westminster and purple council ballot papers.
"I am the lilac," he added emphatically.
On one end of the estate a community centre was under construction and the replacement of derelict buildings with little redbrick town-houses had begun, but even that achievement did not seem to meet with universal approval. An elderly lady in a navy cardigan said she did not want to move out of her house while the Housing Executive was carrying out work on it.
"Them new houses, they wouldn't be there if it wasn't for me and you wouldn't get your house done up if it wasn't for me," Mr Hutchinson was unperturbed in his hard sell.
"Good for you," she replied defiantly. "And remember Drumcree?" the PUP candidate stepped up the pitch, "I was the one standing with you at those barricades when the republican mob from over there tried to attack your homes."
"You are everywhere, aren't you?" she replied, none too impressed.
A little boy of about six got Mr Hutchinson to sign one of the campaign leaflets for him.
"What does it say?" he asked.
"For Jamie, best wishes from Billy," Mr Hutchinson explained. Determined to own a collector's item, the boy turned around to two PUP canvassers. "Can you sign it as well? But write something funnier on it, will you?"