There But For the Grace of God . . .

We were walking through the West End one winter evening, when Bob started getting agitated. At first, I thought it was the cold weather, but then I realised we were being followed.

Like Bob, I’d developed a radar for this over the years. I turned and spotted the guy in the throng. He was a young, slightly built lad, with greasy hair and a rucksack on his back.

We needed to cut through a small alleyway to get to the station. We’d barely entered the narrow street, when Bob let out a loud, whew noise. The young guy had lurched at us, grabbing at my rucksack.

I’m quite capable of looking after myself – as is Bob. Between us we pushed him away. He ran off, but only made it a few yards before he tripped and fell to the ground. The kid hauled himself to his knees and started crying.

Rather than send him off, I sat with him for a few minutes, talking. I could see he was desperate. He’d run away from an abusive home in the north of England without a penny to his name. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in a week and had barely eaten. I told him about the best shelters to go to and wrote down a couple of phone numbers for charities that I knew might help. I also gave him some money. It was the least I could do.

If there was one lesson I’d learned during my time sleeping rough, it was that life on the streets dehumanises people. The desperation, loneliness and lack of decent, human contact drags you down. And in the process, you lose all sense of yourself – of what’s right and wrong. It had happened to me.

In fact, I could see my younger self in this lad.

We are all too quick to rush to judgment. We all forget that, with a tiny twist of fate, any one of us could find ourselves on the street.

There, but for the grace of God, go all of us.