And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; put a ring on his hands and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found’. And they began to make merry.
Luke 15: 20–24
The previous chapter is a snapshot of biographical details of the homeless people interviewed for this study, schematised around the theme of crisis. The reader will already have an overview of each of these subjects, and equally importantly, by means of the various sub-sections, have greater insight into a shared history. At present this view is one-dimensional, since I have extracted out of a mass of information what is of interest almost exclusively as the plot of these life histories, answering the question ‘How did you come to be homeless?’ To add a second dimension I turn now to the various responses to the question: ‘What does it feel like to be homeless?’ These answers, for the most part, come from the benefit of hindsight; Charlie, for example, reckons that alcohol blurred and altered any emotions he may have had at the time. He is still able, however, to paint a graphic picture of what homelessness did feel like from the inside. Answers have been grouped into six themes under the following headings: Anger, Pain and Isolation, Independence, Love and Survival, Telling the Story, Incoherence and Order, and Coming Back to Life / Returning Home. I have also included extracts which run counter to these groupings.
The title here is drawn from the interview with Marc who describes his feelings when he returns to hospital after he has been stabbed: ‘I were angry, in pain, lonely, on my own’. Added to this for Marc and Danni is the sense of fear and panic. Marc uses the word ‘frightened’ or ‘frightening’ 12 times in relation to himself and twice about a friend. He is frightened when he first goes to The Victory, and at supper time there; John frightens him, Derriford hospital frightens him; he is frightened when he reads stories of the crucifixion, having his stomach pumped as a child is frightening, the thought that people know that he has been stabbed is frightening. Fear and panic lead him to make himself sick, as described previously. It can reasonably be inferred from this interview that fear is (or has been) a dominant feature in Marc’s life. There is also a sense of pain throughout much of the interview. Extracts have featured a violent relationship with John who reminded him of his father – ‘it was like my dad because my father beat me up, laid me on the floor and smacked me in the face with his fist, violently because he’d been drinking’ – of a difficult home life as a child and as a young man, of suicide attempts, self-harm and male rape. What is surprising is that Marc also features in the final category of this section when he looks to the future with some confidence.
Danni links a sense of isolation with panic when she has to leave her children’s home with no clear future. The result is almost predictable:
Danni. And the children’s home, because I was actually thrown out of there, not discharged, I did go to them for help, but they refused to help me because of my behaviour while I was living there. So I just felt alone, you know. I just didn’t know where to turn.
David. So in a sense, you turned to crime. You don’t mind me putting it as bluntly as that?
Danni. I had been in trouble with the police, like a lot, while I was in the children’s home. I thought that when I got the flat, I’d be able to sort myself out and at that time I was heavily into drink, but I’d stopped. But when the end of the six months was getting nearer and nearer and there was nowhere I was going, I started panicking and started drinking and that led to crime again.
Caroline, like Danni, feels that there was no one to talk to at vital times, especially for those under 18. Her family were not much help and she simply did not know of the existence of other agencies:
I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to stay with, which I have now, which is a good thing, but if, I knew about counsellors, things like that years ago I don’t think I’d have ended up like this, because that is what has helped me. That’s what I needed years ago, which I never knew. There was no advertisement about it. All there was was Childline which I phoned up, couldn’t get through, that was it. That was the only thing, I didn’t know no other way; my mum never told me about the facts of life so I had to find that out all myself.
It is the possibility of talking her problems through with a key worker that contributes in a substantial way to her recovery. When I ask her later if she can recall how she felt through any of her earlier life, she replies: ‘I tell you what it felt like, hell. You do live in hell because it’s hell to live’.
In counterpoint to these emotions, Charlie, in a speech containing negative views on homelessness and sleeping rough, also wants to put his finger on something different. Perhaps this sense of freedom overlaps with the following section on independence, but he is trying to understand some of the attractions of being without a home:
It can be, believe it or not, it sound’s stupid, but it can be quite an attractive existence to some people. That’s why some people will never live in a house. You’ll never get them to settle in one place, because there is a certain amount of, excitement is not the right word, but you’re sort of fighting from day to day for an existence and it tends to add a new dimension, if you like. Instead of living in a house with a regular job and a mortgage and worry about the kids and this sort of thing, instead, you’ve got just yourself to worry about and you’re fighting from day to day to exist, but it sounds worse than it is actually. It can be interesting, it can be an interesting existence at times, it can be a real pig in the middle of winter.
A mixed range of emotions is centred on the concept of freedom, independence or the search for an undefined goal. Some of these subjects talk of restrictions placed on their freedom by different institutions (Caroline, Danni and Pete) or by the limitations of poverty (Richard); others like Charlie and Tim point out a more positive aspect of homelessness and the disadvantages of some sorts of accommodation; Fran talks of freedom using the imagery of water, and Julie gives an impression throughout the interview of a fierce independence won with a struggle. This range of impressions highlights the tension between the desire for freedom and the equally strongly held wish to belong and feel at home. This tension is captured within a single interview in the case of Caroline. She describes leaving home at the age of 16 and escaping from her mother’s abusive behaviour:
I moved in with a friend, one of my friends from school, I enjoyed it at first, it was freedom but then I started to miss my mum. Things were going through my head, and I felt suicidal really.
But then after she collapsed in the Health Centre and moved into The Victory, she recognised positive and negative aspects to living there.
I had a key worker, never had one before. I told him everything, from when I was young, from the age of six and upwards. It was the first time in my life, I got it out. I had someone to speak to, I had a roof over my head, my own room, meals everyday, what I always wanted. It was the only thing I really wanted. I had it but then it was my independence was getting between it, you know, ‘cause I was having friends in my room, and you’re not allowed to have anybody in your room. So that’s why they moved me into here.
For Danni, the thought of being ‘banged up’ in a secondary treatment centre for six months was not welcome after three months in prison and three months of intensive rehabilitation therapy. She discharged herself and returned, initially going to The Victory and then to Aubyn House. Six weeks at The Victory challenged her new-found freedom from alcohol. She describes her time there as a ‘nightmare’, trying to keep sober among a lot of drug takers. Pete felt the same sense of restriction living in the Salvation Army hostel. He is grateful for their concern for him, calling Brian, an assistant officer, ‘A man put on this earth by God for his ability to care’, yet at the same time saying:
The problem with the Salvation Army is that they take away your independence. They do everything for you. You don’t even have to think for yourself, and to me, a man who has always made his own thoughts in life, as I said, with a very responsible job when I did work, it wasn’t the right thing.
He stayed there 10 months before moving on to Aubyn House. Richard is the only person interviewed to mention directly the restrictions of poverty: ‘at the moment I’m restricted in buying things or going to different places’. Ill health has forced his retirement, but he looks forward to getting better and doing the things he is ‘yearning’ to return to.
Charlie talked about the quasi-excitement of living day to day, when you ‘lived and died’ for the arrival of the giro cheque on Tuesdays, though, all things considered he does not recommend being without a proper roof over one’s head. Tim is homeless because he does not wish to pay alimony after a difficult divorce. He feels he was forced into marriage by ‘her old-school father’ and now would rather remain sleeping in the doorway of a bank, and be effectively untraceable. He sees this as a temporary measure while he resolves his debts. He rejects any other form of assisted accommodation, though his health is not particularly good.
I have tried to remain independent. I’ve had all sorts of offers but a lot of those characters are rather greedy, you end up with pennies as pocket money. The government has been very understanding. I have to sign on every day with them. They continue to pay me standard income support, what I suppose is the maximum they can. If I get involved, I only looked at one house with any form of person looking after me, what they wanted by money was astronomical. They also pay some sort of special housing allowance, the people who own these properties tend to be very greedy, they give you two or three pounds a week pocket money, like they’re giving you the earth. Quite naturally this is not for the rest of my life. It’s the only way I can get the financial side of my life squared up.
Fran has spent much of her adult life travelling in Britain, and emphasises the importance of fresh air and physical fitness. In between trips she has stayed at The Victory. When she was found other hostel accommodation by them she comments that ‘I couldn’t find my own space, that was all so controlled even doing the cooking so I still needed to get away from things and set up my own life’. The tone of the interview is of someone searching for the right path in life, but determined to do this as a free individual. She uses phrases like ‘there’s been loads of doors for me’, and ‘I realise there’s a long road for me’. Other imagery will appear as a result of asking questions about spirituality, but she associates water with freedom. When I ask what it represents to her she replies: ‘My eyesight, so I can see and drink, drink properly, and not get caught in any way, get tied up’.
This theme of identity is also present in Julie’s interview, particularly in the style and tone of her conversation. She talks of her experiences with a freedom of expression which is fresh, direct, and full of memorable images. She is very willing to talk about God, to me and to others on the streets, but realises that this does not make her popular, nevertheless she continues in what sounds like a mission:
We’re in a dog-eat-dog world which I don’t like. I don’t want to be a dog and I don’t want to eat dog. It’s hard staying in the middle when you’re a criminal, being a nice criminal doesn’t fit down here sometimes. I accept quite a few hardened criminals because they don’t like the way I talk, because I talk God and I talk nice and I talk love and a lot of criminals don’t like that sort of talk and I have to suffer quite a lot down this end.
Her desire for independence and her survival as a free individual are linked to her criminal activities. She says at the start of the interview that leaving home at 16½ years old she had met many homeless people, but thought: ‘I’m never going to be without money in my pocket and that’s when I started turning to crime and I haven’t been out of crime since’.
It may seem odd to link these two themes together, yet an attentive reading of the interviews indicates that a closing down or suppression of all emotions, including love, is a key part of the survival process: of Danni in prison, Julie as a shoplifter with a conscience, and Caroline as an abused child. The opening up of love is part of the process of coming back to life which is the subject of a later section. There are close connections too with the spirituality of a number of these individuals. Absence of love or its withdrawal are characteristic of the lives of both Marc and Pete, where actual survival is in question.
Marc talks about the abuse of his childhood, and recalling an interview with a psychiatrist after his first suicide attempt aged seven, he remembers saying that he felt he had never been loved at home; so that now as an adult he finds love confusing:
Saying that, when Tracy says, ‘I love you’ but I actually say, ‘I love you Tracy’, but what is love? I don’t know what it is, I never found it. Saying that, if Jesus loves you, you love him don’t you? It hurts a bit, like, I can’t grow attached to too many people. With John I knew his faults, his drinking, his tablets, but he didn’t love me, like … I don’t know. I was in lust or whatever, I don’t know, he said to me, ‘You’re too young to settle down’, too young at twenty seven. So I still read Bible it helps me along.
A similar absence of love in early years is a reasonable interpretation of the opening remarks of Caroline’s interview quoted above. By contrast, there are many expressions of love and affection in the interview with Pete. He talks about ‘adoring’ his mother-in-law, and meeting ‘the most beautiful 23-year-old, blue-eyed blonde which any man could ever wish to meet’. When he first leaves his second wife he remembers his marriage vows: ‘I promised in front of her that I loved her, honoured her, in sickness and all the rest of it, so even though I left home, I didn’t lose contact with my wife or children’. After the serious suicide attempt described above and some rehabilitation work both at the Salvation Army hostel and at Aubyn House, he is hoping to re-establish a more permanent home and a reconciliation with his wife. He explains why:
at the end of the day my wife loves me, for some reason I can’t explain, but the thing is it’s not just the fact she loves me, David, it’s the fact that she needs me. You see I have a big advantage over my wife; although I love her, I don’t need her. I can live my life without her. She cannot live her own life without me, so that’s the difference. So we anticipate a reconciliation.
If this strikes the reader as ironic (especially given his suicide attempt) and in some ways as missing the point, a little later Pete contrasts the woman he married 10 years before with the ‘vicious, nasty young lady’ which resulted from two and a half years of drug abuse. He is sanguine about the reality of reconciliation but sees some hint of her previous character re-emerging. Towards the end of the interview he recalls a scene with his first wife, whom he names for the first time. At a regular social event, it was the habit of a group of friends to partner each other’s wives for the last dance. Pete and Suzie would never do this because she always reserved the last dance for her husband. I wonder in the course of our conversation and in subsequent re-reading whether this emphasis on love moving into sentimentality is really part of Pete’s character, or an attempt to recapture in words and memory the good days of his past and stable existence.
It is Julie who links up the two ideas of love and survival. She takes a traditional view of the family, seeing the father as the one who provides discipline and the mother who contributes love. When pressed to explain more fully about her image of God, she comes back quickly with the phrase: ‘All I know is that God is love and that is all I need to know’. Her independent stance in talking about God and love leads to the following exchange where she recognises the paradox between love and survival:
And I see so much that goes on down here that hurts me so much. I hurt a lot from what goes on down here. But you’ve got to be tough when you’re down this end because if you’re not tough, you’ve had it. [D. Very true.] Sad. I don’t like life, but this is where I am. I help a few people somewhere along the line. I don’t think we’re judged on how much we love, but how people love us. [D. Interesting thought.] There’s too many people out looking for love and they’re looking for the wrong things. That comes from within you. It doesn’t come from other people unless you earn it. [D. Don’t you think we’ve got to try to love ourselves a bit?] Self love is the greatest love because we’re in God’s image. We’re built in God’s image and the first commandment is ‘Love thy God’ and then ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’. If everyone just lived by those two, the rest would fall into place.
Julie is much less willing than Pete to talk about her own emotions, preferring to talk about her opinions. She uses reflections about her understanding of God as an indirect way to say what she regards as important. When she talks about her own rehabilitation (‘The behavioural therapy nurse told me that I had to shoplift to survive …’) she lets slip more personal information, but then reverts to the general comment:
I‘ve got a few friends who are helping me through it. I’ve been married to an alcoholic, I’ve also been married to a heroin addict. I’ve been through a lot of the programmes like Family Anonymous and things like that. So I’m doing a bit there and some of the things they come out with. I’ve read Why am I afraid to love? and Why am I afraid to tell you who I am? I read quite a lot of psychology, but as I said psychology is just common sense. You don’t need psychology. You just need common sense in this life. And that’s what a lot of people lack is common sense and a love for others. That’s what’s lacking today.1
The paradox of survival is also stated by Danni. She says that she does not feel as tough as in the past: ‘because when I was young, in and out of prison, you have to be tough always, or you’re not going to stand a chance’. Now that she has stopped drinking and is more vulnerable, she is aware of having to face problems directly, so her emotional sensitivity is heightened. Charlie also talks about living without the emotional crutch of alcohol. Caroline’s answer to my question on survival points us to the final section of this chapter:
David. But you’re a survivor as well aren’t you? You personally are a survivor in this.
Caroline. I don’t know how, but I am. The Victory, from going from The Victory I was in a bad state, I might as well have been dead really, but they brought me back, they brought me back to life, they brought me back to life now. I feel I’ve got a life, I feel I’ve got a future. I never did before. I never could see no future.
There is a fourth theme here which engenders an emotional reaction, but one which is different to the previous three. There are moments when the subject wishes to comment on the process of being interviewed or how it felt on other occasions to speak of a difficult life history. There are also the interviewer’s own (often untimely) interjections which, for the sake of completeness and honesty, I wish to include. This corresponds to previous comments about the ethics of the research and the involvement of the researcher. Caroline and Marc make the most explicit references to the interview process, with further statements from Charlie, Julie and Pete. My own involvement is seen in these interviews too and also in Fran’s.
Part of Caroline’s rehabilitation is having a key worker at The Victory to whom she is able to tell her whole history: ‘I told him everything, from when I was young, from the age of six and upwards. It was the first time in my life I got it out’. Without the experience of telling her story at The Victory she would never have had the confidence to speak to me. I begin then to draw the interview to a close, but not before the following exchange in which the mutuality of this project is underlined. In some ways the tone is naive, but it does emphasise the engagement of the researcher and the necessity of such engagement. It also shows Caroline looking outwards beyond her own concerns to those of others like her.
David. Is there anything more you want to say, I’m really grateful, I mean, if I just, it doesn’t matter if this is recorded or not, but this is very new for me and you’re the first person I’ve done an interview like this, well it’s not really an interview it’s a chat and you, you’ve given me a lot of a stuff to think about but given me some confidence that what I’m doing is actually quite a valuable thing to do.
Caroline. Yes it is, it really is. That’s why I said yes right away because I’m speaking to you, because I know that there is people out there need help.
David. I’m really grateful because of that, because you’ve given me confidence.
Caroline. I’m glad you’re doing it, I’m glad somebody’s doing something, that and I’m glad somebody’s interested in it, because it will help, it does help as well.
David. Yes I think so
Caroline. You may not think so, but it does. There’s a lot like me out there.
David. We need to help together. Thank you very much indeed. I’m really grateful.
Caroline. Thank you. I’m glad I was able to help you.
There is a tone of heightened emotion throughout Marc’s interview as evident in the extracts already quoted. There was a point at which the tape needed to be turned over when these feelings came to the surface and I noticed that I too have started to feel very nervous as Marc has been talking. I tell him this: ‘I feel a bit, can certainly feel your …’. He interrupts: ‘Shakes?’ He describes the process as ‘nerve-wracking’ and I agree with him. But it is towards the end of the interview that I make my own reactions clearer, almost involuntarily, and clumsily. Marc responds in a similar way to Caroline but there is an emphasis on self-reliance:
David. How do you, you said earlier, you know, you talked in a very moving way about lots of things, I’m very grateful, I feel quite moved by all that, well some of it you told me before, well I guess I am shocked in the sense of, I’m not shocked and outraged; I’m outraged that those things happened to you. Shocked about these dreadful things, I’m wondering how you’re feeling now. You’ve said all this, it’s all come out, are you feeling OK about that?
Marc. Yes, I couldn’t talk about them, kept it all in; but now they’re more open, it’s Stephen, I can talk to anybody about them. I’ve seen shrinks from A to B to C. I thought I wasn’t getting anywhere, I gave up, so you stick to one person, if they know and no one else knows you’re all right. But it hurt though because like … if you’ve got a problem like you’ve got to sort it out for yourself, you know.
Charlie too comments that previously he would never have had the patience to talk to an interviewer unless he was getting some benefit out of it. This interview also shows another aspect of my own feelings – a defensive reaction to a criticism of the Church. Charlie complains that at a Catholic convent in London he was forced to take part in what was (I assume) a recitation of the Rosary or the Angelus before he was able to receive any food. He was embarrassed to be reciting lots of Hail Mary’s without really knowing the prayer at all. He links this with an implicit criticism of the sacrament of confession and I leap in defensively, breaking the flow of conversation. It is quite hard to return to the previous subject matter.
Charlie. What the hell is a Hail Mary. Hail Mary! I don’t agree with the whole concept of being able to do virtually what you like and then go and confess your sins. I think that’s very hypocritical to me. I think it is. ‘I shot someone yesterday’. ‘Well say ten Hail Mary’s and’
David. I don’t think it’s quite as
Charlie. You get the idea of what I’m saying.
There is an opposite dynamic in the interview with Fran. She is talking about her sister whom she describes as a ‘born again Christian’ who tries to persuade Fran to have a full immersion baptism without which she is not properly Christian. Fran is resistant to this because she had been baptised already as an infant. Twice I make clear my support for Fran’s position. Happily for the interview, it is an occasion for Fran to tell me that her baptism is significant to her. Both Julie and Pete refer at the start of the interview to telling the story of their lives; and my reaction is spoken explicitly again towards the end of the interview with Julie. I express my surprise and gratitude at the way in which she speaks of God, with a sense of freshness and urgency in her imagery.
The previous section illustrated a conscious reaction to how it felt to be interviewed or tell one’s life history. A second narrative element to these interviews is the extent to which they tell a coherent or a confused story. Shorter extracts from these interviews tend to imply a well-structured conversation, but in some cases it has been more like detective work to sift through hints to uncover the sequence of events. Three levels of order exist potentially: each interviewee will order events, feelings about events and so on as they speak; the questions I ask and the way they are asked apply another level of order; thirdly, data analysis imposes structure or order on very varied text.
Nigel Rapport’s work with analysis of conversations cited earlier illustrates a degree of misunderstanding and failed communication from which he draws conclusions about conflicting world views, but at least superficially the conversations make sense. The same is not true for all the interviews that have been carried out here, recalling Frank’s concept of the chaos story. I have indicated in the brief life histories where there is a degree of confusion; however, there is still an assumption that each person has told in essence a coherent story. The following two longer extracts contrast a relatively incoherent story with a well-structured one and at the same time allow the reader access to a greater stretch of text, from both the content and stylistic point of view. Each extract is followed by a brief analysis in which I suggest that the degree of order in the narrative is indicative of the order of their present lives. This partly exposes and counteracts the unconscious temptation to value the story and the storyteller in proportion to their clarity: I give value to that which is easy to understand, I dismiss the complex and confused.
The first extract is taken from exchanges of conversation half way through the interview with Marc, just after I have asked him how he is finding life at Aubyn House.
Marc. I cried my eyes out for three days when I moved out of Victory and moved in here, just like you’ve got to meet new people, staff and everything. Aubyn House is different like, you’ve got your own key [pause]. I like Aubyn House because there’s no people taking drugs and drinking. It’s their life, they do it in their own bedrooms. I done that once, never again, didn’t like it, I didn’t. It did my head in. It frightened me because in Victory, I was telling you about Victory, I saw people taking drugs. In the morning they’re nasty, but when they’re down you take it good or bad. The one instance a lad called Nick he got hold of my throat, squeezing my Adam’s apple. I was going redder and redder like a beetroot, I kneed him in the groin. As soon as I got in Aubyn House I got more hard, stronger than I did in Victory.
David. Right.
Marc. Like because in Aubyn House people didn’t like push drugs on you, Take this, take that, but in Victory they do. I try and ignore it [pause]. Five suicides too much for me.
David. Quite, for anybody.
Marc. Like Jesus, somebody up there wants me alive.
David. I think
Marc. Certain things, … nice T shirts, that’s all I need me.
David. Right.
Marc. I couldn’t turn the clock back, no way. If I did I might have changed things about my own lifestyle, I wouldn’t have had the rape, the stabbing, the beating up. Saying that, you can’t, you can’t dwell in the past, you have to dwell in the future. Before I lived in the past all the time, that’s done my head in. I’m suffering from that now, like tension headaches all the time, that’s … GPs and Samaritans and God and all that. I do it all off my own back … on my own plate … If I told my parents I’d been stabbed, ‘Back to Yorkshire now Stephen’. You can move and move and move but you soon end up back here. You can’t keep moving, can you? You can’t. My parents got their own life, I got my own. What worries me about my parents is that they’re right old-fashioned. Men have got to be men, women have got to be women, settle down, kids, work for a living. But when I told them I was gay that hurt them more because I was like the black sheep of the family. We’re five brothers and four sisters. Out of five and four there’s one brother who is gay. At the end of the day why should I have the problem on my own, it’s them with the problem, they can’t … That hurt me in a way. I was hiding behind closed doors all the time, coming into the house at early hours of the morning, three o’clock, because I’d been seeing this fellow which I’m not ashamed of, but I was too young then, about seven years ago. Told them I was black sheep of the family. ‘Get out, you’re not my son’. I was pleading with her, knocked on the door five times. Got to the stage she rang the police twice to get me evicted. She didn’t like Martin, he was too bold, always drinking all the time. She could see me going to fall in that trap. I could never do that. Moved in with him, he had his life, liked his drink. He said, ‘Write to your sister’. Saying that she only lived next door but one! That hurt me because she’s got two girls, I’m only one with no kids in the family. So I had to tell Laura about it, my homosexuality. I thought, does she know or doesn’t she know? If they know, it’s behind closed doors. When I told my mother, it was like she was panicking for weeks. It got to a stage at table, Sunday roast, ‘Does he want gravy?’ Does he want gravy, ask him? Like a complete stranger.
David. How old were you then, twenty something?
Marc. Eighteen, nineteen. She says, ‘Does he want gravy?’ as if I’m a complete stranger.
This extract illustrates not only some of themes already encountered in respect of Marc, but shows the way in which he moves from one idea to another. An initial question and answer about where he is currently living leads to a thought about where he had moved from and the people at The Victory, and then without a pause, back to his parents, their way of life and their treatment of him. This is the first time he has spoken about his parents, his relationship with Martin, and their reaction to this situation. He talks of looking more to the future now, but cannot help coming back to the pain and alienation of the past. He recalls very specific incidents (assault by Nick at The Victory, Sunday lunch with his parents) with a clarity and intensity which implies that they are still ‘live’ in his mind. He acknowledges that he has suffered from living in the past, and that he alone has to take some responsibility for himself, but he seems unable at this point to move forward.
This second extract is towards the end of Pete’s interview. I have heard the basic account of his life and how he came to be living at Aubyn House. So I move into the second part of the interview process by picking up a reference he has already made to ‘our friend upstairs’ in order to ask about spirituality. This answer continues almost without interruption until the end of the interview.
My wife died New Year’s Day, which was a Sunday. Of course, on a Sunday, you can’t do anything because the Bank Holiday was on the Monday. There was still nowhere open or anything. So I spent the day with my younger brother and my uncle, and another relative, but I was no company for anybody because I had only just lost my wife, so I left them and went home to the empty house where I lived, as I was so used to going home and there being a very beautiful girl waiting for me. I was sat down having a cup of tea and my doorbell went about 8 o’clock in the evening. And I thought ‘Oh no, not a visitor’. But anyway being courteous, I opened the door and there was this young man stood there in a long black cassock, very tall, young lad about six foot four inches. And he said, ‘My name is Christopher Smith’. I said, ‘Yes’. He said, ‘I live in King’s Road (just behind where I live) and I’ve heard about your great loss’. So he said, ‘Would you mind if I came in and talked to you?’ Always being a bit courteous I didn’t wish to be rude, so I invited the young man in. And we had a most wonderful talk. He convinced me that suicide was not the answer. I wouldn’t go straight to my Suzie, because the good Lord would keep me in limbo as long as if I’d earned a living on earth. So in the end he convinced me that that was not the answer and there was only one person gives life and only one person takes life away, so therefore if you take your own life you put yourself on a par with God, that’s not allowed. So anyway, on the Tuesday, my GP, Dr Slater, came to visit me because he was very concerned because he loved my wife as well. The fact was that when she died she had forty-eight wreathes. She was only an ordinary girl, but everybody who met her, you had no chance, David, you had to fall in love with her. She was the most beautiful creature ever. I used to be envied by so many people because I had this young lady as my wife. So he said, he came in the door and I just spoke to him as I would normally and he said, ‘It’s amazing Pete’. And I said, ‘What is?’ And he said, ‘When I came and you opened the door I expected to see a weeping, gibbering, idiot’, he said, ‘because I know how you felt about Suzie’. So I explained to him about the night before when this young man appeared on my doorstep and he said, ‘If ever God worked in a mysterious way, he certainly worked that one, because there is no way unless something like that happened you would be as sensible or as sane as what you are at the present time’. That gave me a lot of goals, to think yes I never. It was my faith really in the end that kept me going for as long as I did. As I said prior, I’ve been very blessed. God gave me a voice which a lot of people seem to like here and I’ve sung in many pubs, clubs, raising money for charity, organizations, singing in people’s homes. I’ve even sung in churches. And people appear to enjoy it, so I used to think to myself, maybe this is my purpose. But at the end of the day, David, I still didn’t like going to work and leaving work at half past four, arriving home at about ten to five and walking into an empty house. And I used to sit there and think, why? And I used to go down to the theatre or the old Palace Theatre or the Athenaeum or the Globe Theatre and stand on the stage and sing and I used to get applause. And I used to think to myself, There’s the answer, I can give people something that a lot of people can’t. I can give people pleasure. But not only do I give people pleasure, I get pleasure out of it myself. And that’s why I’ve tried to live.
By comparison with Marc’s story, Pete presents a coherent account of a difficult period after the death of his first wife. New Year’s Day, an evening visit by the curate, discussion about Suzie’s death and a visit the next day by the doctor follow in clear temporal order. There is then a short reflection on how he feels blessed with the ability to sing, but still unhappy about the absence of his wife. While there are similarities with Marc’s story (use of direct speech and very long answers) the way Pete has ordered the account of his life gives the impression that he has reflected on this already, decided what to include and exclude, and where humour might be suitable. In some ways this is not surprising since a key worker will focus on needs and their solutions, requiring some understanding of the context of the individual. Pete’s is a genuine story, but I suspect that he has told it before and has in some ways even practised it. He has clarity about where he is going next. Marc’s story is also genuine, but by contrast, he is still in the midst of it. The emotions which he still feels as he tells it, and which gives it such immense vitality, are witness to the way in which these events are not fully processed. His story is much less coherent because there is less coherence in his life and few firm foundations to build on. He has hopes for the future but they are as yet undifferentiated.
Possibilities for the future summarise the final section of this analysis and point forward to the next chapter on spirituality. The sub-title here captures a dual approach – for Caroline, Fran and Marc the future is like virgin territory, an unexplored opportunity to achieve the things they had always expected; whereas for an older group, Jim, Pete, Richard and Charlie there is a stronger sense of life returning to how it was, to the comfort of the past, returning home. For many of these people their language takes on a freshness and originality as they look towards the future with hope. The four not included here – Danni, Geoff, Julie and Tim – are not without hope, but the future simply does not feature strongly in their interviews. Danni does mention her wish to move on in terms of housing, and Tim has a vague notion of clearing his debts though he says he ‘tolerates’ his present lifestyle; Geoff’s short interview is not orientated around future plans and Julie seems content with plans to help her shoplifting, having only recently moved to Aubyn House.
Caroline sees her return to life in literal terms, as if without the help of The Victory her drug addiction would have proved fatal. But now with the support of counselling she has a very different outlook:
I can see a future for me now, it’s good, it is, it makes me feel good, but it’s bringing back my confidence and that as well. It’s quite strange looking back on it feels weird now, my life seems to be coming together, like a jigsaw puzzle, all it was was in bits, but now all the pieces are coming together, you know what I mean … slowly but surely I know it takes time, because I’m quite an impatient person, but I’m learning, in spite of that.
Similarly at the end of Fran’s interview, she comments that she has faith that places like Aubyn House can be successful; and then she uses the phrase ‘my own spring, the light gets brighter for me as time goes on, and I keep seeing the light’. Home is significant for Marc, as we have seen when he talks of his childhood and the fear that possessed him when he was forced to seek out accommodation at The Victory hostel. When I ask him how long he has lived at Aubyn House and what he thinks of it, this is his reply:
Fourteen months, I love it. When I move out, February or March this month should be; it’s going to be a big, open world, a great big hole in my life, because one thing you’ve got to start afresh again, buying new furniture, that’s going to be frightening. No it’s not going to be frightening, it’s going to be great for me, because it’s going to be the second thing I’ve done in my life. Left home at fourteen, come back at eighteen but now [you’ve got] to buy your own furniture, got your own key, saying all that, got to make a great big world for yourself. People that’s left, people that’s moved on. They’ve got their own life, got jobs which I should have eventually.
The positive and excited tone of this contrasts with the earlier sections about fear and isolation. It is also interesting to compare Marc’s initial impressions as he arrives at The Victory with his reaction when he knows he is going to move on: ‘I cried my eyes out for three days when I moved out of Victory and moved in here’. The Victory had clearly become some sort of a home to him.
Jim and Charlie, recovering from alcohol abuse, have a sense of feelings returning after years of confusion or blankness. Jim uses the phrases ‘Something’s coming back with the help of a lot of people, especially the NHS [National Health Service]’ and ‘I was totally numb, just blanked’. Charlie has a more imaginative expression for the same idea: ‘At the moment, I’m still coming out of the fog of twenty years of living’. Jim hopes to return to his job as a steel fixer, get a house with a mortgage and contributions from lodgers. Equally Charlie recognises that he does not need alcohol any more, but that his new life will not be entirely a return to the past. He has learnt from these experiences:
If you can’t look after yourself, you can’t look after anybody else. I think that’s where I went wrong with my wife to a certain extent. I wasn’t looking after myself and I was trying to look after her. You cannot exist, just by saying, you can’t say, ‘Well my whole existence is looking after other people’. You’ve got to have an interest in yourself and be able to look after yourself before you can look after anybody else. You’ve got to have a stable platform to work from. That’s not selfish, that’s common sense. Also, you have to draw a line with people, I think, very much. There comes a point when you have to say, ‘No, I’m sorry I can’t do that’. If you’ve got, I try to live by my own set of morals and standards in life, which I think are fairly high morals and standards. And if other people want to step over the line, that’s their fault, but they don’t expect me to do it or to do things that would go against my own morals.
Pete has the strongest desire to return to life as it was, and in spite of what has happened to him, he volunteers the thought that he feels he has had a good life, and has no complaints. But he does isolate more than once in the interview ‘the last three years’ as being a highly problematic period. Perhaps his acceptance of life is linked to his hopes for a reconciliation with his wife, when she becomes again the kind of person he married, and the re-establishment of a home together. He talks specifically about his expectation of a housing association bungalow with disabled facilities. The only real change he is considering is that he is now able to cook for himself. He has also come back to the Church of England, calling himself an ‘Anglican returnee’. Richard also hopes to return to work when he is well again, to regain his freedom and spending power. He says: ‘At the moment, I think it’s like a temporary thing which is an influence, but eventually I hope it will even itself out soon, later on, so I can go back to where I was before’.
1 John Powell, Why Am I Afraid to Love? (London: HarperCollins, 1975) and Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? (London: Fontana, 1975).