I have been homeless for the last three years.

I found my best friend with my wife one Saturday morning.I dragged him down the stairs and beat him senseless.I got a knife and put it through a car tyre and said that next time it would be his head,then walked away and never went back again.Since then I have travelled all over the country.

My wife and I had been very lucky. My Nan had died and left us a lot of mone y. We bought a derelict house. The only way to do it up was if we both worked.I worked for a bakery. I did sixteen hours a day and then came home to work on the house . The house has all been renovated.

I have a small boy aged 11 and I go to see him once a month.My sister picks him up from my ex-wife and I go to spend the day at her house. I do speak to him e very Saturday because he has a mobile phone which I bought.

I have never claimed a day’s social in the three years I’ve been on the streets,I’ve done a few days work here and there. That’s how I survive.

I drink as much as I can afford that day because it blocks out the pain.

I have a lot of friends in London.I can walk down the street during the day and say hello to hundred and fifty people. If I disappear for two or three days when I come back they all want to know where I have been.When I go to see my little boy they all ask how he was.

I would like to get out of this situation.But how? I need to get myself out of the state I’m in.Once upon a time I would never drink at all.It simply just hides the pains.It blocks out everything else and that’s what you do e very day. Some people might find that hard to understand.You can go in to hostels but the streets are a safer and cleaner place. I can got to The Passage, get showered, there’s a lady there that washes my clothes,I can clean my teeth and buy a meal from the money that I’ve begged. If I’ve been lucky enough to do a couple of days work then I don’t have to beg.I have seen people here who don’t want to be clean.I want to be normal still, even though I don’t live normal I still want to look normal.I’ve still got a little bit of dignity left.If I turned up to church on Sunday looking like some people the congregation would wonder what’s the matter. I go to a church not far from here and the priest knows where I come from but the congregation don’t.They think I’m a normal person.

At the moment I am suffering from chest infection.I’m now on my second course of antibiotics.. You are still getting night where it’s still cold. I only have one blanket because if you can’t carry your stuff with you and you leave it somewhere it won’t be there that night.I don’t often sleep in the same place two nights on the trot. The brown bag I carry with me is my home .

I have seen a lot of people going into the rehabilitation units and then they are just chucked back out on the street again. They are not helped to find anywhere to live and they go back out on to the street and straight back on to the drink,and some of them do even worse. Yes, I would like to get help for my problems. With the help in London people come off the drink for a few days.There is no support when you come back out. You need to be homed. From there you can look for work but without a home your not going to find work. An employer will not take anybody on whose homeless.It’s a vicious cycle because without permanent employment I can’t get a permanent address,and without a permanent address I can’t get permanent employment.

At this time of year half of the hostels are shut down,so you can’t get into a normal hostel anyway. I was offered a place in one and I would not go into it.I would rather sleep on the streets.

I have drunk myself unconscious once and fell down in the middle of the road.I was very lucky, the police picked me up and put me into a cell for the night. They woke me up in the morning with some breakfast and it was explain to me how I got there. I was picked up for my own protection.