FROM CHILDREN'S HOME TO THE STREET

My name is John and I’m twenty one. I was born in Preston. I have had a hard life. My dad died three years ago, my little brother has died from drugs and I was brought up in a children’s home for six years. When I left the children’s home I went home and stayed there for about two months, but I left when I was sixteen. Since then I have just been living on the streets, bed-sits and everything. That’s when I got into drugs. Life has just been upside down since then.

My brother died from heroin. He died two years ago in this bed-sit where he was and he was injecting heroin at the time. Apparently, the stuff that he had bought wasn’t heroin, it was poison. He was eighteen years old. He got hooked on heroin when he was sixteen because the people he was hanging around with were hooked on it and they forced him into it. They just got into his head and the next minute he was addicted. It’s just one of those things that happens, he could have said no but he didn’t. He robbed my mum’s house, he robbed my nan’s house, he robbed me and more or less everyone else in the family. At the end of the day he’s your brother so you just have to forgive him, you love him so there’s nothing else you can do. I was in Preston, Fox Street at the time trying to sort my own life out. I got a phone call saying that he had died off my mum, so I was really gutted. Nothing will bring him back now, it’s happened and it’s in the past so you just have to get on with your life. It’s hard, it’s really hard.

I went into a children’s home for a number of reasons. I was a little trouble maker at home, I stole my mum’s car when I was nine years old, I set a caravan on fire, I’ve robbed shops and it was just my attitude as well. They just couldn’t cope, so that’s why they sent me into a children’s home when I was ten. I don’t know why I did these things but the main thing was probably for attention. The thing was that my little brother and one of my older brothers was getting more time than I was. I had to suffer for it by going to a children’s home and the only time I was allowed home was at the weekend, once a fortnight, and at the school holidays. In a way I was glad I got sent there because it actually changed me a bit. There was so many things to do, you had canoeing, rock climbing, fell-walking, ski-ing and all those types of things. It did help a bit but when I left there and as soon as I went home it all started again. That’s when I left and I got in with the wrong people and started on drugs. I can’t turn back the clock now. I can just look to the future, if I have one, which hopefully I will have.

I’ve been homeless, beaten up and robbed. I’ve lived in bins, bed-sits, bushes, up in a tree, sheds and anywhere like that, where I can find any shelter. Like last night I got kicked out of this friends house so I had to stay somewhere. I laid some cardboards down on some concrete and slept on that. It was awful. I got roughly two hours sleep altogether. I don’t want to do that again but it’s getting worse, there’s nothing I can do.

The most frightening experience that I’ve had on the street would have to be when I was asleep and someone came up to me with a knife, took my money off me and then took my trainers. I was just really scared at the time. Since then I’ve carried knives or something on me but for the last year I haven’t bothered.

I would like to get off the drugs but the thing I wanted to do most for some time is voluntary work, helping younger kids to understand what drugs are about.

In the past I have been into hospital because of some of the things I’ve done but I was suffering from depression and suicidalness. At the time, this didn’t work. I was just going in and out of hospital. The staff just used to talk about it but just talking about it doesn’t do much good, it just makes it worse.

I heard about the T.H.O.M.A.S. Organisation from a friend of mine who was addicted to heroin. At the moment he is doing very well, he’s on the Reconcile Project and has got off it. He is doing really well for himself now. I would like to try it for myself to see if I can get myself off it.