A LIFE OF HARDSHIP  My name is Gabriel O’Brien and I’m originally from Enniskillen. I came to Accrington at the age of ten. My family was a good working family. I have brothers and sisters but I seem to be the odd one out. I started to get into trouble when I was about eleven years old. I was sent to children’s homes and approved schools. From the approved schools I started going to borstals and then I ended up in prison. I’ve been to prison a lot of times now because of drugs. I started taking drugs when I was sixteen because everyone else that I knew was doing it at the time. It was the thing at the time that if you got bored that’s what you had to do. Everywhere you went there were drugs and drink. I’ve spent most of my life on drugs and drink. I went to prison for shoplifting and things like that, I’ve never broken into anybody’s home. The way I look at things is what people have got in their homes they have worked for and if I want these things I will just have to work for them. When I was a kid I couldn’t get money off my dad, I had to go out and earn it. I was a gypsy and I lived in a caravan. It was a good life because you got to see a lot of places and meet lots of different people. Sometimes you have hard times because you get people always trying to move you on. My father got cancer and he decided to give up the caravan and come to England. I was married when I was eighteen and I have seven kids. I see one daughter but I don’t see the rest. The drug I started off with was speed at sixteen. Then I moved onto the trips. I have sold drugs as well for a while, things like heroin, cannabis and LSD. At the moment me and my friend are trying to get off heroin. Taking heroin is no good to anybody because it just brings you down and there is more to life than just sticking a pin into you. |
