|
|||||
|
|||||
I’m from Cork City and I’ve been homeless since I was fourteen years of age.  I followed in my fathers footsteps and started drinking
when I was fourteen.My parent ’s kicked me out and I came over to
England,and carried on drinking.I drink about sixteen to seventeen cans of
cider a day.It gives me a buzz ,gets me drunk and I can fall asleep where I
lay. I ’ve tried to get help but they don ’t do anything for you.
I spoke to an Outreach Worker called Vicky about nine weeks ago and I haven ’t heard anything since.I sleep in the same place every night so they know where to find me. I have been in prison for drink related crime.I got fourteen years and served ten of them for attempted murder.I stabbed a person through drink and missed his heart by an inch.I ’m out now and I am trying to get my life back together.It was very hard coming out after ten years locked away. The hardest thing when you get out of prison is trying to find somewhere to live and to get a job. I have been back home to Cork in April and stayed with my wife for two weeks. She kicked me out so I ’m back in London. I used to take heroin and cocaine but I ’ve come off that but I ’ve started drinking really heavily.I beg to get my money for the drink.I make about a tenner a day.Everything goes on the booze. I ’ve got loads of friends on the streets.We all stick together.If we see one person getting beat up we ’ll all jump in. I usually get up around eleven O ’clock.I sleep on the steps of St.Martin ’s in the Fields.The priest there wakes us up to tell us to move on.I then start begging.If I get a bottle of cider I do share it with whoever I ’m with. The most frightening moment I’ve had was two months ago. I got two days work and was paid well. I was walking through Leicester Square and I got hit with a baseball bat.They broke my nose and my cheekbone. A policeman came up to me, brought me round and told me to move on. People didn’t help me because they thought I was just drunk. I was robbed of one hundred and sixty-five pounds. |
