'I earned 75,000 now I'm homeless

NICHOLAS, 60, strolls through the corridor of a large Regency house in the Cromwell Road.

Smartly dressed in a black suit, he sits bolt upright in an armchair, adjusts his cuffs, tightens his tie, looks into the middle distance and laughs.

Then he explains how he came to be homeless. "I remember clearly," he says.

"I'm in a coffee bar in Earls Court, pissed, when a policeman tries to get me to leave.

Then he grabs my arm, so I give him a dig. I was fit and strong, then. His helmet falls off and is flattened by a lorry, so I kick shit out of him. I get six months in prison and that's when my criminal career starts and things go wrong. It was the booze. I couldn't handle it."

So now he's in this Kensington hostel, run by the homeless charity St Mungo's. It's the nearest thing he and 75 other frail men are likely to get to a home. He thinks back to when he arrived in England. At 15, Nicholas -"Nicko" - sailed from Ireland hoping to find work, His 22-year-old brother, already in Britain, met him at the Liverpool port and within hours they were settled in a flat in Fulham.

Within months, the teenager found himself living with a group of older and bolder men who impressed the young man with nightlong drinking bouts, petty gangster rackets and thieving. By the age of 21, all Nicko's plans of a legitimate career in decorating were forgotten; instead he was facing a prison sentence. Alcohol was strangling the future out of his life.

"It was comical, really," he grins. "My brother was also a young man and went for women. He wanted to get rid of his little brother. I understand why he got rid of me. I was cramping his style. I was f***ing up his life. He found me digs in West Kensington in a big house full of men and I lived there for six years.

"Once I fell in with criminals I was often being nicked, but it was just part of the life.

I have been in and out of prison. When that ended, I knew I would be homeless."

THERE are more rough sleepers who are over the age of 50 than there are who are under 26, and around 40 per cent have been in regular work until their 50th birthday. Defeat haunts every homeless face. Nicko clings to the wreckage of his past through taking pride in his appearance. Others create a world for themselves which may bear little or no relation to reality. Alcohol eases their entry into a place where things that happened 20 years ago are turned into today's events and the truth is anything that they say it is.

It becomes impossible to know what is real and what is not.

Jack, nearly 60, has been living on and off the streets for 25 years. He wears a tight baseball cap, his blue eyes gaze intensely and his voice booms through his ginger-blond beard. "My father was a doctor and my mother was a midwife in Harley Street," he says. "I used to earn 75,000 a year, even though I had a mother of a problem at school because I could not read or write until I was 10. I was dyslexic. I had a terrible time." Then he stares off at the other side of the room as if he is preparing to reveal some awful secret.

"It's so complicated," he continues. "I can only tell you 10 per cent of what's happened to me. I never married but I've got a daughter of 11.

She lives with her mother and I phone her once a year.

My brother died of cancer in February. I don't want to see my sister. If I do then I'll kick shit out of her. We've fallen out big time. I helped put her through university and now she's cut me out of her life."

Many rough sleepers have no contact with relatives.

Des, however, would love to be back with his wife and children. He is approaching 50, but looks 20 years older, and has been living in hostels and on the streets in Sheffield and London for seven years. He twitches with each sentence and rubs his forehead nervously. "My dad is sweet as a nut," he says. "He used to work laying pipes, and my mum died a few months ago." As he describes the four children and four stepchildren from his two failed marriages he breaks down in tears. "I love them all so much and the stepchildren as much as my other kids."

Des used to be a printer, but his work collapsed after he began having epileptic fits and had an accident with one of the machines. "My wife left me because I had no job," he cries. "I started drinking like a lunatic because of the pressure. Now I see no future.

Before sleeping on the street, at least I had a goal in life and a place to go. Now there's nothing. No hope, no future, no expectations."

SERIOUS violence is shockingly casual in this existence and constant tension stretches to breaking point every conversation and relationship.

"Most of the homeless don't get on with each other," says Des.

"Half of them are arguing all the time. I'm not sure whether that's because we want to. It's just the way it is. We don't want to fight. Half of us don't even know each other. You can't live a normal life."

Gloomy as this picture may be, some people are still able to hope for something better.

John, who is approaching 60, separated from his wife in 1992 after a marriage of 25 years. They have a 26-year-old son and a 10-year- old daughter.

His life began falling apart after he lost his job as a steel erector and drink took hold of his life. His skin is weathered and he has several bruises and deep cuts on his hands and legs from where he was attacked a few days ago.

But a warm smile has enveloped John's face. His wife has invited him to stay with her and their children for Christmas, he explains.

"My wife wants me back now," he says, "I hope I might be able to stay with her. I'd love to see my daughter grow up."

Copyright 1999
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.