Living on the streets of London

Living on the Streets

A long time ago I use to be homeless and for a long time I spent that on the streets in London.

I had gone down the wrong path in life for a hundred different reasons and ended up eventually in London on the streets.

I spent a lot of time wondering around kinda lost as I am not from London. In fact I think I only had been there once in my lifetime before and that was on a school trip.

I had managed to get dropped of from hitching a ride with a lorry driver from my home town Plymouth to Hammersmith, London.
The lorry driver dropped me off and after meeting some weirdo on a bench outside a 7 eleven that wanted to buy my old socks.

I decided maybe Hammersmith wasn't s great place to be and I just kept walking deeper into chaos, I just hadn't realized yet.

After a couple of days of wondering around aimlessly not knowing what the fuck I was going to do, I finally settled in Oxford Circus in one of the side streets.

I spent a lot of time there it was perfect close enough to jump on a tube and get out of there if needs be.

Tucked away enough I wasn't no bother to anyone, even though it was busy there with activity.

Even though I was hiding from issues and had nothing, I started to do OK there. Yes I did collect some more problems but for the most part things were OK, maybe I would say freeing as well.

The problems

If you live on the streets for any amount of time you are going to probably end up with some kind of drinking or drug problem.

It doesn't happen to everyone but it does happen to most and that along with the various obvious dangers of living on the public streets can be stressful.

When I was on the streets I will be honest you, i saw people at their best but mostly at their worst.

Occasionally you will come across people that just want to help you or give you something but this would normally have some sinister agenda attached to it.

If it is not some weirdo, sex pest or the mentally unstable person trying to mess with you , then it is insults and spitting and worse from just the general public. Not to mention that you have to watch for fellow homeless people looking to rob you.

Then there are the religious folk LOL is all I will say about that, for the most part they have genuine cause about them.

But there is nothing genuine about the outcomes it produces.

This obviously just generalizes people and situations a bit but it is really just so you get an idea, going into the slightest detail would involve tangents and stories.

Content for another day perhaps.

This is all highly stressful especially when you are young and scared with no knowledge of what is too come, you just know it will probably not be good.

It is easy in that moment to give up, many do.

They either do something that ends them in jail for a long time, or maybe they take their life in some way like a drug overdose also a lot of the time it is just one of the many other dangers of not having a secure place to sleep.

Giving up was never an option for me.

I didn't give up, I had to hustle my way out and face a lot of problems along the way but these are all their own stories.

Look we can't change where we came from, all we can do is learn from it and change the direction we are heading.

This isn't my life now

I am far removed from that lifestyle now.

Chilling

I live in the Northamptonshire countryside where me and my wife raised 4 children.

We have two grand-children now as well, family is super important and carving out a secure financial future for them is my main goal.

While it has not been an easy journey just to get to where we are now, we have a hopeful future ahead.

This is in part because we never give up.