I’m 62, coming up 63.

Er… The last twenty, twenty-six, twenty-seven years, I was living on the streets, all over Europe. Erm. My marriage had broken up and I’d ended up on the streets. And I met, er, some people, erm, and moved to Nottingham.

And when I got to Nottingham, I met some old friends from Manchester and, er, they said to me, ‘Oh, we’re going on a protest over in Ireland, do you want to come? The farmers are going to pay for us to go over, display all the equipment, you know, to make this protest about pylons, and that.’

So I said, ‘OK.’ So I went over with them, and whilst I was over there, I was there for three years, and I met a French girl and we got together, and she was a nanny at the time, and she gave up her job and come on the protest with me, and er… And then we moved to France, to where she comes from. Met her parents and we heard about this other protest. We’re still living on the street and still, you know, homeless. So, er, basically we went on that at St Carol, near the Pyrenees, and from then was doing, like, seasonal work after that and just moving around.

I’ve been all over: Spain, Portugal, Morocco, er, Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Germany. I was in Germany for three years. Yeah, just moving around. But…

And I ended up with… I started with depression, and it got really bad and, er, I ended up getting sectioned in France. And I was sectioned, and I was six months in psychiatric hospital, and it turned out that I’d got manic depression. And, er, was really bad. It was really bad. She stuck by me all that time and, er, I come out, I’d come out of the psychiatric, straight back onto the streets, and I started getting heavy into the drugs. It was just the scene, you know, to fit in, like.

So, er, after that I got sectioned again and, erm… Because I was so manic that the police were just scared that something would happen, you know, so I ended up back in for another three months.

And then, er, I come out and went straight back into the drug scene and it was really, really hard. Really hard on her, as well, because she was standing by me all this time, you know. And she’d stopped doing everything: she’d stopped drinking, she’d stopped taking drugs, the lot. And er… And I went, I attempted suicide. I’d had enough, I couldn’t handle it.

I tried to commit suicide, and thought, I went back into the hospital voluntary, and I went, I did another three times voluntary, going in, three times I attempted suicide and… Obviously, I didn’t succeed, I’m still here.

And, er, my girlfriend at this point had had enough, you know. Fair enough. And went off with a friend. Erm. I have two kids by her, as well.

And then I come back here, and found it really hard. And at the moment I’m residing in a hostel, erm, up in Crumpsall way. It’s just a bedroom room, basically. A lot of young people. I’m really struggling, coping, you know. And, er, if it wasn’t for this place, I don’t know what I’d have done.

I think this place, when I come here… I can be really dark, you know, where I am, and it motivates me to get up and come here, do you know what I mean. Because I know once I come here, when I start doing my art, or I start singing, you know, or being dramatic, [laughs] it really lifts my spirits, do you know what I mean. And I don’t need any sort of chemicals to get up there, because the art and everything does it for me, you know what I mean. And the people and the staff are so brilliant and it’s just… I love it. I love it. And if it weren’t for this place, maybe I’d be in a mental hospital, I don’t know.

David Gray, Babylon. You know the song, Babylon? Do you know the one, with the ‘chemical rushing through my veins’, and you’re in a different place. Well it’s sort of… It’s hit home, that, not necessarily a chemical that you’re actually shooting up yourself, but the chemical could be like coming here, and that’s the chemical. You don’t need to shove anything up your veins because that lifts you, you know what I mean. That brings you up. And I love that song. It brings from where I was, to where I’m at. And it’s changed from actually putting chemicals, to getting a chemical that’s free, you know, that I don’t need to put up me, because I lift, I get a lift every time I walk through that door, you know what I mean. And that music just says it for me.