Rob. 30.

I was born in Chester and, erm, my dad was in the Army so we moved around a lot. And then, my mum and dad got divorced and we ended up moving to Manchester, twenty years ago. I’ve lived all over Manchester, and now I’m actually living in Newton Heath at the minute. My own flat, which took a while to get.

I got kicked out of my mum’s, six, seven years ago and, er, I ended up at the Salvation Army hostel in Manchester for two years, and then I was in various, er, housing, er, kind of schemes, then.

Er, basically, I got on the waiting list for housing, I was in the wrong band, which is why it took three years to get this flat, so, yeah, I’ve been there four years now, so it’s going alright.

It’s not as bad as people think, when you say to people, ‘I was in the Salvation Army hostel.’ It was OK, you get your own room, and two meals a day, which is… I didn’t expect that, I thought I’d just have to try and get my own food, or whatever. Yeah, it was nice, I made some good friends in there. I was lucky ‘cause after leaving my mum’s I was only on the streets for one night before I got into the… Before my friend took me down to the Salvation Army hostel, but that one night, that was… Well, it was interesting, and it was scary.

It was, I was just walking around Manchester all night, I didn’t have a clue what to do. Well, I went around to his and told him what had been going on, that I’d been kicked out of my mum’s and stuff, and er, he gave me a coffee and something to eat and we started looking into, er, housing options and, er, Salvation Army came up, we rang them up, and went straight down, so they had a room ready to go, which was quite rare, when I was there. But I do have a drinking problem, so a lot of people at the Salvation Army did, and, er, it did get worse when I was there, because basically there was nothing to do, really, and er, me and some other guys just sat around drinking all day. But yeah, I’m starting to get a handle on it now.

Because before I came here I was sat in the flat all day and doing various jobs and courses that they sent me on, which wasn’t the best thing. And then actually, the Jobcentre sent me here on a four week placement, which was, er, which was good, I liked it. And er, it turns out I’m quite good in the kitchen, apparently, so they wanted me to stay on for… I can’t remember how long it was back then, but er, on and off I’ve been here three years now, I think. But when I was at the Salvation Army, I did a sort of placement in the kitchen there and turns out I’m pretty good at, er, cooking, and making sandwiches, and tea and coffee and stuff. They actually took me on after I moved out of there, that was my first proper job in about ten… No, five years, sorry.

Any book I can get my hands on, I read it. Erm. All sorts of horror, really, Sci-Fi, Star Trek and stuff.

Well, I think I’ll go with Bon Jovi, and erm, Living on a Prayer.