Yesterday whilst out on a fair ole commute walk(17mile) i spoke with two homeless people.
The first was polite enough and enjoying his morning sherry.
The second approached me from behind. I was in a rural area bent over taking pics of a bumble bee feeding on a bugle. I stood and heard him speak to me from a distance. “Are you homeless too?” was the question put to me. Well i guess i am, though not as bad off as most. I then went on to explain. He then explained his situation, (living in a tent for 4 years)and he then offered me some food! Now that was odd, still i joined him back at his tent to eat and talk with him.

Well turns out he laboured for me on a building site 15 years ago, life dealt him a few things he couldn’t deal with so he lost his house, his children and his stability. I sat wit him for about an hour, talking about the days on site, my life and his past and present. I gave him a banana, he gave me a corn beef sarnie and some crisps( his teeth were too painful to eat hard food). We then walked for a while, he was off to pick some daffs for a lady he liked and i was off to do some work for a friend and with a hand shake and best wishes, we went our different ways.

Just a little something i wanted to share, something other than wildlife musings and photo’s..

But for those who like a little nature. Here’s a few recent ones.

Nice pics. Sad story.

+1 on the sad story, there are lot’s where I live.

Ladybirds? Is it warm outside now? I’m doing my project/thesis/dissertation thing…. game over man, game over.

It’s warming up nicely.

When I was young and ignorant I used to think you were stupid if you were living on the streets. Now i’m older and having been homeless but due to luck not on the streets on more than one occassion i’ve realised that it can happen to us all, all to quickly and easily.

I hope you find a home soon (if thats what you want). Good pictures by the way.

Ello sharkster, when I worked the mean streets of that there londinium I got to meet loadsa omeless people, always struck me as to where they were in the scheme of homelessness, the recently homeless with new rucksacks and clothes, the alcoholics n druggies, the mad, the ones who had been on the street for an age all weathered and greasy, they all had a tale to tell, they were all someone’s pink fluffy baby once, mortgages, jobs, wifes, kids etc – was amazing how quick it all turned to shit for some of them

I remember one guy I used to chat with, he could talk for length on very complex and detailed subjects with intelligence, but was unable to function in society and do stuff cos you had to, nice guy, mad

Nice bugs, my son found the seasons first slow worm yesterday, twas lurking round the composters

When I was young and ignorant

To even be able to say this is I think, a great achievement for a human being. I too used to think in a very similar fashion, when I was “young and ignorant”. The problem is we have way too many older, and still ignorant people in society!

It is often the people with the least to give, that are the most giving, and the people with the most are the most selfish. Life deals you some shit blows sometimes, ones that even the hardiest among us just can’t (or don’t know how to) deal with at times. It’s not a competition to see who is the best at coping, managing with, or blocking out these experiences. Even the strongest of us are weak at times, and it can only take a few small things in rapid succession to have anyone fall from grace.

Touching story Shane (and good to catch up with you this evening too), amusing that you had already met each other years ago when he worked for you too. Small world isn’t it!

I remember one guy I used to chat with, he could talk for length on very complex and detailed subjects with intelligence, but was unable to function in society and do stuff cos you had to, nice guy, mad

As every single day passes, I feel more and more like the guy you’re describing!

I used to aspire to it all, career, hot wife/GF, cars, holidays etc. and used to think anyone not working hard and earning a crust was a waste of space. Quite right wing you might say.

These days, I don’t know if I actually want to function properly in society any more… That’s not a negative “woe is me, I’m about to end it all comment”, far from it, more a statement that the more I look at what society is today and the social norms of how we treat and interact with each other, for the mostpart the Human Race is pretty bloody dispicable!

As Groucho Marx once said… “I don’t care to belong to any club that would accept me as a Member”… And I know how he felt!

my mum used to speak to our local tramp/beachcomber, he lived in a cave just up from the beach. He generally shied away from people, but mum did a lot of beach/country walking and they started talking, it turned out he had been a bank manager, and it all went wrong, mum found him soft spoken, polite and intelligent, spoke to him for quite a few years, he was locally ‘accepted’, locals used to ‘dump’ stuff (like blankets etc) over the wall near his cave. He died one particularly cold winter and the cave in now ‘barred up’.

Nice post sharki.

good post sharki – i often help out with Shelter at xmas time in London, but couldn’t make it this year. I feel guilty about it every day.

he’s back today

internally intertwined worms

I met a chap the other day who I presumed was homeless at first but may have just been eccentric.
I was unlocking my bike and he asked what gearing I had, I assumed he was in a position of knowledge so told him it was 48-16. He then asked if it was 1, 2 or 3. After some confused discourse I realised he was referring to the 3 gears he had on his Brompton bike, 1st, 2nd and 3rd. I said I didn’t know how mine compared.
He then proceeded to sit down on the pavement and eat lettuce and tomatoes from a Tupperware box and started to describe his likes and dislikes when it comes to food and the relative nutritional benefits of each. I tried to join in, but he just wanted to talk – relating meat to bowel cancer, sugar to osteoporosis, etc. etc. it went on until I bid him a good day and escaped.
If he hadn’t had a Brompton, I’d have presumed he was homeless as he appeared to have his panniers full of random belongings and looked a bit dishevelled.
It was a weird conversation, but I’m glad I had it with him.

Bought a guy lunch from McDonalds not long ago, Mad as a box of frogs, but TBH by STW standards he came accross as reasnoable if excenric.

Good thread on several levels Sharki – keep them coming

If he hadn’t had a Brompton, I’d have presumed he was homeless as he appeared to have his panniers full of random belongings and looked a bit dishevelled.

He may have been homeless & with a Brompton, i don’t know which is the worse.

I met a guy at Rusell Square once who had his many belongings in various shopping trollies, he’d push one up the road and then go back for another etc, a very slow way to travel iirc he’d travelled around the globe, i’m guessing in a similar manner.

Really interesting stuff Sharki! You should have a blog 😀

Thanks for the kind comments and your input. Some really interesting stories there.

Here in Taunton there’s an old water tower, i went in there the other day to have a look at the old pump and see what state the old building is in, as it’s full of character and such a shame to be neglected like it has been for 20+ years. In one of the rooms there was a bed crudely laid out, several teddies and an organised selection of medical/toiletries next to it. In a corner as a pile of unused sanitary towels. It was clear several people stayed hear, above this room pigeons cooed as their excrement dropped through the rotten floor boards..

I thank my friends and my wit to keep me from such places, i also thank the natural world and the great British countryside, for it provides me with the clarity needed, in which to put up with the occasional attempt to make me conform.

Might choose to stay in this tree one night soon, looks like fun. 😉

And a Blog? Yeah perhaps i should…….

I did a stint at crisis this christmas, really opened my eyes, i’m going to do more shifts this christmas, and am looking for the chance to do something the rest of the year.

This is stw at its best. It was only by chance I clicked and started to read Sharki but gotta be one of the best threads for yonks . This reminds me of one of those ‘Chicken books for soul’ books.

In 2007 / 2008 I had a severe episode of anxiety, which was so bad I had to walk out of my job and was barely able to function properly for several weeks eg it took me 30 mins and many attempts just to make a cup of tea as I kept getting confused over how to do it. The most enlightening thing about the whole process was realising how quickly you could loose everything you’ve worked for.

As it was I recovered mainly thanks to anti-depressants, but I can so easily see how someone can go from successfully employed, to loosing their job, then their home, then their partner and next thing you know you’re on the streets with nothing. Our lives are so much precarious than we we realise and it doesn’t take much to swing the balance the other way….

Cheers smudge.

I’ve not been on here much of late as a life got in the way, but it can get very sameo and dull on here in a me me, look at what i own way.

Nice to see plenty of people putting a bit into those area that need it most.

over here there is the system where beer bottles and cans have some cash value which you can reclaim from the shops which sell it. So lots of people go rooting round bins for these cans and get some small change from the proceeds, especially those who are hard-up. I met an estonian guy who was collecting these from the bins at the back of our apartments. He told me he had fought in Chechnya and showed me his many scars from bullet wounds and head surgery. It was quite impressive and saddening how many he sustained. We must’ve talked for about an hour outside about these and rather peculiarly about bikes. I don’t know how we managed it considering we both used Finnish and we were both awful with it 😀

I remember talking to a homeless guy years ago. He was sleeping in an old abandoned warehouse, which also happened to be a very crude skatepark, used by ourselves. He had travelled down from Edinburgh and was only staying there a few nights.

We ended sitting down with him, and talking for hours. I don’t think we even skated that day. Really nice bloke, but by this point he had spent near 20 years on the streets, and whilst he had gotten by in the past, he was fed up with it. Which is what brought him across our path. He’d come down for some scheme for homeless people, hoping to do something about his situation. I wonder what he’s up to now…

Hello sharki *waves*

Was homeless for a couple of days when I was a bit shit to my parents and(mum really) they threw me out, and I spent several months swapping between a couple of floors of mates bedrooms, eventually for various reasons I ended up in a bus shelter. After that I met Chris (current housemate) who said I come live with him in exchange for doing cleaning and cooking. I dread to think what might have happened. I owe him loads.

Wonderful stories.

Hi emsz.:)

Interesting story, may I be so bold as to enquire about your situation? I’m curious as this is a pretty distinctive post compared to the norm on STW.

Great photos btw 🙂

Just read one of your chapters. Amazing and I wish you well, hope that you are as sorted as you need to be, think that you may have got it right…..

great photos and a very interesting post.

I’m also one of those people who used to think that the majority of homeless people must be alcoholics/drug addicts who had brought it all on themselves.
These days I’m very aware that it could happen to most of us, and we are only redundancy/depression/loss of relationship away from kipping in the park and fishing food out of bins.
It saddens me that in such an affluent country so many people still find themselves in these situations, however I guess there is only so much society can do to prevent it.

Until Mrs T closed down most of Britain’s asylums, many of those homeless people would have been in an asylum, along with hundreds of other misfits and people unable to organise their own lives. Go and look on 28dayslater to see what has happened to all the old asylums.

We used to have a schizophrenic gentleman named Alex who lived in our street; he existed in squalid conditions in a cottage he owned but was always well turned out. For 30 years he had been taking the odd fish from local reservoirs and Lancashire Fly Fishing association had tried five times to get a civil court judgement against him. On the sixth attempt they succeeded and were awarded £60,000. Bailiffs took possession of his house and thanks to a long chain of events Alex ended up in Preston jail. He is now living in a “home” for 32 men in Blackpool, drugged up to the eyebrows, depressed, overweight, pale and unwell. I can’t work out whether Society has done him a favour or an injustice but I know LFF didn’t need to pursue him and they have wrecked the life of somebody who was otherwise managing just about OK.

Sadly the cost to keep him in ‘supported living’ is going to outweigh what would have been spent had they just left him alone 😐 Everyone loses out, especially the poor chap who needed help and acceptance.

i like the voyeur ladybird.