My Foolish birthday

[tonyreptiles]

Hi folks!

Harking back to the days of the Motley Fool boards, I remember we used to get a lovely icon on our Foolish birthday. Was it a crown? I can't recall now, but I remember it was so coveted to have a sparkling array of jewels next to your user name that posting on your birthday was a noteworthy annual event. As such, I still have a notification pop up in my diary each year to remind me to post and claim my recs.

This morning I got my TMF birthday notification. I post so rarely here nowadays, but I always feel a compulsion to put pen to paper, so to speak, in honour of the forum and the community that changed my life. Not only did I learn about personal finance on the Fool boards. Not only did I get my every worry and whim answered in an honest, helpful way without having to brave the stupid trolls which abound everywhere else on the internet. Not only did I make some wonderful friends there - one of whom helped me to make the most life-changing decision of my eventful/chaotic life - Cheers Mike4!

Not only all those things, but the Motley Fool boards also paved the way for me to develop a successful career as a writer. The Motley Fool boards provided an opportunity to not only write for an audience, but also to provided instant feedback in the form of the rec sytem. With years of practice I learned to write with clarity, empathy and authority. I learned to ensure my writing was accurate, because somebody on the Fool would soon pick you up on any points which weren't backed up by facts. Without you Fools and your feedback I am sure I would be just another generic copywriter struggling to scratch a living.

I thank you all.

In honour of my birthday I'm posting a story I wrote in the cold winter months late last year. The pre-Covid-19 world seems a lifetime ago now, but reading it reminds me of the other struggles people face in this country. I did intend to offer it to a newspaper or magazine, but I think these boards and this community are a more worthwhile venue for this story.

Apologies for the length, and thank you all again.

TR

There, but for the grace of god…

It hadn’t rained in the night, but it had been bitterly cold, with the November autumn evenings offering a glimpse of the winter which was almost upon us. I’d just replenished the fire with coal when MsTR, clutching her second cup of coffee of the day, pulled open the blinds on our narrowboat. “There’s some poor bloke sleeping on the bench.” she said.

It wasn’t the first time we’d seen homelessness on the canals. Usually the evidence was a tent or two tucked away behind the tree-lined towpath or a raggedy tangle of sleeping bags or blankets under a bridge. The canal is a bit of a refuge for homeless people, away from the foot traffic of the real world where they might come to the attention of the police or local drunkards. It’s a no-mans-land where the landowner is unlikely to turn up to move you on and fewer people to disturb or worry you. With any luck, you can hide.

Been there - done that
Looking out of the window at the figure lying on the bench, I remembered the times when I had been homeless. I started sleeping out when I was just a teenager, pitching my tent atop the embankment of the canal near my home on a rough, Black Country estate. At the time I wouldn’t call myself properly homeless. I could have gone home, but home was not a nice place to be, and I didn’t belong there. I’d often stay out for a few nights in a row, before going home to get a bath and a meal. I’m not sure if I was missed, and my parent soon stopped commenting on my absence.
A friend’s father found out about my semi-feral existence and offered me the caravan parked on their driveway as a place to crash whenever I wanted. I wish I could remember his name because, looking back now, I realise that they probably saved me from a descent into homelessness proper. If you’re reading this, the adult me can’t thank you enough.

Soon after, I managed to secure a place in a homeless hostel for young people. The hostel was comfortable, but there was often violence and substance abuse was rife. I’d only managed to get a place there thanks to the covert assistance of a kind lady who worked in the unemployment centre. I’d explained about my family life and that I’d been sleeping in a tent and a caravan on friend’s floors.

“Are you estranged from your parents?” she asked?
I didn’t know what estranged meant.
“Could you go home if you wanted to?”
“I suppose I could…” I replied
“No,” she said firmly, looking me directly in the eye. “You couldn’t go home.”

And then she steered me through the process of filling in the forms to entitle me to unemployment benefit and housing benefit, making sure I knew which responses to give in order to ensure I was eligible.

I shared a unit in the hostel with a guy called Jason. We’d collect our dole money on a Thursday and treat ourselves to a single pint and a game of pool that same afternoon. We’d buy a bag full of sausages and a sack of potatoes from the local market and eat sausage and chips for the rest of the week, saving enough for a pint or two during our twice-weekly trip to the goth pub in the city centre. We felt like we were living the high life. We were just 17 years old but felt dead grown up with our own money and our own ‘home’ and nobody to answer to.

Soon after, I was given a one-bedroom flat in a rough neighbourhood on the edge of the city. I moved in with an old mattress, a sleeping bag, one plate, one knife, one fork, one spoon and an electric pan which could be heated by plugging it into a wall. I cooked some impressive meals in that pan, but looking back, I think I was malnourished for most of my teenage years. I didn’t know anything about running a home, and I never paid a gas or electric bill. Indeed, I knew nothing about living in a home at all. I used the flat as a crash pad when I wasn’t sleeping on friend’s sofas after a night out or staying over with a girl I might have met. I wouldn’t call that flat a home by any means.

I was also often on the road at this time. I’d travel with bands, begging for money outside gig venues until I had enough to buy a ticket and a bean burger after the show. I’d travel all over the UK, and sometimes to Europe, staying with the friends I’d made on the gig circuit. Sometimes I’d get a little bit of roadie crew work and have the luxury of a tour bus, and sometimes even a hotel, but those times were few and far between.

All in all I can’t say I ever had a proper home until I bought my narrowboat. Even when I outgrew the nomadic lifestyle and itinerant work, I still never managed to settle. Meet a new girl – move house. Get a new job – move house. Argue with your neighbour – move house. Get itchy feet – move house. I worked it out that, on average, I would stay in a property for around eight months before moving on. I’d only ever decorated one property – my first flat, which I classily painted in goth black from top to bottom. Even on the day I moved in often felt it was a temporary arrangement and that I’d be moving on very soon.

Becoming a water gypsy
By 2003 I was in my early 30s and had moved to the Canary Islands and got a job working in a zoo. I lived on site and ate for free at the restaurant there, so I managed to build up quite a decent chunk of cash. By the time I moved back to the UK I had enough money for me to deliberate the notion of properly growing up, setting down and putting a deposit on a flat. The prospect of doing this seemed ridiculous and doomed to fail, largely because my lifestyle was still so erratic. I knew I would be at great risk of losing my home if and when I couldn’t pay the mortgage – and there had been plenty of occasions where I’d had to move out of flats because I couldn’t pay the rent. I’d slept in my car enough times during the last decade to realise that I was not the kind of person who could hold down a steady job and a sensible lifestyle. I did not, by any stretch of the imagination, have my [expletive deleted] together.

Instead, on a stupid and unplanned whim (and with the help of narrowboat nerd Mike4 from this forum), I bought a narrowboat. And that narrowboat saved me. At last, I had a home that was paid for in full and nobody could take it from me – apart from in the direst of circumstances. All I needed to live was a bottle of Calor gas for cooking and hot water provision, a few litres of diesel to run the boat’s engine to charge my batteries for lighting and power for my laptop. Add in a bag of grocery shopping and you could almost call me civilised.

By this point in time I’d decided to earn a living as a writer. It probably wasn’t the most sensible choice of career, given the meagre income most writers make, but I’d been consumed and energised by the prospect of doing so and set myself a mission to be a proper writer. As you might expect, I earned very little in those first few years, and I remember once doing my accounts with a girlfriend of the time.

“How much did you earn in April?” she asked.
“£200.” I responded
How much did you earn in May?
“£400.”
“How much did you earn in June?”
“Nothing.”
“July?”
“Nothing.”
“August”
“Nothing”
“How are you still alive?” she exclaimed
“I have no idea…” I replied

I was living way below the breadline and my boat and my lifestyle were spiralling downwards. Thankfully it was possible to screw my expenses down to almost nothing while living on the boat. Utilities were cheap and I didn’t have to pay rent, council tax or a buy TV licence. Life was a struggle and there were no luxuries, but I somehow managed to scrape through each week, giving me an opportunity to build my writing business. It happened very slowly, but eventually I got a contract with a major publisher who liked the sound of my first book and I hit, by a wildly fortuitous chance, upon a seam of work – a niche area in which I apparently excel.

And, most importantly I met MsTR, the importance of which cannot be underestimated. She offered a chance of stability, love, companionship and comfort which had been largely missing for most of my life. Instead of firing from the hip and doing whatever the hell I liked, I was now compelled to consider the consequences and weigh them against the value of my fine new relationship and a happy life on the boat. It was obvious to me that my precarious and downright dangerous lifestyle was no longer an option. As a result, some stability ensued and it gradually became apparent that I had a lovely, reliable and stable life. I was OK. I’d made it – by the skin of my broken teeth.

Akram
As I looked out of the window at the figure on the bench, I wasn’t welling up with sadness. The sight was far too common for me to be overly emotional. We’ve all become desensitised to the ever-increasing masses of homeless people we see in on the streets in this country. We know about the drink and drug abuse that often go hand in hand, and the impotence most people feel as we realise there is little we can do to alleviate the issue. If the people in power can’t (or won’t) deal with the problem, then how can I help them? With the few useful resources I have to offer, what can I do?

Thinking back to my days on the streets, I knew that there was one thing I could do. The only thing I had to give of any use was kindness, and so that’s what I decided to do. As I opened my boat’s side hatch the figure on the bench stirred and popped upright and, to my mild surprise, was well groomed and tidily dressed. I offered a wave and a warm ‘hello’ and was similarly greeted, so I went over for a chat.

Akram was about 50 years old and had been sleeping on the towpath or just a few days. I invited him onto the boat for coffee and we talked about his situation, learning that he’d fled from war-torn Iraq over a decade ago, arriving first in Germany before eventually coming to the UK. He’d recently been working in a fast food pizza joint and living in the rooms above the shop in what appeared to be an exploitative situation. Having found a new, better paid job in the next town he’d been evicted from his room and was now sleeping rough until he could find somewhere else to live. His night shift job enabled him to avoid the coldest hours of the evening, while also offering him an opportunity to look for accommodation during office hours. However, this also meant that he was getting very little sleep and had nowhere to wash himself or his clothes.

Akram’s use of English wasn’t good and we had trouble making ourselves understood. We managed to ascertain that a local housing association had told him that they may be able to get him somewhere to live, but it was likely to be several months in the future at the earliest. The local council had told him that they could temporarily house him in an emergency shelter, but this was over 30 miles away – too far for Akram to travel each day to his new job. As each day passed the likelihood of Akram losing his job grew as he arrived at work increasingly exhausted and unwashed. We offered him the use of our bathroom, but Akram refused – obviously too proud to accept. He did allow us to charge his phone for him – his vital lifeline to find the help and support he needed.

For the whole of the next day we battered the phone and the internet, trying to find a solution, but it soon became clear that there was no easy answer. Services were stretched, short term, miles away and of little to no use to Akram. We managed to find a local YMCA facility where Akram could wash his clothes, take a shower and securely store his bags, but there was no prospect of a safe place for him to stay locally. There was no prospect of a permanent home which did not involve a lengthy waiting list.

We managed to persuade Akram to accept a tent, a sleeping bag and a sleeping mat from us and, for the next two days we called numerous agencies and organisations who might be able to help. Our hope was that Akram’s use of English was somehow the stumbling block and, by acting as an interpreting intermediary, we might hit on a solution that had been somehow missed or lost in translation. But we soon realised that there was no such thing. No magic solution. No silver bullet. Akram, it seemed, was on his own.

Boatlife
By the third day we were at our wit’s end. We had to move the boat away from the area where Akram was sleeping – part of the rules which governed boaters who, like us, continuously cruise the inland waterways. This means boats must move to a new location and locality at least every two weeks. More than this, boats must also be seen to be on a ‘journey’ the definition of which forbade the option of travelling from mooring A to mooring B and then back again. This kind of ‘bridge hopping’ could result in your boat being refused a licence and then, potentially, being removed from the canal as an unlicensed craft. There have been several incidences where vulnerable people have been evicted from their boat and left bereft with their belongings on the towpath.

Moving our boat every two weeks doesn’t cause much of a problem for MsTR and I because we both work from home and have no ties to any given location. But for some, it’s a nightmare. It causes major problems for those who have moved onto the canals as a means to live cheaply and are unable to afford the thousands of pounds it would cost each year for a permanent mooring. Those with a job or children in the area face the massive logistical headache of having to move great distances in order to appease the inspectors who tour the canals checking on the movement of the boats in the area. It’s another symptom of the housing crisis in the UK. While the rules of the waterway are necessary and perfectly understandable, the need to move to a new area every two weeks causes major problems for 'continuous cruisers' who have ties to a specific place. The waterways network simply isn’t set up to accommodate the influx of those who now use the canals as a social housing option.

We’d been safely moored at our new location for a couple of days when we heard from Akram. He’d managed to find a small flat which he could rent privately and affordably, and he could move there in just a few days’ time. We were overjoyed, and not just a little embarrassed that we’d largely failed in our attempts to help him. We reckoned that anyone who had managed to relocate themselves from a country at war and travel thousands of miles to another continent was probably well-enough equipped to deal with the bureaucracy and tribulations of the UK’s homeless situation. Throughout our conversations with Akram he’d been upbeat, confident and determined, albeit seemingly a little worn down by the ordeal.
Akram moved into his new home a few days later and has invited us to dinner, promising a traditional Iraqi meal.

A few weeks have now passed and the weather has worsened. It rains almost daily and the situation for homeless people at this time of year must be a dire one. I look back at the time I spent without a proper home and I understand that I was never truly homeless. I had friends to stay with, cars to sleep in and the help that was available in those days was enough to scoop me up and keep me safe from the dangers which were probably looming menacingly close by, given my unconventional lifestyle choices. I know that I have been lucky and have been saved by kind and generous people I have met along my journey. I know that, at many different points in my life, my situation could have spiralled out of control and seen me left derelict and destitute and unable to solve my problems. I know I came very close. And I can see how close Akram came too, and that scares the [expletive deleted] out of me.

Still today, despite my relative comfort and security, I often have a deep, stomach-churning worry – a panic really – that I will somehow end up homeless and destitute. In my brain I know that I have friends and family who would never see me homeless and, given my situation, there’s very little likelihood of it happening anyway. But in my soul I still feel a deadening, paralysing fear that I’m just a few unpaid invoices away from being finally down and out. I have to suppress this panic almost every day. I can’t help but think that someone out there has looked after me. I’m no hippy, and I’m not at all religious, but the good fortune, narrow escapes and wildly unlikely salvations of my life make my modern-day situation so unlikely that I can’t discount the idea of cosmic intervention. It’s the only logical explanation for how I made it this far, and almost every day I look around me at the homelessness on our streets and I think to myself, there but for the grace of god go I.

[tonyreptiles]

Balloons (or 'loons) for a Barfday.

Thats it!
Cheers Snorvey

[kiloran]

In honour of my birthday I'm posting a story I wrote in the cold winter months late last year. The pre-Covid-19 world seems a lifetime ago now, but reading it reminds me of the other struggles people face in this country. I did intend to offer it to a newspaper or magazine, but I think these boards and this community are a more worthwhile venue for this story.

Apologies for the length, and thank you all again.

TR

snip
snip
snip

What a boring, humdrum life you have had, TR

A great read, and don't apologise for the length

--kiloran

[simsqu]

A golden throne atop a pile of diamonds surrounded by fawning concubines was awarded for the top recommended, non charity rec whoring post in history.
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Not a lot of people know that though.

Ah well that might be the case, but MINE was....

dammit you got me again Snovey. I've got to let it go.....