Nick Dawes Starting his Homeless Journey
Nick Dawes Story: ‘You’ll be back, you’ve no idea what the real world is like,’ my father shouts, as I walk up the drive, swing a leg over my old Suzuki motorbike, and zoom off.
I’m eighteen, spent too long battling with my father, and the last straw has finally hit. Without prior thought, the heat of the moment struck, I knew I would never live under my parent’s roof again. The immediate problem was the tent and sleeping bag I’d carried into my home minutes before the bust up was taken from me. I’d asked for them back, but the answer was no, probably to stop me doing what I’d been up to for the last fortnight, avoid the family holiday stress by camping near to work. I wasn’t allowed to stay home alone.
My first night was in a hay barn I knew about. I’d seen people do it on telly. It was hell, I hardly slept, it’s not as soft as you imagine. And I was itching all over. I tried park benches, impossibly hard with snatches of sleep, then resting against leant over trees, tucked away between shop bins and finally simply walked slowly around town all night until dawn when I would grab a few hours on the grass at a park with my rucksack as a pillow.
I thought friends might put me up, but still living at home their parents said no. There was no ‘Plan B’. I earnt peanuts so the idea of a flat or a house share was a non-starter, but I was resourceful, determined and had years in Scouts and Ventures learning how to fend for myself. I foolishly thought that would be enough.
The challenges faced
Living rough felt preferable to being at home. It isn’t preferable, nor is it easy holding down a job with just a change of clothes in your rucksack. I didn’t tell people I was homeless, though my close friends knew. Everything else was normal so I’m not sure they gave it much thought.
Maybe my work suspected, my boss gave me keys ‘to open up in the morning’. Leaving at half-five with everyone else, I later returned and slept on the drawing office floor. It was a safe place but the drawback was trainee wages at a tenner a week. Not a long term solution. A friend’s dad offered me a builders labouring job, seventy-four quid a week was too good to refuse, but I was on the streets again.
This was the early eighties, I wasn’t aware of agencies or charities to help the homeless, and I didn’t consider myself ‘proper’ homeless. It wasn’t a label I wanted. I didn’t hang out with the homeless guys in town, I felt different to them, I had a job, I had a motorbike, I didn’t need to beg. I just didn’t have anywhere to live, and in that way I was exactly like them. It was alright until the cold weather arrived.
A mate’s boyfriend had a third-floor studio flat and he grudgingly put a camp-bed in the corner for me. I didn’t have a key, so it was pot-luck whether I even got into the main entrance. Increasingly, I didn’t, so I found a fall-back space nearby, an unlocked garage in a block. With an old carpet at the back, I unrolled it across the floor then rolled myself back up inside to keep warm. So I wasn’t seen, I only entered the garage after dark.
Other than being homeless, grubby, and sometimes not eating for days, life felt pretty normal. I’m shocked to admit that now – I can’t imagine being homeless – but youthful confidence told me things would be okay. A low point was walking around a housing estate on Christmas Day, seeing families enjoying their cosy homes. On the outside looking in felt very lonely, and I recall thinking that a home might be a stretch too far, but give me a garden shed and I’d be happy.
Sofa Surfing
Continuing Nick Dawes Story a year later, and a friend bought his own pad, a riverside shanty house, and offered me the lounge sofa, and that was my start. From there brilliant friends supported me in rebuilding my life. More by luck than judgement, I got a Council job with training and a career; My route back to normality, though I was never sure it was really me. When you’ve been where I’ve been you grab the opportunities.
Six years later I was married with a mortgage, a fancy car and professionally qualified. My colleagues presumed I’d come the same route as them, sixth form, university and then a job. I never told them any different until struggling with depression and anxiety decades later and realised that being homeless was part of my story of which I should not be ashamed.
Virtually anybody can end up homeless, it just needs the wrong mixture of circumstances. An old colleague, financially successful, intelligent and charming, took the opposite route to me, he was homeless after a messy divorce and hitting the drink. He didn’t survive. And that’s why when I cycled from Land’s End to John O’Groats in 2008, I chose to donate the money I raised to the homeless shelter in Lincoln. The cause was an inspiration to keep going when things got tough.
I’ve now taken a different path. I published my first book last year, ‘Calling the Fat Pillock’s Bluff’ is all about that cycle trip for which I hadn’t prepared, and I’m into the next book, the story of my early career in a job I’d never heard of, including the homeless start of which I now feel very proud. This has been Nick Dawes Story.
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