So...... (oh come on! Ed.) I am minded to say something about Volunteers. Now lots of the social care network, locally at least, has cause to rely on volunteer programmes and this is of course highly laudable and gets boxes ticked and little brownie points everywhere but as a colleague pointed out to me today this can result in …..er, well what shall we say, certain communication difficulties.

Aforementioned colleague told me the tale today of a hostel not too far from the Drop-in I now find myself working in about their taking on a Japanese volunteer who it would seem had absolutely no English, ….well none to speak of [oh very good! Ed.]

Now it came to pass that someone took the enlightened view that a colleague had cause to know a teacher of TEFL [Oxford is full of them! TEFL teachers that is] After a while my colleague asked the teacher how the Japanese volunteer’s lessons were going and how they were progressing as engaging with our clientele can be a bit of a stretch even if we can speak full blown Queen’s English [not that it’s hers really ed.]

The TEFL teacher explained that there was a hitherto unforeseen problem dealing with a Japanese person working in the social care field that involved not so much learning but rather a certain aspect of un-learning.

‘How so?’ my colleague enquired

“Well when asking my Japanese student volunteering for your good offices, what she had learnt in the way of phrases or words she may have heard that day she replied rather proudly, that she had learned the following –

‘Today I have learned “ I put a fucking bet on a fucking horse down the fucking bookies and the fucking horse fucking lost!

Blenheim Park Woods

So it goes.......it's Friday and this exchange is real.....

 One of our most frequent visitors is a gentleman who I will call Pablo, he has a distinctly Spanish handle and his surname is, lets say Smith, the most ubiquitous British last name possible....he is a delightful man and given to imaginings, specifically that he is a member of staff and frequently given to telling me what to do and give me directions, that we are to attend a meeting together later at the Town Hall for example. He has of late been given to wearing a table cloth size scarf as a head scarf almost 'shemagh' style Arabic headgear, scull cap stylie with a tied back knot which causes it to drape down his back. His behaviour can also include him making copious notes, when he is the mood, which get stapled to the walls, he has seen us do this therefore he puts up his own, they can be lists of tasks to be undertaken before the end of the day, they might be recipes for example or just some detail he has logged from the news, etc
 This afternoon he has this exchange with a fellow staff member

He chooses to point out that he has been admiring the "Avocado tree" in the back garden

'It's a fig tree, Pablo'
 "Oh, I know THAT! But that's where 'advocadoes' come from. They turn into advocadoes'
"Oh, that's........er.......... interesting Pablo, I didn't know that' says my colleague understandingly
"Oh yes, its well know. When they're small they can be figs but they grow and turn into 'advocado's'. Mind you, you have to watch out for the chickens."
'The chickens, Pablo?'
"Yup, the chickens. You need to keep your eye on any chickens wandering about in case they turn them into eggs"
'Sorry Pablo, what are you saying? The fig tree....over there......."

"Yeah, the fig tree is where you grow 'advocadoes', I've seen them and if you let chickens climb the trees they'll turn all the fruit into eggs."

He leaves the drop-in satisfied he has illuminated another ignorant soul about the fruiting trees in our back garden and the vagaries of chickens and their ability to turn figs into eggs.
He passes me on the front desk and looks rather sternly at me.

'Oh, are you off Pablo? Cheerio!'
Perhaps slightly dismayed at my familiarity, he increases the severity of the stern expression, check's  what I am writing and issues a clear and direct

"Very good. Carry on!"

and walks off into the sunny street, smiling.

As he walks away, it crosses my mind to wonder whether his headgear is in fact a tablecloth

So I have been developing this theory that there are some days when it seems like there is something in the ether, something in the air that seems to cause everyone, all the world and his dog to ‘kick off’........ all at the same time.

Is it barometric pressure I have wondered? The weather contriving to put us under some universal headache, the pre-thunderstorm blues or some such? Is it the ‘vibes mahn’, the atmosphere in a building? Is there a group dynamic, which can set the tone for the next several hours and affect us all and thus making us tetchy,snappy and irritable, likely to get argumentative with each other? Is it our birth signs? That the phases of the planets should affect us thusly seems far-fetched to me but there is something in it.

Isn’t there?

No?

Well how come the affects of the moon tide's pull can influence half the planet?

Is there a rising sign issue, an influence affected by the positioning of the sun the moon and stars that can bring about these days?

What days, I hear you ask?

Well today was another ‘doozie‘ as they say. It didn’t start first thing but by about 11.00am we realised we were to have ‘one of those days’…………..

Firstly, as far as I can recall, there came a 'hubbub'. You can feel it flood the building.......It seemed someone's had their bike stolen.

Now this is Oxford, you will bring to mind, the city where it seems there are more bicycles than people. It is a student town!

There are bikes EVERYWHERE.

 There used to be entire departments of the local police service given over to the thefts of bicycles. This is not the town to live if you don’t have a bike lock………………………..a GOOD one!
So.........

We will call him Harry but he is a more senior client than most who has arrived today, it turns out, on “£1700 quid’s worth” of bicycle…………….
..............with no lock.

Can we allow him to put it down the side alley for 15 minutes so it stays safe? We do not allow this generally because it is too much of a pain to accept responsibility for the number of bikes that can go missing at any given time. He isn’t going to be long, so we agree at his own risk that he can leave it down the side, a fire exit, for quarter of an hour while he does what he needs to inside the building.

Ten minutes later it is long gone.

Someone says that they know who has stolen it. My heart sinks. It is one of my very favourite of youngsters, we will call him Kevin. Now Kevin I have known, or known of, since he was about ten. He is now in his early twenties, his brother and sister having been clients of mine when I worked at the Rehab nearby, out in the beautiful Oxfordshire countryside

All three siblings were born addicted to heroin. Mother died last year. I am fond of all of them, they are all cheeky and engaging, bright and funny. They have had, as you will appreciate, a difficult start to life and each have had their own troubles with substance abuse

A gang of the more hardened visitors to the Drop in are gathered out front and there is much muttering and threat making about ‘stabbing him up’, chasing after him and beating him to a pulp.

It would seem it went like this. Kevin, upon bumping into an old pal who owes him money, whereupon the pal says 'Well, I haven’t got it and you better take my bike', pointing to Harry’s £1700 bike.

(Yes, yes I know what’s someone who uses the Drop-in for the homeless doing with a £1700 bike? Just DON’T ask!)

So Kevin takes the bike and exits stage left. The guy who owed him money it seems then said, when the sticky brown stuff hits the fan, that he knows exactly who stole it and promptly grasses up Kevin.

Great fun! Scam and a half with full Brownie points for sheer cheek, right?

Meanwhile, Harry has gone straight round to the St Johns Police Station to report the theft, presumably leaving out the part about threats to kill, ‘wetting ‘im up’ and generally head bash murderous caving in technical details.

We take some 'proactive interventions' and inform Kevin’s Young Person’s Hostel that there are all and sundry chasing him for the nearly two grand’s worth of bicyclette! Staff call me back and say Kevin, whilst not EXACTLY acknowledging he nicked said bike, knows a man who has and has convinced said colleague to return said bike. I say “Well get it back round here sharpish and I will smooth things over with the owner and we should be OK.”

That’s when the police call. A really nice officer called Mike. We ascertain what has transpired and Mike seems a tad confused as to what to do with the crime details, as he has never had this happen before. That no sooner has someone stolen something, in the time it has taken to report the crime, the goods have been returned. The bike is being miraculously returned to outside the building as I am on the phone.

“Well, maybe you could put it down as crime solved, couldn’t you?” I ask helpfully

“Er, well I suppose so but technically we haven’t solved it, you have!’

“Well I won’t tell if you don’t and maybe it could help your crime figures?”

“Er, …….are you taking the piss?”

“No, no, no no….it just seemed that it would be a shame if it was to result in a lose-lose situation as unsolved crimes go and actually it has been solved and the goods returned to their rightful owner or will be shortly and it would be a shame if we couldn’t get a win-own out of this. Wouldn’t it Mike?”

The constable rings off……….

A see Harry wandering past the Drop in. I call him back and give him his bike, which by now I have put in the medical room, as there is nowhere to put it safely! It having no lock and all. I can tell that Harry wants to still stab someone up for the heinous crime and he is still very, very angry at this lack of respect. I calm him down pointing out along the way that this is Oxford and he has £1700 quid’s worth of bicycle unlocked in a drop-in for the homeless, that he has got it back and also point out to him the original scam whereby the person who indicated the thief was the person responsible for convincing Kevin it was his bike and in order to clear the debt he could have Harry’s bike. Kevin having heard rumblings about the nature of the retribution, it was returned so fast from across the other side of town I scarcely had time to blink. No mean feat in itself.

Harry goes off muttering still about violent retribution and the 'young people of today' and beating people up and yet I imagine I have allowed him to reclaim his bruised dignity and he offers a begrudging ‘Fanx, Andy’ as he weaves his way back toward the town centre.

I had an appointment with a client today whom I haven’t seen for some months and to cut another long, long story short she is an unmarried mother of two, twenty years old and has custody of neither child, the second being taken from her at birth, the eldest in the custody of its grandparents.

She has been away, in Scotland, for three months trying her darndest to rekindle a major crack habit but she will drink and drug to almost eye-watering levels in pursuit of release from her pain and anguish with almost any substance known to humankind. She has called to say she is coming at 11.00am, she calls again to say she has just got up and will be here by 12 noon, she finally turns up after the bike debacle excitement at 1.00pm and stays till nearly three to bring me up to speed with her story to date.

This proved to be a rather taxing session and bringing me ‘up to speed’ is the most unfortunate and ironic pun possible.

 Unsure as to what she is doing at all back in Oxford, unsure where she is even going to stay tonight although frankly that is the least of her problems.

She has no idea where her relationships are heading, including that with her father who has forbade her to see her daughter, his granddaughter of whom he has custody and she can only have access visits through Social Services [the child is a toddler] My client therefore cannot live at the paternal home by order of social services

She seems very chaotic – her thought patterns are all over the place but curiously she looks well! Good skin. Lost weight [don’t even go there! The crack diet is not one I recommend) whilst she has been away for the past ten weeks she has been smoking crack, heroin and doing speed - at times when there is none of the above, drinking to excess [1-3 bottles spirits or ‘anything really’ per day] To enlighten me as to the scale of her ‘problem’ she tells me cheerfully she did a gram of speed on the train from Scotland the day before yesterday. It’s a long journey…..and she was bored.

She says she has attended AA and NA meetings whilst away across the border but she argued with the fellowship members and started challenging them as to their drug use and size of their habits and was repeatedly asked to leave. She seems to have told them that they did not know what they were talking about and that she took more drugs than all of them put together, that she had a drug counsellor in Oxford who could teach them all what they ‘should’ be doing with their problems. (ed: “Oh dear!”)

She turns to address the last meeting as she makes her way out of the rooms wuith a cheery "Fucking Amateurs!" and leaves them to it and she will not be returning there any time soon.  She did seriously seem to think that there were people at his Scottish NA who did not take “anything more than cannabis”!? This seems highly unlikely to me so I put this down to her still being under the influence of crack or speed ................or both.

She shares with me that she had been very depressed about the baby who was taken off her at birth and, in a more seriously depressed moment, destroyed all her photos of the child and set light to them all, in some kind of drug fuelled ceremony in a garden, then says she tried to take an overdose but was found herself throwing it all back up and bemoaning her fate to whatever guardian angels she felt were lloking over her, that they wouldn’t even let her do that properly

She says she has mostly come back from Scotland because she didn’t want to go to court on the 15th for GBH on her stepfather! I am by now speechless. Now GBH is serious as you may imagine and is likely to bring a prison sentence of some magnitude ............and she has only been out of Holloway a year

I had thought her family up North might be a calming influence (sic) but she discloses she discovered that not only had her cousin been sexually assaulted like she herself had, at 13, but that the perpetrator of this act upon her cousin was her own father when the cousin was 12 – my client tells me they both were ‘fed drugs’ by this man [coke speed and alcohol] and that her stepfather passed comments about the cousin’s figure specifically her ‘bottom’ as not being as shapely as when she was 12’ [sic] & further sexually inappropriate comments whereupon the cousin hit him in the face with a wine bottle, hitting him in the chin,  knocking him down and that then they “battered him” – adding that whilst this did not knock him out as such, he had been coming towards my client, she had reached around and struck him with the wrong end of a cricket bat that had mysteriously come to hand, until she switched it around and finding it much more efficacious, took a strike with the cricket bat hit him round the head thus speedily bringing about the desired affect. That is to say, until he was unconscious and bleeding from the ears. 

My client also wanted to get away to Scotland as she wanted to talk to her sister (13) who had lost her third pregnancy from fighting and my client is concerned for her safety!

                                           

I am still not saying very much…..well anything that I can usefully recall……………..

                                                              

Whilst she was away she went back to HMP Holloway to visit her own mother who is doing 10years on drug charges. They do not get on generally and because my client refused to bring in drugs secreted into her body (again please don’t ask) for her mum, there had been a scene and she had ‘launched’ herself at her Mum and had to be restrained and taken off the premises…. as opposed to retained I presume

 Otherwise apart from an incident where she went into a local job centre to try to transfer her benefits and then the council offices to ask for a three bedroom house, she is now barred from Scottish Council offices for racism & threatening abuse of an Asian member of staff for being less than helpful, she thought about covered it for the day!

By now it was getting late and I suggested we reconvene tomorrow so that is how we left it, that she would try to ‘settle down’ and I ask that she at least try to control her drug and alcohol consumption, that she said she would ‘keep her head down’ from the authorities and hope she does not get sentenced to a custodial sentence in her absence as it seems highly likely to be a number of years………….

I will see her again tomorrow!

Curiously at the same time she was due today

11.00am.

……………………………….we'll see


update ~
11.00am today....she doesn't show.....this is not unusual

So a caller came to the airlock today and said he was new to the area. I explained that we had to take some simple details name, date of birth and whether they are sleeping rough or not.

He said his name was Stephen Rea

So I said, "Oh, like the actor"


 and he said "Who?"
"Stephen Rea, the actor?"

and the young man said,
"Never heard of him."

and I said


"Well, you HAVE!" and I smiled

Stony faced he just looked back at me, expressionless, unsmiling, unmoved.


I don't know, perhaps it was me, but I thought this was extremely funny.

So anyway……..(you will have noticed I start many of the written blog entries this way and it is lazy and hardly original BUT it does kind of imply a continuing dialogue (*ed: Monologue, you eedjit! A dialogue suggests someone else is reading it and then responding!) ……..OK, OK so anyway……….

…………if you believe in Astrology many Aquarius's are (should be) having a good time lately………must be a rising sign issue or some such………

……………lately at The Drop-in for the Homeless things are changing………the charity sector concentrating on the homeless is changing…there are tenders put out, take overs from well meaning organisations taking over ‘essential services’ and that there is some kind of bigger picture or ‘hidden agenda’ frankly, all over the place like a cheap sub-plot in a soap is increasingly self evident.

…..but the human clay issues don’t go away, the human flesh and bone stuff of life goes unrelentingly grinding on………we have had a sense of mortality encroaching very very close of late…………….we lost one of our clients in the river…..a drug addict sure, a not very prepossessing individual it is true but I LIKED HIM…..he made me laugh and we got on….he was almost universally loved and, if not love, then a certain fondness was always a constant. He came in the day of his death and raised a smile and challenged me directly………He WAS almost COMPLETELY off his head……a heroin addict? you ask……Well, no not really….it would seem by and large his drug of choice was Valium, diazepam if you prefer and indeed it easy to understand why….we prescribe Valium for a multitude of sins as it were and he was………what shall we say?…….an enthusiast……he fell asleep or ‘gauched out’ on the nod….nodded off severally into his sausage and mash that lunch time……..rousing himself at one point raising his head from his mashed potato to hear a perceived argument between me and another client, my tag line for which had been “ …..and don’t forget that twenty quid you owe me!” to which our redoubtable subject had responded “Ere, does he [meaning me) owe you twenty quid?”

Ever the ones to raise a mashed potato clad eye for the main chance of a couple of ‘dollars’, he had thought he heard an argument between a staff member and a client whereby the client was owed a considerable weighty sum by a staff member and was about to join in the reclamation process ever hopeful of a couple of pound’s bonus

….wrong end of the stick as only Valium can produce! I encouraged his quiet and he fell back into his mash.

Later he went on the nod in the front room, right in front of the main window in plain  view of the entire population of Oxford………I had to wake him you understand…..it wouldn’t look good….needles in the drains and people openly ‘gauching’ in the window….he couldn’t see the problem but after the usual belligerent defence and knowing gap toothed smile he weaved his perilous way out into the street, narrowly missing a peerless exit by hitting the door jamb with his shoulder as he wove his intricate exit……..later on that day he was fished out of the River Thames by the authorities, seemingly having fallen off the bridge. Never a swimmer, his girlfriend told us, he was actually afraid of water, in fact it has crossed a number of minds as to whether someone had hurled him over and into that famous river.

Whereabouts was this? He appeared to have fallen, or was he pushed, off Foley Bridge. The name of this bridge not being lost on me. Gangster? No. Junkie? No, not really. Dirty filthy homeless scum? Definitely not. In fact a father of six, beloved and everyone called him:

“Bambi”

We have a ‘mental health patient’ recently released back into the community who pops by when he can on a regular basis and we are fond of him too. He is of Oriental extraction and has an endearing way with him to these tired old eyes of occasionally dressing in full drag and of calling me ‘Mr Andeeeee’. We shall call him Henry, indeed there is mystery even around his name. We have only recently learnt that at least part, if not his entire name, is complete invention. We have known him for years and always call him by the name he wished to be, and that which he introduced himself to our services by, Henry Lawless. The authorities have recently informed us his name is at least Chan…….. somewhere. Well, anywhere really they’re not sure exactly… forename, surname, beginning middle or end. But that neither Henry nor indeed Lawless are real strikes me as incredibly funny! Lawless! Brilliant! There is intelligence at work here.

He was recently been hospitalised [again] under section 136 of the Mental Health act whereby he is sectioned by law to be admitted. He comes out and is vulnerable, uncertain at first as to whether we may remember him or acknowledge him maybe. He is always kindly spoken and gentle and always polite, at least to me, and greets me with a smile and a cheery

‘Hello, Mr Andeeeee!’

I notice that morning he is walking with a really pronounced limp and I check with Henry as to whether he is OK and what he has done and does he need to see anyone a doctor or the nurse coming in on Thursday and Henry reassures me he is fine and has just pulled something and if he rests it will get better………the next time I see Henry his limp is worse and he struggles up the steps indeed seems to be finding it difficult to walk at all.

I think you should see the nurse Henry. Where does it hurt?”

He then makes a Michael Jackson style crotch grabbing signal and my heart sinks a little.

“What do you mean, Henry? Have you hurt yourself ‘down there’? “

“Oh it’s nothing I think I must have pulled a muscle or something…it’ll be alright”

Finally, later on I realise he is in with the nurse from the Luther Street Medical Centre who comes in on a Thursday and tends to those who haven’t a GP or won’t got to Luther Street for whatever reason. She comes out of the medical room to find me and tells me its bad. I listen as she tells me he has two abscesses, one on his groin and one on his arm….the size of a fist! The abscess on the groin has burst and whilst she has cleaned and dressed it as best she may she feels he needs to see a Doctor with some urgency and maybe needs a spell in hospital.

The Mental Health Team arrived later on to talk to Henry. A senior MH Worker and an assistant or two and he loses his temper with them relatively quickly even for Henry and promptly tells them to “Fuck off!”….I go out into the street after him to calm him down and he does so but wanders off up the street.

Now Henry has an interesting attitude to his health, as is common amongst so many of our clients who are treated with anti-depressants or mental health treatment medications that they are like Paracetamol for a headache….you take them once and the confusion or the depressed feelings go away. A regime of taking major tranquilizers to be taken daily and effective only in the longer term does not tend to signify as they take a few feel better and therefore stop. Yet Henry has another string to his bow, as it were, as regards to his health and some of this requires ‘self-medication’. It is at this point in the proceedings I recall the previous time Henry required medical interventions. He had a sore red shiny angry patch of skin on the back of his hand, the remains of a burst abscess that he showed me and this was some months ago now before Christmas, so it is with sudden dread I realise what he has been doing to bring about these abscesses on his groin and arm.

He has previously at some point in his life been a high functioning and intellectual man not unintelligent somewhere but the wires may have been getting crossed in more recent years and his common sense eludes him somewhat. But it seems to me that what is involved here is a kind of pure logic.

What Henry has been doing is when he feels an ache or pain, a twinge when pulling a muscle or some such similar physical sensation; he gets a hypodermic needle and injects the effected area. With petrol in this case.

 It can be toilet cleaner, household bleach or engine oil dependant on what he diagnoses is at fault. If it is dirty, the area concerned then clearly it needs cleaning so he injects bleach or Harpic. If, as he ages, a part of him doesn’t seem to be ‘running’ quite so well he will inject petrol…. to make him go better. Or engine oil to make his ‘engine’ run more smoothly.

I receive a call from the hospital some days later to say they have tended the infected areas and there is still some work to be done but generally he is in good health. I am surprised at the candour and frankness of the health worker at the hospital to disclose such information about a client so readily indeed they haven’t really asked who or what I am but I make appreciative noises and thank the friendly staff member of the hospital and he interrupts me….”You see, the thing is we need him back in sooner rather than later……Henry has discharged himself …….and if you see him can you phone me and we will try to get him back in?”

I agree of course and ………well, we haven’t seen him since.

One of our most regular clients has been having difficulty with a ‘trapped nerve’ or a ‘pulled muscle’ in his shoulder and his arm appears to have lost its strength. I will call him Billy. Now Billy is an ‘old stager’ as I say and has been around Oxford since the 80’s. He is musical and a dab hand on the guitar if you want someone to bash out a hymn or Carol at Christmas, a free festival jam session or a rock n roll set at the Cowley Road street Carnival. An old time ‘Speed’ and ‘Coke’ freak, he is clean for many years and may have a ‘bifter’ of an evening but nothing more serious than that. He is well liked amongst the community of the homeless and has been in supported accommodation with the City Council for quite a few years now. Once on the fringes of the hardcore criminals of the East End, Billy has quieted down as he gets older and set into a daily routine and pattern of places he goes to, he proudly tells you of his recent NVQ in social care and occasionally can think he is staff and behaves accordingly. At times he can have a ‘hissy fit’ of temper and behaves like a dry drunk, I have wondered if he gets flash backs of the feelings around withdrawal from speed. We deal with it when it happens and it does not impede our affection for him but some staff are prone to moaning about this occasional display of temperament.

I notice a week or so later Billy has not shown any signs of improvement in his arm. Indeed it is hanging down like a limp rag doll’s. I ask him if it is getting any better. It soon transpires that after seeing the nurse at The Drop-in he has done nothing about the afflicted arm and I chastise him gently to go see the Doctor. “Well the nurse said it was probably a trapped nerve. So I thought it would get better”

‘Did you go to the Doctor’s like she suggested?”

Sheepishly he shakes his head. Showing that male thing of not really wanting to bother anyone. The homeless too do not regularly visit a GP ……..”What can THEY do?”

He can hardly grip my hand now to shake it Good-bye.

The next morning Billy is waiting with a stocky young man who possess a passing resemblance to Billy

“Erm, Morning Andy, can I introduce my son to you?”

‘Why indeed Billy, of course you can. It’s a pleasure to meet you’

We shake hands and I can see the solid young man in his thirties is a bit of a chip off the old block”

“Only the thing is, I came in to tell you, I went to the Doctors yesterday like you said”

‘Oh good, well done. What did he say?’

“Well the thing is that’s why Nigel’s with me. I’ve got a brain tumour”

It transpires that not only have they found a tumour on his brain but also one on his lung. This is what has been cause of the loss of use of his arm for the past several weeks.

I am ashamed to say at first I thought he was joking and asked him so. Such a shock was it, I went into a complete freeze and did not respond for what seemed like ages but in reality was probably only a few seconds at most. It did seem entirely possible that Billy could have actually been joking. The street can make for a blunt and often rather dark sense of humour. We stand there in the hall and look at each other. Suddenly Billy appears to crumple and looks very small and tired, older than his years [he is nearly as old as me] and I ask him if he wants to sit down. This entire conversation having taken place in the reception hall and I haven’t even taken my coat off since arriving at work.

He agrees and we repair to the medical room to talk things through…………

Over the next few days there comes a story, over the radio at first, that someone has drowned near one of the local swimming haunts on the river. It crosses all our minds that there is an enclave of our ‘clients’ that stay in tents around that area and the thought crosses my mind that I hope it’s not ‘one of ours’ as it were. The rumours start to fly around the building……who is it? What’s happened?

In this sunny summer [at last] the homeless and the traveller will pool around the favourite haunts and some stay under bridges when it’s warm enough. Other times there are several groups of youngsters who may well gather at the swimming holes around the town. To drink and enjoy the heat, a drink and to score, smoke cannabis or snort various chemicals and the cooling River Thames

Again it crosses my mind that we really cannot stand any more bad news…………

Eventually the news comes through. Firstly from the local police…………….

 It is ‘one of ours’

Not a ‘regular’ as such but still known to everyone in the place today……the news sweeps through the building like a crackling radio signal and the atmosphere changes in an instant. A young man comes to the airlock (the reception entrance has always been referred to as the airlock but given the occasional temperature and the smells it can contain, it’s just as well it isn’t actually airless

“Andy can you put up a notice about Stevie? Him what drowned. I was there. We all was. We thought he was just messing about, waiving his arms and that….. and well, we had all been taking drugs but he just slipped away into the current and was gone”

He bursts into tears and comes inside for a cup of tea.

Later I put up a notice saying ‘rest in peace’ and all that knew him might care to contact the guy who came in to ask me to put up the poster. By now there is something in the paper about his sudden death, how much he was loved by friends and family alike and his ambitions to be an artist with a nice picture of him looking happy and cheeky and upbeat.

I put this all together on a four sheet paper poster and just as I am finishing it, the guy who came in to tell me the news, sees what I am doing…..he asks to look at it. I apologise for not putting it up sooner and he reads it…the extracts from the paper……the pictures ……some of it makes him smile….some of makes him shudder ……I realise he is overwhelmed by each additional thing I have put o there….respectful….but unexpected……each item on the poster brings out an emotional response he can scarcely contain…….and then I realise he is racked with sobs, by turn sobbing and laughing, nervous and shoulders shaking with the pain of it……he looks up at me and tears are streaming down his face…….”Thanks man!” and he rushes off into the street.

Just another start to another day, …………………….

"DRIVEN BY LOVE"

For Nick......this report from after the funeral of Nick Waterlow says so much more than I am able to about what a wonderful man he was and in what high regard and esteem and love he was held by all that knew him.

Loving father 'never stopped trying to help Anthony'

RICK FENELEY

November 21, 2009

Driven by love ... Nick Waterlow with his daughter Chloe. Right, Ben Heuston comforts Luke Waterlow. Below, Juliet Darling, who spoke of her partner Photo: Brendan Esposito

THIS is a love story, as told by Nick Waterlow's grieving partner, Juliet Darling. Mr Waterlow, the renowned art curator, ''lived in love with love'' - even as he lived with a daily, unspoken fear of his mentally ill son.

Anthony Waterlow, 42, was not at Sydney's St Mary's Cathedral yesterday to hear Ms Darling tell her love story to about 1500 mourners. Anthony, who suffers from schizophrenia, is missing and wanted for the stabbing murders of his father and his 37-year-old sister, Chloe, at her Randwick home 12 days ago.

Two nights before the murders, Nick Waterlow and Juliet Darling were dancing at the University of NSW Bacchus ball.

''As we were dancing,'' Ms Darling recalled, ''as Nick was jiving and kicking the air with delightful abandon, like a modern-day dervish, I said to him: 'I just love the way you celebrate life, life itself.'''

He was passionate. ''He was driven by love.'' Much of it was directed towards Anthony and a long struggle to help him. In her welcome tribute to the requiem Mass for Mr Waterlow, Ms Darling said: ''Nick learned to live daily with an unspoken fear as he tried to find medical help for Anthony.''

Mr Waterlow, Chloe and her other brother, Luke, ''all tried so hard and for so long to help Anthony; it was painful to witness their very lonely journey with the increasing heavy burden of Anthony's mental illness''.

''Nick committed to his life with his whole being, embracing all of what exists and all that came his way. He loved all his children and he never stopped trying to help Anthony until the end.''

The funeral for 68-year-old Mr Waterlow, attended by arts luminaries, followed Thursday's service for his daughter, who leaves behind her husband, Ben Heuston, and their three children.

Father Stephen Sinn, a family friend, said Mr Waterlow's generation had been fortunate to avoid conscription. ''Nick spent the last 20 years of his life fighting a different kind of enemy … It was hidden and had captured Anthony … it was frightening and violent.''

Mr Waterlow had hoped that his love and acceptance would ''deliver his son from this powerful force''. But Father Sinn said: ''He was defeated.''

''We don't want to be here,'' Father Sinn told the congregation. ''It is too soon.''

Ms Darling quoted Gabriel Garcia Marquez: when a newborn child squeezes his father's finger, ''he has him trapped forever''. The film director Jane Campion, a close friend, read a poem by Juliet Darling, Ask the questions that have no answers. It was one Mr Waterlow had chosen to be included in Ms Darling's book.

It concludes:

''Soon I found a voice/Strong enough/And brave enough/To ask the questions/That have no answers.''

This was as a dominant theme in the life and work of Nick Waterlow, OAM, which included internationally acclaimed exhibitions, three Sydney biennales, his mentorship of countless students at the University of NSW's College of Fine Arts, and his directorship of its Ivan Dougherty Gallery.

With the order of service yesterday came a card featuring ''A Curator's Last Will and Testament'', as Mr Waterlow had scribbled it in his notebook. It listed seven points, including ''passion'' and ''an ability to be uncertain''.

''He distrusted conclusions,'' Ms Darling said.''He didn't cling to certainties and he didn't presume. He could say, 'I don't know'. These qualities enabled him to look long and deeply at a work of art … Looking was really a form of prayer for Nick, and he needed to pray.''

She added: ''His concerns were not mundane. He was bored by material possessions, status and career. He was driven by love.''

He had made her world a sacred place. ''On the morning of his last day, just before we said goodbye, we stopped for a while under his favourite tree, a jacaranda, to look up with wonder at the blue flowers."

''He loves jazz. Thelonious Sphere Monk, one of Nick's favourite composers, said: 'It's always dark or we wouldn't need light.' Nick was my light.''

Brief stand-off as police arrest Art Director's son, Anthony Waterlow

ERIK JENSEN AND GEESCHE JACOBSEN

Anthony Waterlow arrested

A man has been arrested following investigations into the killing of father and daughter Nick and Chloe Waterlow.

ANTHONY WATERLOW held out a knife in the moments before his arrest yesterday, after which he was charged with the murders of his father and sister and the wounding of a child.

In a stand-off that lasted only a few minutes, he threatened to harm himself before placing the knife on the ground and going peacefully with police.

Later he was asked to remove the clothes he had been wearing for three weeks, so they could be taken for forensic testing.

‘‘He is co-operating’’ ... police escort Anthony Waterlow from Windsor police station yesterday. Top right, evidence taken from the scene at Colo Heights. Bottom right, Sue Mahlenhoss. Photo: Edwina Pickles, Brendan Esposito, Cerise Burgess

Police had sought Mr Waterlow for 18 days after the deaths of his father Nick and sister Chloe. ''He is lucid,'' acting Detective Superintendent Dennis Bray said. ''He is co-operating.''

Last night a close family friend said: ''The arrest will bring relief to his family. At least now they can come out of hiding. [But there is] sadness as well to think what Anthony will now face.''

Mr Waterlow, 42, was seen yesterday morning in Colo Heights wearing a leather jacket, which seemed odd to the man who noticed him and knew he wasn't from the area.

''I saw this chap walking down the road, recognised him but wasn't sure where from,'' the man, who identified himself only as Ray, said. ''He walked into the bushes of a friend of mine's property, so I approached him and asked him what he was doing. He was well spoken and told me he was having a rest, [but] he didn't look flushed.''

Mr Waterlow then walked to the Ampol service station on Putty Road. He bought a few supplies - meat pies and baked beans, smoked oysters and a chocolate bar - but only enough to fill a single bag. The bill came to $108.95. When he left, the police were called.

''He was very relaxed and calm. He spoke to me just like a normal person, but he didn't make conversation,'' the owner of the station, Sue Mahlenhoss, said. ''He looked quite good. He looked calm - a bit scruffy, but not like he'd been outside too long.''

Mr Waterlow had been at the base of the mountains for much of the week.

He was found at the back of Shan Symons's property, and was possibly there on Wednesday night when her dogs were acting ''funny'' around what she thought was a kangaroo. "When I got home tonight I asked [the dogs] what had been going on,'' she said. ''If only they could talk."

He walked into the same service station as it was opening on Tuesday morning, a few hours after he was filmed using an ATM in Randwick.

But it was only after his picture appeared in newspapers two days later that he was recognised. ''We started to watch him,'' Mrs Mahlenhoss said. ''He just walked off and we called police.''

Until Tuesday, police had assumed Mr Waterlow was dead. Last night he was at Windsor police station. He was denied bail to appear in court

Waterlow tragedy: son faces DNA test
December 8, 2009

Anthony Waterlow will undergo DNA testing as he awaits trial for the killing of his father and sister in Sydney's east.

Mr Waterlow, who appeared briefly in Sydney's Central Local Court today, faces two counts of murder and one count of recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm.

The 42-year-old had been at large for almost three weeks following the deaths of his art curator father Nick Waterlow, 68, and sister Chloe Waterlow, 36, in Randwick on November 9.

A two-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, sustained a cut to her throat in the attack.
Mr Waterlow has been in custody since late last month after he was arrested in bushland near Colo Heights, north-west of Sydney.

Dishevelled, with long hair and thick beard, Mr Waterlow wiped his nose on the sleeve of his prison greens as his matter was adjourned until February, for the Director of Public Prosecutions to serve a brief. His lawyer, John Meadley, did not apply for bail and it was formally refused by magistrate Alan Moore. Mr Moore ordered a "forensic procedure", a DNA sample requested by the prosecution, to take place within 14 days.

He adjourned the hearing until February 2 at the same court, when a brief of evidence will be served. Before Mr Waterlow's arrest, police had feared the long-time schizophrenia sufferer might have harmed himself.

A major breakthrough was made when police released CCTV footage confirming he was still alive. He was arrested after someone spotted him walking in Colo Heights on November 27.
Officers responded to thecall and after a brief foot chase, Waterlow ran onto a nearby property and threatened to harm himself with a small knife, before giving himself up.

AAP and Bellinda Kontominas

Nick Waterlow R.I.P (1941- 2009)

NICK WATERLOW OAM.

Portait by XuWang

It is with deep and profound sadness I learned today of the death of Nick Waterlow and his daughter Chloe, both found stabbed to death in her Sydney home. Nick meant a great deal to me though we had been in touch but once since he left for Australia.

Nick had been the Director of The Bear Lane Gallery here in Oxford in the late Sixties and his inspiration, support and acceptance of a curious schoolboy meant that, as many have already noted in reports , this inspiration with a constant twinkle in the eye and to me an affectionate challenging, led me to sort myself out at a difficult time in my teens and got to Art School and get my degree, that I ending up working in the art world for some 30 years is due almost entirely to his early nurturing.

As a school boy, Nick came to our art class taught by the legendary teacher John 'Frank' Richards, a work I had done was chosen to be in a show of school children's work at the Bear Lane Gallery. I was at once in awe of this charismatic 'art professional' and everything about him seemed to resonate with me. Site of the Bear Lane Gallery Oxford

What he didn't then know was this meant he had taken on a protege of some kind in that I went into the gallery on what eventually would be an almost daily basis helping with installations, addressing mail and answering the telephone with his lovely gallery assistant, Jane, both of whom must have been completely bemused by this strange little schoolboy with the avid interest in all things 'art'. They did more than tolerate me. They accepted me. I still have every private invite card to every show I went to and remember so many artists and the affect their work had, including a show called 'Dorothy' that stands as one of the best art happenings/installation pieces I have ever seen . . . it challenged my view as to what art could or might be. I also recall seeing exhibitions by Terry Frost, Keith Vaughan, Martin Fuller's work particularly impressing me, Tom Phillips and John Latham.

But it was Nick's benign tolerance of what must have at times been an irritating little 'oik' hanging around the place, his bemused twinkle in his eye and his acceptance of me that proved so effecting. He also gently challenged my preconceptions and helped form my somewhat radical views today about art and art production not least the work of indigenous peoples as was already plain in his ethos clearly being one of acceptance, diversity and support.

I have brought to mind since hearing the terrible news, the last time we spoke, years later as a young man, and I had by then graduated in fine art at Leicester working at The Museum of Modern Art Oxford, when he called and he seemed to smile as the penny dropped, we recalled times spent at the Bear Lane and he seemed proud to hear that I had gone on to get my degree and end up working in such

a prestigious gallery which he had been involved in setting up with the merger of the two galleries in 1969.

I owe that career, and my degree, to him and to John Richards, who never gave up on me when expelled from school and who never questioned this precocious talent but nurtured, supported and encouraged. I shall miss him

The site of the Bear Lane Gallery today no 6 (above) is on the right here in grey reverted to a family house

My heart goes out to his family, his partner and to his daughter's husband and their children and I hope as press reports suggest that his son is apprehended quickly so that people can get some understanding of what lead him to this terrible terrible deed.

This is from the Times:

Nick Waterlow was born in England and educated in Europe before moving to Australia in 1977. He was highly regarded in the art world, taught at Sydney’s NSW College of Fine Arts (Cofa) and was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for his contribution to the arts.

He was appointed director of the 1979 Biennale of Sydney, where he included indigenous art for the first time. He went on to be artistic director for the biennale in 1986 and 1998 and was on the festival’s international selection committee in 2000.

Mr Waterlow, who most recently was curator of the Ivan Dougherty Gallery in Sydney, was described as an “instrumental player” in Australian art and a mentor to many up and coming artists.

Joanna Mendelssohn, an art scholar and friend of Mr Waterlow’s, described him as a “magician” when it came to discovering talent among budding artists. She added that he was a devoted family man who adored his grandchildren — he was due to babysit on Monday — and that he had returned recently to Britain to visit his elderly mother.

“He was also just a really decent bloke. He had a nice sense of humour too,” Ms Mendelssohn told The Times.

Marah Braye, chief executive of the Biennale, said: “Nick Waterlow was an esteemed curator of far-reaching reputation, who commanded international respect and the highest regard of his peers.”

Another friend, Professor Ian Howard, the dean of Cofa, a school with which Mr Waterlow held a long association, choked back tears as he said: “It’s beyond belief and beyond reason that a person of such high standing, could meet this tragic end.”

Chloe Waterlow, who co-wrote Celebrity Homecooked in 2006, featuring recipes by Australian stars, was remembered as a devoted mother to her three children.

Antinina Mautone, a neighbour, told the Sydney Daily Telegraph: “She was a wonderful lady and played with her children in the back lane. The kids sounded very happy and they were filled with the love of the parents.”

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/waterlow-killings-family-feared-for-unstable-son-20091111-i7uq.html

http://www.smh.com.au/national/manhunt-chief-tells-suspect-to-surrender-20091114-ifn0.html

http://www.studio-international.co.uk/reports/waterlow-obit09.asp

So you know how it is, we all seem to have one of those days. When Murphy’s Law applies and anything that can go wrong will and the whole world seems to conspire against you to arrange for us to have, well, one of those days……


Thursday morning I get up and am late for work, my neighbour has been knocking since the early hours and she has been locked out of the house. Inviting her in to warm up and have a cup of coffee is the least I can do but it makes me even more late for work. I would have stayed to ensure she is thoroughly warmed up but there was something about cats and calling nieces and nephews and any folk who might have a key and I suddenly went quite deaf so I left her too it [she must have got back in because the time I get back home this evening she is gone but ……]


Arriving at work I find we are short handed and the floor is
being held by two operational staff . We have an agreement there should always be four but that we can shut if there are merely three. So obviously we are open with two. Kate and I lend our hands to the pumps so that we can cope with the usual numbers of clients wishing to call in and have breakfast and showers etc. Now I should mention at this point that we have a slight change in operations this week and are having to charge the homeless for their meals , fairly contentious issue in the great scheme of things, so this has significantly reduced the number of clients having breakfast and lunch but NOT the numbers wanting to use the building. Plea bargaining over slices of toast ensues daily. Horse trading over boiled eggs is not uncommon. Offers to sweep the garden for a cup of tea are rife

It is at this point that we hear the local night shelter has had a flood [tons of water hurtling through the ceiling, clients waking in sodden beds and two inches of water on their bedrooms floors constitutes a flood, I think you’ll agree] Tina from the Night shelter has called to say ‘Can we cope with any of their clients who wish to have breakfast or lunch and they will pay us for these clients’. We say ‘of course’ and this means we have to monitor a whole gang of people used to wet rooms and possibly drunk at 10.00 in the morning for porridge and toast and boiled eggs and list them separately so we can charge the night shelter. This is going to be a challenge.


As we are dealing with lads who have been given a fiver to last the day whilst the Night Shelter staff clean up assuring everyone they will be back open by lunchtime. This strikes me as unrealistic. Some of the lads have described the shelter as sounding not unlike Armageddon, water pouring through ceilings, plaster coming down and light fittings pouring with water til they explode does not sound like it will be easily remedied.

Having been given a fiver [allegedly] they have all pooled together possibly to score ‘brown’, so it’s a good day for the local heroin dealers, certainly many go to the off licence or whatever place is offering ‘White Frightening’ at the cheapest rates this merry morn. Tesco - five cans for a fiver bogof[ buyonegetonefree not an insult but always struck me as particularly funny as the cynic in me sees the number of fools conned by such tawdry deals……have I ever bogedoff, as it were? Of course I have!] So we have clients in the front room ‘gauching out’ on heroin, we have clients trying to get in clearly smashed and drunk out of their brains saying 'We are allowed in! The Night shelter told us to come here; you’ve got to let us in!”

“Erm. Well no we don’t. As our rules are different and we cannot and will not let you in under the influence.”

Certain perceptive clients note that the front to room is full of clients ‘smacked’ off their heads try to complain discrimination as they are merely ‘pissed’. It’s a nice argument but this does not wash with us!!!![As the prison service realised early on a ‘client’ on heroin is far less trouble than someone on alcohol raging at the moon!]

Its at this point there seems to be a problem and calls for the First Aider are heard [that’s me!] Gertrude a European lass who has not long ago given birth to a bouncing baby girl has had some kind of crisis in the street and can someone come and look at her. Well I’ll certainly look at people, it’s the least I can do but it turns out she has had some kind of haemorrhage and ‘erm, an expulsion of some kind, the erm, product of which she wants to show to someone and she appears to have wrapped 'something' in a small parcel clutched to her person. (Understand this very much not the language this 'event' is couched in but I am trying my darnedest to spare your feelings. Yes?)

We can’t let her onto the premises as we are not insured to cover children or anyone under 16 so she has to stay on the street and countenancing the prospect of examining this poor woman’s parcel by the bus top hardly appeals when I realise its Thursday.
No, no, this means that the redoubtable Fatima, the Luther Street Nurse is on hand to do her drop in medical sessions. Breathing a sigh of relief we get her involved and the whirling sand storm that is and always will be the Director hurtles passed on some unnamed mission. He is told and promptly insists that baby be brought in and that the nurse be called and that we all respond at the same time to what is clearly now his crisis.

Even a client attempts to challenge Herr Director that baby’s are not allowed on the premises and that the matter is in hand with offers from a list of clients to ‘keep an eye on the baby’ whilst Gertrude is ‘erm, well tidied up.

“After all its not rocket salad!”

But no, the baby is ushered pram bound and screaming into an antechamber by Herr Director and the nurse rolls up her sleeves and set to managing the situation with calm stoicism and that certain air nurses have of staying entirely in control as a maelstrom hurtles about their heads [often caused by inexperienced seniors knee jerk reacting to chaos!]

It is at this point the First Aider [that’s me you will remember] is needed in the office. A Staff member has sliced his finger and can he have a plaster. Again I am surrounded by redoubtable folk and this is David who matter-of-factly shows me a cut that forty Band-Aids would not stop bleeding with a leisurely “Its OK, Andy, it’ll stop in a minute’ dabbing at this by now bloody mess and blood seeping through several layers of paper towel, I look at the cut and think actually what this needs is sowing up with a boot lace but I better asked the nurse…who just happens to be…….



She has a look and takes the view that this cut far from ‘stopping inna minit’ will need several stitches and can we get him to the A&E department of our long suffering local hospital. The Director again dons his cape and swoops into action and scooping David into his car takes him off site to be sown back up. This is always a relief, as Herr Director is usually contributing to the hurtling chaos rather than actually doing anything every much that anyone can actually understand…… At one point in dealing with Gertrude he appeared from the kitchen holding cups and a brimming water jug which were brought into the front office left perilously close to the edge of a desk and left there for the rest of the shift and still nobody quite knows why.

He is extremely good a hurtling and sandstorm is a relevant simile as a fellow professional likened him to one early on in my role with the company and now I get it. They hurtle around you blinding you to all that’s going on and when they are gone you still aren’t quite sure what has happened, what as been decided or if indeed anything actually even happened at all!

Seeking a calm in the sandstorm I suddenly notice at the reception airlock [as it is called for reasons best known to someone else as it clearly doesn’t ever contain the freshest of air not does it lock] a client who we haven’t seen for some months.

Now Paul is a challenge, he is borderline everything its seems [border line personality disorder is one of those delightful catch-alls invented by the Americans and DSMIV diagnostic label-maker that means he is not unwell or disturbed enough to warrant entry to a hospital but is distressed enough that he cannot look after himself, is extremely vulnerable and may be autistic, has characteristics of Asperger's and indeed is bright and argumentative at times. Largely he is not threatening or violent though he can assert his views and however odd or paranoid they may be he is certainly dogmatic at times.]

On his way out the Director role models his client care expertise and shouts at Paul saying “You’ll have to leave we just can’t cope with you today!” Not exactly a perfect example of care in the community but the poor dear is getting stressed. I go out to speak to Paul.

“Hi Paul How are you?”
“Can I come in?”
“Well, yes but I thought I’d better explain that we’ve had a few changes and we have to charge you for your meals now so would you like some lunch?
“Yes, please, can I come in?”
"Yes, give your name to Rose on the desk and she will let you have a ticket for your meal if you have a pound. Do you have a pound?”
“Why?’
“Well you have to pay now”
“Why?”
“Well as I said to you there have been some changes and we have to charge for food now”
“No, why do I have to give my name?”
“Paul, you have always had to give your name so we can say who’s been in”
“Why?”
“Because we need to know”
“Why?”
“Now Paul, you know me and we have spoken before and you know you will always have had to give your name at the desk”
“What are going to do with it?”
“Well in order to look after you and make sure you’re alright and not rough sleeping we need to know some things about you”
“Well normally I just come in and have a cup of tea and then leave”
“Yes but that was before and we have to make sure you’re OK and not sleeping rough. Where are you staying?”
“I’d rather not say”
“Why?”
“Well I’d just rather not say”
"Are you sleeping rough?”
“Yes”
“Where?”
“I’d rather not say”
“Well as far as I’m aware you don’t show up on the street count”
“No well I’m very good at hiding”
"Why would you want to hide?”
“”Because I don’t want people to know where I am. Can I come in?”
“Yes if you give your name to Rose and pay a pound you can come in and have something to eat”
“Can I just come in and have a cup of tea?”
“Yes, if you give you name at the desk and then you can come in”
“What will do you with my name? Will you keep it on your computers and put it on the Internet?”
“Well no, we don’t put it on the internet. We just keep it on our database for our internal records.”
“Why?”

You can see how this goes and it went on for some time and there are those amongst you who will point out that maybe Herr Director was right and you cannot afford to spend this amount of time with one client explaining everything to him in such detail…..and erm, well you’re probably right. You have to acknowledge his logic though. It’s impeccable.

At this point Paul notices the activities sheet in the window and sees that it says SPORT at 2 o’clock
“Can I do sport?”
“Yes if you give your name at the desk and come in”
“What sport are you doing? Can you take me swimming?”
“Well no, they’re probably going to do football or maybe some circuit training”
“What’s circus training?”
“No, not circus training, circuit training…. its like…well they……..I have absolutely no idea what circuit training is Paul. No idea whatsoever and to be honest its unlikely to happen anyway” (NB those of you who know me well enough will understand what I know about competitive sports can be written on a Rizla)
“Why?”
“Because we are extremely short staffed today and probably should be shut anyway”
“Why?”
“Because its not safe to work with so few staff”
“So I wouldn’t be safe?!”
“Well no I mean…….erm……..we probably won’t do the sport today. Paul, are you going to come in? Just give Rose your full name and date of birth at the desk and you can come in”
“Date of birth? Why do want my date of birth?”
“Now Paul, you know we need your details and you need to give them to to us to get in”
“But you know who I am”
“Well, yes but you have to give your name and to be honest I can’t remember your last name and we need your date of birth to see how old you are so that can be sure to put you in touch with the right people in case you need somewhere to sleep or something “
“But I don’t need anything like that I just want a cup of tea and normally you just ………”

Round and round we go. You know, I am really fond of Paul but it is kind of endless and doesn’t really go anywhere in the end. All he wants is a cup of tea and maybe someone to take him swimming though that last bit might be a joke on his part just to wind me up. Which it doesn’t, I promise you. He waits in the foyer to see if anything even remotely sporty is about to happen. It doesn’t and as Herr Director has decided we are to be responsible enough to decide whether we shut early or not, I go back in to chat to the staff like it’s a democracy to see what time they think we should shut.


Then we get a phone call……..
The Night shelter isn’t going to be ready this evening. (No surprises there then.) Do we think we could stay open later than normal and keep the night shelter clients who want somewhere to sit until they can sort out bedding in the local Community Centre who have kindly offered them the hall for the night seeing as how its an emergency and all?

Well I say, we are short-staffed, have been coping all day, with staff who haven’t had a break yet and its 2.30 and yet we are offered all their team if its staff which is the problem.

So I envisage letting our people go and the building being taken over by another agency’s staff who don’t know where anything is and where our precious things are [you know cash, musical instruments, mixing decks, computers etc]. Not that I’m having visions of their clients completely emptying the place of all our worldly goods you understand but who would be responsible for this level of decision? This is a decision only Herr Director can make and “I think you need to put your director onto our director and they can sort it out.”


I decide to call Herr Director and tell him what is proposed. It goes to voicemail. He’s still clearly in A&E with the cut finger. I get a message back at three pm saying “Whatever you decide to do, be nice to the staff at The Night Shelter”!!!!
I’m always nice. Some will tell you its what I’m best known for

We decide to go home! Nicely.

Ok, so it has seemed like mental health week here at The Gap. And why not?

The British ‘care in the community’ policies have often commendably supported aspects of the patient’s rights movement from broader civil rights campaigns and encouraged the development of community care. [The Mental Health Act 1959, Mental Health Act 1983, Community Care act 1990 etc] But one can’t help wondering on occasion if it is for merely political and economic expediency and budgetary slash and burn of the NHS that such people end up on the streets and coming to see us of course. All of this means that many of the people using the Gap as a drop-in for food, warmth, shelter, washing, showers, toilet facilities, activities; art, music room, IT suite and housing referrals and general support are suffering a huge variety and range of various aspects of mental health.

The week has been stressful and we have been trying to accommodate a vast range of client need.

Jose is one such example and before you complain that I have infringed his human rights to have his picture taken, I asked him and he said it was OK –“ If you give me a copy of the picture.” [He has asked me every day since!]

This is Jose. He is quite lucid, not to say articulate, fluent in Spanish and often engaging to talk to if one spares him the time, does not appear to be violent and has recently been using the Gap. He needs feeding and though he chooses not to use the washing facilities we do have a tendency to not allow him to stay on site. He is brought drinks [hot or cold] and his meals and he eats then on the street. Prejudice? He seems to prefer this. And yes, OK so do we. Why? Jose has told one of our staff, the much-loved Miguel, that he suffers from Diogenes Syndrome. This caused me to look it up on’t t’Internet and it is best explained as follows: the adoption of a reclusive and squalid lifestyle, expressive of a hostile attitude to and rejection of the outside community. Sufferers often live in restricted spaces, hoard what observers might think of as rubbish and wear peculiar clothes. The syndrome is characterised by the refusal to accept all offers of help, rudeness, anti-societal behaviours and very poor levels of self-care. Interestingly sufferers of Diogenes Syndrome have often been previously very high-functioning and can be possessed of IQ’s in excess of the high 80’s and above.
Some staff are of the belief we should ‘Call the police! Call the police! Its disgusting!” but we have a more enlightened approach don’t we?Jose and I had a conversation on Monday about photography and he clearly has something of the artist’s vision as he looked at objects around him and we discussed aspects of form, colour, shape, juxtaposition and so on. He suggested to me he might be given a camera as “I see things differently you know?” I have seen things which you can only imagine” and I am working on that one.

The only SLIGHT snag, as you may have realised by now, is that Jose has the compulsive need to collect detritus.
He does this much as Pigpen in the Charlie Brown cartoons of Charles M Schultz appears to gather dirt and dust. It seems a process of osmosis is at work. One can watch him and see him rearrange things in his possession, you can even observe him going through the waste bins on the street but somehow he always seems to have accumulated more than one imagines possible.

At was at this stage we felt we had to take some kind of ameliorative action. If only to impress passers by and the long suffering neighbouring boutique owner next door who is after all trying to sell flimsy niceness to those with a predilection for pretty dresses, baubles, bangles and beads.

I leave the project to engage Jose in conversation about the stuff he has accumulated and having contacted the mental health team and the Elmore Team who have a duty of care towards him, I try in my best person centred way to engage. I presume from my therapeutic training; valuing, acceptance, conflict management and client attunement that much of what he has gathered must in some way be valuable to him.

“So Jose, all your stuff there is it in some way precious to you?”

Now, Jose gives me a somewhat quizzical look at this point as if trying to work out exactly which planet I may be from and retorts

“ No of course it fucking isn’t. It’s a load of old shit, isn’t it?!”

We make him a deal that he can come in tomorrow if he tidies up the collection which by now has reached the level that all his collection is housed in two of the largest Sainsbury’s trolleys overflowing with well, rubbish.

“No problem, it’ll be easy!” Jose responds.

It takes the following three hours for Jose to sort through the contents bit-by-bit, item-by-item, dog end, cup, and carrier bag by KFC box. So that actually he reduces the two trolleys full to the one. Half way through we bring him a cup of tea, the contents of which he decants into a beer bottle, he decants this into a Remy Martin bottle and pours it back, drains a couple of local coffee shop cardboards cups of their contents and yes, you guessed it, proceeds to sip the mixture as he works. We contact the City Refuse Service, the Anti fly-tipping Bureau, the County Refuse service and indeed Sainsbury’s to see if the wish to collect their trolleys, explaining that a mentally ill person has built up quite a collection of refuse and will they come and collect it. Interestingly the departments are extremely gifted at referring us round and round the system [system? Ha!] so that one is stuck in a never ending circle of phone calls that presumably would disappear up their own fundament if left off the hook but the experienced project worker knows when to hang-up, if not give up. It is collection day anyway and the trolley and several bulging bin bags later are all arrayed by the council refuse bins we normally put out.

So by close of business the front of the project is looking fairly presentable again and Jose disappears into the evening safe in the knowledge that he will be allowed in again tomorrow. Where does he sleep I hear you ask? Why he has his own flat or room. The Elmore Team inform us it is currently the subject of an order to re-house him. Why?

Because in Jose’s own words “It’s full of shit!”

“Its outrageous that anyone should have to live like that!”

“They need to sort it out, I can’t be expected to live in those conditions”

And you know what? He’s right. The fact that it is entirely of his own making is neither here no there as it is clearly a matter of Public Health and Safety as Jose seems keen to point out. So maybe he will sleep rough tonight but I doubt it. Probably just snuggle up on a bed of Tesco bags and several week old food boxes from the bins of Oxford.
They staff member who wanted the police called starts ‘making a book’ with us as to the state we will find the project in tomorrow. “You wait, he will have scattered the contents of all his bins back all over the front of the place again” presumably as some kind of defiant statement against our fascist restrictions.

I arrive the next day with trepidation and low and behold the front of the project looks FINE! Much the same as we left it and we start the day front of house ushering in the waiting hoards for breakfast and to start the day.

But wait…Team Leader has some bad news

The back garden is full of rubbish! Several bins of refuse have been scattered all over the garden, not only that but there is ample evidence that some has defecated all over the garden. In at least five different locations and ‘can someone lend a hand?’
We don our rubber gloves and ever the one to show willing that in my role I am not above unblocking the toilet (it usually requires a broom covered in bin bags. technical stuff!) or fixing a light bulb, re-booting the IT suite so that the porn links aren’t working anymore, etc etc. So we set about picking up all the rubbish, and I hold the bin bags as we shovel up the faecal matter from around the garden borders. What feels like several tons later we focus on removing the rest of the rubbish, card boxes, bags and paper and waste and a rather fetching umbrella covered in white polka dots dumped down by the back boiler room. This includes 12 foot lengths of used toilet paper and as the contents of the garden’s decorations are shovelled into the bin bags I am religiously holding open, it occurs to me that here I am on lovely sunny October morning shovelling shit!

Note: not you understand that I'm accusing Jose here. No, no. I wouldn’t make any such assumption, as we need evidence of any such act before we go around accusing anyone. We let the mental health team know he is currently barred from the project and that at present he is ‘plotted up’ on the steps of the architectural award winning carbuncle of the Oxford Said Business School building, part of the university, with his by now several bags of rubbish [he’s only been gone a couple of hours so hasn’t got into his stride yet.] The person from the mental health team says

“Oh dear that’s quite posh over there isn’t?”

I say well, I suppose you could call it that

“Well they won’t be happy about that will they?”

No, I dare say they wont

“Well, I’d better do something about that”

Within a couple of minutes two police officers are seen engaging Jose in conversation.
When I next take a look he has gone, no sign of him at all, not a trace, not a wrapper or a dog-end and we haven’t seen him since

Postscript: As I leave for some well earned annual leave, I take a look back at the building that is presently the Gap and there nestling in the drain at the foot of our drainpipe from the roof is a large milk carton, you know the sort plastic and the biggest container of milk Tescos can supply. Two litres or half a gallon! It is FULL of a curiously familiar yellow liquid!

No way, Jose!