The Turbulent Trek – Homeless!

We’re delighted to be hosting excerpts from Totnes icon, Graham Walker’s book, The Turbulent Trek of a Tenacious Tramp over the next few weeks – here’s the next installment:

For the next year, now alone, once again going from job to job, my life was heading for a spectacular meltdown; a life spiralling evermore faster out of control. That meltdown though, would be both allayed and conversely, through circumstance, destined. I had a mission.

My sister Jill, herself now a single parent, had two boys. The youngest, Darren, was sadly born with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a genetic disease with the prognosis of an inevitable, heartbreakingly painful existence, leading to an equally inevitable early death.

Darren, now aged ten, was fast reaching the stage in his life where he would no longer be able to walk and was desperate for a power-assisted wheelchair. So, now unemployed, with time on my side and desperate to make Darren’s life a little easier, I set out to get him one. With help from a friend and Gingerbread; a single parent group, I planned a sponsored walk from Bristol to Liverpool.

The sponsored walk was not just a joy, it was a huge success and, for me, a massive accomplishment. The £3,000 raised, more than covered the cost of Darren’s wheelchair.

Whilst in Liverpool, my friend and I stayed for a couple of days to rest up and see the sights before heading home. Sadly, soon to find out the home I was heading back to had, during my brief time away, significantly changed!

Arriving back home and on entering the lounge, I was met by a brisk chill wind blowing through the smashed rear window. The lounge, other than a few strewn empty bottles of cider and litter, was bare. Gone was my furniture, TV, stereo etc. Even the fitted carpet! I ran upstairs to find beds layered with rubbish and yet more cider bottles. Finally, entering the bathroom, all my personal effects were now floating in a bath of water. My home was gone. I was devastated!

I was looking back at a year of nothingness

Who could have done this? The clue, or rather the answer to that question was revealed on a postcard left on the mantlepiece. It was a postcard addressed to my home. A postcard not bearing my name but a name I knew. A name that belonged to a teenager who lived further down the street. I was stunned. Not only had they stolen all my belongings and wrecked my home, it looked like, whilst I was away, they’d moved in and partied. Even getting mail delivered. Knocking on the teenager’s door, I was confronted by his mother. I explained what had happened and that I believed her boy was involved. She was in complete denial that her son would do such a thing. Beckoning her son, he too denied having anything to do with it. Inviting them to follow me back to my house, on seeing the carnage, my neighbour was visibly shocked. On showing them both the postcard, the boy, overwrought, burst into tears and confessed all. His mother was now as devastated as I.

It transpired that news of my trip away had reached the ears of a local villain on the estate and, coercing the assistance of three or four teenagers, he’d broken into, emptied and ransacked my home, rewarding the teenagers with bottles of cider. With the house now fully accessible, the boys simply used it as some sort of den. I contacted the parents of the other children involved and was asked if I would be going to the police. I reassured them that I wouldn’t. This was something I was going to sort out myself.

Sorting it

The villain in question who lived a couple of streets away. was a single man in his early thirties and with a reputation that was well known on the estate. Whilst unable to contact him directly, through a third party the following day, my message got through. A message that relayed how furious I was. A message demanding that every single item he’d stolen should be on my driveway by 6pm that cloak of red mist, I set off to his house.

It was now 7.30pm. Arriving at his house, I knocked the door. I heard a noise from inside. I could also hear the TV was on. Perhaps my TV. But there was no answer. I imagined him, with curtains closed, huddling in the corner as I had done many times as a child. Although he was far bigger than me and renowned for violence, I was undaunted. I knocked again; as aggressive a knock I could muster. Once again, no answer. Huddle you bastard I thought. Huddle!

Walking around his front garden, illuminated by a streetlamp, I was amazed how well looked after it was. Being a villain who spent most of his time terrorizing the neighbourhood, I was surprised at the effort he’d put in to creating a nice home for himself. Walking around to the back of his house, I happened across a spade. I was now on a mission. Returning to the front garden and now enveloped in a rage that obliterated any concern of confrontation or possible arrest, I set about my task.

The garden consisted of a medium sized, well-manicured lawn surrounded by twenty or so, what appeared to be, newly planted miniature conifers. Methodically, I pulled every one up and thrust them through his letterbox. Then, with the spade, I adjusted his well-manicured lawn, digging it up with such ferocity that the spade snapped. With three quarters of his lawn now looking like a neglected allotment, I thrust the spade handle through his letter box and casually walked off. Back to the home that was no more.

Back inside

Two weeks later, the local council granted my request to move and so I set up home in a council flat some two miles away. A week later, finding work in a local pub, the income afforded and enthused me to get furniture and start brightening the flat up so my son could visit. Enthusiasm though, that was short lived.

After a year or so, other than work, rarely leaving the flat, I was looking back at a year of nothingness. A year in limbo. No plans. and seemingly, no future. A year alone with only a rancid head for company. I was languid, listless, emotionally spent. Once again, huddling in the corner of the room whenever the doorbell rang.  I very slowly slipped into an all-consuming depression. Now having packed my job in, I would spend day after day without contact with the outside world. Locked inside my flat. Locked inside my head. Knowing my life was an utter mess, but without the strength, inclination or ability to do anything about it.

To others, I was experiencing a few niggling problems. For me, I was in an all-consuming, multi-coloured fucked up tragedy.

Returning to the flat one day after visiting my son, I opened the door, nonchalantly kicking the pile of unopened mail. I glanced at the half- finished décor projects, started a year earlier in a week-long fit of vigour and scanned the mouldy dishes that had lain there, as I had, for weeks, in a complete state of lethargy. At that very moment, I knew that my time here was done. I had to leave.

The moment and the emotion that accompanied it is a memory I’ll never forget. I was standing in the lounge. It was a bright, extraordinarily bright sunny morning.  Looking out to the communal garden below, I watched as a neighbour playfully tossed his giggling child in the air. Turning, I strode around the flat, grabbed a few personal possessions, tossed them in a carrier bag and walked out, leaving my disastrous past behind, knowing I would never return. I ran down the stairs, out into the sunshine.  I was suddenly, totally and wonderfully overwhelmed. I walked briskly along the street, not knowing where I was going, or indeed what I would do when I got there. Nothing. Absolutely nothing mattered.

I was free! Free from the stress, the depression, free from putting my hands over my ears when the doorbell rang, free from the guilt of unopened letters, free from answering awkward questions from friends and family.

I was suddenly and immediately, with absolutely no effort whatsoever. . . . free, anonymous, seemingly, a lifetimes’ burdens lifted. I was free. I was alive. I WAS HOMELESS!

 

Grahams’ autobiographical memoir can be obtained from his patch when he’s at the bottom of Fore Street and at the East Gate Bookshop further up the High Street.

You can also buy it online from the Totnes Pulse here.