It really is a disgrace that in 21st century Britain people are still homeless on the streets. Believe me the conditions portrayed by Dickens are still very much with us. You don’t need me to tell you that hunger and poverty still stalk the land. Just take a stroll under the arches by Embankment and Charing cross stations and you will be confronted by the people society forgot, sleeping in cardboard boxes. There are two parallel cities in London, that inhabited by you and I with our comfortable homes and then there is cardboard city. It breaks my heart to see men and women of all ages huddled in doorways under filthy blankets. Some don’t even own a single blanket, its tragic to see them with nothing to keep themselves warm other than fellow denisons of the streets. On occasions I’ve seen two or three of the poor sods huddled together so as to extract animal warmth from their fellow man. Oh my country, oh my country I weep to see what you have become, a land in which the weak die on the cold streets while the heedless majority parties on this sinking ship.
I do what I can to help. It isn’t much, a flask of hot coffee here, a few sandwitches and most important of all a kind word. What most of the homeless want more than anything else is a sympathetic ear, someone to listen without passing judgement. I’m a good listener, always have been and I think that is why I’ve built up such close relationships with so many of the people sleeping rough.
Its tragic listening to the street people speak about their lives. Take, for example young Janet who ran away from Manchester to London at the age of 14 to get away from her father who’s idea of fatherly love was to sexually abuse her on an almost daily basis. Then there was Mark a successful trader in the city but, come the recession he lost everything and ended up residing in cardboard city.
It is difficult gaining the trust of the homeless. People who have suffered many knocks in life find it hard to fully trust another human being. However I have managed to gain the absolute trust of many a homeless man and woman. Once the relationship is solid I’ll invite them back to my home. Of course they jump at the chance. Who wouldn’t embrace the prospect of a square meal and a clean bed to sleep in.
A little something in their drink and once they are asleep my friend removes a kidney or, sometimes a lung. We are humane men so the men and women are stiched up properly afterwards and given a few hundred quid for their trouble. I’m a charitable man, it’s a crying shame that there are so many men and women sleeping on the streets and we have the cheek to call ourselves a civilised society.
