I was living on the side of a canal in probably 2017, maybe 2018. I was in a tent and some lady had come down. She gave me some soup, some food, couple of cans of beer. some smokes, and sat in a tent with me for a bit as well. She’s now my friend. 

And I didn’t know her at the time but she said, ‘Don’t stay here, it’s freezing’. Snowing it was as well. Really cold night it were. So she said, ‘Come back to mine, stay at mine if you want, stay on the couch.’

I said, ‘I can’t, I’m not doing that.’ 

I didn’t wanna do that because the reason I’d become homeless that time is ‘cause I took people in at my my own place and I got kicked out for it. And she was in a council house and I didn’t want that happening to her. So I didn’t wanna put that pressure on her, or make us both become homeless, you know what I mean? ‘Cause it wouldn’t be fair on her. 

So I refused her offer. 

So then I was just about to get my head down and put my tunes on, listen to some music. Next minute I felt the tent moving. So I jumped out quick and ripped the tent open. So I got in a struggle, I’d ripped the bleeding thing. So now my tent’s knackered. 

And I looked around and there’s two or three kids dragging the tent towards the canal while I’m in it. 

The canal’s frozen over. 

I jumped out, I were like, ‘Are you mad?’. I said, ‘You know, I’m not in the best of places here at the minute, and you wanna put me in canal? What’s wrong with you people?’ 

One of them just threw a Twix at my head and went, ‘Oh, ya scruff’. 

I said, ‘Nice one for the Twix like.’ But wow.

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On and off I was living in secret on the canal, hid away. 

Then I thought no, bollocks to it. I’ll do it fucking right in front of everybody’s face so everyone can see. That was a bit of a statement why I did it.

Then the media got involved and Manchester Evening News came down, a few other people came down. Channel 4 came down, did a bit of an interview with me, an interview on prisons as well – people coming out and having nowhere to go. 

So I’d done that really so people could see and you can’t just brush it under the carpet. 

I am here, you know, I am in existence, I’m a person, you know.

The police came down whilst I was on the canal and says, ‘What you doing here?’ 

I said, ‘Living.’

He said, ‘You can’t do that’. 

I said, ‘Why, have you got me a flat?’. 

‘That’s Not, oh that’s not my job’, he said. 

‘Well, what is your job?’. 

He said, ‘To move you on’. 

I said, ‘Well, that’s great innit, I’ve got nowhere to go then’. 

He said, ‘Not my problem. Go to Manchester or something’. 

‘I don’t wanna go up Manchester… there’s a lot of people on all sorts of drugs up there’ I said. ‘I might end up on them myself if I end up there, because I’m not in the best of places at the minute. You know what I mean?’

 ‘Here I’ve got a network of people regardless of whether I’m on the streets.’ I’ve got my mom living local. I can’t live with my mum because my stepdad be arguing with me mum over it. So that’s why I didn’t stay there. Plus she’s in like an accommodation where I wouldn’t be able to stay. She’d end up kicked out for me staying.

Eventually they gave me a 48 hour dispersal notice not to camp or make  any encampments anywhere in the whole of the city of Salford. 

So I said, ‘Now you’ve just took the whole of the roof off my head. Where’s the help? You know, Aren’t you supposed to come down and say, look, we’ll find you somewhere nice and warm. You know, you just took the whole roof off my head. What do you want me to hide in a bush or something? So you can’t see me.’

Move on to the next street and then somebody else kicks me off it. Move on from there. Move from there. 

You’re going round in circles.