I was staying on the canal for a while. Police moved me on from there, gave me a 48-hour dispersal notice to move on. So I was passing an old mansion in Eccles, and I heard some dogs barking in there and I realised it was one of my friends who’s in there. I started staying in there with him, managed to get some power on so we had some sort of heating and stuff and lighting. I think as soon as the electric board found out, the fire brigade found out, they got us out because of the regulations and stuff. 

I didn’t realise at the time what my rights were on squatting because it wasn’t a commercial building, it used to be a residential building. 

So I got kicked out of there, and we took over the old boat house on the same road. We took over that place and a few days after taking over that place, I’d put me 144 legal notices in the windows and in the front, and a chap come down and says, “What youse doing there?”. 

So I said, “Well, I’ve got a few people staying here like we’re squatting the place”.

He said “Well you can’t”, so I said, “Our 144’s there, you’ve got to take legal action, let’s take it to court and get a court order”. 

Well then the bloke ended up calming down a bit then, even made us all a roll-up then and offered us some money. He said, “If we give you £100 each, will you all go?”. 

I said, “That’s not going to be any good, is it? Some of them have got addiction issues. Even if you give some of them £100, they might go and get a load of drugs or whatever is the answer, you know, I mean it’ll probably kill them off if you give the money. It might get a hotel for a few nights but then back to square one. I’ll take my chance at court”. 

It didn’t take long for them to get us out of there. So then I was on the move again.

After a relationship broke down, I had a phone call off a few people saying, “Do you wanna squat any more buildings?”

I wasn’t interested at time, and then I became homeless and I was on the side of the canal again. I saw a doctor’s surgery that had been closed for about 15 years. The lights were all on and there was steam coming out the flute at the side as well. So I’m sat here, freezing my ass off and that building’s empty. Nobody’s doing anything with it. Somebody’s paying the bills, paying for the rates, paying for the power and everything, and it’s completely empty. 

So I’ve thought, sod this. I’m sick of seeing Grandad – a bloke we call Grandad – on the street. He’s had his tent burned, had his kicked in, his money robbed and all sorts of stuff like that. And he’d been homeless for about 8 years, I was sick of seeing him in the situations he was in. And so that was one of the main reasons I took the doctor’s surgery in the first place, for people like him.

So I went in… opened the fire door at the back and turned the alarm off. And then looked at the space in there, thought it’s quite nice, too much for me and Grandad as well. So I went out to the streets of Salford and Manchester and got in about 18 to 20 people, I think, in one night. I think within 24 hours. Got them on trams, trains, buses to Eccles and then we did the place up. Put a shout-out on Facebook, asked for beds and mattresses and stuff. Loads of people brought beds, couches, mattresses, TVs, washing machines, fridge freezers, cookers – food to go in the fridge freezers – microwaves, bedding and stuff, clothing. 

We had a running shelter within about 48 hours and it was quite mint really. Pool table, communal area. We had it up and running really good. Then we got drug and alcohol services involved as well, in case anybody else who was in the building had issues. We got Salford Unemployment and Resource Centre involved as well, so they could do courses there. Some of them needed to English courses too.

And then we got first contact off somebody saying you can’t stay here. I said, “Well the 144 is in the window, you can’t do anything about it. Take it to court”. I wasn’t nasty. That’s the legal route. 

They took us to court and we had a Manchester law firm involved doing pro bono to try and keep us in there as long as they could. And then after that, they got a court order to get us out and kicked us out onto the street. So it was 18 people kicked onto the street.

After that, we moved some of them to the old people’s home, another squat. Then I moved on to an old vets and we stayed there for a few months. We took over a chemists. And then we had the Unicorn pub so I had three running at the same time. That was very hard work. 

I used the Vet’s for people that had more issues, like drug and alcohol and stuff like that. And then when they had overcome those problems, once they got better in themselves, I moved them on from there to the Unicorn pub. I’d do it like a rotation. And then from the Unicorn pub, I’d try and get them housing somewhere. But every time I kept sending people to the council, they were getting refused half the time.