- Derek? - Yeah.
- [Interviewer] We're here in Cardiff, you're homeless,
- Yeah. - Tell me about it.
- Well, I've been homeless now for about a year and a half.
I was homeless previously before that,
I was off the streets for about nine years,
I got married to a Welsh girl,
which saved me the first time around.
Yeah, I got married, I had a son, a seven-year old boy,
his name is Finn Seamus,
I haven't seen him like in a year,
because I ended up drinking quite heavily
and I became an alcoholic,
previous to that I was a heroin addict,
I'm not ashamed to say that,
everybody's got their own thing, you get me?
But two addictions in my life
was a bit overwhelming for me
and overwhelming for my relationship
and everything else that I had.
But I've been sober now seven months off alcohol.
- Congratulations. - Yeah,
and I've been sober off heroin for, Jesus, nine years
was the last time, - Wow, great.
- So I'm still homeless at the moment,
this is this side I need to try
and sort out now at the moment,
but I've been working with a great organization
called the City Center Team, which are here in Cardiff,
which have been trying to get me on to a program
called Gateway, which is a rehousing situation,
so touch wood now, I'll be able to get rehoused
and I'll be able to get back working again,
because when I was off the streets, I went back to college
and I became a qualified nurse.
- [Interviewer] Wow!
- And I was working with partitive care,
end of life dementia and I really, really enjoyed that
and I want to hopefully touch wood now,
when I get myself sorted, is get myself back working again,
because I need to be doing something.
I thought that was it for me for being homeless
and then I ended up back again, you get me,
and it's lucky that I knew
what that was like in the first place,
because I now have to deal with it, you get me?
But I don't wanna deal with that anymore,
I wanna be back normal again, you get me,
and so I can get to see my boy
and I can get myself sorted
and fend for myself basically, you know what I mean?
Cardiff is a really nice place, you get me
and I've been here 24 years altogether, you get me
and the people are great and there's lots of people,
there's lots of help, there's lots of organizations,
Christian people and stuff, there's a great one
on Thursday night called Andy comes round to see us
and he's really special, man,
I've known him for 24 years myself, you know what I mean?
So I just stay in Cardiff here,
I've got my buddy, Dio, we've got a tent pitched up
over the other side of town, nice little area, cozy,
it's shelter, you know what I mean,
instead of sleeping in doorways,
which we were doing for a while,
but thank goodness, some people bought us a tent,
so we'd have somewhere to stay, so we've got facilities,
like a little cooker and stuff like that,
you know what I mean,
but it's not the whole shebang basically.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- So this is what we need to do
is try and get this side sorted out.
- [Interviewer] Well, you have goals and a future,
I commend you, 'cause it's so hard to stay sober,
when you're out here. - Yeah, it is,
it's very hard to stay sober,
because the influence is everywhere, you get me
and it's all over the place.
There is help out there,
but I do pity some of the people,
there's just some weird stuff going around at the moment,
you get me, like this, I think they're calling it
the Spice sort of stuff. - Yeah, it's hitting all over.
- God, it's absolutely knocking people from Sunday,
you get me? - Yeah.
- There's a couple of people I've known have died
here in Cardiff over the last couple of months
from taking this stuff, it is wrong, you get an addiction,
like I don't know, there's people giving up actually heroin
to actually smoke this stuff.
- [Interviewer] Oh, my gosh.
- It's terrible, you get me, it's not nice at all,
'cause they're walking around like zombies,
- Yeah. - you know what I mean?
It's like I don't know
and I don't know what they could do to stop that,
I don't think they can, it's like at the end of the day,
it was sold over the counter.
- Yeah, and it's a cheap high. - Yeah, it's a cheap high,
it's £5 a bag. - Yes.
- You get £10 a bag of heroin
and I heard something which is really, really serious,
it's actually easier to get 30 mils in a pin of heroin,
than it is to get a spliff of Spice,
that's how bad it is,
there's people turning over their grandmothers
for the bloody stuff at the moment.
- Yeah. - You know what I mean?
It's terrible,
but as we said, everybody has their own problems,
everybody has whatever they do, you get me,
but I've got my own problems,
I've dealt with that, you get me,
I'm still dealing with this problem, you get me?
- Yeah. - But, yeah.
- [Interviewer] How do you survive out here?
- I survive off the goodness of other people, you get me,
some nice people, nice, honest, decent people that go by
and they help, which is for them,
if it wasn't for them, God man, I don't know what,
people are really nice, you know what I mean?
- [Interviewer] If you had three wishes, what would they be?
- One wish would be not to have the wishes
in the first place and then not have any wishes,
because why, you just wish for something,
it's just, I'm happy, I'm happy in myself,
I'm not happy with the situation, but I'm happy in myself,
I wouldn't change anything,
because if I hadn't done what I did in the past,
I wouldn't be who I am now basically,
so the wishes wouldn't be anything to me, you get me?
- [Interviewer] Ah-huh, I can relate to that.
- Yeah, I don't want wishes, you get me?
- Yeah. - Wishes are just
not too basic, you know what I mean?
You wish for something and then it's gone,
before you know it, you know what I mean?
So what's the point?
- [Interviewer] Well, thank you very much for talking to me.
- That's okay, no problem, thank you very much as well.
(mellow upbeat music)