memories of London

I am going to try and finish writing about London now and get the worst and most painful memories of London out the way before I concentrate on the past and the church maybe.

There is a free magazine for the homeless in London, it is called 'The Pavement' and it has in it a section called 'The List' which gives details of most of the soup runs, daycentres and sources of help and advice for homeless people in London. The list is very useful and valuable to homeless people. I am not sure why I am telling you that except that I managed to find my way to various food runs and places with the help of The List.
One of the places on The List is a free counselling service at Picadilly, I was just starting to receive the counselling there when my brother took me away from London briefly and disrupted that counselling, I will explain about my brother later.

When I arrived in London I was reluctant to move my benefits claim to London as I didn't know if I was staying, and I still retained such an attachment to my hometown where my benefit money was usually issued, that I had kept the claim there despite the church driving me out. But that wasn't practical as I had to collect my giro directly from the benefits office, so the claim was moved to London, and I had help with the phonecalls to move the claim to London as I have trouble using a phone and the benefits agency are extrordinarily hard to deal with on the phone.
 The benefits agency managed to mess the transfer of the claim up dramatically anyway, and after much stress and muddle, issued a giro...which said on it that it was to be cashed at a post office 50 miles away.
Ha, nothing new there, they always will muddle it up, it took four and a half hours of me just waiting at the office getting more and more hungry and stressed before they produced a giro that could be cashed nearby.

Then life was heaven, because I could buy a big cup of tea and go to an internet cafe, the internet has my lifeline in this silent homeless world, a place to communicate with my rather distant and chaotic family and a few friends that weren't taken off me by the church, a place to look for the help and prayers and support I have needed, a place where I can listen to music on youtube because I have no other access to music and I really need music.

The only thingsthat the slim amounts of benefits can't change is the weather and living on the streets, lack of laundry facilities and showers, and the terribly destroyed life that I have. But benefits can buy a nice cup of tea in a comfortable cafe, a travelcard or oyster credit to save my legs, new knickers and socks and boots, and other necessary things that make life more comfortable.

My favourite food run is on Monday nights, it is quite late in the evening, but worth the wait and is near where I sleep. I become friends with the group of people who go to that food run, in particular one who I will call 'B.', B. makes sure I get food and everything I need, he is a broad shouldered giant, who initially tells me I am stupid for staying outside, unti lhe gets to know me better, he is trustworthy, and on one occasion I sleep on the floor of his room in a hostel, he makes me endless cups of tea and I have a bath in the bathroom opposite his room, he behaves perfectly and says that even if I had wanted to get into his bed for a cuddle if I was lonely he wouldn't have done anything unless I wanted it. And I believe him.
You may be quite concerned that I have mentioned 3 men who have taken me home to sleep on their floor/sofa etc, and yes, it is risky and maybe foolhardy, but I have also had a number of men inviting me home who were blatantly looking for sex or a relationship and I turn them down, and I get lots of propositions which I turn away with a growl.

hm, do I actually growl? yes, I am a feral person, I live in the bins and growl. At one point I did actually live among the bins, but thats another story, and I certainly look in the bins for food, stickers and cardboard. I try not to do that when there are children around though.
I digress.

One day my tooth broke, I wasn't very happy as it is a front tooth and I don't look very pretty with part of it missing, not that I look very pretty full stop. I was advised to go to Guys Hospital to get it looked at, and not knowing any better, I went to the emergency dentistry department there. I never know when things are an emergency or when they are ok, my worry was that the rest of the tooth would fall away, someone directed me to go to Guys and get it seen to.

The 26th floor of Guys hospital tower has a lovely view, you can see accross the city, and you can see all the trains going in and out of London Bridge Station and it looks like a model railway layout. Sadly for me, a lot of those trains only go to sussex and kent, so I feel as if they don't really go anywhere much. My railways are the big long distance ones and the railways in a certain area of the country that I'm not going to mention yet, and steam trains of any kind, anywhere.

I have been in Guys hospital before, not as a patient, but because they have loos, and sometimes I have been caught short waiting for the daycentre to open. Their loos are good, I have sat in their loos and sorted out my medicines and wash kit in preparation for going to the daycentre for a shower.

The dentist tells me that my tooth is stable but he will file down the edge, he tells me that it has broken because I am grinding my teeth at night, and I need to register with a dental practice and get a mouth guard made up to prevent my teeth grinding. I remember years ago in the town where my sister now lives, I saw a dentist there and he said I was grinding my teeth, but circumstances have prevented me from ever getting around to having a mouthguard made up.

Not long after I had been to Guys,I found out that the medical centre I was registered with had a dentist attending once a week. I made an appointment, but the dentist was rude with an attitude, he asked why I was here to see him, and I told him I had broken a tooth from grinding my teeth, he disbelievingly asked who had told me it was from grinding, and I said Guys had, he said that people shouldn't go to a hospital for minor things like that, they should go to a dentist for teeth and a doctor for coughs and colds, he was so patronising, I told him that the outreach had advised me to go to guys as my tooth was broken and I was homeless and not registered with a dentist, and being autistic I didn't know any better than to obey authority and I had been worries about the tooth breaking further. I decided that I didn't want treatment from this dentist as his attitude was so bad. I know I am intolerant sometimes, and I can't put into words exactly what this guy was like, but I was stressed and I didn't like him and I didn't think he had any right to 'tell me off', so I left.

I am going to stop there as I am running out of time, but I will continue later. I liked the view from guys hospital so much that I went back in there one morning and went up to the 30th floor to have a look out the window, I felt so lost though, with buildings as far as I could see, miles and miles of buildings and just me alone.