No blagging for bread in Bransholme

An unplanned encounter highlights our need for a redemptive "second chance"

Meet charming Gareth. He has just come out of prison, and hasn’t slept for three nights, having obliterated his woes with recreational pharmaceuticals as well as hard liquor. He also has not seen his daughter for three years, and somewhere “off screen” there is a little girl who is deprived of her daddy, no matter how delinquent he has been.

Alongside Gareth is Darren, the grandfather of that young girl, and father of Gareth’s former girlfriend. Let me tell you the story of my encounter with two men struggling at the bottom end of our society, and what I learned from this happenstance meeting.

A few weeks ago, as part of my ongoing campaign to visit deprived and distressed areas of Britain, I went to Hull. The area of Bransholme is a post-WW2 social housing development aimed at accommodating the large numbers displaced by bombing during the war. It is one of the largest council housing estates ever built in the country, and has a reputation for social and economic difficulties.

It is not a threatening kind of area to pass through, merely lacking in the organic elegance of places built over time by people who are spending their own money on their own property.

While pleasant enough on a warm and dry afternoon in June, I can imagine this being a somewhat bleak spot on a blustery damp day in January.

You don’t need to be an anthropology professor to recognise that the area has problems.

My passage took me through a downmarket shopping centre.

Popping out the other side I grabbed a few candid shots of children playing.

It was around the corner in a green area that I bumped into Darren and Gareth. In a fun way Gareth ribbed me about photographing children, and that I was wearing my “Jesus creeper” sandals. Him faking a serious tone of disapproval, but in a way that was obviously comical, meant I instantly warmed to the man. I told my little story of how I was interested in deprived areas, and on my own account was making an effort to visit and document them. They seemed curious and we kept walking and talking.

In discussing my work and the state of our corrupted world, they did ask if I was one of those “conspiracy people” — of course, as you all know, I am just an open source crime investigator and citizen journalist, so readily admit to it. Easily relating to my calling, Gareth said he paradoxically had a lot of respect for the police: they may be “c*nts”, but they are on our side, and stand between ordinary people and violent gangs. He commended them on their bravery, being willing to put themselves at risk when they step into fights. This isn’t what you expect to hear from someone who has convictions for burglary and shoplifting, and is out of jail for less than a week.

Gareth explained that he has essentially been homeless since the age of 15, despite now approaching 40. He felt he had never really had a chance in life, but was about to have a go at training to be a chef. Social services had insisted that he be kept apart from his daughter due to his past drug use and criminal record, but you could feel the pain in him; there is no malice in this man that I could feel, even if he has left victims in his wake. Indeed, he ended up on heroin at a young age after being stabbed, and it relieved the acute pain of his wounds. That cut is still bleeding in a way, a quarter of a century later.

We got onto the subject of money and economics, and they were both highly aware of how corrupt our banking system is, and that the financial markets are rigged. Genteel delusions about the workings of society are unaffordable when you’re poor. I mentioned that a financial reset seemed imminent, and that it was a good idea to keep well stocked on food, as you never know what emergencies may be approaching. They looked at me as if I was nuts. Not because the scenario was lacking credibility, but because I assumed that people like them had any money to buy food. Yes, there was some waste on drugs and booze, but they were in essence destitute.

It is extremely bad form to boast in public of one’s charitable acts, but the only way of telling the whole story is to share what happened next. I was horribly overdrawn on my main bank account, but had some cash on me, so took out £100 and offered it to Gareth, saying he should use it to fill up his cupboards. He looked at me stunned, and Darren was inclined to refuse the money, as they felt unworthy. Gareth overruled him, but instead of taking the cash off me, suggested we all go to the supermarket together. So off to Aldi we went.

None of us had a £1 coin to release the trolley, but a kindly passerby gave us theirs instead. Darren is repeating over and over that he cannot believe this is happening to them, nobody ever looks after them or gives them gifts, it is like winning the lottery. Meanwhile, Gareth is participating in something akin to a scene from Trainspotting, the archetypal junkie black comedy, being self-evidently twatted as he goes around the supermarket, warmly greeting several old friends who haven’t seem him while he was on the inside of a jail.

Two moments touched me. One where I grabbed the posher Heinz baked beans, and they told me off for getting the expensive ones, and not the cheap own-label. To be honest, I never think much about price when shopping for food, as generally it corresponds to quality, and I look after myself. The other was when I was going to put some crackers into the trolley, and Gareth reminded me that he has lost most of his teeth, and cannot chew them. I am blessed and privileged in ways that only moments like this can highlight for me, as my body and health are thankfully intact. While few vegetables made it into the mix, the result was adequate sustenance.

As I wanted to keep some paper cash in my leather wallet, when walking around the store I fired up my banking app, and sold some crypto meme coin that had magically appreciated by 1000%, so I had the electronic money on my card to pay at the checkout. I don’t normally use that card, as it is a backup, and when it was declined I just assumed I had forgotten the PIN, so I paid in cash anyhow. It was only later that I realised that I had location-based security turned on, and Bransholme was a high-risk venue. It was a visceral experience of how cash cannot be censored, whereas digital money easily leads to exclusion of the poorest. (Now you can see why I had to tell you the whole story!)

We staggered with five full bags of food to Darren’s place, where Gareth was crashing as a guest. Outside there were children zipping about on the grass on a small motorbike. Inside, they offered me a cup of tea, and asked if I wanted to eat. I genuinely had another photo shoot to do nearby, so just accepted a drink. The fridge was nearly empty, and the food cupboards were bare. Darren said this was more than just food to eat: it was peace of mind. I caught that Darren was dealing with bereavement, but didn’t quite get the details. The house had a sofa, TV, and parrot, but not much else. They live in real poverty.

I looked over Gareth’s shoulder at one point to check if there was more fresh food for the fridge, and he assumed I was making sure that he wasn’t spiking my tea with drugs! Having been around a few “naughty people” myself, I know what bad experience he may be relating to, and how me being there with thousands of pounds of expensive camera gear made me a target. Yet I absolutely trusted these two men: there is an intuitive knowing that you are completely safe, and they share the same warm heart and common brotherhood. We abounded agape love, and it was wonderful.

They insisted of accompanying me on the short walk to my splendid classic van for my onward journey, and we exited past the home-brew motorbike project. The area outside has a former health centre with a roof that is falling in, a “reedy swamp” where raw sewage is leaking, and an uncovered drain that is a horrific fall hazard for playing children. This isn’t how we are meant to live, and is the end result of a society dominated by psychopathic criminals. I don’t care what misdeeds others have conducted; if you’ve been to prison, you’ve paid the price already. Nobody deserves to have a public environment like this.

Gareth had originally been taking his last £20 to the supermarket to get some vodka, and had swilled a bit on his way back. He had put the glass bottle into a shopping bag along with a plastic bottle of Fanta, and as he walked it swung against the road and the glass smashed. I commented to Darren that “God says ‘no more alcohol’ for Gareth” and he quietly agreed. The negative effect of drug gangs and self-medication with booze have been recurring themes in my photo walks around the most afflicted areas. It has been a wakeup call that massive societal change is needed, with nearly all of us contributing to the cultural chaos in some way, the worst damage being localised.

Gareth needs and deserves a second chance, and to do that we have to recognise that there is a foundational level of safety everyone requires in society in order to function and heal their own trauma. Most of all, his daughter needs her daddy back, and that is a huge repair job. Darren needs support to overcome his losses, too, and bring Gareth back into his granddaughter’s life in a safe manner. The endemic use of narcotics (legal and illegal) in society — at all levels — is ratcheting up a “negative inheritance” bill for the youngest ones. I am guilty too, so in no place to judge these men; I only observe and report.

These men were not blagging to get bread out of me; quite the opposite, their dignity and self-respect made them arduously slow to accept heartfelt charity. For a brief hour or so, I became part of the family of Bransholme, and it affected me in ways I could never have anticipated in advance. Only Darren and Gareth can repent their individual misdeeds, but the next generation requires us all to seek redemption from this mess. A paradigm-busting intervention is needed that restores the critical level of physical and psychological safety, so that the endless cycle of dysfunction and intoxication can be stopped.

Bransholme was an unexpected lesson in how the family needs to come first in future.

We cannot go on like this — where children run and play.