GSCENE 27
A HOMELESS HOMECOMING Jazmin Louise Katrel writes about a two-day period in her life when she was truly alone, and scared ) Camp was deep in the bushes next to a
bridge near Overcliff Drive in Bournemouth. It was a four-man walk-in green tent. My cats, Alister and Sophie, were a brother and sister I’d bought six months earlier. We lived in one of two pods, a mattress, gas fire, all my clothes had been stolen in the days before while I was moved on by the council. My mountain bike locked to a tree. That day I had a meeting with Shelter, which after six hours and three appointments, said it couldn’t help me without a local connection. I walked to the Salvation Army project for a shower and breakfast, keeping to myself among the church people, local drug users and homeless people. They were lovely, but no one said much as I worked on the computer by the front window. Then a glimmer of hope. My job agency in Brighton had work for me. With no way to get there I got on to Job Club and told it my situation; laid off, bad landlord, homeless with a job opportunity. Yes! It could get me a National Express ticket home… It was around 4pm when I thanked the staff for helping me and for the showers that are a godsend when all you have are the clothes you’re wearing. It took me ages to get back to the tent in the dark and my ticket was for 10pm that night. Choices had to be made, I would leave everything except what I needed and could carry. I fed and basketed the cats first, then scrambled about in the dark finding ID, pulling down a tent too big for the area it was in.
that second bus just laughed at me. I slipped into the train station and sank to the ground, scared and cold, pulling the cats closer in their basket, and wrapping us all in the two sleeping bags. Next morning I realised I had lost my keys in the night’s terror; I imagine my bike is still locked up at that bus station today. At opening time the National Express staff let me use their phone to call Job Club which agreed to buy me a train ticket. Another glimmer of hope, my cats were coming with me to Brighton. I perked up a bit after that, letting the cats out to wee, walking them down to the end of the bus station on a couple of bits of string. They hadn’t made a murmur despite 18 hours in their basket.
“I couldn’t fold the tent so I grabbed a wheely bag full of essentials, the cats and my bike, and struggled out of the bushes onto the grass near the road”
I thanked the ladies at National Express as they had let me use the phone and sit out of the cold all day. It was dark again now as we boarded the train. Thank God I was finally going home. It was late, maybe 9pm, when we got to Brighton station. Stooping like an old lady because of the broken wheels, I struggled out into the cold Brighton air, basket of cats in one hand, bag in the other. Fear killed my tiredness and I had a place in mind. A three-mile walk later I arrived at the bottom of Wilson Avenue where there is a nature reserve, golf course and campsite. It was so cold and I’d been awake for 48 hours, I knew I needed to get warm. Walking a further 20 minutes into East Brighton Park, I found a bushy, icy, crunchy hill that felt safe. I let the cats out and fed them so they knew they were home, then putting half the tent on the ground, and pulling the sleeping bags and the rest of the tent over me, I slept. That first day I woke only long enough to call each of the cats in for a cuddle before I went back to sleep, waking finally to whiteness. I wandered around wrapped in a sleeping bag looking for a proper camp, stopping only to say hello to a guy who called out “morning!”. The cats were fine, from here on in they really were fine. I was homeless on and off for six months, in and out of hostels until I was given temporary accommodation with my babies. These 48 hours were the life or death part of my journey. I just had to keep going until I got us semi-safe, until I could get them a home. I never did give them up, and although Alister got run over two years later, he knew his mum loved him. I'm crying as I write that I've lost him, but Sophie and three other cats now live with me in my own flat, in our own home. In Brighton.
Leaning and lurching on the bike, with the cat basket on one handle bar and my broken bag stuffed full of tent and sleeping bags on the other, it all proved too heavy as I cycled down the hill to the bus station. The pedals felt funny and then the crank went. I missed my bus. Hopeful, I waited, but the next bus wouldn’t have me or my cats. The ticket was void, National Express has a policy - no animals. I cried and cried. The woman driving
JAZMIN LOUISE KATREL
It was a nightmare. I remember my box set of Friends splashing across the mud, gas bottle hanging near the fire, papers splurged everywhere, looking like a murder scene. I couldn't fold the tent so I grabbed a wheely bag full of essentials, the cats and my bike, and struggled out of the bushes onto the grass near the road. I was soaked with sweat and rolling up the tent in the pitch black when a guy in a car asked if I needed help. I didn’t even look up.
