Gary – Patient

NHS is its people and everyone has their own life story. This is Gary’s:

I was born in Croydon 1962. My father was a gardener and my mother a prostitute.

I remember being really small and my dad getting upset because my mother was saying good bye to him and to us.
“Don’t upset the children!” he said.
“I was just telling them a story of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck!” she answered, but it was a lie. Unfortunately, I have quite a good memory. She told us we had to leave and that was it; me and my two-year older brother Kenton was taken into care.

We were later given back to my mother and her new boyfriend, a man who subsequently got lifed off for murder of some woman in Old Coulsdon. They both abused us. I would imagine it’s a very strange thing for a mother to do…  Ken, that was how we called my brother, always tried to protect me though. Like when we were being raped by various… My mother’s partners… He would offer himself up so that I didn’t have to.

Again, we would be taken into care, but the abuse continued; by foster parents, uncles… We moved to various care homes and then we came to Shirley Oakes[1] in Addiscombe, where the abuse continued.

I was around twelve when my mother took me out of a place called High Beeches in Redhill. I still trusted her to a degree. But it turned out to be all just about that she could go to Croydon council and get a house; as soon as she was rehomed I was put back in care.

I couldn’t really read and write; I learned it properly later; over the years. I was always told I was stupid. I went to 28 different schools; forever being the new boy.  And of course when you’re without parents; you get bullied; like; “you haven’t got a dad, you haven’t got a mum.” I thought that “oh, that’s quite a relief actually…” HAHAHA!

Ken loved music, especially Pink Floyd; we were all into the Floyd. The first record I ever bought was The Dark Side of the Moon, in South Norwood 1973. I was about ten or eleven and me and Ken went half’s, I think it cost £1.70. I contributed money but he kept it in his collection… Like; he’s the older brother, isn’t he?

I was thirteen when we were in Gipsy hill one day, taking drugs, and a guy overdosed. We ended up carrying his dead body over to another flat. Ken helped me to inject heroin the first time. He knew I was adamant on doing it and wanted to make sure I got it right. We used to take acid together… everything possible… Probably even brick dust that was mixed in with the heroin… HAHA!  We even swapped a few girlfriends in the past… That’s brothers, inn’t?

I always looked up to him; he was my big brother and he was a big guy as well, you know. Six foot seven! We had that special connection of protecting ourselves, keeping ourselves… Each other! I was the younger one and allowed him to look after the pair of us. When there was a fight in a pub; he would lay in there and get me out of it.

I left care when I was fifteen… Had temporary jobs… Found my first girlfriend and got her pregnant when I was sixteen. We married; that was the right thing to do at the time.

Ken had a girlfriend down in Brighton; Kim, a beautiful little girl. He was getting serious with her and I was already with my partner so I said to him:
“Ken, come on, that will do you good man!”
“No, I can’t trust, can I?” he said, “I can’t trust women! I can’t trust my mother!”

One day, I went looking for him. I’d lent Ken money to buy some video recorders that had sort of fallen out of the back of a lorry. This was 1982 and they were pretty much the in-thing. It was £200; a lot of money back then but it wasn’t mine…  I was gonna sell ‘em on for him… But he never turned up. I couldn’t find him; I decided to go to the place in Gipsy hill again, where I thought he might be.

No 18 Bristow Road, a squat. I banged on the door; it was locked. It didn’t take me long to break it down. Straight away, I saw him lying on the floor in the living room. He’d gone a funny colour… He looked like a doll; a doll in Ken’s ordinary jeans and his blue soft shoes. Desperate, I managed to find a mirror and put it in front of his face… Tried to find signs of breathing, of life but… Nothing. There was nothing…  Just the smell. Don’t know of what; he just smelt weird.

I ran upstairs. A couple was fast asleep in the bedroom and there was a baby in a cot. I didn’t know what to do. It hadn’t really sunk in. I didn’t want to think it was my brother overdosing, taking his own life. First, I tried to blame the other people for it… There was no money or video recorders. There was nothing but his body. They basically robbed him; they knew he was dead! I tried to have it out with the man. But then I did a very cowardly thing; I left and got the police.

Ken was my best friend, brother, my pal, my… Everything. The two of us had gone through it all together. He’d always protect me. I’d never be able to pay him back… Not ever. I was nineteen years old.

Later, the police came up to my flat in Old Coulsdon and told me that Kenton Peters had been found dead in a squat in Gipsy hill… I never told them that I was the one who found him. I had to go and identify his body and all that. It was unreal… Like a really, really bad dream. Even years afterwards, it still used to feel like Ken would come back.

He had thirty-seven pence on him. I know because that’s what the police gave me back as his possessions. That and three silver rings from his ear.

Elmer’s End’s cemetery, 17^th of September 1982. Friends helped to pay for his funeral. First, he was brought to my mother’s address in Lower Addiscombe. With Ken being so tall, the coffin was huge; it probably measured seven foot, and wouldn’t get through the hallway. The funeral service had to put it in through the living room window! They didn’t want to do it first; they thought it was disrespectful, but fact was that, as children, we had broken into the house that way many times so I felt it was appropriate! So the coffin went in, was put on two small stools, and I asked them to take the lid off. 

There my brother was. All laid out, hands crossed on the chest and his face full of powder and makeup. He had that cheese cloth shirt he’d had on when I found him. And the same jeans and blue shoes.

My mum was in the house for a while, but then she went off, probably getting drunk somewhere… I had friends that came over and my father showed up at one point. He didn’t want to see so I put the lid back on.

And then it was only me. I think I was there on my own with Ken for maybe four hours. On his wrist and ankle there were name tags with his name. I cut them off. I put a piece of hash in his hand and then opened his shirt to put a dope leaf (we used to do home growing in them days) on his chest. But I unbuttoned it too far: There was a massive scar from side to side across his upper abdomen, from the autopsy they’d done. He was sewn up like an old blanket. I didn’t need to see that. The sight haunts me to this day.

Then I took a flannel and started wiping all the powder off his face. You know, Ken never wore makeup so I wasn’t going to let him go to his grave being full of it! I took my earrings out and put them in Ken’s, and I took his from the belongings they had given me earlier and put in mine. That’s where they have been ever since.

The car park outside the little chapel was full. There were cars parked everywhere, along lanes, on the grass, all around Lower Addiscombe. Two hundred people turned up! Ken had loads of friends… New friends, old friends, druggy friends; all sorts of people… Friends of both me and Ken, but mainly Ken. He was a party animal! Then he was lowered into the ground and we throw handfuls of soil in. I remember there were conkers out. After, I went and got drunk. Slaughtered. Can’t remember a thing after that!

I split up with my wife… Actually, I met my second wife on the day of my brother’s funeral; my old school friend’s wife! I had no morals in them days… So I remarried, had another daughter and then moved up to north Wales… Just trying to get away from everything. I was absolutely devastated. I had left my first daughter and her mum in Croydon somewhere… I basically abandoned them… I just couldn’t handle it… Coward!

A couple of years later I split up again and married my next door neighbour! You see; no morals! I had a house up there; £8000 for a three-bedroom cottage, pretty cheap. Where I got money from? Oh, various places, shall I say… HAHAHA.

I started working for a taxi firm, the guy wanted to retire, I took over his business, bought something else and before I knew it I had hot dog vans, fruit machines, pool tables, gaming… all over this little town. I did well and I didn’t take that much drugs either. I was working like mad; every hour! Workaholic; addictive personality! It came to a crunch with my wife in the early nineties and I left with £5000. She got the three houses and all the businesses.

With five grand in my pocket, I went to Tenerife for a break and ended up staying for two years… Two girlfriends down there and two more babies and I didn’t even tell them my surname or where I came from… Terrible!

Christmas morning 1992. I came back to Gatwick airport. It was snowing… I had no jacket, no money and my feet were half-broken. There were no trains so I had to walk from Gatwick to Addiscombe, which took me most of the day. I stayed at a friend’s place and then got a job working for a local taxi firm, but it just wasn’t the same; I had no enjoyment in doing it.

I met up with an old dealer from years earlier, moved in with her and soon we were off to India! I was her carer so that paid for everything. She was on disability-whatever; we had a couple of hundred quid per week. We rented nice apartments, took taxis everywhere and would drink and take drugs all day and all night. We lived like kings and queens over there.

Every now and again, I had to come back home for a visa change, and on one such occasion it happened to be my mum’s funeral! I went as I was around anyway, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. I made it down to the funeral parlour to see her. She was laying in the coffin in a room behind. I touched her cold skin; she really was dead and I felt quite pleased! I decided on telling her some home truths. I told her that she’d always been as she was now; cold. I told her that if it wasn’t for her, my brother wouldn’t have died. He wouldn’t have been abused and neither would I. I told her this to her dead face. But she knew all that anyway!

She used to be a convent girl, you know! It came from my grandmother, who was born in Dublin 1910 and a staunch Catholic. My mother went to Coloma convent in Upper Shirley. It’s still there now.  Imagine; my mum a convent girl! HAHAHA!

In 2001, we’d just been on a three-week psychedelic party and I’m walking down the street in Jaipur in Rajasthan when the earth starts moving under my feet.  As buildings fall down, I realise this trip is different; this is real. An earthquake. It was like watching a movie… A newsreel unfolding in front of you. Twenty thousand people died. Unreal!

Somehow we managed to get back to Goa. I had a dislocated shoulder, which a back street shopkeeper/doctor pushed back into place with the help of his mates and a bottle of brandy. But it came out another three times and I had malaria as well, which didn’t help. I really needed a look-over and a seven-year India trip came to an end. We went back to the UK.

I split up with the girlfriend and then somehow became accused of attempted murder. I was on double A cat (category A prison) at High Down prison with murderers and the likes. My first cellmate had killed his best friend. He was guilty of something; I wasn’t.

As assumed, it prevailed. The accusation was complete fabrication. I was found not guilty, but that was after three months! This was the first and only time I ever spent time inside. I’m not saying I’ve never done anything wrong, but I was never caught for anything. And then you get caught for something you didn’t do. I suppose that’s rough justice! HAHAHA. Anyway; I was free again.

Free and homeless. If I’d come out of prison after being in there guilty of something, probation would have given me a bed in a hostel. When released as innocent after three months; I got nothing.

I started sleeping rough. I stayed in bus stops, wherever I could find. My biggest haunt was the car park at Wandle road in Croydon. There was an air vent upstairs that kept you warm. I wouldn’t sleep in doorways because then you have people coming from pubs peeing on you and you don’t need that as well as being homeless. HAHAHA.

In the morning, I’d go to a café and have a coffee or a cup of tea, not breakfast; just the cheapest. Then I’d use the facilities. Not always in the same place. Carparks are pretty good; there’s usually a toilet there, if not always very hygienic… Or in council offices. I’d go anywhere. I’m quite used to washing! HAHAHA. You can’t say that about many people who live in houses! I know; I’ve met them! No excuse man! Soap and water doesn’t cost that much! I’d brush my teeth every day… Keep my hygiene up. The hardest thing was getting clean clothes. And there was no one to talk to apart from other drug takers and drinkers.

From seven years of a comfortable high flying life in India to prison and then into a carpark in Croydon:  What a comedown! I think it might be a self-destruct button. When I was 25,  I was diagnosed with schizophrenia.[2]  But I always thought… I just thought everyone heard voices and had feelings of killing themselves… I thought that was the norm.

I’ve been into various mental health institutions over the years… For months at a time. I had electric shock treatment, I had all sorts of weird stuff that they say they don’t do now. I’m presently under the mental health team in Croydon. But I just see a psychologist now, which is quite good. I’m doing a course in psychology so that I can understand mine and other people’s conditions.

I’m trying to think happy thoughts. I was given a list from the psychiatry department; “try chewing gum, use headphones or singing.” HAHAHA. That’s their cure for psychological issues. Stick in a chewing gum and that will take your mind off things!

I had some “going back to your childhood-therapy” 10-15 years ago and ended up waking up in Mayday hospital in resus because I had tried killing myself. In fact, what I’ve just said to you today on your voice recorder, is as about open as I’ve ever been. But this is a better environment… It’s a café and not a medical issue thing… And, you know, maybe this will make me feel better; to get it off my chest… Not that you ever will get it off your chest! But if it doesn’t… If it doesn’t do me any good; then it will be my funeral in about two weeks! I’m joking by the way! HAHA!

Anyway, back to the streets. I used to queue up at Concorde house for half a day and then have a benefit payment at about four o’clock. It used to be £4 something, it’s a few years ago now. It didn’t go far.

I used heroin or crack cocaine daily. I would go and score amounts of drugs for certain people, get a good deal and I would then take some off from it, make up the weight with other substances, hand over their amount and have mine left on the side. After having done that a few times; I’d have my own fix. I had a £200/day habit but never the cash; just £200 worth of drugs. And you can’t sell it because next morning you need a fix! I was lucky I got on the Methadone programme; that has been my saving grace!

After a couple of years, I started going to a drug clinic at Thornton Heath called The Oaks. A doctor there wrote a letter for me to take to Croydon council. He was sort of stressing that I shouldn’t be living on the streets because I wouldn’t survive that much longer due to my addictions and health, which was getting pretty bad.

So I went to Croydon council, sat in their offices day after day, partly to keep warm, partly trying to sort out this letter thing. Nothing much happened; it was all back and forth. But then one evening, at half past seven I got a phone call coming in on my little Nokia push button phone, saying that I should make my way to the council office and see the security; there was a letter for me! That letter gave me access to a bed and breakfast and that opened the door to a way out.

Around then, I went to see my dad who lived in East Sussex in Portslade. He clearly was unwell. He had a mask connected to tubes to help him breathe and went on explaining bits and pieces of his condition. He almost begged for a bit of help, or no; he did beg for help. And I couldn’t say no. He was a very weak character, my dad. He had no get-up and go.  After the divorce with my mum he disappeared from my life. I can sort of relate to that because I’ve done similar things in my life. I ended up looking after him for nine months, until he died. Wiped his bum and everything.

I’ve been off heroin for ten years, I haven’t taken crack cocaine for five years, I haven’t drunk alcohol for nine years and I haven’t smoked any wacky backy or any tobacco for two years. Maybe a bit late, but I did turn it around! Is my life alright now? No, it’s better; not alright. I don’t know what that word means.

I don’t go to the doctors unless I really need to. The last time I saw my GP was when I had stomach pain. She said; “Gary, I think you’ve got cancer!”

That was it; I was sure I was dying. I convinced myself I was dying. And I didn’t want my children to pay for my funeral; three and a half grand on the co-op. I took a bank loan out!

I had to go to the hospital and have endoscopies down and up. On a Friday I got a letter and I think I went in on the following Monday, it was quick! A tube was inserted down there and up here and during the procedure, I watched the monitor.  It seemed clean; it looked good. Only some inflammation of the stomach lining. But I still had to wait for the results. One horrible week! I was petrified. But it came back clear! There was no cancer.

I have COPD and mobility issues; I’m walking with a stick… My hands, my ankles… Just to get around I find a struggle. I’m on three-four inhalers, I take twenty-eight different medicines a day. But you know; I’m lucky to still be around… Most of my old friends are dead! So, I’m grateful… To the NHS really! If it wasn’t for the NHS I wouldn’t be here!

I could never afford healthcare! Like most people in this country; I’m relying on it. It’s a lifesaver! Does NHS provide a good service? Yes, on the whole; sometimes you have to wait a while but… At least it’s there! It needs more funding, definitely. We got older communities coming up now; I’ll be joining them in thirteen years… Hopefully! HAHAHA.

As told to David Ingemarsson 2019

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Tim Hardin’s song “Lenny’s tune”, sung by Morrissey.

[1] Gary didn’t go into it, but Shirley Oakes was a care home where sexual abuse took place on an “industrial scale.” It was run by Lambeth Council until 1983 and through its twenty-four-year long existence, 7000 children were its residents and care subjects. More than sixty abusers and paedophiles, among them council employees, doctors and carers, have been identified. At least 400 children suffered abuse, including rapes. https://www.independent.co.uk

[2] This came as a complete surprise. I had spent a couple of hours on three different occasions with Gary without observing anything odd or eccentric; something you otherwise often do when meeting people having this diagnose.

I chose to publish this story because, among its grimness and cruelty, there’s also hope and survival. However, if you’re reading this and feel in despair – Do call the helpline number below.

Samaritan’s free helpline: 116 123.