The homeless view of London

A friend of mine told me a while ago about tours of London conducted by homeless people, organised by sock mob.

To me this sounded like a wonderful idea on a number of different levels, not least because I don't like being herded on and off a bus.

Seriously though, the project sounded interesting, positive and potentially empowering.

I finally found the time to attend.

A different view

Our guide for the day was Sean, he loitered inconspicuously to one side until we started the tour and then quite simply took command as if we were just a group of school children that he was trying to educate.

Our tour centred around Old Street; I had envisaged being led around a very large area but in fact our hour long tour took us round a very small section of Old Street, there was just a surprising amount to be shown.

I think that in a lot of ways I have become quite jaded, or at least I did until I met Sean.

I'm a bouncing ball of naive innocence in comparison to him.

However, I have never lost my home.

The tour

He told us stories, and showed us places I'd never noticed before - and I've spent a lot of time in Old Street.

It was interesting, yet sad.

He showed us a lot of places that had dreamed of a fairer and more charitable world, but had hit the rocks of commercial reality or unscrupulous councils.

I was forced to look through his eyes and it made me ashamed, angry and sad.

Taking stock

A friend of mine challenged some of the facts that he had quoted at me later, it sowed a seed of mistrust that had simply not been there before, but I knew some of them had been accurate and though the journalist in me will try and source some of them, the humanitarian in me is furious that someone's word shouldn't be taken as readily as my honest words are spoken.

This food for thought cost me £5 and kept me occupied at a time of year that everyone seems to be focused solely on the shops.

I will leave you with one statement he made that has not left my mind.

For the Olympics all the homeless people in the area will be asked to move to Derby, those that refuse will be sent to mental hospital for the duration.

Sean thinks he'd prefer the hospital.

Did I mention that he had a wicked sense of humour.