Great Places

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Stewart has been homeless for most of His adult life. He slept in shop doorways, Church porches and on the platforms, But also - as he says - in some of the "Great Places ". He now lives on an abandoned allotment garden in North Yorkshire , and has no desire To Live in A House or in the apartment again. Although he has ambitious plans for The Future , he is content with His life as is.

The old pigeon shed, in which Stewart lives since June of last year, a patchwork of Chicken Wire , wood, and plastic plan. Around him, the BlackBerry bushes flourish, But the plants in the raised beds long gone, to repair the seed and the dilapidated greenhouses views of the afterlife. Wooden pallets and a rusty Bicycle frame lying in a tangle beside the water-the drums and saws.

Stewart believes That this allocation was for four or five years, But spades and forks are still in the ground, as if whoever used to work this floor, only downed tools for a tea could make a break.

It was a few weeks after The First arrival in Whitby, while walking His Border Collie , Cariad, on the cinder Track , the old Scarborough to Whitby railway line, which closed More Than 50 Years ago -That Stewart came into this place and made it His home.

Inside The Shed , the low sun falls through the corrugated plastic, Stewart used to replace the defective window panes. It is lined, The Floor and some walls with insulation boards That he salvaged from a skip, and a Bed built up His army surplus Arctic Sleeping Bag laid neatly at the top.

Soon after he'd settled in, Stewart had a visit from some curious police officers. She started snooping around, asked some questions, and later returned with some Gifts - a smoke detector and a carbon monoxide alarm.

There is no electricity or running water, But Stewart has installed a wood-burning stove, and every morning, washes himself in water from a large container, which he mines occasionally and pulls behind His bike on a trailer. He has battery powered lamps and a pile of books stacked on The Floor , at the foot of His Bed , among them a fungus-spotting field guide, and a penguin Vintage Classic, Love On The Dole.

"When she says a good book, a radio, They are warm and You are sure You can close your eyes and be anywhere", Stewart. "It doesn't matter if You are homeless or live in a Palace - it's All In the head. "

Stewart feels safe here, But Out of long habit, he takes the precaution to leave His Sleeping Bag unzipped.

"I was down Cardiff Queen Street , pulled in my Sleeping Bag and I could not Get Out because it was Zip," he tells me. "And if someone comes and sets You On Fire , You can't Get Out of the Wars... So You can do easy never, your Sleeping Bag . "

Stewart's eyes were opened to the possibility of a place That feels like home, even though They are "homeless" That about 15 years ago, when he was 26.

He was crouching in Cardiff, when he heard about a group of travellers who live on The Outskirts of The City , across The River Ely in leck with woods. They were built shelters, dug known as Bender from the branches of hazel and willow into the ground and curved arches to form. They had a tent, a tree house, a tepee, an army, a generator, and a Kitchen Sink plumbed into a spring That brings clean running water, straight through the mud.

"When I saw this stuff, it is really a idea in my head about how You simplify the things and still have a great life," he says.

Stewart spent five years there. For a while he was on His cell phone, and does not claim all the benefits. He went "off-grid".

"I just wanted to see what it would be like To Live as a free man on The Land ", he, "and I absolutely loved it, it was liberating. "

If the page was destroyed - Stewart believed That from the power company, who came regularly to the lop to grow the branches to close to pylons - he moved on. But he wanted to meet somewhere, the forests home to is always there, and sometimes he succeeds.

"I've found I have skills in search of Great Places ," he says.

It was a "stunning" in Worcester - the wheel-less rear section of a moving truck, But more like a container That is secured to the Worcester Arena. It's an empty stable on a racetrack, also in Worcester . And, more recently, in a roundabout, in Darlington, where he lived, undisturbed, in a bell-tent, surrounded by hedges for 10 months.

There are about 320,000 homeless people in the UK, although this figure included "hidden" forms of homelessness, such as people sofa-surfing with friends. Stewart will be classified by the government as a "rough sleeper", as he lives in "buildings or other places not designed for housing". it's 4,700 employees to rough sleepers in England in autumn 2018, including 250 in the Yorkshire and the Humber were.

in The Morning , Stewart tends to be early in The Morning in the summer at least.

"I have no curtains, so I Wake up usually as soon as The Sun rises. This is about eight o'clock, just now, But in the summer I was up at four o'clock in The Morning - You need to just get used to getting up when it's light Out and go to Bed when it's dark," he said.

One of His main jobs is collecting driftwood from The Beach , for use as a fuel. He jokingly refers to the wood-burner, as His television.

"It only plays one channel, But who doesn't love watching logs burn?", he says.

He explains which types of wood burn best and smell beautiful, as You burn Cherry is incredible, he says, But His favorite is birch.

Stewart is not about to challenge, no benefits at the moment, so he will not have to register, But he needs to earn money, and he does this by as a street musician.

I follow him and Cariad to Baxter gate, the main shopping street in The City , where he is up to His usual place, next to the old Kiosk and to a busy, brightly lit bakery.

"Nice guys," says Stewart, shows. "You have Pasties this amazing apple. "

He has not yet once His ukulele from His pocket when an older woman, chats for a moment and presses a folded fiver into the hand. She is a regular, he tells me later, and probably gives him the amount of the most of weeks.

"Sometimes people try, more to me than That , But if I don't know your situation, I'm not going to take it," he says.

Stewart can make ten or twenty pounds of reproduction of songs by Radiohead, The Smashing Pumpkins and Green Day for an hour or so. On some days, when the Steampunk or goth on weekends, and The Town is full to bursting, he makes much, much more, he tells me.

But it's not just about The Money . This is chat up His Chance to, to people, and the people here are mostly Friendly - unlike some, whom he met during His years on the road.

the drunks were urinating on him as he slept, and the "nice" men who approached him on cold nights, offers him somewhere to stay warm, only to turn predatory on the inside once.

"this kind of thing happens all the time," he says.

It was The Man from The Shop in a Welsh provincial town, of the envelopes to him the work of A Day filling, then has him so he pounded passed Out .

"The next thing I remember, I was Waking Up at three in The Morning , and he was on me," says Stewart. "I managed him and nothing happened, But he knew I year old a 16 - he was always drunk and trying to care for me. "

And it was the time when he was kidnapped and forced to work, to travel to the exhibition grounds for six months - They kept him in a caravan when he was working, struck him and threatened him with violence - he is still, to think That is almost unbearable, even now, 20 years.

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grew up in Southampton, Stewart was a foster child at the age of 13, after sexually abused by His mother, the partner and physically abused by her next friend. The First of four children, he was the only one who is in care and has no contact with His brother, sisters, mother, or father. He has been on His own since leaving care at the age of 16 and was homeless most of the intervening 25 years.

"I'm the only reliable person in My Life ," he says.

The First drug he tried, with 15, was LSD. Around this time he also met His first conviction, for breaking into a store and emptying of chocolate.

"I'm not very good at relationships," he says. "I'm fighting with something. "

"And I say to You , 'I know how You do it. '"

housing, homelessness in the uk, squatting, long reads, whitby, north yorkshire county council

Source of news: bbc.com