THREE WEEKS TO DISPAIR

Behind every tatty sleeping bag
and cardboard box there is a human being
with a family, a history and a personality.

Time now an empty shell
Memories in the broken glass
The daily journey to despair
Where luck's poured out till nothing's left
And she wants to run away
Away from the light
And the rain falls and the night calls
In the shadows we've all passed
Life like an empty book
With pictures that fade and die
Tears in a bottle of dreams
Schemes that never last
He wants to runaway, away from the lies
And the rain falls and the night calls
In the shadows we've all passed
Hope in an empty box
Reality in a paper cup
Empty in a hungry world
Did they fall or did we push?
And they want to run away
Away from the fight
And the rain falls and the night calls
In the shadows we've all passed


"I start about half eight in the morning, right, I do a bit of begging, like, till about nine at night-time."

“There’s only one problem with the police - they keep moving me on.”

“It’s hard to make friends these days, they tell me.”

“I was in Stockport, once, right, begging, and I was kicked in the face.”

“I know I look a bit dirty and scruffy and so on.”

“I haven’t had a bath now for two weeks - bad news, isn’t it? I don’t smell, do I?”

“All right, you’ve got to have a joke, sometimes.”

“I haven’t slept for two nights, now.”

“The last two places where I stopped, the kids burned it down.”

“They poured petrol on a homeless guy - they set him alight.”

"Why can’t he go out and get a job?"