Five Daughters

I've thoroughly depressed myself writing about housing, but all morning I've been wanting to write a small post on this three part BBC drama about the prosititutes that were killed in Ipswich in 2006 (crikey I'm getting old, it doesn't feel that long ago).

The drama, which finished last night, tells the lives of the five woman who were murdered. They were daughters, sisters, mothers, all addicted to heroin and crack and sold themselves to fund their addiction.

So powerful this story, which was written with full co-operation of the Suffolk police and family and friends of the girls, that I did what I haven't done for ages, which is cry uncontrollably.

It was about the effects of drugs on these women; how addiction is all consuming and comes before everything. We remember don't we, these women still walking the streets at night despite the killer not having been caught. To see their bodies in the morgue and their mothers crying over them was more than I could handle, having witnessed their relationships with eachother, their families, themselves.

In it a drugs counsellor wonders how money that has been donated to his refuge should be used to help the girls. In one scene he gives an addict some money so that she will not go on the streets that night.

Made me think of an article I'd read earlier about addicts being given their heroin in hospitals so they don't have to go to dealers (Guardian: yesterday). Many groups are against this but I think, like some others quoted in the article, coupled with counselling, it could work towards individuals getting off the drug completely and moving forward with their lives.

Worth a try anyway I'd say.

RIP: Gemma Adams, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennel, Tania Nicol and Annette Nicholls

The man in Kentish Town

As I sit outside a caf in Kentish Town reading this week's CNJ while I wait for my support worker, a man comes up to me and asks if I can spare some tobacco.

I hand my Golden Virginia over to him and carry on reading. Then I look up and say to him:

"I'm not suggesting you are an addict or anything but what do you think of these 'secret drug centres' being planned?" I show him CNJ's front page.

"I am an addict," he says. "I've just relapsed after being clean for 18 months."

There are no words. None. I read out what's behind my question to him:

"The West End Drug Treatment Centre would bring all south Camden's drug services together under one roof and help hundreds of users conquer their addiction with counselling and medication.
"But resident groups fear the the centre will become a magnet for muggers and pushers with junkies discarding needles in the street."

"Yeah, I think they're a good idea," he says.
"Residents are against it. Do you think they've got cause to be?"
"Well yeah," he continues. "Addicts will go there because they really want help, others will go half hearted like, but dealers will come and prey."

I ask him if he has access to a computer, he could write to the paper giving his point of view.

"Oh no, I can't do that stuff, no, I can talk, do the talk loads but try and do that other stuff.... I don't even know how to use a computer, family in Australia, Canada, dunno how to do it."
"I'm the other way round."

He was 12 when he was first introduced to heroin, he was now 39 he said. He learnt to read and write in prison when he was 32. He went to local schools here, a secondary I want to send my son to. He got 'left behind'.

I tell him about the recovering addict who won an award at the Pride of Britain awards ceremony on tv last night. I tell him he can do it.

Oh I could tell you so much more about this man. It's all there, he has everything there to just take off with his life and he knows it, but so is the heroin, so is his addiction and he knows that too. He said he's on 'blockers' at the moment but I'm not going to pretend to you that this is my world reader and I know all about it. It isn't and I don't.

"It's not the same," I say pointing to my fags, "but I gave these up for a year a few years ago, then just started again. I know it's really hard."

Then my support worker arrived and the man left.

Take us home, London roads, to the place that we belong (John Denver)