I arrived back in Hampshire on October 11th 2010, I came out of the airport arrivals and logged onto a computer, I was afraid that anyone would be really concerned about my two weeks of silence while I had been locked up, I had many many emails in both accounts, but no-one was too worried, because in the end I had only had intermittent email access as I had no transport or computer or money, I was saddened by the email from the stroke association, I had been meant to be running in a marathon for them when I was in custody.
I didn’t read most of my emails, there were a load from Shirley, I never read them. I went on Facebook and said I was in Hampshire, I got a few questions about when I would be coming to London, and I said I was back permenantly so there was no rush .
I had nowhere to go, I had money in my account as my salary from before the arrest had come through while I had been locked up, and I had obviously spent nothing, I got a cup of tea, cups of tea help with most things including blind terror and being utterly destroyed.
I was exhausted and shaking, I wasn’t going to get far from the airport, I did not want to collapse and end up detained again, so I crossed the road to that Travelodge type place, the rooms there are expensive, but I needed to keep myself safe from being detained again, I booked a room, the people on the desk seemed unstartled by my appearance and I do not know if they could see my lack of underwear and the shock I was in, I unpacked the clothes that the police had flung together in bags, there was very little wearable in there, it was mainly my old or unwearable clothes and worn out work clothes, but at least there was a bra in there, it was a high impact sports bra that I wore for training, it pulled on my shoulders badly as those things do, but at least it was a bra, I could have some modesty and dignity back. The only shoes I had were my old soft shoes that were worn through at the soles, there were holes right through the soles, they were meant for indoors, but I had nothing else and had not been able to afford anything.
It was good to have a long hot luxurious bath, but I didn’t stop shaking, I I put on what clean clothes I could, it was difficult because they really had sent the rubbish and left my everyday clothes behind, all my other possessions were left behind, and sadly I never had the means to make any arrangement to collect them. I literally lost everything I ever achieved, even my certificates and awards, meaning I will never be able to get a job as I have no proof at all of qualifications; I lost my toys, my keyboard, my books, my trinkets and personal possessions, my photographs, everything I had left from my clearout and burning of things when my life collapsed after what the Keys said to me. Everything was gone, even the exciting tall ship adventure that I had been offered free of charge.
To someone with autism, losing everything so suddenly and shockingly is traumatic beyond belief.
So there I was, destitute, in shock, destroyed, condemned completely, with my cherished good record gone, my life condemned by abusers and their supporters. Everything Ihad ever lived or worked for was gone, my home my job, my sports, my college, my worship, my volunteer work, all gone, everything I had worked so hard for, and there I was, condemned, shamed, undressed, jeered at, called terrible things, the only good thing I could think of was that I was rid of Jane Fisher and the diocese, surely that awful woman would be satisfied now, surely they would leave me alone now, and I was home in my beloved Hampshire, even though my heart was with the boats and the sea around Jersey, and will be forever.
I tried to put myself to bed but I kept hurtling across the room crying out in distress, I couldn’t cry properly but I was whimpering, I put the television on to ‘Magic Radio’ and the soft music helped me to calm down.
In the morning I couldn’t look out the window at the aeroplanes, the aeroplanes that I would never fly on again, the aeroplanes that were going home without me, the aeroplanes that had made me more equal with the people who had belittled me, the aeroplanes that had made me go up in the world and into a better quality of life, and now brought me back to a life that would never have quality again.
I went to Winchester, leaving my bags in the safe storage of the hotel, I went to the nightshelter, wondering if they would have any beds free as they get quite full, I spoke to the secretary and manager and they said they had a bed for me, they said that I should come back in the evening and be registered for a bed, I wondered how on earth I was going to explain to them why I was homeless, and I was so ashamed, I did not know then that the diocese were going to be hot on my heels with all their explanations and cover ups and pretence of concern of me, I thought that the whole church situation was finally and horribly over. But I was wrong, I had not escaped Jane Fisher, the invincible legal expert cover up officer, she had punishment upon punishment in store for me, including becoming involved in my use of the Nightshelter and Trinity Centre and the cover up of this intervention, to my detriment.
The Nightshelter sent me to the Trinity centre, the daycentre for homeless people, and I went there and tried exhaustedly to answer their questions as best I could.
I collected my bags from Southampton and went to the Nightshelter in the evening, The man who checked me in, Phil took a long long time to check me in, part of it was that he kept interrupting my explaination of the church’s damage to me by telling me that he was a Christian who had suffered at the hands of the church too, and he went on into a ramble about City Church and the politics there and how he had had to leave and now he was a Christian without a church and the rest of it. Other residents kept coming into the office and demanding things and talking as he checked me in, later this hour long check in was used to degrade me, as if I was doing something wrong, I was humiliated to hear it repeated back to me as if I had been wasting Phil’s time, he had done the talking and rambling, not me, I did my very best to briefly explain my side, and I have no doubt that Jane Fisher must have been very concerned for the Bishop and diocese’s reputation when she knew that I had been released and come back to Winchester and the homeless services, and so the diocese intervened, but it was a lot later and after I had puzzled over the manager’s unhelpfulness that I found out about this intervention as a priest smashed me down on behalf of Jane Fisher and Juliet and the diocese, but I will explain that horrible incident later.
I made no contact with the diocese on my return to Winchester, I had no intention of doing so, and stupidly believed that they would do likewise, stupidly, stupidly believed that now they had destroyed me and made it clear beyond anything that they did not believe me and believed Key, that they would accept that they had severely ‘punished’ me and would leave me alone, but I was mistaken, very mistaken, I had forgotten Jane Fisher’s job of protecting the church’s reputation, and here I was in Winchester, destroyed and such a danger to that reputation, and I have no doubt that despite this statement being true, Jane Fisher has and is there to ‘hush things up’ that too will be hidden and covered so that it does look like the diocese were simply ‘concerned’ about me, despite being the ones who destroyed me and their ‘concern’ having no benefit to me whatsoever and being of great harm to me as well as the fact that they refused to withdraw their interventions since I came back and went on and on intervening as I screamed at them in anguish, my reopening of communication with them was entirely provoked as continued to be hurt, shocked and harmed by their intervention and its impact on me.
And guess what they did about me going out of my mind and screaming at Jane Fisher to back down and asking the Bishop again and again to withdraw her from intervention? They had me attacked by the police, covered up their intervention and made it look as if I was mad, I was treated nastily and brutally by the police, and was bruised and thrown around screaming in terror and distress, I was locked up and had the police outside the cell calling me paranoid and a troublemaker and getting my CRB check on the computer and the diocese having hidden what had happened in Jersey and dissociated themselves from it, I was called a troublemaker because of what they read about what was written, that one sided destroyal of me in Jersey, so there I was, destroyed by what had happened in Jersey and having suffered and suffered at Fisher’s hands since my return to Winchester, being called a troublemaker and seriously mentally ill because the diocese took offence at my autistic despairing reaction to the terrible and wrong continued interference in my life.
Anyway that comes later, back to the story:
I went to the Trinity Centre the next day after a night of sickness and nightmares at the Nightshelter, and when I went to the Trinity Centre I had a terrible terrible shock, Lou Scott-Joynt phoned me, she had somehow got my number muddled up with Sandy Newman’s number and was obviously aware that Sandy was involved with me, she was trying to phone Sandy about me and had phoned me! I collapsed, Lou Scott-Joynt realised she had phoned me and said ‘oh is that Judith? This is Lou Scott-Joynt’. I told her to go to hell and I put the phone down in shock, later I found that I also had a previous missed call from her on my phone, I was so shocked I escaped from the Trinity centre and was sobbing and sick, I phoned Sandy who was still in Jersey, I told her that Lou-Scott-Joynt had been trying to phone her and that I was going to the police, I told her I could not cope with the diocese continuing to interfere now that they had destroyed me, Sandy said that if anyone spoke to her that she would speak to them and would listen and that her opinion would still be her own, but the diocesan interference and Sandy and Roy being involved at all has taken away the trust of that long strong relationship, I do not feel that I am safe from the prying church and their interference and I feel ashamed and humiliated and unwilling to confide anything to Roy and Sandy any more, can I ask you to imagine the impact of this on me? Roy and Sandy may be different ages to me, but they were some of my first friends and it was a long, strong and trusting relationship where I didn’t feel judged, now I feel condemned and ashamed and humiliated and unable to trust when I see them, in all appearances the relationship would seem the same as ever, but inside the bonds are frayed and the solidness is gone. I am sorry to admit that, it breaks my heart, the love is still there but it is overshadowed by the hurt, and Lou Scott-Joynt really stuck the knife in by what she did, if she had got hold of Sandy instead of me and it had been kept quiet, I do not know what would have happened, but she got me, and she left me traumatised and shocked to realise that the diocese thought they could simply continue to rape my life. I do not know if she proceeded to talk to Sandy, but people obviously have, and so I feel ashamed when I go to see Sandy, Sandy’s daughter Claire is obviously unsure of me, and one day she was there with her friend Becky, Becky had obviously been told whatever Roy and Sandy and Claire’s view of the matter was as she blurted out something about it in a very bright and humiliating way and went on to say something about me wearing Claire’s old top, even though at the time I wasn’t, I was wearing similar, but she seemed to think it was all a great joke, and I was very humiliated, while Claire tried to get Becky to hush up and go upstairs with her.
Back to the story, I went straight from the Trinity Centre to the police station, I was so shocked and seeing police on top of that was the last thing I needed, but I could not stand the thought of the diocese going on and on and on hurting me, I was broken beyond healing and I do not know how I got through those first terrible days back in Winchester, the policeman who I spoke to was actually very nice, this was before the Bishop and Jane Fisher had their say to the police, the policeman looked at my phone and I told him what had happened, I was panicking from being in the policestation and I was in shock from the call from Lou Scott-Joynt, I do not know how I didn’t break down completely, I showed the policeman the number on my phone, afterwards I worried in case I had shown him the nightshelter number which is similar and had also come up when the nightshelter secretary had tested that she had my mobile number by phoning it. The policeman said he would phone Lou Scott-Joynt and ask her not to contact me and for the diocese to leave me alone, he said I did not look like a troublemaker when I explained to him how the diocese had got me done for retaliating to what had been happening in Jersey. He said he would phone me back to let me know about it, but he never did.
I went to See Anne and Ray, the last thing I wanted to do was bring my problems to them, I wanted to see them, in all this destroyal the sweetest thing was to be able to see Anne and Ray, I went to see them, I didn’t go on about what had happened to me or my situation, the last thing I wanted was to load them with my problems even though they are emotionally balanced and don’t get overwhelmed with anyone’s problems, I made a great effort to be cheerful and happy to be in Hampshire, I told them that I was in the nightshelter and we just chatted. Anne wanted me to come back and see them again soon, and I said I would, sadly a few days later I spoke to Anne on the phone about coming to see them when she had said I could, but she told me she had had an email forwarded to her by Juliet, which was from Jane Fisher, I was indescribably shocked and angry, this woman Jane Fisher was using Juliet, who had covered Fred’s abuse by calling me malicious and who had involved herself in the matter in Jersey and harmed me by doing so, Jane Fisher was using Juliet in this matter as if I was not shamed and humiliated enough! And was raping my friendship with Anne and Ray this way, humiliating me, giving the church’s opinion to my friends, there was an is no way that the arrest and imprisonment will ever heal for me, and it was bad enough my friends knowing that this terrible thing had happened, but for the diocese to go on and interfere in this way after what had happened was intolerable. I do not know what Jane Fisher said in her email, I do know that there is no way whatsoever that this could have been beneficial to me.
Anyway after Anne repeatedly trying to talk to me and force this onto me while I screamed, that was the end of my friendship with Anne and Ray, Anne died this year and the diocese would not even let me grieve, they raped my grief and used it to the police as well,
But anyway back to the day when Anne told me that she had had this email, I went back to the police, I was again in a terrible state, I said to the police that the diocese were still driving me mad and sending emails to my friends and I didn’t want to contact the diocese so could the police stop them please? The police were less believing this time, I told them that Jane Fisher was sending emails that were upsetting my friendships and provoking me, and that the diocese had no further reason to be involved now that they had got what they wanted. I told them that the diocese had got me done for retaliating to the terrible situation in Jersey, they asked me who had investigated the abuse in Jersey, they asked me Anne and Ray’s name and asked about Juliet and Jane Fisher, they asked if I was suicidal and mistakenly said they thought I had come in suicidal and dangerous because of this incident and I said no, that I was just very distressed, they asked if this had happened before and I was puzzled, they said they had seen it on the system about the time when I had ended up in the police station because the WPC had considered me suicidal due to my row with George and Jill. I said I was not suicidal – I did not want or need to be locked in and hurt any further, the police seargent turned nice and said that they would speak to the diocese and that I should take things easy and that I would have good and bad days and things would get better eventually, I found this helpful and reassuring, as well as the fact that I had now been in a police station twice without being battered and locked up. The policeman and saergent said they would speak to the diocese and get back to me, they never got back to me but I know the diocese well enough to know how well and efficiently they would have covered up, all the words about how they were ‘trying to help me’, ‘concerned for me’, ‘sorry that they had to take action against me but they did and they were worried for my welfare’, all the empty smooth talk, and the fact that what they had done theb situation they had caused and the fact that they were hurting and provoking me beyond bearing while I could do nothing to defend myself and was watching my precious friendships go down the drain at the hands of the people who had just had me convicted seemed irrelevant and forgotten, but I refrained from contacting the diocese. I trusted the police, wrongly, to ask these people to refrain.
I spoke with my other friends, Elizabeth and Peter May, again they had been made aware of the situation by other people, not me, I asked who, and they tried to avoid the question, they said ‘people who are concerned about you’, I persisted in asking who, and they said ‘oh, Anne Wiggle and other people who were concerned’, Anne and Ray said they had spoken to no-one, Elizabeth and Peter’s friendship with me had always exclusively been me going to see them at Sparsholt, the onlyplaces I saw the Mays were at their house, at the church, and at the fete or the school, but Elizabeth wanted to meet me in town, which seemed very odd, and reminded me of the diocese, of Tracy suddenly telling me I couldn’t come to her house without explaining why, and how that damaged me, I was suspicious, I met with the Mays but told them not to discuss anything, Elizabeth refused to answer my continued questions and so I told the Mays just as I told Anne and Ray, that I believed them to be unsafe friends to me due to the diocese, there were no protests or attempts to stay in touch, and the friendships had become, through the diocese, just empty tools of pretend concern, my friends were gone, Shirley Lupton made attempts to contact me and to come to the Nightshelter with things for me, I had told the nightshelter that no-one from the church was to come or to interact about me, but they had ignored that and Shirley left me some things of mine that had been at her house, and a note, which made me upset and angry, I did not want the raped destroyed friendships from the church penetrating the nightshelter and I was angry that the instruction to the nightshelter that no-one from the church was to contact me or discuss me with the nightshelter had been overridden, and I reinforced that wish angrily, and told Shirley to leave me alone. I also found out that the Bishop of Winchester is patron of the Nightshelter, and so my stay there was under the shelter of the man who destroyed me and he was free to access my records and cause prejudice and unsettle me and separate me from the helpers.
So I had been back a week and seen the diocese completely wipe out years of trust and friendships, my strongest, oldest and most valuable friendships, and humiliate me completely, I had been back a week and had had to go to the police twice, I had been back a week and the nightmares and distress and panics were being heaped on me by the church when what had happened was already unbearable.
I referred myself to the council after the support workers failed to do anything about the housing process, but after an hour and a half trying to survive a meeting with the council we had made little progress and I was exhausted, they made another Appointment for two days time, but I was ill that day and the support workers at teh shelter suddenly wanted to be involved, they cancelled the appointment and no more appointments were made so I gave up, later on after I had left the shelter, the support worker who now crosses the street tried to get me an appointment without even asking me, I cancelled it as I was just too confused and wary, more recently the Mental health services encouraged me to go back to the council but I am simply not able to cope with the meetings and paperwork and am at a point where I prefer to be street homeless and would not want to be on a council estate anyway, it would bring me down not lift me up, I know council estates, I am not being arrogant but I don’t belong there.
Back to the story:
I was in a mess, wearing these ragged clothes and shoes that were worn through, walking all the time in these soft unsupportive shoes which were causing my ankle to struggle, the shoes were so worn that I could feel the ground, the holes in the soles let in water and sharp things, so I got a pair of trainers and some jeans, I was extremely worried about money and spending as I only had what wages I had in the bank from my last wage packet, and I knew that I could never get through the rigmarole of applying for benefits especially as I had just come back from Jersey and felt sure I would be entitled to little or nothing. I didn’t think I could explain to anyone why I had ended up homeless and I felt sure that anyone I tried to explain to would soon have the diocese along contradicting it.
So I had new trainers and trousers, but I was walking so much that I was getting into difficulties, I was walking stiffly, completely tensed up all the time, my legs and arms were stiff, and my ankle was awkward, I didn’t fully know what my problem with walking was even though the doctor in Jersey had mentioned it, the doctor at the Trinity centre checked me over and made sure my reflexes were ok and said she thought it was to do with anxiety among other things. She said regarding the trauma of what had happened in Jersey, that I would start to recover in 3 or 4 years. She was a nice helpful doctor, I wondered about my back aches and stiff legs and if the egg sized lump on my back by my spine was anything to do with things, but she said it seemed to just be a lipoma, which was a relief, I felt so ill that I wondered what was wrong with me. But I was ill because I was so badly damaged mentally and emotionally by what had happened and my situation.
The trainers were useless and my feet got blistered and infected, it was strange because I had never got blisters before in my life, not even when wearing army boots and running, not from running, not from wearing work boots, but now I was getting blisters and infections that made me walk all the more badly, I walk in a way that puts pressure on the outsides of my feet, it is not correctable even with special insoles I have to balance me, they do very little because of how pronounced the incorrect alignment of my feet is, so it was a struggle to get anywhere, the nurse at the Trinity Centre gave me antibiotic cream and padding and bandages to help me cope, but it was early days then, I had not learned to cope with homeless feet and in the early stages of being homeless and very traumatised, I didn’t know what to do or where to go, how to settle down to do anything, being street homeless is something you have to learn, you don’t come from a home to knowing exactly how survive on the streets, and so you suffer, you feel cold and lost and traumatised and tired, you crave a warm quiet bed and a home and a kettle and a purpose in life, you lose your purpose when you come from the safety of a home and a job to the endless nothing and pointlessness of homelessness. Though now after 6 months I am so well looked after that no-one knows I am homeless until they see me diving in the rubbish bins with the boys for food, yes I do indeed do this and I am not ashamed.
Roy and Sandy came back and I suffered fresh trauma as Sandy tried to make me talk, tried to tell me about how she had talked to Mark Bond and Judith Davey in Jersey, talked about talking to Shirley and Andrea, I told her not discuss me with Shirley or Mark or Judith any further please , I was humiliated, She said something about what had been covered up in Jersey being wrong, but it was no good saying anything to me it just caused me huge distress, I ended up in collapse at St. Bartholomews church with the fluffy headed curate there making a token effort to ‘help’, but Jane Fisher soon set her right with the diocese’s side of things there. There was never any point in me talking to a priest since I returned to Winchester, even though what I needed most was a priest to help me to come to terms with what the church have done to me and help me find God among the terrible things that have happened and find a way forward with God, but sadly the diocese have ensured that that will never happen.
In the nightshelter I had nightmares and was scared, one morning in the early hours I was suffering distress from massive nightmares about the police manhandling me and throwing me into court, I got up and the nasty piece of work supervisor, the only nasty one out of four, because the others were ok, was awake and working, he approached me with hostile attitude and went on at me for being up in the night, it was between 4 and 5am, I wouldn’t go back to my room so he let me sit in the lounge while he went back to his work, I had some hot tea and watched the pouring, pounding rain outside, then the supervisor came back and told me to go back to my room, he could see I was distressed and crying and he was so cold, I went to my room and got my backpack,( I had got a cheap backpack since I had returned to Winchester) and I went out of the nightshelter, it was very early morning and pouring with rain, this is the ‘considerable help’ that Tim Sledge jeered at me when he was smashing me down for Jane Fisher and the diocese when he told me I had simply walked out of the ‘considerable help’ provided by the Nightshelter? Maybe Tim should have asked for my side before trying to shove me back into the nightshelter for the diocese!
The nightshelter reminded me of prison and I was frightened of the narrow corridor that people were always walking along and passing each other too close, it was too much for me, the shower didn’t work in the girls bathroom and the little room I had did remind me of a cell, especially when I had to lock myself in and endure the noise outside just as I was locked in and endured the noise outside in prison. So it kept the prison and the shame alive for me.
The girls shower didn’t work, and every time I went in the bathroom there were people in the corridor or computer room making a noise and laughing and I felt exposed and anxious.
My hair was a mess and I had a cheap haircut that made it more of a mess, it looked terrible, and I couldn’t wash it very well in the bath, so I had the shoulder length messy hair completely shaved off, I do not know if there was something psychological in that as well as physical, but most people were not happy that I had done this, and the rumour mongers who I will explain in a minute, had a field day. I was happy about no having dirty messy hair any more.
Anyway, back in the nightshelter it was tough, there were good and bad people there, the good people – David, Caz, Liz, Matthew and any others I cannot remember, helped and supported me, Caz and Liz were as unsure of me as I was of them for a few days and then we got talking and got on well, all homeless people are traumatized in one way or another, homelessness is nothing ok or good, David is a nice man who had had a breakdown of some kind and knew how nervous I was and made an effort to support me, he is a very tactile man, he expresses his friendliness and concern through touch, sometimes sudden and anuexpected, but he means well so I never reacted too sharply, the others warned him to be careful with touching me, Matthew was an angry person with a lot of concerns, but he also helped me by being friendly and inclusive, and talking to me about things and encouraging me to join in with things, including joining him for the first part of a walk he was doing to Southampton.
Other people came and went from the Shelter, but it ended up that there was a group of people there who were mainly offenders, it horrifies me that I am ‘the same as them’, these people were not ashamed as I am, some of them had tags and ASBOs, they liked smoking and alcohol, and were miffed about the nightshelter rules against these things, they shouted and quarrelled and made life difficult for us less able and quieter members of the shelter, Liz said she was terrified to come out of her room sometimes, I had a little single room, so did Liz, the group of noisy people would gather in the room opposite mine with the door open, and they would be shouting away, there would be five or more in that room all evening and they would be shouting away, the place echoed and that made it worse, I was suffering so much distress from what had happened and the diocese that I could not cope with all this distress and the noise that went on until 11pm in the evening, 11pm in the evening was very late indeed for me and I was exhausted every day from being homeless and trying to cope with what had happened and hold myself together, I made several complaints to the management, and the manager wasn’t interested, one of the supervisors showed an interest and tried to help, one of the other supervisors who is a nasty piece of work went in there and joined in with the noise, but the good supervisor, Phil, who had been the one rambling about the politics of city church, managed to temporarily make the situation a bit better after I walked out and slept rough for a night, I went back and things were better while Phil remained on duty, and he told me that Liz had also made complaints about things happening there, there were also other complaints from rows about who had the telly remote and other things unrelated to this, but the manager wasn’t bothered, I went to her with the complaint, unaware then that the diocese had been able to intervene – and can you imagine the diocese not intervening, considering the story I took to the nightshelter of what the church had done to me to leave me homeless and on the nightshelter’s doorstep?! But anyway, the manager was unhelpful and sharp and told me that the noise was acceptable, I asked if she had heard it and she said no but it was acceptable, I said that in that case I was better off sleeping rough somewhere quieter where there were not frightening people outside my door, and I walked out, I had to leave a lot of stuff behind, but I have found as my time as a homeless person has progressed that you do leave a lot fo stuff behind and that you cannot place value on possessions if you cannot keep them with you, if you have anything of value it needs to stay with you in your pack, if it is too big or of no value it has to be stashed and left at risk of theft, I have had my things lost and stolen a number of times now.
The Trinity Centre and the nightshelter work so closely together that thay are almost the same unit, when the support worker at the Trinity centre were told that I was sleeping rough, they created a very unpleasant and frightening situation, the support worker told me I should go back to the Nightshelter or she would call social services, I said no I wasn’t going back there, she said that if I walked out she would call social services, she said she could phone the nightshelter and we could discuss it, I said that the manager had made it clear that nothing would be done about the noise and disruption and that I was not going to see social services, she said I could speak to them there or she would alert them anyway or I could go back to the Nightshelter, I said no, I was not going to be grabbed and locked up by social services, she surprisingly said that she agreed I had been through bad things that were not my fault (which shows that the diocese were not influencing the Trinity Centre yet), but she persisted that I had choices, but to me there was no valid choice, she did not deny that social services might involve the police, and I went out of my mind with terror because I did not want to be trapped at the Trinity Centre any longer or be on the run from the police and social services, fortunately the Trinity Centre doctor came downstairs and took in what was happening because by now I was screaming at this support worker that I had had enough of being trapped and in trouble and I had done nothing to deserve this, the doctor took the support worker aside, and when she came back the support worker said that she would not phone social services, another support worker came and sat with me outside and got me a cup of tea, I was not going to go back to the Trinity Centre but this support worker persuaded me that I could. She told me that the other support worker had simply been concerned. So I didn’t abandon the Trinity Centre at that point.
As a rough sleeper I learned that you don’t wear nice sweatshirts with pictures of cats or boats on them, you wear layers and hooded sweatshirts, I think hooded sweatshirts make the difference between a good night’s sleep and a bad one, even for someone who is heat sensitive I soon discovered that you have to keep your head and neck covered at night in order to sleep properly and not wake up ill from tension. So I became an honourary hoodie. I was still walking badly as the trainers were pretty useless and I was afraid to look at my bank balance and spend money on boots. My feet were raw with infected blisters and it was easy to pick up athletes foot at the Trinity centre and end up with almost no skin on my feet, I have never seen such a mess, but by the time I saw a doctor about it I was registered with a doctor outside the Trinity Centre and was given some cream that worked very quickly, the doctor told me it was easy for my feet to get infected when I was out in the wet weather and my feet were getting wet and staying wet because back then I had no spare socks or shoes, I was in a mess.
The gossip machine. Homeless people are a mixed bunch, I have met some of the most honest and kind hearted people on the streets, but just as there are unkind and hurtful housedwellers, there are unkind and hurtful homeless people, and a few of these spent their time at the Trinity Centre and a few were also nightshelter people, these people spend a lot of time sitting with their cigarettes and other social aids and passing judgement on other members of the community who they for some reason think they are in a position to judge, and I was one of their people who they judged and sentenced, along with my comrades, Caz and Liz, these judgers love to give labels such as ‘lesbian’, ‘thief’, ‘tart’, etc, and this they did to us as well as made up and unfounded rumours to add to the sentence, I do not know what they said about me in full, I only know from the others that they said it, and that they did that to lots of people including my fellow nighshelter people, I gather that I was judged as a ‘lesbian’ for my haircut among other things, which is ok, at least I am not a drunkard or druggie who sits about smoking and making up rumours and slurs instead of doing something to contribute to society.
Anyway, a step on from that, I went to one of the churches one morning for midweek communion, there was a homeless man sitting there, I was obviously in distress and there was one of those patronizing types of old lady in there, she said to the homeless man, who she obviously recognized, about me: ‘what does she want?what is she doing in here?’, I said in reply ‘she is a human being, why don’t you ask her?!’ and ‘maybe I am doing the same as him, sheltering from the cold’, the homeless man spoke and said ‘I am not sheltering, I am praying’,
I have to say I was surprised and ashamed that I had jumped to conclusions. He came over and sat by me and said he had been ‘warned about me’ who would warn a homeless man about me? The diocese of Winchester, I asked, in front of the old ladies who were there for communion if Fisher and the Bishop were really going to the length of even warning the homeless population about me? I couldn’t believe that they would and I was very rattled indeed, but it turned out that it was one of the low rumour mongers from the Trinity centre who didn’t even know me and had ‘pointed me out’ and warned this man, and unfortunately this man is one who likes the feeling of power and liked the feeling that it gave him to tell me he had been warned about me.
But we progressed to conversation, he told me his name was ‘Destiny’s child’, but that was his name for himself, his name was actually Chris, but I also told him I had two names, AnnaJayne and Judith, he has gathered from everyone else addressing me that my name is Judith but he has been known to call me Anna sometimes, and I have called him ‘Destiny’ or ‘ ‘Omeless man’ as well as Chris.
Chris sat and talked to me in Church, and I found out that he was a believer, of sorts, and that his beliefs could be quite radical and variable, after the service the priest came along and said hello, he is a priest who helped me a while back, but when Chris said to him ‘This girl needs healing’ he said ‘oh yes, thats good, God bless’ and hurried off, he had realised we were homeless. An old lady came and gave us some money to get a cup of tea, and Chris told her off but she persuaded him to take the money, we went to a cafe and I got caught up in the world of this intelligent but disturbed seeker of knowledge, he is a very intellectual and very tough person, who has obviously suffered to end up homeless and defensive, but some of his beliefs are very radical and he reminded me of my dad in his fierce standpoins on God and religion, he also talked of how he baptised people with fire and water and was responsible personally for clearing the town of drunkards by baptising them with fire and water, he had a thing about having power over people, control, and he tried to do this control thing with me, I outwitted this very quickly, I am my own person, I could outdo his discussion and power games, and without that he was just an unpredictable intelligent man who I could have fascinating discussions with. He was the first street homeless person who I really connected with, and he is a character, he throws sulks and sits across from the soup kitchen refusing to eat, he tried to baptise the salvation army leader with a bottle of water, he baptised the paranoid homeless girl because she annoyed him so much, he baptised someone with a plate of food at one point, he can get offended and go into long deep sulks or he can just completely ignore people when they greet him. I remember just after I had met him and was still overawed by him, I came along early on a Sunday and found him smoking a roll up and yelled ‘Thats a sin ‘Omeless man!’ He came to terms with that by agreeing that the smoke didn’t just go into his mouth but came out as well, and that the Bible says it is what comes out that causes you to sin, not what goes in. He is such an intelligent and resourceful man that I found it hard to believe he was a real homeless person and not a fake, but in the time I have known him he has gone from being a loner who preaches, to someone who has a girlfriend and goes to the Trinity Centre, which he wouldn’t when I first met him, he used to sit in MacDonalds for hours on end, and it was from him that I learned that MAcDonalds is a valuable resource for homeless people, being open long hours, having a toilet and cheap food and hot drinks that you can sit and spend ages over, there are also vouchers and stickers you can collect for free drinks or cheap food at MacDonalds, and some homeless people go through the bins for these vouchers.
The winter came, the winter really came, for my first winter street homeless I could not have chosen a longer colder winter, the temperatures went so unbelievably low, so utterly low, and the snow and rain and frost were always there, I had learned how to layer clothes and keep warm, I had handwarmers too, I had a fleece hat and scarf for the first time as well, having a scarf at my neck was really difficult, but you learn how important keeping your neck warm is when you are homeless, just as you learn never never to tell anyone exactly where you sleep, I had several sleeping places, but in the cold weather I had a favourite, I also learned that the worst thing about being homeless whatever the weather was thirst at night, the toilets were always locked at night and there was nowhere to get water, it was a question of getting water in a bottle from the public toilets or possibly from Roy and Sandy during the day and keeping enough to last through the night, the problem of all toilets being locked at night was difficult at first as for the first few months of rough sleeping I had a very upset stomach and having diarrhea at night out in the open is not fun at all, but I learned how to cleanly go to the toilet, where to go, how to keep clean and fresh, always with a packet of tissues and a little bottle of handwash in my bag, my stomach settled down when the doctor gave me something to settle the reflux down as I was frequently sick or bringing things up through reflux, to a point where I knew it was going to damage me.
So I was learning to be homeless, at this point still using the Trinity centre, though in a limited way, I never settled there because of the rumour mill and the noise and echo of the place, being too enclosed and too close to the other people and their noise in there, I felt comfortable to go there for a bath, to sit there on the stairs away from anyone and read a book and drink my tea, the interaction there was all too much for me, I felt totally out of place if I went to their ‘women’s centre’ and trapped and unsafe in the ‘quiet room’, so I kept my visits to the Trinity to baths, hot drinks, sometimes food, though it was not always very edible, and brief chats with people, Caz got rehoused but still came to Trinity, and I would chat with her, Liz also got rehoused in Andover and I didn’t see her again, I got talking to ‘Haggis’ through Caz, I never knew his real name but he was Scottish, Caz complained about his singing, I said his singing was soft and tuneful, and so we got on well, Haggis was street homeless and helped to look after me in thin times and was a good trustworthy friend until the Diocese of Winchester in the form of Jane Fisher broke that friendship later on, and I will explain that later on.
I helped out in the garden of the Trinity Centre with Haggis and some staff and volunteers from Hampshire Wildlife, that did me good and also made me sad because my gardening career was over.
I felt that I had to go to the Trinity centre in case they reported me to social services as that was the impression I got, and I remembered Jane Fisher causing me trouble by reporting me missing, so I went, and I asked one day if they would report me if I didn’t turn up, they said no as I was obviously more competent than they had thought, which was good as I was off away to Southampton and Romsey and other places in my spare time.
Romsey was full of memories, still peaceful though, with the beautiful river and the salmon leap, the little cafe that I liked so much, my old dental surgery, SCATS was still there, ALDI, the park, the charity shops, the library, the station, more places for a homeless person to waste a few hours, and a few heating grates to snooze on and surprisingly no other rough sleepers, one evening I was in Romsey and it was raining, the lights were on in the Abbey and it was unlocked, I went in and there was a woman priest saying evening prayer in a little circle of light in the dark abbey, there were three congregation, I sat quietly and listened and no-one noticed me, I crept back out before they finished, but that became a habit, I didn’t want to be seen, I didn’t want to be involved, I didn’t want priests and churches and people, I wanted to be alone and hear the beloved words of the worship, but as time went on and I was bold enough to sit on the little ledge at the bottom of one of the pillars near where evening prayer was held, I got noticed, but before then I realised that one of the female priests who said evening prayer was one of Juliet’s old curates, the one who Juliet had said was emotionally disturbed, the same one who hardly spoke to me because of whatever it was that Juliet had said about me to her, I didn’t want her to see me and know I was there, but it was the other female priest who noticed me first, I was now in the habit of being there in the soft darkness of the abbey and the safety of evening prayer, I had put a prayer on the request board anonymously that day, asking prayers for the homeless out in the bad weather, and then the lady priest noticed me, she looked so nice and friendly and kind but I didn’t want to talk to a female priest ever again after Tracy, after the way Tracy had been because of Jane Fisher, but anyway this priest’s first words were ‘I have a dog collar but I am human, is there anything I can pray for you?’ ‘Pray for the homeless’ I replied, indicating to the prayer board, she smiled and proceeded with evening prayer.
Afterwards she tried to get me to talk, she told me that she wanted to help, but the alarm bells in my head were screaming, metaphorical alarm bells, it means that everything in me was saying that I should not be there talking to this lady. I told her she could not help because it was the church that had done this to me, but she persevered, she involved herself, she got me to talk to her, she gave me money to get myself boots, and she encouraged me to keep coming back, she said she would be worried if I stopped coming and didn’t let her know, she did things in a strange way, like giving me money hidden under the belly of a toy snow leapoard which she gave me as a gift, she put this laepord on the candle stand where she would light candles with me, she told me that the leapord had a surprise for me and I was puzzled, she said I had to pull its tail or something, and I thought it would growl, but she meant it had money under it, and she got me to light candles with her and said that the flames went out like souls to heaven so the candles were not dead, and she prayed about my dad’s funeral anniversary, she told me about her son who had died as a baby and a recent funeral where a baby had died and the parents were so angry that they did not want a Christian funeral, I told her about the mother who had said to the vicar ‘why did Jesus take my baby?’ and the vicar said ‘so He could look after the baby and keep them safe’, and the mother said ‘I wanted to look after my baby’.
Anyway, this priest got really involved, she was an assistant curate, her vicar was friendly in his way, but obviously not comfortable with the vulnerable and poor side of ministry, but the female priest was determined to involve herself, I warned her not to, and I knew that the diocese would turn this situation into dire hell if they found out, as they did in the end.
The priest answered my warnings not to get involved by telling me that she was a trained psychotherapist and knew how to keep herself and me safe, I told her she would need to keep the boundaries and be careful because I was too disturbed, she was utterly confident in her ability and said she would be working with me and would keep us both safe, she said that this was what she came into the church for, to help people who were wounded, she also told me when I told her that the diocese would anhialate her if they found out, that she was called wicked and condemned by the church in the past for things.
She then decided that she was getting me housed, she told me that she had talked to a priest at Lymington about me and had been told by him to contact the Society of St. James in Southampton, she asked if I would be ok going to Southampton, I said yes, I told her that I knew some good outreach in Southampton and that I had lived there when I was young and that there was a church in Southampton that invited me to the vulnerable people’s lunches. She seemed delighted that I was letting her help, but I warned her again that the diocese would stop her from helping if they found out, and she said that there was no involvement from the diocese and that it would stay that way, I told her they would find out.
She contacted the St. James Society, they told her that all housing applications had to go through the Southampton homeless team, who have a monopoly in Southampton, no homeless charity in Southampton can rehouse anyone, only the homelessness team can, so the charity has to accept whoever is sent by the homeless team. So the priest contacted Test Valley Council and asked to see the homeless officer in Romsey instead, she took me to see them on the day that I was meant to be going to Southampton for church lunch, so I missed that, as we were sitting there she showed me a picture of her dog on her phone and she told me about her cats, she said her cats were n the new forest at her old home because she didn’t want to move them, we talked about cats and dogs and I felt safe with her, and hopeful at last, the first hope I had felt at all, because she told me she knew she could help me, and that God had wonderful things planned and that he had sent me to her and that she was amazed how things slotted into place, she had a son with asbergers syndrome, she said she recognised my behaviours as similar to his and that I needed help and she was qualified to help, my sudden hope was very small and was surrounded by mountains of fear and worry about the diocese and really in me there was a doubt that loomed above her enthusiastic hope, a very real doubt that there was anything that could be done to help me now after everything, how could God build anything on the amount of brokenness that was me, again this priest told me of the church’s attitude to her when she was younger, and how she had never thought she would be sitting here as a priest helping me.
The interview with the council was brief and helpful, they wanted to help me urgently and considered me to have a local connection because I had estranged family in the Romsey area, the application was processed and the meetings would be ongoing, they talked about sending me to Andover, I was worried about the priest having any personal information about me so I wrote a lot of it down for the council officer, even though the priest said it was all confidential, I remembered only too well how Tracy was used against me, and how she kept sharing information with the diocese behind my back and hurting me.
After the meeting the priest took me to the cafe for late breakfast and a cup of tea, I was happy with that, but she had forgotten her wallet so the cafe people let her agree to pay later seeing as she had a dog collar.
Then the priest was going on about my rough sleeping and told me that the vicar would let me sleep on the church hall floor and would provide some blankets, but I didn’t like this, these people were getting too close, and someone was going to alert the diocese. I knew it. The priest for some reason wanted me to ask the vicar myself, but I didn’t feel able to, but not long after that I was worried for the security of a few other sleeping places, and I was tempted by the warm sounding church hall floor, so I phoned the Vicar, he said the curate was right, that I could sleep on the church hall floor but only briefly, he was obviously anxious about it and I asked him if he was sure, he said yes but it was a very temporary measure, I assured him I wouldn’t try to get security of tenure.
The female priest was very happy and kept making a fuss of me for phoning the Vicar, she decided she was giving me money for fish and chips that night ‘so I could eat fish and chips in my new sleeping place’, I also had use of the kitchen for cups of tea, and they got me some milk, I was overwhelmed when the vicar brought in two duvets, one for as a mattress and one as a duvet, I made my own pillow up and was deeply comfortable though the nightmares often threw me out of this nest and across the room and the night terrors were horrifying and overwhelming. The other good thing about this temporary shelter was that there were toilets, so in the disturbed distressed but comfy nights I could go to the toilet or get a hot drink.
While I was there I also wrote to the kind prison staff and the girl who had taken me under her wing in the prison and told them what was happening in my life, I felt they deserved that courtesy, and I wrote again to the girl more recently.
Anyway, people complained about me being in the hall. And the vicar was obviously agitated about it anyway, and one day I stayed in the church hall a bit later in the morning to struggle to fill in ‘rough sleeper logs’ for the council housing officer, my brain was still mush from trauma, but I got the forms filled and handed them in, but later that day during the heated conversations with the vicar because the diocese had been alerted to me being there, he commented that someone (the verger) had complained.
The priest spoke to me saying that the vicar had said about getting me to sleep in the office at the vicarage, again I was sure that this was going to cause a diocese problem, the priest said I should speak to her after the morning service about it, but because I was trying to avoid Juliet’s old biased curate I didn’t wait after the service, and then when she didn’t text or ring and I had left a message for the vicar, I was worried, but I went to evening prayer, and I knew as soon as I got there that the diocese knew I was there, the priest looked at me in an odd way, and the curate didn’t want to look at me at all and didn’t want me to sit with her, I sat at the back and I was upset anyway because I was remembering Jersey, after the service the priest said to me that she would see me outside when she had talked to the Vicar if I was there when she came out, they were both acting wierd, but her earlier instruction had been for me to go to the Vicarage at a certain time to see the vicar and arrange to stay in the church office, I would have stayed in the church hall quite happily, but I went along with them, they knew best.
I didn’t stay outside and wait for the priest, I went to the Vicarage, the vicar came out and asked what I wanted, I told him that the priest had said to speak to him about the church office, he said I could sleep in the church hall for that night but that I needed to get the council to put me in emergency accommodation, I told him that the priest had been working with the council to get me rehoused as an emergency, that was when he mentioned people not liking me staying so late in the church hall, the verger was the only one who had been around that morning, the only morning I had stayed on to try and fill in the rough sleeper logs.
Then the vicar launched his attack, this account is painful and humiliating to write, he leaned towards me and said as if he was catching me out doing something dreadful, that he had been talking to the diocese of Winchester that day, he said he had been talking to Jane Fisher, he said ‘you know Jane Fisher don’t you?’ he said it accusingly and with hostility and I refrained from saying, ‘yes she is the bitch who has utterly destroyed me for the sake of cover ups and on behalf of wrongdoers’, but the priest continued saying that the old curate of Juliet’s who now worked for him had ‘told him about me’ and that he had heard about what had happened with the Montagues and Juliet and Sparsholt’, I replied ‘what have you heard? That Fred Montague abused me and Juliet denied it and made me to blame and tehn involved herself in the absue case in Jersey to my detriment and made me out to be malicious against a man who abused me and was previuously sacked from a church for misconduct and helped to ensure I was convicted? And absolutely nothing happened at Sparsholt’ for a few seconds there was a stunned silence and the vicar said I don’t know anything about that’. Jane Fisher in her maligning of me on Juliet and Fred’s behalf seemed to have forgotten to give any of my side of the story in her eagerness to blacken my name, though what then if not enforcing the Juliet regime of me making the abuse up and being malicious, I do not know, she obviously did say serious and damaging enough things to make the priest turn her back on me while the vicar went for me. The vicar continued by trying to say that I needed help, I said to him that his priest had said she would help me on the grounds of her qualification and experience in therapy and with the spectrum, he tried to deny that and tried to tell me that the priest had only really offered help with rehousing me and basically they would try to rehouse me and if I wanted to visit the abbey they would let me and that was it, he was cold, he told me I had a problem with anger about the diocese and I needed help with it, I asked him where his God was in this hostile confronation, why was he attacking me and driving me from the church for the sake of what the diocese were telling him, he tried to tell me to to take the churchhall key and calm down, I said no, that I wasn’t going in there again, he suddenly changed his attitude and told me that his God was here and I was still welcome in the Abbey and that I should stay around and stay in the church room for a few more nights and do my writing and that would help me and they would help me get rehoused, but after the way he had spoken there was no way I was staying, I wasn’t staying where the diocese who had destroyed me were going on harming me, he told me to go for a walk and come back when I had calmed down and he had to be in his meeting and I could collect the key for the church hall later, I walked away, I was hysterical.
I phoned the Wolvsley, I was completely in collapse, Lou Scott-Joynt answered and started talking to me as if everything was fine and we were old friends having a chat and the diocese had not destroyed me and left me homeless in minus temperatures. She asked where I was and I said ‘are you mad?, you think I will tell you and let you have me arrested again?!’ she tried to talk but I was hysterical with distress, I said ‘when is this going to stop, Scott-Joynt? When are you going to stop interfering in my life and harming me? How dare you interfere in my life and use of the Nightshelter and Trinity Centre and make out that I walked out of a perfectly satisfactory situation there? How dare you! I left there for good reasons and you had no legal right to information on me and intervention, you have destroyed me through having me convicted and you have been asked through the police to leave me alone, how dare you humiliate me and treat me as a feelingless puppet who you can move this way and that to cover your backs and make everything look allright!?’
Months and months of distress and despair came out in this conversation which went on for some hours, as I was saying this on my mobile to her, I was walking in the sub-zero temperatures up to the station, a train was coming in, I used all the money in my pocket to buy a ticket and begged the guard to wait while I got my ticket, and got on the train, continuing to tell Lou Scott-Joynt what I thought of this horrifying intervention by the diocese. I also phoned Juliet and told her what I thought of her.
I was shaking, sick, in a really bad way, late that night the train arrived at the station I had got a ticket to, I had never been to this town in my life, I knew nothing about it. I could see it was a big town, big towns are not safe for female rough sleepers. I walked along and wondered if the diocese were going to have me arrested, I walked to the police station and looked at it, I was absolutely desparate, I thought I would be arrested I was terrified of the police, I was in shock, I was sick, my heart was broken by the priest and I was out of my mind with anger at the apparent breached confidences and illegal intervention by the diocese to do with the nightshelter.
I went to the police station, terrified beyond belief that they would try to section or arrest me, I went in and told them I was homeless and was suffering unbearably at the hands of some people who had had me convicted and were still tormenting me and that I had run all the way to this city from miles away to escape them and was afraid that they were going to have me arrested again. The WPC took me aside into a private room and said that I looked in a terrible state, she asked if I had Asberger’s syndrome and told me one of their officers did, she asked what was happening and what she could do, I told her I needed somewhere safe to stay for the night, she said there was a nightshelter but that it was very rough and that I couldn’t stay outdoors in this state with the bad weather coming in, she asked if I had any money for accommodation and I told her I didn’t have much and that I wasn’t sure how much I had, but I thought I had enough, she said there were backpacker’s hostels in town and did I think I could afford to stay there, I said yes, she debated whether or not to get her seargent for advice and decided not to, but told me to come back the next day at all costs and tell them exactly what was going on so that they could help me.
I was sick at the thought of going back, terrified of being arrested and locked up, but I agreed otherwise she would have been worried to let me go. She phoned the backpacking hostel and they had a room for me, when I got there the man on the desk was playing chess with another man, I thought this was delightful, imagine turning up in a strange town deeply traumatised and meeting two men placidly playing chess well after midnight.
The man booked me in and told me there was internet access if I wanted it, I rattled off a very long and angry email to Jane Fisher, the Bishop, the Trinity Centre, the nightshelter, the police, Romsey Abbey and anyone else I could think of, saying how angry and distressed I was at the diocese’s continued damage of me and their illegal, immoral and harmful intervention at the nightshelter and Trinity centre, I asked for the diocese to stop hounding me and to be stopped from hounding me, the email was written when I was in deep distress, very deep distress, I had no replies apart from the nightshelter, who I am sure covered this up very nicely, but later the support worker told me she knew this intervention had occurred ‘but that it appeared that the diocese were trying to ensure I could still go to a church’, the diocese who had me convicted and driven from churches were doing no such thing, but what I think they were doing was trying to find out what church I was going to in order to make sure their reputation wasn’t damaged and that I was treated in the way that they decided was right ie having me attacked and shunned by the priest and vicar at Romsey Abbey and ensuring that no ‘pastoral care’ or help were offered. But further unfortunately for me, the Shelter have ensured that that support worker avoids me now, I know I have done nothing to her, I know she crosses the street to avoid me, even though she said she would always believe in me, the diocese and the shelter know what that support worker told me, and it puts them at risk I guess. Though if you look at what I am writing, who would believe all this? This is the thing, I am a lone voice with all the voices against me, I know that this happened and I am writing it because I feel completely condemned, I want someone else to see this and believe it instead of hearing only the diocese’s side where they make out that they were only helping and that nothing illegal and immoral has been done, and their repeated defence has been to make me out to be mentally ill, and they have failed in that so I am wondering in fear what they will do next.
Anyway, in the early hours and in deep distress and with a splitting headache I crept into the grotty bed in the grotty room, there were no wash or beverage facilities in the room, and it was basic even for a hostel, but at least I was in a bed temporarily out of the reach of the diocese, badly damaged though and half expecting the same police who had helped me to also turn up here and attack.
I tried and tried to get the courage to go back to the police station, I could not, I was terrified, Iw as afraid that they would work out who I was and arrest me.
I went to the library and used the internet, I fed myself from a cafe, I went to the nightshelter and asked them if I could come in, they did an initial registration, and told me to come back in the evening, so I did. I was very very well treated, the men in charge of the shelter refused to let any of the men barge past me in the que to get in, they sat me down and ensured I had a good meal, I was the only female and some of the men seemed very rough, but they tested my reactions to their rough talk and rowdyness and I stood my ground, and the good element of the homeless men showed through with first the kinder and more protective men looking after me and then the more rough ones offering handshakes, these people were real homeless people, not people looking for an easy ride like in the Winchester nightshelter, these were long tem homeless men, big issue vendors, of which I had seen none in the Winchester shelter, and travellers, I registered at this shelter temporarily under my old friend’s name, because I didn’t want the diocese to come after me, I had told the diocese and Lou Scott-Joynt that I had left Hampshire.
I had a very comfortable night in this shelter, I was put in the women’s wing, which was one room with three beds and an ensuite shower and toilet, the room had no lock on the door but it was opposite the office where someone sat on duty all night and they said I would be very safe and no one would bother me, the other difference between this shelter and the Winchester one was that people could go in and out during the night and help themselves to tea and snacks, which was good because though I was luxuriantly comfortable in the bed I woke in the night with night terrors and needed hot drinks and the kind reassurance of the absolutely lovely staff.
The next day I wandered round, more and more agitated and feeling a desparate need to be in Hampshire. So I went back, I had now lost the use of the Trinity Centre altogether due to the interference from the diocese and would of course never approach the nightshelter, I phoned the other shelters in the area and was offered a temporary bed in a hostel in Southampton, I was not delighted but it was better than nothing, I went there and was greeted with sandwiches, which is never bad. This hostel was really rough, this hostel had a bad name that I already knew, but the weather outside was bitter, it wasn’t getting above freezing at any point, I was happy to be indoors, they put me on a mattress in an old kitchen in what was called the female wing’, there was no privacy because the door had a glass window in it, but I was glad to lie down and sleep, I was running out of money now and there were problems with benefits and so I was glad of free food, but I wanted to be in Winchester and I was out of my depth in a hostel in Southampton, I went to the daycentre and to Winchester, I was still very reliant on Roy and Sandy and Sandy was quite snappy with me sometimes during this time.
I hadn’t been at the hostel long when a girl asked me if I would like to walk with her and two others to the daycentre, I had intended to get the bus to the daycentre as the walk was too much, but I knew it was right to be friendly, especially in these circumstances, but it was a bad ideato walk with them, they were into drugs and alcohol and were wild, they dodged in and out of the traffic on the long walk, swore, talked about getting certain drugs for binges and talked about things in their lives that I never wanted in mine, they talked about how they had been turned out of teh hostel previously for vandalism, and by the time we got to the daycentre I was frazzled, just as my fear in the nightshelter was of getting caught up in any trouble because of my criminal record I was afraid again here of either getting caught up or falling out with these potentially harmful people and I was afraid of police trouble either way. But I hoped that the diocese would not find me here.
We got to the daycentre and to my horror we were told to go on to another daycentre further away, I knew I couldn’t make the walk, and I did not want to stay with these people, I managed with great difficulty to be allowed to stay there while the others went on, the staff were worried and I couldn’t explain, I was supposed be registering with the homeless doctor anyway as I needed medical certificates, but it was impossible to get the secretary to understand me, and then the doctor who turned up was the Trinity centre doctor, I was horrified, my safety from the diocese was shattered! I did not stop and see the Trinity doctor and I tried to explain to the further bewildered homeless team why not, they were trying to see if they could get me a permenent bed in Patrick house but the combination of fear of those homeless people and the word getting back to the diocese of where I was and the longing to be in Winchester along with all round panic overrode sense and I walked out of the daycentre and away from the homelessness team. The only thing I did do there was expressly say that my information was not to be shared with the church under any circumstances.
I went back to Winchester but I was no longer controlling my feelings to the diocese and Jane Fisher, I was trying to make them back out and stop harming me by interfering, but I got no promise from them on that and so I persisted.
I had only been in Southampton a few days, the temperateures were sub zero all day with hard frost, freezing winds and snow on the way, there were no other hostels and at the time I had no knowledge of bed and breakfast in the city, none affordable anyway. So I used some of the negligible amount of money I had on an overnight coach ticket to Scotland to get me out of the cold and hopefully away from the diocese as I continued to fear their attacks or intervention.
The journey was stressful but I did get some sleep and I was out of the bitterly cold night.
We arrived in Glasgow to thick snow, I went looking for a daycentre and accidentally ended up in the council homeless centre where they were extremely rude and unkind and contacted the Nightshelter and the hostel in Southampton and were given an inaccurate account by both, with the nightshelter untruthfully giving them the impression that I had used their services the night before, which was entirely untrue, and the Southampton homeless services incorrectly telling them that I had walked out just because I didn’t like the doctor, again untrue and I did like the doctor, my concern was being vulnerable to the diocese through the doctor as she was from the trinity centre and was apparently a Christian and had done a very Jane Fisher style attempt to push me into counselling.
The minute they contacted the Winchester Nightshelter I felt vulnerable to the diocese, all the way in Scotland, the diocese could still launch police attacks or make contact with the churches here, and I told the rude council man I had only been looking for a daycentre and had been misdirected and had not been asking for housing anyway as he was very rudely telling me to go back to Hampshire and be housed there. I walked out, phoned the nightshelter in Winchester and told them that if they were doing paperwork to the effect that I was there when Iw asn’t then they were going to be in legal trouble and the same if they kept up inacurate dialogues or illegal breaches of confidence, I was hopping mad.
I went to a church where I was prayed for and directed to a lovely daycentre where I was mightily fed, given clothes and a hot shower and tea, and given details of outreach services for the evening, they were really good to me.
I spent the day playing in the snow and wandering round the shops, in the evening I went to the city mission outreach where again they were good to me, fed me looked after me, and loved my accent, I loved their accent but it made me want to cry because it reminded me of Brian.
That night I got the coach back to Winchester, it was a tricky one because the snow was so bad that we nearly didn’t go and then it was a treacherous journey, got to Winchester at 10.30 the following morning.
So I was back in Winchester as it started to snow, it was sensible to come back as the weather in Scotland was worse and there was no hope of any shelter up there and it was more dangerous in Glasgow and I wasn’t any more safe there as I was here.
The temperatures in Winchester became severe, with temperatures as low as -7, the snow fell and I helped people by pushing cars out of ice patches and pushing stuck cars up snowy hills, always worthwhile to cheer people up.
But I had no home, no way out of the cold. That evening I was walking past City Church, the one that Phil from the nightshelter hates, and I saw that there were people in there, I curiously enquired of the fag smokers outside what was going on, they told me that they were at an AA meeting there and that there was also a prayer meeting, I asked if anyone could go to the prayer meeting, they said they thought so and they went and asked for me, I was invited in to the prayer meeting and found that this was an extreme charismatic church, and to my concern, the pastor looked like my abuser in Jersey and his right hand man looked like Mike Taylor, the abuser’s supporting priest, I had come all this way to end up back with the same people! But they were not the same, they are the reason I am still alive and healthy, because the pastor and his wife took me home on that snowy night and put me to sleep on their sofa, they were obviously people who had to work hard to make ends meet and their house was no luxuriant church of England rectory, they had both had previous marriages and two children from a previous marriage were with them, but they took me in and let me spend two nights on their sofa and they fed and looked after me and tried to help me progress with finding accommodation, but the barriers to getting into accommodation from the streets in poverty are insurmountable, and I think they were disappointed, they couln’t keep me after two nights because that is policy and when the pastor’s wife said ‘maybe we’ll see you on Sunday’ in an unsure voice, I felt discouraged and wondered if the diocese or the nightshelter had intervened, and I didn’t go back for a while, but at least I had been out of the weather for a few days.
I survived the weather, my biggest problem wasn’t the beautiful snow, it was the trouble that the Nightshelter had and were causing me because they didn’t like the way I had walked out, the support worker from the nightshelter was still trying to help me, she was helping with filling in benefits forms with me, she contacted the Women’s refuge to try and get me in there off the streets, but they turned me down because they contacted the Nightshelter about me, they were not very pleasant and told me that they had heard that ‘the nightshelter and the council were trying to help me and why didn’t I go to my doctor?’ I was furious and wrote an email to them and the council and nightshelter telling them what I thought of their kind of help. I was hopping mad to be told to go to the Doctor, the Diocese had kept up that hold of labelling me mentally ill for far too long and in places where they had no right to intervene. This support worker who was trying to help also confirmed that the diocese had intervened and discussed me with the nightshelter, she said she thought from what she heard that it was because ‘They wanted to ensure I was still able to go to a church’, which is rubbish, they would only have asked about me and churches so that they could find out where I was worshipping and intervene, as they have, they had no right to access me behind my back in these services, and they did, and they used that to humiliate me through Tim Sledge as well as gaining information they had no right to and putting their side of the story and fake concern forward, if the diocese were ‘concerned’ about me then why have they just had me warned for contacting them and hidden their intervention in my life, when my contact with them was screaming anguish at their continued intervention and begging them to stop?!
Anyway, one the women’s refuge turned me down, the support worker stopped trying to help, and obviously as the shelter knew of her involvement they would have lectured her on the folly of telling me about their interaction with the diocese, she recently hurriedly crossed the street to avoid me, has done twice, I have definitely done nothing to hurt or upset her.
The cold weather continued and as no benefit money was coming in and my money had run out and I was completely cut off from the outreach services, Trinity centre and any help, and Roy and Sandy were away, I ended up starving, I walked past City Church one evening and there were lights on, I hesitated and decided to go in and see if they would just fill my bottle with fresh water for me, I got such a surprise when I went in because the pastor was there with his lovely right hand man and a few other men and they didn’t just fill up my bottle of water, they sat me down, took my top jumper and backpack and hung them up and sat me at one of the beautiful tables laid out for a banquet and got me many glasses of orange juice, I was invited to the ladies banquet! I had been mistaken about the pastor not wanting me around, he and his wife were welcoming and friendly.
The ladies banquet I gather was a pre-Christmas ladies event, I had had no idea about it when I wandered in holding out my water bottle, but I was starving, the men were doing the cooking and the cooking took a long time, finally we had starters, which I ate hungrily while drinking as much orange juice and lemonade as I could, served by the kind ‘waiters’, then the main course which saw me going from starving to as fat as a horse, then there was dessert, there were crackers, there were games, it was amazing. Then at the end someone at my table asked if I wanted to go home to their house for a night out of the cold, I said ‘yes please’, amazed at what came out of a request for some water.
The person who invited me home was called Pam, she was married to Phil and they had three children, a daughter who was home briefly with a bad foot, and a son who lived in an annexe and another daughter? Their son was struggling for work because the building trade had been affected by the financial crisis, their daughter worked for homebase in Bath but had had an operation on her foot and was recuperating at home, and all this reminded me that everyone has troubles.
They were a very hospitable family, ensuring I had everything I needed to be comfy, they bought me toiletries and really went out of their way to help me, they and the pastor were working together to get me to see the rent deposit charity and find a room for me to rent, the family kept me for a few days, and I was going to do their garden to repay them, but then the second morning I was there, though arrangements had been made for me to do their garden, go to the rent deposit people for a meeting, and then stay a third night, the pastor phoned Pam and Phil and told them not to keep me a third night or let me do the garden, just to drop me off to go to the rent deposit scheme, I had no explanation, so I assumed that this was because the diocese or the nightshelter, who the church had contact with, were intervening, I explained briefly to Pam and Phil some of my side of the story, they simply tried to convince me to go to the rent deposit scheme and I said under the circumstances I was not going to go, they dropped me off in town and I did not go to the rent deposit scheme, the pastor made no attempt to contact me, and unfortunately I had trusted him and had left some of my possessions at his church for safekeeping and I never went to get them back because I felt too vulnerable to do so. He has spoken to me once since then, some months ago, to say that I should collect them and that Pam and Phil were asking after me, since then I saw Pam and Phil, Pam tried to tell me that I had left some things at her house, a photo and a train ticket from York to London, and asked if she should leave them at the Baptist church for me? I was angry at this assumption about the interfering Baptists being trustworthy to me and asked what on earth she was talking about? She said that I had told her I was part of the Baptists church, I hadn’t told her that and I was not part of the Baptist church, I told her this and that she was mistaken about what she had found at her house being mine and said I was sick of the rumour mill as I did not like the Baptists or their attitude to me. I asked her and Phil to leave me alone as I did not like being a goldfish in a glass bowl. There obviously was interaction between the Baptist church and some other church or the diocese about me as the Baptist church knew more than I told them about me and against my wishes tried to force me back to the Trinity Centre. I have refused to be forced and was annoyed with the Baptist church but now I respect them, they are pleasent to me, and I go to the steps of the Trinity centre of my own accord ans sit there and the staff bring me food and tea, that is as close as I will get to them after all the interference.
Anyway, Christmas was approaching and I remained on the streets and not in a church, it was cold but I got used to it, the soup kitchen and basics bank had provided some warm clothes so I was surviving ok. I woke up one morning and had been dreaming of being in a warm cozy house with bright fairylights and Christmas decorations and food, there I was lying on the cold hard ground in the cold, dreaming of Christmas.
Christmas turned out to be a diocese of Winchester triumph in damaging me,
let me just explain something before I continue and you truly believe in my paranoia, the churches in Winchester have a covenant to work together and communicate together, they work with and for charities like the Nightshelter and Trinity Centre, and communication goes round, which may well explain the above interaction with Pam and Phil too.
Communication goes around about distinctive homeless character such as me and Chris and Haggis, people know who we are, word gets around about untrustworthy homeless people too. Anyway, I went into yet another church, and was greeted but got a bit nervous and panicky as one of the servers followed me up the stairs and stayed close to me, he was a man, I did not know how nervous I am of men then, but now I do know. Anyway, after the service he came and sat with me, I was too nervous to stay in the main coffee area, a female priest came and sat with us, I was uneasy both because now female priests are firmly on my ‘avoid list’ and because she was making the effort to be there but her whole manner told me that there was something not ok in her thoughts to me, I was making efforts to leave these people and go to the library but they kept asking questions, the lady kept talking to the man about ‘Julie’ (Juli), she tried to phone this Julie person, she muttered to the man about it, she couldn’t get through to Juli, I was worried, were they trying to set Social services on me?
It turned out that Juli was running a lunch for lonely people, this vicar was going to go to this lunch, she went into the office and managed to get Juli on the phone and spoke to her for a while, then she told me that I could go to this lunch with her, in my circumstances turning down a cooked meal would have been silly, this priest didn’t like me and I didn’t like getting involved in this way after all my experiences of church apart from dear Helena and Keith’s pure Christianity, but there I was facing a roast dinner and a break from the streets or the noisy library, so I accepted it, the vicar took me into Juli’s house, Juli and someone else who I could hardly distinguish her from, were busy in the kitchen, the oven had broken and when the priest had originally phoned her she had been next door borrowing their oven for the turkey, it was a full Christmas meal, the other people were a great crowd of older people, Juli obviously already knew about me, and took me to her conservatory away from the other people, she sat me down and got me a drink and a snack, and her dog came wandering over, jumped up and settled with his head on my lap, she was surprised, she said that was unusual for him, he seemed content, she got me things to read, and asked if I would like to have my lunch in there away from the noise, I replied that I should be polite and sociable and join the others, as this is what has been drummed into me though if my autism had it’s way I would have stayed out there.
I sat next to the priest as Juli served the meal, the priest seemed to soften her hostile undertone somewhat as I joined in the cracker pulling and jokes and conversation as best I could, after the meal we sat and had coffee and as everyone was leaving Juli said that she had a spare room and she invited me to stay the night, there was a strange feeling about this offer and my thoughts were outside and flying along the snowy streets, this did not feel safe like Pam and Phil or Paul and his wife and Keith and Helena, but the temperatures were sub zero outside and were not going to rise, so I accepted her offer and brokenly hoped that it was God’s doing.
She was busy tidying up, I offered to help and then she was talking about wondering how she would get time to walk the dog, I offered to walk the dog, and by the time I got back she had done so much that I just had to hoover and clean the carpet and fold the table and put the table furniture away, Julie showed me the room and the bathroom, the room was very comfy, a big soft double bed with lots of pillows and bolsters, there was a TV with freeview that could be watched in bed, Juli showed me the shower room, then she talked me through her way of doing things, in her house everything had to be just so and to her liking, things had to go in a certain way, be done in a certain way, be arranged and placed in certain ways, and this was perfectly acceptable to me as long as I could remember how to do things her way- that was my main worry, getting it wrong and upsetting her. In the time I was there I think I managed to get things reasonably right, she cooked lovely food and encouraged me to do as she did and take myself a tray of breakfast and a pot of teaup to my room for breakfast in bed every day, very posh, very luxuriant, there I was with breakfast in bed and enjoying the pre-Christmas movies and music on freeview in the week leading up to Christmas, but something wasn’t right, one of those things was her conversations with Jane Fisher on the phone, at first I refused to comprehend that this was really a diocese arrangement, I tried to tell myself I was being paranoid and hypervigilant.
Jane Fisher took to emailing me and trying to text and talk on the phone with me that week, I was puzzled and alarmed and asked the Bishop to withdraw her, it was the first time Jane Fisher had spoken to me, it was the first time she had emailed me since I returned, it sent me mad with distress, Jane Fisher is a trigger for all the trauma and contact from her simply makes me distressed, I did not read her emails or texts and I could not speak to her on the phone.
I did not relax in the luxury house, but Juli was good to me, she got me to wear her old dressing gown which was very long and I nearly tripped over, I felt very pampered, she took me to Southampton and we went to Ikea and had a coffee there and I learned about getting free coffee and cheap food from Ikea, I love Town Centres as Christmas time and Southampton at Christmas means a lot to me because of my childhood Christmas there and the memories of me and my brother and our special attempts to make that homeless Christmas special, and here I was not alone, not with my brother but with this lady, but I still felt homeless, I told no-one I was staying with Juli, in my heart I had no doubt that there was something wrong with this set up, I also felt that I would be voluntarily leaving, and in a way I was already moving towards how I am now, not wanting to go back indoors to live. Indoors made the pain of what had happened too painful, it made me feel vulnerable and hopeless,outdoors I have concentrate on survival, indoors I remember that I am no one and have no future, Julie got me to talk, she tried to tell me that this was a new chapter in my life and that ‘whatever had happened was in the past’, instantly I looked at her and saw and heard Jane Fisher, Jane Fisher trying to dictate to me how she decided my life and feelings were, Jane Fisher trying to tell me that my feelings were invalid and that what had happened to me had not. I knew, I knew.
And as she told me of her friendship with the Cathedral staff and Canons I knew, again I knew, I knew from her quiet conversations with Jane when I was in my room, I knew.
And when she left me who she apparently hardly knew, alone in the house waiting for the oven repair man the day after I arrived, with £70 to cover his expenses, I was again suspicious, I was street homeless, this woman was pretending not to know me from Adam, but she knew from somewhere I wouldn’t take her money or harm her house.
Her canon friend Steve came round, I didn’t recognise him, he didn’t cause me any upset, I left him and Juli to talk in peace. But Juli was funny because one day she was talking about all these Canons, and the next day, as if for my sake she said she never had anything to do with the Cathedral because the worship was dreary and bland – I accepted her opinion, but as a homeless person I had found the Cathedral’s morning and evening worship invaluable for escaping the cold, as did other homeless people, I didn’t always go into the services but the fact that the Cathedral was unlocked at those times made me and other homeless people very happy, sitting on a warm radiator after nights out in sub zero temperatures is heaven. And I wondered why Julie went on about the priests being her friends and then slated their worship, it didn’t add up at all, she knew that I went to services at the Cathedral and I noticed the change in the Dean, Jame’s Atwell’ (who I called James Dean)s attitude at that point, I respected him and he was nice, then obviously ‘the word got to him’ at that point that ‘the condemned one’ was attending his services, and he became cold and avoided going near me, I have certainly done nothing to him or anyone there to deserve that. But every single sign pointed to the diocese being involved in this situation, and I tried to tell myself that maybe I had overreacted to the City Church situation and maybe I was mistaken about the diocese, but I was not happy, I was more and more nervous that this was indeed a diocese set up. Juli was going to her friends for Christmas dinner, she intended to leave me chicken and food and things for Christmas, she seemed sorry to be leaving me alone on Christmas day, but I assured her I was perfectly happy with that, she would be away for a few days and so I would be able to make my escape and just leave a thank you letter explaining that I had decided that I would be happier outdoors and it wasn’t anything that she had done. I would be quite happy just to be alone and free on Christmas day. She intended to stay and go to church with me, then she said we would have champagne, I wasn’t sure about having champagne, I am still baffled by that.
My benefit money actually arrived on Christmas eve, or was it the day before, I was happy with that, I foolishly told this woman Juli about it, and told her the troubles I had had and answered her questions about how and where I got benefits, she talked about me changing the address for benefits to her house, and I said ‘after Christmas maybe’. She asked me questions about homeless people and about Chris, who she recognized, she told me that God had put it on her heart to be involved with homelessness recently and then I came along. She went to the Catheral resource room for things to do with her work, she worked for the Methodist church as a training person, In the week or less that I was with her I could see every sign that she was linked to the diocese and that they knew I was there, especially in Jane Fisher’s efforts at communication.
I didn’t respond to Jane Fisher by talking to her but by asking the Bishop to stop her intervening in my life.
It was Lou Scott-Joynt on Christmas eve who confirmed my suspicions as I became more agitated, I asked over the phone what she thought of me being out on the streets at Christmas as a result of the church’s actions, I got a response that confirmed my suspicions ‘Are you out on the streets??!’ I said very directly ‘thank you for confirming that this is a set up’, and Lou Scott-Joynt was spluttering and trying to tell me that she hadn’t meant it like that and she was just asking! I informed her that I knew that was not the case, and I went down stairs as the phone was ringing and Juli told the caller she would phone them back.
I said to her ‘The diocese, the people who destroyed me know I am here’
She said ‘how do you know that?’
I said, ‘various reasons, and it means I am not safe here’,
She seemed taken aback, I do not think she had genuinely expected this situation to blow up at this time on Christmas eve, I do not know what she and the diocese had intended, but not this.
She then said ‘why are you not safe here? There is only you and me here’
I was shaking now, I said ‘Those people had me arrested, and tried to make me out to be mentally ill’
She said ‘maybe it was for your own good’
‘what making me out to be mentally ill in order to cover their backs?’
She said ‘well don’t let them be proven right by behaving as if they are’
This was now open and obvious that she was involved with them.
She told me that she was friends with the Bishop and that was not going to change.
I told her that I was extremely upset and was going for a walk, she seemed alarmed and tried to stop me, saying I shouldn’t go out in this state,
I said she wasn’t to stop me,
She said ‘Right, I will lay my cards on the table’ (she wasn’t holding any cards),
She said ‘I am friends with Jane Fisher and work closely with her’.
I screamed, despite knowing now that this was a set up, I screamed and screamed, I went outdoors onto the road with no shoes on, and I screamed, she came after me with my shoes, told me to come indoors, I went upstairs and got my things, she kept talking but I didn’t hear anything apart from her saying ‘Jane told me you would do this if you found out’.
I did not want to know what that woman, Fisher had to say through Juli, so kept screaming to block her out, she came into the room as I was gathering my possessions and ordered me to sit down, shouted it while clouting something against the bed, I headed for the door and she came and stood between me and the door, blocking me in, I persisted in getting the door open despite her being in the way, and got out got down the stairs and ran out the front door with my boots in my hand, my packing was a terrible mess, I had bought presents and goodies to give to the other homeless people as I was indoors for Christmas, I had been given clothes and money for clothes by Juli while I was there, I had got presents for her and other people, I had unpacked some of my backpack, and so leaving her house in a hurry meant I left a lot of stuff behind and what I had with me was in chaos, I ran along the snowy icy road in my socks as I was afraid she would trap me again, the neighbours had come out to see what the screaming was about, I was terrified that Juli would get the police and the psychiatrics on me especially after what she had said about the diocese just trying to help and me proving them right.
I walked around town on Christmas eve night in a daze, I put my boots on as some police rounded the corner, I was terrified but they must have thought I was just someone celebrating Christmas, I went in the Cathedral in a daze, warmth, confused servers wondering what to do with a woman having a breakdown, the Bishop and his wife smiling and wishing people happy Christmas, the Bishop’s wife looking at me with horror and hurrying away as I whimpered my way back out of the cathedral, the Catholic church, the Baptist church, security guards who were nice and tried to help, drunken revellers everywhere, it was a horrible horrible blur, I didn’t feel in control or safe at all, it was very very cold, I was in shock, I was carrying heavy bags of jumbled things, I stopped, threw things in the bin, took out a box of chocolates meant for Julie and gave them to a busker who was trying to earn his living off the revellers, he was very happy, I went back to Julie’s house, it was in darkness, the time was between 1 and 2am, I left all the clothes she had given me or given me money for on her doorstep, I sorted my possessions out to make them easier to carry, I had no water and I had only snack food. There was nowhere to get food.
I went to one of the churches, it had been left unlocked after midnight mass, and I crept in and cuddled up to a still warm radiator that kept me warm for the few hours sleep I got and I felt comforted, in the early morning I went to the Baptist church, I could hardly walk, but they gave me hot soup and tea, the Baptist minister greeted me sharply, obviously knowing who I was, he said I recognise you because I work with Eunice, I disbelieved him as she had only spoken to me once and he wasn’t there then, he was not being friendly but he asked, in a tone that implied that I looked like I was begging, if I was looking for Christmas lunch, he was trying to find lunches for 5 language students and didn’t want me there, I said no I wasn’t looking for anything, he asked where I was going after church and I said I was going to sit in the Catholic church, he said were they giving me lunch, I said no, he lost interest and wandered off.
I went to the Catholic church, it was warm and quiet after mass, the priest asked if I was ok, I said yes and asked if he was leaving the church unlocked, he said he was, I sat in there quietly for Christmas day, he came at lunch time and brought me a ham sandwich and a cup of tea, I really needed the tea, I was ragingly thirsty, by evening I was so thirsty I drank holy water from the fonts, and wondered if that was a sin, the priest came and locked up, I thanked him for letting me shelter for the day. It was -7 outside.
I was so very thirsty, I went to Roy and Sandy’s to beg for water, Sandy invited me in, she said they had been half expecting me for Dinner, she had invited me a few weeks ago but I had not accepted because a while before that when she had been quite snappy and angry she seemed to think I expected an invite and had said if she invited all the homeless people for Christmas that she felt sorry for then she would have a houseful, I didn’t want an invite out of pity and had been very very hurt by that conversation, Sandy was stressed at the time, she was doing jury duty and I found that hard after the recent Jersey matter, especially when she talked about the case or was snappy with stress.
But anyway, Roy and Sandy gave me leftover Christmas dinner and water and tea, and presents, and then I went off to sleep rough again, and spent Boxing day in the Catholic church again. I slept rough all that cold Christmas and suffered distress at what happened at that woman’s house, I spent New Year’s day in the Catholic church, the caretaker got to know I was homeless and worried a lot, he brought me hot drinks and so did the priest, I really liked and respected them. But I got very concerned when I heard myself being discussed and the way the priest said to someone how if someone from the SVP charity was going to speak to me then they should be strong people and two of them, I wondered if that was because the Diocese of Winchester was intervening again, but the priest said it was for my safety because I was a vulnerable adult.
Anyway, Jane Fisher didn’t let up in her interference, one morning as I left the toilets after my wash, my pal Haggis came along for his wash, he approached me looking bewildered and upset and told me that someone called Jane had been to the Trinity Centre about me and had left some things there for me (which I assume were things I left behind at Juli’s when I fled), he said that Jane had been talking about me and him, his voice trailed off and he looked at me, hurt and bewilderment. I was mortified, I wanted to sink through the floor and disappear, Haggis was trustworthy and kept confidences, I shouldn’t have done but I had briefly mentioned him to Juli in the conversations that she had initiated about homelessness and also for some reason mentioned him to Jane I think, but I had not in any way implied that me and Haggis were anything more than good friends, because we were nothing more than good friends and neither of us had any more feelings than that, neither of us were looking for a relationship. But here was Haggis looking so betrayed and sad, I said to him ‘That woman destroyed me, don’t on any account communicate with her about me or be used to fetch and carry for her or the Trinity Centre to me’. He agreed, but our friendship and trust and confidentiality broken completely and we parted company, there were no more evenings of sitting in the cold cathedral grounds looking at the stars and talking, no more shared food and good old natters, I had lost my friend, only once after that did he try to talk to me, and I said no, I could not risk a diocesan attack through him.
I wote to Jane’s friend Juli and told her that I wanted this interference to stop, as she had obviously discussed things with Jane, I told her that I wanted Jane Fisher to withdraw from interfering and harming me, and I went to the Trinity Centre and left them a letter saying that if Jane Fisher interfered any more then they should call the police as she was harming me, I phoned texted and emailed the Bishop, Jane Fisher and her friends at Romsey Abbey and asked for this interference by Jane Fisher to stop I also wrote to the police but was too afraid to go and see them in case the diocese had me arrested again, she had picked the very worst day for this interference as I was due to go to London that day for a post Christmas visit to friends and family. Things got worse as I went to see Roy and Sandy and Sandy interrogated me and was puzzled as to why the diocese were troubling me, she said that the my lawyer had said that the diocese had only ever tried to help me, this sent me further into collapse because aprt from that being untrue, ie the diocese had not helped me but had harmed me through Jane Fisher, the lawyer had no right to take in such opinions, nor to discuss the case with Sandy, I had no-one on my side for that case, not even a lawyer, the diocese are lying in saying they only ever helped me, they, as representatives of God, lied and harmed me by it.
So I arrived in London that day very damaged, went through the motions of our usual hot chocolates and river trips, we couldn’t get onto an ice rink as they were all fully booked, but we had a river ride and went on the DLR and had fun, I suppose. I was too exhausted for all of this, London usually takes more energy than I have, and I returned to Winchester sick with exhaustion and distress and remained that way for days.
Anne died on January 4th, I was exhausted and in a way I wondered if she had died because of me being unable to pray my strength to her any more, this is a reminder of the magical beliefs that came from my parents, Anne was in the last stage of her life and was coming to death, and there is no evidence that my offering of my strength to her through God had any influence on her illness at all at any stage, I doubt that it did. Anne died, I never got to see her after Jane Fisher had interfered, but I still loved her and lit a candle and prayed for her every day. I couldn’t think about her having gone, I couldn’t think about the years of friendship, because it hurt too much, I couldn’t cope with the grief, Anne had been my friend for so long and had been the most trustworthy friend,
I did not know what to do about the funeral as I did not want to see Juliet and Fred and their supporters, Ray said Anne would have wanted me there, but I did not know what to do.
Sandy and Roy were away, I had no money and was starving hungry, in one of my emails to Jane Fisher and the diocese, protesting about the situation, I said that for all their fake and damaging concern there I was starving, what were they going to do about it? To my surprise, Jane Fisher offered to bring me a sandwich, I told her truthfully that I would wet myself if I saw her, she muddled along going on and on about a sandwich so I said ok, but the communication went wrong and no sandwich appeared, especially as she tried to text me and I did not get the text until too late, in short she arranged to be one place and I was another, I did not get her text in time or she just wasn’t there, this made me angry, I had wet myself in distress at the thought of seeing her, but I was starving, my giro had never arrived, then she arranged to come and meet me again later that evening, I told her she was mad as it was raining and dark and cold, she met me on the steps of the guildhall and I wet myself, I could hardly walk as my feet were so sore and infected and blistered and my ankle was bad, I was exhausted, she gave me a bag of food and I felt sick to accept food off someone who had caused me so much hurt, but when I looked in the food bag I guessed she must be genuine because there was a large bottle of water in there, she knew I had been having trouble getting water at night and was thirsty a lot, but not long before this meeting I had found a tap that was accessible at night and so that had improved.
Jane asked if I wanted her to stay or go, I was astonished, since when was I human and worthy of giving an opinion or having feelings or a say in the matter? Then she asked if I wanted a hot drink and if Subway across the road did hot drinks, I solemly told her that they did a good cup of tea for 99p, she went and got me a cup of tea and I chattered happily to the cup of tea, she seemed surprised and asked if I liked tea, which shows how little she knows about me, I drank my tea and she stayed and then went to get more tea and got herself a coffee, she made me angry by saying that she wouldn’t talk about anything that made me angry, but I kept quiet, she amused me by trying to stand out of the drips that were falling off the guildhall because it was raining, I stayed crumpled on the step and she leaned on the wall, she thought I was scared of Debbie the paranoid homeless girl, but I was scared of Jane, not Debbie, I looked out for Debbie as she tends to sneak up and I didn’t want her near me and Jane, it was a tense enough situation without Added Debbie.
So Jane and I talked about little things, the weather, how her homeless friend used to go in the hospital and take showers and do things there, I pointedly told her that I would be at risk of getting into trouble if I did that and that I had had enough trouble. She went on about where did I sleep and did I really bed down early and get up early and she couldn’t do that and she struggled to get up for work in the morning, I knew that from the time when she got up at 10.30 one day when I was in contact with her in Jersey. Anyway, in the end she said that she would like to meet up and buy me lunch the next week, she suggested MacDonalds and I explained to her that I ate there too often because I got vouchers to eat and drink there, so we agreed on a cafe and she said she would buy me a jacket potato, I was happy with that, seeing as I was hungry and needed food, I was kicking myself and thinking I was insane for this contact with her and allowing her this close and to be talking about my life and leaving myself vulnerable to her. That did not feel good.
Anyway, when she went away, Debbie appeared out of nowhere and started screaming and yelling, as she does. Then Chris appeared and started telling me that I should go to the doctor about the way I was walking, so by the time I got to my shelter, it was quite late.
I know that Jane came and brought me food, but it did not make all well, and I told her so, told her I felt humiliated by it, because I did.
Then I was also humiliated by another incident, I went into Marks and Spencers as in the cold weather their disabled toilet was a nice warm place to go and wash. I saw Margaret Fowkes as I went up the escalator, she ignored me, back on the ground floor were Fred Montague and Colin Fowkes, Colin looked straight through me and then turned to Fred and said ‘There’s Judith’ and they continued to whisper and chuckle and look round at me as I walked away. The Fowkses were not friends with Fred in the old days, in fact he upset Colin Fowkes when the Montagues arrived in Littleton, but now Colin is dead so he knows the truth about what has happened if he is in an afterlife where averything is known. But this incident as well as seeing Jane Fisher were too much for me to cope with, I told Jane Fisher so and she said that she didn’t know anything about me being jeered at and that it was not humiliating for her to bring me food – well she wasn’t the humiliated one! But to be jeered about by someone who had abused me and was unpunished, while I was utterly destroyed was harmful to me.
Jane Fisher appeared to give up on the jacket potato meeting as I grew increasingly distressed over the previous meeting and the Montague/Fowkes incident. Then suddenly she made contact about meeting me for a jacket potato, but her contact was cold and hostile and she put me under pressure, I agreed to go but again I was deeply stressed, we went to the cafe and it was noisy and chaotic and I started to panic, Jane didn’t get a jacket potato for herself but she got me one, I was a bit puzzled, she didn’t want to be there, and I was alarmed when she held her phone up saying she had got a message, her phone has a camera and she was holding this phone up so that the camera lens was pointing at me, I had to tell myself that she was not allowed to photo me and that she wasn’t doing, I was just nervous and anxious in this chaotic cafe with this lady who scared me a lot, outside the cafe she said to me that she had got some good news for me, I said no! I said she was not to tell me anything about anything because I was not strong enough, which is exactly what I told her in Jersey and got an unhelpful response.
Jane persisted and I started to panic, I told her not to tell me anything, and to try and get her to stop I tried to change the subject, she said ‘well shall i go to my meeting then?’ as if talking of taking herself away from me would change things, but I have no love for Jane Fisher so instead I walked away so that she knew I really did not want to know what she had to say. I know I asked the church for help in getting to anne’s funeral before but having anything forced on me about Anne by Jane when I couldn’t cope was not great.
In the next day, by text she said she hadn’t said it was good news but that it was something I would want to hear, I said no, she had nothing that I wanted to hear. Then she sent me an email, and because I do not and will not read her emails, she sent the communication in the email subject box, which is the only way that she and the Bishop get to talk to me as their emails have traumatised me so much that I wont read them, and they know this, so they send things in subject boxes.
Anyway, Jane Fisher was saying something about Anne’s ashes, I was furious, I was raw as hell, the way Jane had behaved at that jacket potato meeting at the cafe, trying to force something on me was not something I could cope with, my grief for Anne being interfered with by Jane Fisher, for whatever reason, was too much for me, I remembered how the diocese had gone on about Anne to the police and Tracy and tried to blame my breakdown in July/August last year on that, and I was furious and distressed, I was trying to get the courage to go to the Service for Anne at St. Catherines on the Sunday of that week, and knowingI would have to see Fred and Juliet and others such as Margaret Fowkes and Jennifer Brown did not feel good. But I have no idea why Jane Fisher was involving herself, or why she spelt Anne’s name with a little a, as if Anne was no-one, the grief and distress came out in my anger to Jane, why had she met with me to try and force something on me about Anne, and why had she refused to listen to NO!
On Sunday early morning I sat in the church in my blanket, the radiators were on which was comforting, Shirley came in a said something to me in a startled voice and I panicked and ran away yattering in autistic language, she said after me, ‘it’s ok, I will go away again’, she was there to do something with the flowers.
I was wondering if I could cope with being in the morning service before the service for Anne, but as the churchwardens and others came in and people who used to be friendly were not, I decided I couldn’t face it. I went and sat in the churchyard, and that is where I spent the morning. When it was time for Anne’s service I sat on a bench in the graveyard near the church room, and I could hear the service as it was transmitted from the church to the church room for all the people who could not fit into the packed church, I also had the service sheet so I could follow the service, the undertaker/gravedigger was a very kind man who came to talk to me and make sure I was ok, I explained to him that I lived outdoors and couldn’t go in to the church room or church, he was very accepting and kind, he was very prepared to arrange somewhere for me to sit in the church or church room but he was also ok that I decided to stay out.
I was sitting near where Anne’s ashes were to be buried, and I had a lit candle there with me on the bench, as everyone came out from the church and church room for the burial I stayed where I was, even though Fred Montague was the first to get there, he stared at me and turned to the people with him. I kept my lighted candle in my hand, and as Anne’s ashes were lowered into the ground I blew the candle out. And suddenly I realised something, suddenly I remembered, the inscription on Kevin’s memorial stone nearby read ‘It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness’,
Thank you Anne, thank you my friend, just hold my hand.
Anyway, Lynne was crying and Ray looked devastated, two different people approached me, neither of whom I knew well, they both knew me and spoke, One was a member of the choir who I hadn’t seen for years,the other was Martin Laver’s sister, they stood with me and they both asked separately if I would go up to the Memorial Hall for the wake, then they agreed with each other that they would both walk with me, I had not been going to go, but I agreed because I was being invited, they remembered me especially from my glory days of helping out with ‘Wiggle Sunday’ among other things. As we walked, other people expressed their approval that I was going to the wake, including Clive Thompsett, Juliet’s sweetheart. So I was happy with that. At the hall it was crowded, Julia, Anne’s daughter greeted me and said she was glad I was there, but I was tongue tied, the ladies who were with me helped me to get a drink and things, and then Chris, Anne’s Son in law came and chatted to me, Chris is a lovely person, it was really good to talk to him, then someone waved to me and pointed to a seat at their table, I think it was the Reeds, they are a nice couple and seem totally oblivious to the bad church situation, they knew nothing about my current situation and I glossed over it and made friendly conversation while people kept plying me with food and drinks, including Shirley Lupton, who was being all nice in an odd cold way.
It was nice to see the Reeds and the other people who came and sat with us who were also all familiar faces, these people did not seem to know me as the condemned one, so I chatted as best I could in the noisy room, Juliet was there, embarrassingly hugging Roger Parsons as much as she could. Lynne was there but not Martin, I didn’t get to see her, but I got to see ray and have a brief exchange of words and sympathies, Jack and Fiona were there, and I didn’t really notice who else. I only knew it was the funeral and wake of Littleton and the community I had known and loved as well as the funeral and wake of a friend who had been a pillar of strength and wisdom and love for me for all the years.
‘Now all that’s left are bitter tears and memories of happier years in Littleton, and see the bay tree how big it’s grown, but friend, it hasn’t been that long it wasn’t big, you laughed at me and I got mad, the first day that I planted it, was just a twig’
Shirley took me over and shepherded me about, she had decided she was giving me a lift to town whether I liked it or not, I let her, I was ill, I had been being sick, Shirley was not my friend any more but she kept nagging on at me, telling me to see the doctor and had I got any friends who could help me, and going on about there must be something to change my situation
What do you want to change about my situation Shirley? How do you want my life lived? Am I complaining about my ‘life’? because nothing is going to change and why should it? I was annoyed she spoke of me seeing a doctor as I have been seeing the doctor regularly, and I was annoyed that she wanted things changed when she wasn’t even in touch with me or my friend any more, she was being patronizing and added to it by saying Anne would approve of ‘this little talk’. Wherever Anne is she knows how the diocese have treated me and sees how it took my friends, so I think Shirley is mistaken that Anne would apporove of her trying to shove me to the Doctors with the diocese ‘mentally ill’ label on me.
Anyway, there I was alone and distressed after the funeral, I couldn’t get myself to do anything or go anywhere, so I walked ack to Littleton for the peace and healing service, trying to hold on to someone, something that was dead, going back, back to a service that is full of ghosts, ghosts of Gordon playing the piano out of time while struggled to sing along, ghosts of Walter and Anne and all the other people who were no longer there, Margaret Fowkes hadn’t been around earlier that day because Colin was ill, she was there that evening because apparently the hospital had said it wasn’t serious, they were wrong, he died not long after that.
Anyway, at the peace and healing service Juliet said hello, which made me angry. The service though was aghost of the old peace and healing service, the old service had been Juliet sitting there serenely in her black cassock with Gordon playing the piano and a dedicated healing team going up to receive the laying on of hands so that they could lay hands on people, but all this is gone in the new Christchurch St. Catherine’s, anyone can do the laying on of hands, there is no healing team, no Betty and Vivien, the service is led by Jennifer Brown, one of the people who supports Juliet in the condemnation of me, there is no Gordon, there is David Brown who is paid to be there, there is none of the old healing atmosphere, it is a ghost of the amazing service it once was.
After that I got a wonderful kind, friendly greeting from Allen Disher, a fake greeting from Margaret Fowkes, and no interaction with anyone else.
And that was the end of Littleton.
I couldn’t think about Anne very easily after that because I couldn’t cope with knowing that she and those happy sunny days in Littleton were over forever, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to stay in contact with Ray, but I emailed and told him he would be in my thoughts and prayers.
The Catholic priest and church continued to be supportive and kind, the church and church office more and more so, Catholics have a great attitude, the right attitude, and they have got the balance spot on in not being pitying but being kind, respectful and caring, they have made the darkness so much easier to bear, and that church has been one of the most beneficial things for me in the time I have been homeless here. I did become wary of the priest and church at one point in case the diocese had intervened, but I have been assured that they can’t and wont, and they let me help out and they are good to me and over the last few months have rebuilt some of me through their kindness and I feel safe and I can smile and chat to them and I can sit in the porch while everyone mills about and I am not scared. God bless them.
After more patches of starving, especially just after the funeral, I sat in the church porch dripping wet from the rain one morning and when the caretaker came round he got me a cup of tea, then he asked how I was eating and I told him I was struggling to get food, he went and got me a big food parcel, sandwiches, fruit, biscuits, soup, I was very happy. And since then if I have had thin times, the church have kept me fed.
I had also stopped going to soup kitchen or accepting any outreach after the church first made it known that they had interfered at the nightshelter/Trinity Centre, but I started going again, so I was now getting more food and enjoying the company of the people at soup kitchen, the staff there have always made a tremendous effort to help me, for which I am grateful, and I love soup kitchen and all the fun we have there.
One day in the Cathedral for early communion, I was too panicky to go in and one of the other regulars came out and asked why I was not in the service, I explained, he asked questions, I told him I was homeless, he was apparently ex-homeless, understood about the nightshelter and wanted to help me, he was a very big character, very loud and bossy, like an English Gentleman, but actually not English. He gave me some dusty sweets and told me to come to his flat for a meal that afternoon after my medical in Southampton, I went, he had two men hiding out in his flat, both homeless, one who had been given a flat but couldn’t look after himself so relied on this guy, one who was in constant police trouble, mainly for theft, the flat was the most glorious mess you could imagine, there was dirty crockery and rotting food everywhere, freezer food in fridges and on surfaces, nice quality food too, there were piles of rubbish and junk everwhere, the kitchen couldn’t have been cleaned for years, the man himself slept on the sofa while his homeless pals slept in his bed, he was very imperious and would sit there and give orders to all of us as he gasped for breath, he was in poor health, I did as he asked, fetched and carried but did not like being told to go and take the neighbour’s bag of BBQ fuel. The man was friends with the Dean, and claimed that the Bishop had also helped him out, he went on about how there should never be women Bishops, he took me round the shops one day, four hours of him getting himself luxury things, he had an English Bank account and one in his own country, and was well off, but he told me that the Bishop had helped him to get benefits or pensions by writing letters, he told me about how the Bishop had not wanted to bless his sweaty head one day and he had complained to the Dean and the Dean had admonished the Bishop and he had got an extra hard blessing next time, I do not believe this, but anyway, this man told me I would not want to go in the supermarket with him, I asked why not and he told me he had never paid for meat, he told me a tale of when he collapsed while shoplifting and they had never even suspected that what was in his bag was stolen because he does not look or seem dodgy, he seems like gentry, he said both his homeless illegal lodgers had been in prison, but he was a car thief once and had never been convicted of anything.
Well if this man is a friend of the Bishop and Dean who condemn me, and I am condemned to be reliant on such company because of what the Bishop has done to my life, then what hope is there? Anyway I ended up sleeping at this outlaw hideout, I dreamed that I was raped not long after arriving there, but none of these men were sexual to me, one was not interested, he slept ate, watched television and worked for a bad boss, he was simple, his mate was too depressed to be sexual and had a girlfriends who he would not sleep with, and the man himself openly said he disliked sex, amazing, I lived with three celibate crooks. But I did have to work really hard to help prevent getting him evicted because of how serious the mess his flat was in, someone was coming round to try and save the neighbour’s lives by doing something about the floorboards, teh man went out leaving me to look after the flat and greet the person coming to inspect it, and I worked like a whirlwind to try and sort the place out to prevent any trouble, the man didn’t return when he said he would, and so I felt obliged to stay around and speak to the inspecting party, the neighbour came round mad at the man in the meantime, and I placated him, he was under the impression that the man and one of the homeless men were sleeping together and he was amazed to see a woman in the house. Then the man decided that we were going overseas, he was taking the lightfingered homeless man with him, and he decided I was coming too and that I should tell no-one and it would get me away from my problems, he told me to change my benefits to his address and not tell anyone, I did but that night I only got three hours of sleep as he prowled the now clean flat, I was choking on his constant smoke and was exhausted from being at his beck and call all day, and he had said something about plenty of criminal activity while we were away and I could turn a blind eye, but despite being condemned I didn’t like this, and also didn’t want to be a slave or breathing in smoke and goodness knows what. I walked out. Later realising they could have sold me or done anything to me if I had gone abroad with them. He is back in town now so their year abroad obviously didn’t work, I lost one benefit cheque to their address as the Benefits agency didn’t change the address back quick enough. If I had gone abroad with them then the diocese would never have got me with their police attack.
One day I was in the library and David, my homeless pal who had been rehoused, came in and chatted to me, a girl overheard us and came to talk to me, she heard that I was homeless and said she wondered if her family could help me sometimes, they ran a business and had a shower room, she said maybe I could have a shower and a coffee and things at their place in return for casually helping with odds and ends, so she arranged for me to come and meet her mum and have a coffee, we never made any concrete arrangements, but as I was walking back across the road from seeing her, I was recognised by some other people who I knew when I was a teenager at Sparsholt, and it was very beneficial to me that they remembered me, because they came back into my life at this point and have also made the difference between struggling and starving and having a better quality of life on the streets, they provide me with a bit of food frequently and a hot drink first thing in the morning, they give me purpose and a reason to get out of my blankets and walk in the morning, they give me my first hot drink of the day every day. And they are salt of the earth.
They had a shock one day when i didn’t turn up for my hot drink and chat, the diocese set the police on me and I was detained in a cell.
I was walking up the road to the library confusedly trying to decide if I should sit in the church and rest my aching head or if I should go to the Winchester centre to deal with something, when I saw a policeman talking to some church people, then the policeman came after me and he said ‘are you Judith?’ and started rambling about me being a rough sleeper and saying he recognised me from the photo... he suddenly tried to change that to saying he had seen me on the video when I had come in and left the letter to the police begging them to get Jane Fisher and the diocese to leave me alone after the Christmas and Trinity Centre incidents, anyway he pretended to be nice and friendly and said he was just trying to help me and that he didn’t want to arrest me for making contact with the diocese, I told him that they had made contact with and about me and that I was responding in distress to them, I was howling in rage and distress and he coldly told me I was talking rubbish, he wouldn’t let me go, he said I shouldn’t have been sending emails to the diocese, I told him that that they had emailed me, he said disbelievingly ‘show me these emails’, I said ‘how can I when we are on the street and nowhere near a computer?’, he was blocking me whichever way I turned and trapping me , causing me to panic, I was crying out in distress as well as anger that the diocese could get away with provoking and hurting me and get me into trouble for reacting, the policeman made it clear that he didn’t believe me, I told him that Jane Fisher had tried to force something on me about Anne in the week before her funeral and that that kind of thing caused me to react, he said he knew about Anne, Jane Fisher had obviously explained all of that away, he grabbed my upper arms, causing me to go out of control with panic – I have pictures of the bruises- and he threw me on the ground, this seemed purely for show and drama, he trapped me in a corner and I was out of my mind and still trying to escape this grip on my arms and trap, he tried to make out that I was trying to bite him, I have never bitten anyone and never will, I was screaming in terror, and he broadcast my screams on the ‘ shopwatch’ security radio that is in a lot of shops and businesses in Winchester, a woman came over and intervened and asked why I was screaming, I told her that I was autistic and that the way the man was gripping me was sending me out of my mind, she got him to let go, and as I was trapped in a corner, he did, then a load of police cars and vans turned up, the whole thing was witnessed by a whole load of shop owners and homeless people outside the pub, and I still get stared at by a certain few of them when I walk past. I was thrown in a police van and taken to the station, frozen in terror and trauma I was told to get out of the van and go into the police station but I could not, so they dragged me, they dragged me by my jumper, pulling it up so I was exposed and the jumper was choking me, they took my backpack away and they roughly searched my trouser pockets, causing me to scream in terror, they took my boots off, not gently which was nasty for my ankle, and they threw me in a cell and sat there in the doorway observing me all the time and writing it down, I didn’t move from where I was left, I was terrified that there was a policeman near me all the time while I was on the floor, and the loud loud voices that echoed in the doorway were excruciating, they were really making an effort to make me out to be mentally ill, the one who had hurt me was trying to say I tried to bite him, one of them kept on about paranoia, and they kept making me out to be a troublemaker because of what was written because of the CRB check and they phoned Jersey police about me, they also kept talking about having me put in a hospital and were asking someone if me ‘talking to myself’, as I was praying to keep myself calm, was mental illness, I was terrified, I began to wonder if I was mentally ill, I was terrified of being kept locked up, I was in that cell for nearly 24 hours and had nothing to eat or drink, the police changed shifts and some of the new police were not as aggressive, they let me go to the toilet and use the phone I phoned Lizzie and she asked them to get a female police officer to be there and told them I was very depressed and afraid of men and was there someone there who helped people with special needs? They told her that there were no female officers there and they couldn’t change their system to suit me. I also phoned the Catholic priest and asked him to pray for me to be released as I was going out of my mind at being trapped, I mentioned Jane Fisher in the conversation and he obviously recognized her name and seemed a bit startled, he said he would pray for me,
I was assessed by a psychiatrist, a social worker and a doctor, they asked for an account of what was going on and I gave them a brief account, they said my emails to Jane Fisher were bizarre and I told them that Jane Fisher and the church had driven me mad with distress, the psychiatrist said she wondered if trauma had caused this behaviour, I looked at the juicy selection of emails Jane had sent the police in the obvious attempt to make me out to be mentally ill, with all her little replies of comments on them, that I never read, the psychiatrist wanted to make sure it wasn’t ‘voices’ telling me to write these things, and she checked if I was paranoid about Jane Fisher and the diocese, which I am not in terms of the actual mental illness, but in terms of being in constant fear and hypervigilance and concern about their very real interventions in my life and concern that I could not distinguish real help from their interventions, yes it does look like paranoia, anyway, I was released from the police station and asked to see the mental health crisis team later that day, I went straight to the people who I should have seen first thing in the morning and apologized for the police stopping me from getting there, they were horrified.
Then I went to see the crisis team, the crisis team and I very quickly got on well, they assessed me for serious mental illness and said they couldn’t find any and they fed me, they were kind and they listened and they talked, it was almost impossible because of trauma for me to talk about the diocese and what had happened in Jersey, but I gave them a brief account, and for some reason I also ended up doing them a written account of my childhood, which would have been followed by a written account of everything else. But they didn’t need to see me for long, they kept assessing me and saying there was no sign of mental illness, mainly I saw one person and she was absolutely lovely, but sometimes I saw others, and they were also nice, I also saw kitchen staff who adopted me and did massive food parcels for me, and a doctor who assessed whether I needed to be medicated for my anxiety, thankfully I didn’t, I have ended up not medicated at all, and I am relieved because I know without any doubt that medication would not work on me. The unkind police said thing along these lines as I was leaving the station ‘Go to the hospital, take your medication, the diocese haven’t done anything, it is medical help you need’, which is really cutting, and the diocese have harmed me by their intervention, and I am traumatized, especially by this police attack after the diocese drove me mad by provoking me.
Anyway, for the few weeks after this police attack I was ill with shock, there were mornings when I woke up and couldn’t move or get up, and those poor people waiting for me were left wondering what had happened to me again. I wandered about aimlessly not sure where to go and not being able to get myself washed or change clothes, I didn’t want to eat and I was sick. Sandy took some photos of the bruises that the police inflicted on me, though at the time she didn’t know it was the police. Every time I saw a police car or an officer I panicked, my little computer was broken as it had been in my backpack when I was thrown to the ground and that backpack had no padding as my new one does. The computer was fixed free of charge some time later, but for some time I was bereft as it was broken and it provides writing and games and music for me, it is a mini word processor, nothing posh, but I have very little and it means very much to me.
I got a message in capital letters from the Bishop of Winchester shortly after the police attack it read something about having a meeting to discuss things, it was written in an email subject box and I couldn’t read it all. I told him that a meeting was all very well but what he had subjected me to and put on my record was irreparable.
Being homeless is like a strenuous sport, it can keep you fit and healthy and clear headed, it can leave you bruised and strained and tired, it has a range of skills which you start off without and learn as you go, there are people of different levels in the sport, there are people who never acquire all the skills and people who chicken out and hang on to relatives or kill themselves, there are people who can survive street homelessness and learn it and people who cannot, I seem to have been incredibly lucky, so many people cannot believe I am a rough sleeper as I am better dressed now than I was when I lived indoors and struggled to make ends meet, I am now well fed after thos patches of starvation, I have places to go during the day and I sleep alone and hidden in shelters at night, I find the freedom of homeless tremendously helpful, and the cool outdoors helps to keep my nighttime temperature down so that I don’t wake up sick from overheating too much, but I rarely get cold, I wash each day in the public toilets and have learned how to do so discreetly and without upsetting anyone, and as time has gone by I have regular places to go for baths and showers as well as cups of tea, in the beginning it was a struggle as I relied on Roy and Sandy and briefly the Trinity Centre for baths and showers, now I don’t and I regularly make a trip to the laundarette with all of my clothes, which is enough to fit in one machine.
Washing sufficiently in toilets is an art, it starts with getting on well with the council employees so that they are helpful rather than obstructive, and then knoing which disabled toilet, baby change facility or quiet toilets to use, wet wipes are essential rather than splashing water everywhere every day, I use two kinds, intimate ones for lower down, and face wipes for face, neck, arms, nderarms and chest, then deodourant is priority as you have to wash quickly and deodourant needs to dry, while it is drying brush teeth and do mouthwash, if you are sufficiently undisturbed in the makeshift bathroom then do footcare, this is the worst thing to be disturbed while doing, boots and layers of socks take time to take off and put on, footcare is wiping feet with intimate wipes, disinfecting, bursting any blisters with an essential pin carried in wash kit, and disinfecting again, then remocing dead skin from sores and blisters with a pair of nail clippers, then put clean socks on, clean socks and pants are essential no matter what else is dirty, pants and trousers easily get stinky if you have to go to the toilet in the field as I do, even though I have tissues with me, it is difficult especially in the dark, and one thing I hate is to be antisocial to anyone else so, deodourant, mouthwash, and clean down there is essential to me, and I feel amazing after an early morning wash followed by a cuppa. This may all sound very strange to a house dweller, but so many people do not know how homeless people live, and the homeless people who live as I do tend to do something like the routine above, then there are thos who don’t bother, everyone is different.
Anyway, back to the story, I knew I couldn’t cope with a meeting with the Bishop because of panic, I have tried to talk to the diocese about this and also said there is no way I can meet with Jane Fisher at this meeting, but to try and alleviate the fear of the Bishop I tried to worship alongside him in the Cathedral, but one day he cornered me and I completely panicked and didn’t hear a word he said as I escaped from him and ran. Since then my panic attacks and anxiety have been terrible. I have yet to meet with the Bishop again, and I feel condemned and destroyed by everything that has happened, and not sure what on earth a meeting could possibly do to help me.
Sometimes I think my life as a homeless person is great, freedom, kind people who feed me and get me clothes and food and tea and a new backpack and things, a lovely community of people who greet me kindly and make me happy, sleeping alone in the silence and seeing the stars in the dark before I sleep, no pressure to go to work and endure the struggle and stress that communication at work entails, but that is when I am trying to see the positives. In reality I am condemned and given a terrible record by the church, my attempts to better myself and educate myself are gone, I am an outcast from worshipping communities, I am unloved, I am reliant on kindness and charity, I am spoken about in terrible ways and have been called wicked and malicious, I am by default alongside drug addicts, drinkers and people who cannot be bothered with themselves or others, people who smoke over me so I choke and wheeze, people who swear more and worse than I ever did and who don’t do it because they have been damaged as I was in the church, they swear worse than I do very day and in front of their children, I do not swear unless I am hurting and frightened, not everyone in the homeless community is honest, though some are as rigorously honest as I am, but some are not, so my possessions have been stolen and vandalized at times, and of course going to the police will never be an option. I will never work again, never be able to apply for s job or be accepted, I will never be a volunteer again, never be able to complete a CRB check again, I will never go to college again, there will never be any point, I will never drive again, and so I am hobbled by not being able to walk far, and no money for journeys really, so I am stuck in Winchester, I cannot even afford to see my new niece. So here I am, a local character now, a clean fed homeless girl, one of only two real rough sleeping girls in the city, Debbie is the other one, and she is mad and goes for people, and it causes hell when people confuse her and me, other homeless girls come and go, but here I am on my own, with a lifestyle which is a mixture of joy at being better fed and clothed than I was when I was housed and working and struggling to make ends meet, and sorrow for the death of my real life and aspirations and the toughness of this life, you have to be tough and confident because if you are not then other homeless people will make life hell for you.I went into the church in the morning one day and there was a man there, he was lighting all the little candle ends in an agitated way, then he sat on a rail, I was worried, he looked like the man who had been causing problems at Christmas, I went to get Sue, but the man was walking away from church by then, leaving the candle tray full of lit candle ends. It made me anxious, but Sue wasn’t too worried. It wasn’t the pyromaniac who had disrupted our lovely church at Christmas.
I logged onto the computer in the same morning and found a Facebook message from my disturbed older brother, the one who had abused me when I was little, I was surprised and annoyed, expecting him to be being unkind or be causing problems, I considered not reading it but because it was so unusual for him to try to contact me I read it, it was not from him, it was from someone who knew him, and they had hijacked his account and were writing hate messages on his page and about him and some of the other siblings, the nature of what was being written was horrifying, my anger towards the people in Jersey who harmed me was bad, but I didn’t go to the point of distributing their bank details online and threatening to put child porn on their facebook and get them arrested for it, this person did to my brother, most of my siblings had blocked my brother from their facebooks because of trouble he caused and things he said about my dad when he died, so they were unaware of what was happening online, I had never let my brother be a friend on facebook and so hadn’t blocked him, so only me and two other siblings were contacted by this person hijacking my brother’s facebook, and my brother only had 9 friends on facebook so no-one had noticed apart from me and my sisters, my sisters and I contacted other members of the family and collectively we made complaints to facebook about the hijack, one of my brother’s girlfriends contacted the bank about the bank details being broadcast and it was found that that was indeed his account and the bank blocked the account, though the hijacker said he had already raided the account.
The strangest thing was that the hijacker said my brother was a Methodist Minister, I have not seen this brother for years but I could not believe this, his employment history on this account gave a list of churches he had apparently worked at, but I couldn’t believe this, especially not as he was saying terrible things about my deceased dad when he died a few years ago.
The hijacker told us that my brother was lying to everyone in the family, even though no-one wa in contact with my brother, he said that my brother hid his contact details from the family and pretended to be abroad, he put my brother’s apparent mobile and address online, and kept telling me to phone my brother, he said he was angry that my brother was going to Nottingham. This was all shocking, I know very little about my brother apart from that he is deeply deeply disturbed and has a son, I thought he lived in Wales, but apparently he left Wales a long time ago. The hijacker put a graphic pornographic picture as my brother’s profile picture, I was sickened by all this, I know I have lashed out and used bad language in Jersey, but I was driven out of my mind by what happened there and being left suffering and being hurt with no help and Jane Fisher’s denials and the diocese refusing to take what I said seriously, but I didn’t involve porn or use someone’s website or their bank details, I only fought in swearwords and anger when I was driven beyond endurance, but it did shock me and wake me up to see someone else furious and going mad like this, only they were doing much more serious, involving us when we had no idea of the dispute, aiming obscenities at us including asking me pornographic questions, and doing such serious things.
In the state of mind I was and am in, I could not cope very well with all of this, the heavy painful feelings that I get from communicating with my family got unbearable, and added to the stress of worrying about the church in the morning.
The shocks of the day impacted into the weekend and I was ill with headaches and feeling sick as well as the usual anxiety, dread and distress.
there are no churches in Winchester where I can go without feeling ashamed, and my level of panic when going into a church has also increased significantly, the only good thing about the Catholic church is that even if the priest is too busy to talk to me, he has not listened to the diocese or maligned me to the whole congregation or attempted to cause any alienation or separation of me from the other people, people there are still lovely to me, and people there still help me and are kind to me, I am the one worrying about further intervention from Jane Fisher, I am the one worrying about losing these people, I will never heal from the diocese and this story has been so traumatic to write, to access these wounds again and to try to cope with the trauma of doing so and knowing that I can so easily miss important evidences out and that the Bishop and Jane Fisher and diocese have covered everything up so smartly, so well, so carefully and very effectively made me look like a terrible person and them like saints who have only ever helped me, they managed this to the police, to the press and to all these people who they have alienated me from and used to hurt me, this treatment condemned and condemns me, they have had the advice and expertise to try and cover up and gloss over, the only thing they have failed in again and again is making me out to be mentally ill, and the recent attack made it clear that I am not, and even I was beginning to defeatedly think I was mentally ill as the church forced onto me that I was and gave the police that opinion that I was as I heard them say it over and over in the police station that I was paranoid because Jane Fisher had given them the emails with her side, the diocese’s side of the story. I know Jane Fisher and the diocese well enough to know that if I do come to any harm on the streets they will ensure that the church is covered by having a story published about ‘how they only tried to help me and that I just kept going mad’ and how ‘they had me sectioned out of concern’ etc, when if they had handled things properly in the first place, and if they had prevented people such as Fred Montague and the abuser in Jersey from being in the position to abuse me, then I would not be a destroyed criminal on the streets and being jeered at by the likes of Fred Montague.
From the way the church have treated me, I am condemned as wicked, I am condemned as malicious, I am told I was not abused, I am judged here on earth and if their comments and action against me are right, then I am also going to hell, this is the judgement on someone who has blindly loved and trusted God all her life and through hell and more hell, so Jesus died to give the Bishop of Winchester and the other church people the position of power from which they have inflicted this condemnation and judgement on me and have told me that my striving for a good life is worthless and that I myself am worthless, they have told me that compared to my Godless, womanising, drinking, smoking, shameless brother who has not been judged on this earth, my love of God and good things is worthless, they have left me with no hope, I was abused and years of suffering became too much for me, I went out of control with the trauma that the church punished me for after they refused to handle the situation properly and they told the judge that they had only ever been helping me! This is what my life and integrity are worth in the eyes of the Church of England, Nothing as long as they cover their wrongs!!!!!!!!
Jane Fisher will give you any amount of emails to ‘disprove’ these statements and the ‘replies’, she used these emails with the police to try and make me out to be mentally ill, and yes, my emails are bizarre and horrid, that is because I am autistic and was regressed by my adoptive dad who abused me, and was subjected to continuous trauma after that for three years with the island churches supporting the abuser and shunning me, Jane Fisher denying what was happening and attacking my character and blaming me and trying to teach me lessons, the church BBC attack, the abuser going round saying that he was cleared, the Dean and church backing him and making me out to be mad, no support or help from the Bishop or diocese, and being left shunned and suffering after being regressed and then left regressed and separated from the man who regressed and abused me, do you expect me to have come out of this normal and smiling after the diocese made error after error and left me in more and more pain and unable to get any effective help? I was autistically dependent on God, needed Him, because I had no-one to depend on, I was abused twice in the church, I was on an island where I was told I had finally found my loving family, I was regressed while the adoptive mother was scornful and disliked me and unhappy with what her husband was doing, I was regressed when it was dangerous because of my first childhood, and I was abused again, and then the continued severe traumas including the scornfully disbelieving Dean who was friends with the abusers, the police case, the abusers continued denial to the church which was upheld in Jersey and hidden from the diocese and the Bishop, there I was on an island of shunning and contempt and condemnation, there I was autistic and with even Jane Fisher metaphorically flushing my head down the toilet, and here I am a criminal as a result,
By the way, Jane Fisher always sends her emails as replies to my old emails, to cover her contact of me so that I can be the one accused of harassment and not her.
Philip LeClaire said to the police at one point that the abusers were lucky that I hadn’t gone round there and lamped them, someone on the spectrum as I am being damaged that way often can respond much more violently, all I have done is shout, mainly on paper, as the church have done their dirty work verbally, protecting themselves while my handicap meaning I have to write has got me into trouble, left me the criminal while Priests, the people who are supposed to represent God, have done terrible things, and the destroyed autistic girl is paying the price, and apparently these priests still go to heaven because according to the way the Bishop of Winchester has supported them in getting me convicted after what they have said and done, they are allowed to do as they have done, be twofaced, lie, and condemn me, and I am the one who is wicked for fighting back. Here I am in the library, as usual, I have been greeted by people here, people who seem to know me, I wonder what the point is in greetings and why anyone should smile at me when the smiles cannot reach me across the diocese’s electric fence of pretend concern and real condemnation, there is nowhere and no way of ever escaping or healing what the diocese have done, the smiles I receive are kind ones, the basic and casual greetings and chat do not hurt me, it is nice, but it wont heal me, I will never be able to build relationships or trust again, the destroyal of everything including my old friendships is too much, Anne is dead and Jane Fisher used Juliet, of all people to destroy my trust for Anne and humiliate me in front of her.
I slept out under the stars last night, hiding in a dead alleyway and listening to the revellers walking past without knowing I was there. I woke up and washed in the public toilets and got a cup of coffee from my friends, my clothes smell a bit and I carry a heavy backpack and struggle to walk and breath, my right ankle and left hip hurt, but I have food and drink and freedom , the Catholics look after me, lots of people are nice to me, and I expect to be homeless and living like this until my life ends. This is the end of my story, here we are, journey’s end.
Please note, this is not the end of the story, the Diocese drove me as brutally as they possibly could, from the Catholic church in Winchester and from Winchester, which is when I moved to Sussex and then onwards, still being harmed by Jane Fisher and the Diocese.
