Note to parents:

Although this section of the site follows company policy, and thus has no strong language or filth, this essay is a true account of the first year-and-a-half I spent homeless. It contains ideas that some children (and most intelligent adults) may find upsetting. It also contains one mild drug reference.

This essay could be a good starting point for a useful family discussion.

Homeless in Paris.

Part One: September-December 1989.

Drawing by "Texas Guy", Paris 1995.

It all started a little over 30 years ago, in what is now a madhouse in east London. The first 18 years are rather boring, so I'll omit them. After 3 years of mind-numbing factory work, followed by a couple of very odd jobs, I was finally bitten by the travel bug. Just 19 (Aaah!), I left London for what was to be a six week holiday in Paris. I'd never been, didn't speak a mountain of French, and over seventeen years later I still haven't moved back to London ! Some 6 week holiday.

I arrived in Paris with £200 and high hopes. I was to find a job in my first week, live the high life for a month, then come home. No. I spent two days in a flea ridden hotel before moving to a youth hostel. I had a fun week, discovering Paris with a load of other kids. Trouble began just after they all moved on. I ran out of money after 10 days in the capital, but managed to stay in the hostel for another week. Unfortunately some wee swine saw fit to inform the management about my sleeping on the floor in his room.

At 1 a.m. I was asked to leave. I had neither money nor food. I wandered outside and sat down not far from the 'Pied Du Cochon' at Les Halles. Within minutes, a group of homeless punks came over to me, and having established that I had nowhere to go, told me to follow them. At a time like this you don't worry about safety, as you have naff-all to lose. Thankfully they showed me to the post office on Rue Du Louvre. It's open 24 hours, and the police tolerate bums sleeping on the floor during the night. At least they did then.

When the police turned up, my cleanliness stuck out a mile. They came over and demanded to see the knife they just new I had in my bag. Of course, I thought this was a security concern. On seeing their disappointment when I produced a simple table knife I'd knicked from the hostel, the penny dropped. They were hoping to steal a Swiss Army knife from me. They left empty handed.

Seeing that even the police saw me as a target, I started to feel very vulnerable. Sleep was out of the question. I picked up my rucksack, and left the post office around 3 a.m. I headed for the only other place I knew, the Gare Du Nord where I had arrived in Paris

I slept at Gare du Nord for close to six weeks. I slept in the doorway third from the left, which has now been blocked off. Every morning at six O'clock the 'Flics' (plod) would wake us with a friendly kick in the head. We couldn't have the commuters seeing what they were only 2 paycheques away from, could we? I'd then move in to sleep by the ticket hall until the next boot around nine. I'd start my trek to the Pompidou centre, which opened at 10 a.m. I used to leave my bag in the (free) cloakroom, as the centre was open until 10 in the evening.

Moral bit.

I'd like to say my days were eventful, but strolling around starving is not a barrel of laughs. Stealing food from supermarkets is not thrilling, and living for a week on sugar sachets from Burger King is something I hope never to repeat. Dropping from 73kg (11st 4lb or 158 lbs) to 47kg (7st 3lb or 101 lbs) in a few weeks is not particularly cool. Too many people look down on tramps and beggars, unaware that we are no different to them. If you don't have strong family ties, you are never more than 6 weeks salary from destitution. A little bit of bad luck changes everything. I'm not making this up, I speak from experience.
We all hear the story of the 'fake' beggar who drives a Porche. Well, for every one of them there are a thousand humans starving. Sorry to moralise, but for me it's an important point.

If you want to get a deeper understanding of the experience of homelessness, I can't recommend a better book than "Factotum", by Charles Bukowski , the author was a bum for years, and though his descriptions can be very gritty, I've yet to discover a better way to explain how I felt.

Back to normal.

A year of uncertainty followed. After the station (I'll spare you the gruesome bits that went on there.) I lived in book shop for a couple of months. 'Shakespeare & company' is just opposite Nôtre Dame cathedral. Travellers could sleep on the floor of the library in exchange for an hours work per day. The place is owned by a chap called George Whitman. A bit of a nutter, but with a good heart. (In the photo gallery there are a couple of photos of me in Rue De L'Huchette, just round the corner from the book shop.)

There were some amazing people living there with me, as you might expect. One young lady from Brazil, called Monica, said that she was going to ride around the world on a scooter. Check the Guinness book of records for the first person to cover the globe on a pot-pot, she's there. Mark was on his way round the world, but had his passport stolen in Paris, and stayed for a year. Tom was a quiet chap who collected rubber stamps- it takes all sorts. Oh, and there was an east end lad who had been sleeping rough. We ate at the student restaurant every day (It only cost 7F50! -about 75p), singing a poor French translation of 'My old man's a dustman' most mornings.

It was whilst living here that I taught myself to juggle, and began my street shows. As I couldn't afford juggling balls, I scavenged three lemons from the pile of unwanted rubbish at the end of a fruit market. I kept these in the bookshop's freezer when I wasn't using them, and ended up eating them one hungry afternoon. Three week old lemons... hmm, delicious!

In late 1989 I performed my show outside a fondue restaurant behind Rue De La Huchette for a table of students. Being typical students, they pleaded poverty (Hard to believe given that they were eating out !). As they were too tight to part with any hard-scrounged cash I asked them if they would consider letting me take a few bits of bread from their table. They agreed, and I tucked in.

The restaurant owner saw this, and probably noticed the gusto with which I was devouring the lumps of baguette. If you ever doubted in the existence of human kindness, as I did after meeting the miserly students, you can stop now. The owner proceeded to sit me at a table and gave me a full three course meal. He even supplied wine, dessert and coffee to finish.

If you have ever gone all day without breakfast, you can just begin to imagine how I enjoyed this dinner. Mind you, it had been over a month since I had last eaten enough to fill me up. It would be a year before I had climbed out of the gutter enough to return and pay for my dinner, but I would return every couple of months for the next five years. If your ever in Paris, the Restaurant is called "Chez Alexandre", on Rue de la Parchemenarie, in the 5th. It changed owners in early 2002, but the new owner will know who you mean if you talk about the english fire-breathing tramp who popped in in early September 2002.