Wigan Pier Mirror: I dropped out of society to save my sanity

[Zardoz Greek]

I dropped out of society to save my sanity: My Wigan Pier Story
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dropped-out-society-save-sanity-10782292.amp
As part of our Road to Wigan Pier 2017 project, 80 years on from the publication of George Orwell's essay, rough sleeper, Raymond Slater explains how sleeping rough saved his sanity
BY RAYMOND SLATER
10:00, 20 JUL 2017UPDATED12:38, 19 JUL 2017
Raymond Slater, 55, has been homeless for the last 15 years and is currently living in Manchester. After struggling to manage on benefits, he dropped out of the system to 'save his dignity'. As he tells Claire Donnelly, he has never been happier.
I spent years trying to find work, going to interviews, signing on and it was a constant stress.

I was living with the worry of not having any money, paying the bills, fear of losing my flat and it was just a horrible way to live.


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Road to Wigan Pier author, George Orwell(Image: Daily Mirror)
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Road to Wigan Pier 2017: Recreating George Orwell's journey 80 years on and mapping modern Britain
The system tells you all the time that it’s your fault, that you aren’t doing enough but there just weren’t any jobs there.

I’d done stuff like security or working in supermarkets in the past and I was applying for up to three jobs a day but there wasn’t anything.

You can’t get a job if they're not there.

I was trying to run a house on £50 a week and it’s hard. So I decided to leave it all behind.

I got on a bus and got out of there.

Now I don’t even sign on. I’ve got a bike and my rucksack and I can find places to eat and get washed.

I eat whatever’s going - and there’s always something - and I move on when I feel like it.

I’ve slept everywhere - a bombed out cafe, outside and I think it’s been good for me.

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Orwell's Britain vs today's Britain: Explore the Road to Wigan Pier with our interactive gadget
I don’t have mental health issues or addiction problems so sleeping rough has been a positive for me, I have got my dignity back.

I accessed a GP a few years ago and was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes but I don’t use any medication. I eat and live healthily and that seems to work.

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The Road to Wigan Pier 2017: What is it and how can you get involved?
I’m in charge of myself. I know who I am and what I’m doing.

I won’t live like this for ever, I know that, but for now it suits me.

Have Your Say

We are retracing the journey George Orwell made in his book, The Road to Wigan Pier, throughout 2017 to tell modern stories of working and unemployed poverty.

They’ll appear in a regular series in the Daily Mirror newspaper and here on our special anniversary website.

The Wigan Pier Project(Image: © the estate of the late Sonia Brownell Orwell)
If you don’t live on the route but would like to share experiences of living on a low income or struggling with welfare cuts, please contact realbritain at trinitymirror.com where we are keen to hear your story.