He was just a man with a pram
Since its founder had the foresight to recognise the differing needs of the homeless community in the 21st century, Steve Jackson has been keen to cascade his message to anyone who will listen throughout the NW of England and beyond. Indeed, as if to exemplify his eagerness, as well as the Preston facility, the Recycling Lives team are presently in discussions with a further two Lancashire borough councils and one authority in the North East.
Steve has a personal ambition to see the RL concept grow at a steady rate thereby offering a new opportunity for homeless people to enter the Recycling Lives family, gain appropriate life and work skills before exiting back in to mainstream society. Steve spoke with us and here gives an insight in to a life-changing experience over twenty-years ago, his thoughts on homelessness in the UK today, his Eureka! moment when he devised the Recycling Lives concept and his hopes and aspirations for the charity in the future.
“As a young lad I was working in my dad’s scrap business when I noticed that a chap would come in pushing a rickety old pram every day for us to weigh small pieces of metal and the like which he had somehow managed to find. The scrap was actually not worth anything but we would give him pocket money and it looked like it was enough to feed him for that night. As I had watched my family grow their business through hard graft I would observe this man and think: why don’t you just stop being so lazy and get yourself a job? I am ashamed looking back, but I was a typically naive young lad and had absolutely no comprehension of homelessness and how people found themselves in that situation.
“After many months I plucked up the courage to approach the man with the pram and asked him outright why he had not tried to better himself. His response gave me a stark lesson in not treating individuals as a one-size-fits-all stereotype and was also a humbling and life-changing experience which lives with me to this day. In the most dignified manner imaginable the chap explained how he was once a high-flyer in the world of commerce and wanted for nothing – a lovely family, beautiful home, stable job and fulfilling leisure and recreational pursuits. However, one day his world utterly collapsed around him after giving salt water to his ailing child. Unbeknown to him the quantity ofsalt was at a critically high level and after digestion his son began to lose consciousness and eventually died. Arrested like a common criminal and totally bereft at the loss of his child he pleaded his innocence and no charges were brought against him. His life would never be the same again as his secure life crumbled.“Over a short space of time his wife chose to leave him, he lost his job as he entered a downward spiral of depression and loss before the family home was repossessed. I listened intently as this story of heartache and tragedy was played out before me. I felt the man’s pain and learnt a very salient lesson in how cruel life can be. As you get older I think that you develop your compassionate streak even further; years after this life changing event I had my own two children and having a first born son was a constant reminder of this guy's story, how would I feel to lose my son? How would anyone feel to be the cause of their child's death? I know that it would consume me in a way that it consumed him, and that I would doubtless be in the same boat.
“Since those teenage years I have been fortunate in expanding the family business and building further companies and enterprises which have brought me a good deal of wealth and prosperity. Although my successes have not been easy and I have not taken anything for granted, I have never forgotten about the man with the pram and his own personal story. Little in life makes me angrier than to see homeless people in Great Britain in 2007. How has the third richest economy on the globe allowed fellow citizens to fall by the wayside and also not offer even the most basic of needs – a roof over one’s head? It is a shameful situation and one which I am determined to play a part in putting right. However, although I despised homelessness I knew nothing about it in real practical terms and thought that becoming a financial benefactor was probably the best way forward. Deep down I recognised that the vast majority of homeless people didn’t want a hand-out but a foot on the right ladder to take them back in to the society that they had – for whatever reason – left behind and I genuinely didn’t feel that there was a vehicle within the homeless sector which allowed them to go forward. Then, one day, I had the seed of a thought and Eureka! – I came up with a project which I truly believed in… Recycling Lives had been born.
“Over the coming months I went on a journey of knowledge and charged myself with understanding far more about homelessness, the causes, the people and the sector. I then employed a small team of people – a team which still exists today – who helped nurture the idea, developed the concept and then worked tirelessly to bring Recycling Lives to life. Today, we have a small but dedicated professional group of individuals who have played a real part in turning my dreams in to reality. Indeed, to recently see Hazel Blears, the secretary of state, extol the virtues of Recycling Lives and give it her full and unequivocal backing was both rewarding and deeply moving. I would never have guessed when the man with the pram shuffled in to my life that his legacy – not mine – would be realised in 2007. It has been a long wait but, with the help and support of public and private sector partners, I have no doubts that the Recycling Lives facility in Preston will be the first of many such projects countrywide. Surely, as a civilised society, we cannot sit idly by and watch people beg on our streets, die from hyperthermia and wither away in desperation whilst the rest of us live in comparative luxury. A roof above one’s head is one of the most basic human rights and I, along with others, aim to see that the man with the pram no longer needs to scavenge for scrap in order to eat and sleep.”Recycling Lives Quick Links
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