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BEGGARS CAN BE ORATORS

DRUGS, DRINK AND DEBATE | March 24th 2008

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Disco Davey, Donna and Haggis were once substance abusers living on the streets. Now, as a way to recover, they are donning evening gear and trying debates at Durham University. Maureen Cleave seconds the motion...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, Spring 2008

Last December an unusual debate took place at Durham University Union--it was unusual less in the subject, which was This House Would Ban Alcohol in the UK, than the participants. There was one student, Rachel Francis, for the motion and one, Siddharth Khajuria, against. With them on either side were three ex-drug, ex-alcohol abusers, all of whom had been homeless, some in prison, so when it came to the motion they would know what they were talking about. All have worked in Ron Eager House in Newcastle, a drop-in centre for the homeless who are given shaving kits, tea and coffee, showers, clean clothes, food, and help with applications for things like housing and benefits. Each year the center gets 19,000 visits. It is financed largely by the charity, Tyneside Cyrenians, and most of the debaters have come through a project called Trading Places.

Five hours before the debate, Ron Eager House was throbbing with excitement. There are 2 very small offices on the ground floor with computers and so on, but the place looks more like Steptoe's yard with plastic bags all over the floor--stuff left by the homeless for safe-keeping--odd teddies everywhere, old jeans, a fold-up electric piano in a bag, a barbecue...In one office, Tammi Owers aged 38, blonde and pretty, who manages the staff, had switched off the security cameras and was using her electric hair straighteners. Her colleague, Laura, and a tall willowy creature called Donna with angel's wings tattooed on her shoulders were changing into evening gear for a smart dinner in Durham Castle before the debate.

"I'm really really nervous," Donna said, slipping into an elegant black outfit she and Laura had bought the day before for £40 in Topshop. "You couldn't imagine anything like this when you're sitting on drugs and drink and doing all sorts of things. But Tammi says just because you've been a drug user doesn't mean you haven't a brain. I've been on the streets for years and now I'm going for a full blown debate and a fancy meal with the upper classes." She'd been debating every Tuesday for a whole term with the other ex-users and the students such topics as immigration, Iraq, animal testing, global warming and--nearer home--Beggars Can Be Choosers.

"We played this game: how to keep your voice level down. Two people have a conversation and they're backing away from each other but they have to keep their voice at the same level without shouting. People have ways of fobbing you off, but shout and you've lost it."

In the office next door were a noisy lot: Disco Davey (an ex-DJ and very good at Elvis's hippy hippy shakes), Barry (an ex-boxer), Darren, David (Haggis to friends) and Trev, all changing into dinner jackets bought with a donation of £500. We heard a wail. "Where's my dickie bow?" Then more wailing about how to tie the wretched things. There was mild anxiety about correct use of knives and forks at dinner. Then singing. "Over-excited," said Laura. Someone hammered on our door. "Go away," yelled Tammi, spraying us all generously with vanilla cologne.

At last everyone was ready, the men looking smart in long white silky scarves, every dickie bow in place. We piled into a minibus. Tammi, who thinks of everything, issued post-it notebooks and pencils to write down main points. Everyone was nervous. "Maybe heroin in your arm will kill you but nervousness won't," said Trev cheerfully. Thus reassured, telling stories and jokes, they sped towards Durham.

Dinner in Durham Castle was excellent, everyone using the right knives and forks, though Disco Davey almost managed to spill a glass of water over the pro-vice chancellor. The debating chamber was packed, a photographer recording every move. Not a trace of nerves in the debaters that I could detect. Barry opened in favour of the motion: "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, and paused impressively till he had everyone's attention. "No photos please--for security reasons,"--pause--"for social security reasons." This went down well with the audience, some of whom might have made dodgy benefit claims in the past. He went on to say that alcohol-related accidents cost the tax payer billions of pounds a year; he looked forward to a future for a boozeless Britain. Haggis acknowledged that people had the right to drink, but what about the rights of families--wives and children, often cruelly beaten up by violent husband and fathers? Most violent crimes, he said, murders too, took place on Friday and Saturday nights, and were alcohol induced.

Darren, against the motion, said alcohol was an integral part of our society, and had been for thousands of years--imagine how boring weddings and funerals would be with no alcohol. Disco Davey, an outreach youth worker, was also against: prohibition in the United States, he reminded us, had been a disaster. Donna (in favour of the motion) brought things down to earth. As a cleaning supervisor , she was fed up having to mop up the vomit (and worse) of drunks in the rock venue where she worked. But the motion was rejected, the house applauded long and hard and, when we stopped, everyone kissed and hugged everyone else. There was texting far into the night--druggie comparisons such as: "The last time I was this high I'd injected cocaine into my neck."

After what Tammi calls a tab break (a tab is a cigarette), we piled into the minibus and went back to Ron Eager House. Haggis took off his DJ to do the night shift, Ron Eager House being open all night at weekends.

Whose was this extraordinary idea? Tony Wright's--the 47-year-old manager of Ron Eager House. "If," he said, "you're a rough sleeper, to get benefit they make you go through hoops because you have no address. You're ten minutes late, you don't get it. You lose your temper. You resort to crime to get the money. How do we teach them to negotiate, to reason, not to shout, not to alienate people? On the spur of the moment I rang Peter Warburton, director of sport at the university. I said, €˜What's the chance of your lot debating with my lot?' I expected to be told to eff off, but he said €˜Leave it with me'.

"The university took a huge gamble and spent so much time on it. For our people it could have been a humiliating disaster; anyone who comes through addiction is very vulnerable. We can't give them material things but I want them to collect experiences that make them feel happy, make them feel confident. I want to say to them: €˜Go in there and enjoy it--I completely believe in you.'"

The president of the Union, Ian Chapman, the students and the Ron Eager people met for 3 hours once a week for eight weeks, beginning with a buffet supper. "This," said Tony Wright, "kept the blood sugar up, and from the very beginning there was so much happiness and energy in the room. The students taught them how to use their hands, how to stand, how to pitch the voice, how to avoid an awkward point: you say: €˜That's a good question--I'm coming to that,' and then you don't bother. You had to conduct an entire conversation saying nothing but ma-ma-mama-moo, just altering your tone of voice as the conversation took a turn. Haggis gave a good speech on Iraq, and I thought to myself: €˜Now where is this coming from?'"

Trev was very quick on his feet: once, when he was speaking, there was the distant wail of a police car which he chose to interpret as preface to a supermarket announcement: "Please will Tracey come to aisle eight..."

The Ron Eager debaters have all had a rough time of it. Darren, who started taking drugs when he was ten, was abused, fostered and taken into care when he was 15. From 16 to 28 he was in prison. "For 15 years," he said, " I was on heroin. Then I couldn't afford it and moved to five litres of sherry a day." There's no point, he says, in giving a beggar food--someone on heroin or alcohol doesn't eat. Twice he'd been in a coma and nearly died. He gave it all up in May 2005 with the help of Narcotics Anonymous and now works with ex-users. "I've got survivor syndrome and there's no better therapy than helping another addict. I'm grateful for every day. The fact I've been through all this helps another addict become honest a lot quicker, and honesty is the beginning of recovery."

Barry, who has had 16 different addresses in the last ten years and now works full time at Ron Eager House with chronically excluded adults, said he'd recommend the course to anyone. "It's done me a massive amount of good. My mind stays clear and I can get my point across. Before, if someone was aggressive, I might have said, €˜You get out, you get out,' and not tell them why. Now I would say, €˜You're not doing yourself any favours. Unless you ....I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Barry himself had, in his own words, "got over it with the big booze," with his first clean Christmas in 23 years.

Haggis--eight months in the clear and just back from helping to build a school in Ghana--said the experience had removed class barriers. "I thought those students would be different but I came to believe I belonged there. And I bet we taught them a lot about what life was like on the other side of the coin. I got so much out of it." Tuesday nights in future, he said, were going to be very dull. (While in Ghana recently, helping to build a new school, he'd given away his shoes and socks. Tony Wright says the homeless always their give things away.)

Disco Davey said he'd been forced into debating. "And it's been the most rewarding and challenging experience I ever had--I've been talking about it ever since. It taught me strategical argument. Now I listen to what somebody's saying and I look for little gaps. If I have an issue with a person, I collect the facts first, highlight what's bothering me." He was about to have a confrontation with a member of his family and all this would come in useful.

Donna had been having a bit of a barney with the housing people. "I wanted some forms and they didn't want to give them to me. Now I'm a very heated person so I said to myself: €˜Think back to the debate.' If I shout at them they're not going to give them to me." She got the forms.

Chapman couldn't have been more pleased with how it turned out and the university are up for it again next year. Though they may not yet know it, all the debaters are to be made honorary life members of the Durham Union.

(Maureen Cleave was one of the first feature writers on the London Evening Standard)