Big Issue Article Sep 6th (by Guest Blogger Andy)

Andrew Donegan's blog Wheel of Life at piebald77.blogspot.com

I grew up as a half-caste kid on a council estate in the predominantly white rugby league town of Widnes, in a single parent family. On the only occasion I ever attended a Widnes match I was thrown out by a policeman because he suspected I had climbed over, even though I showed him my ticket. Another bad episode that stands out is when I was dragged off a bouncy castle by the scruff of my neck by an adult because I spat over the side.

When I was sentenced to nine months detention at her majesty’s pleasure at the age of twenty-seven, I lost my flat, my car, and my cherished job working with my best buddy from school, fitting luxury marble worktops in kitchens. We used to have a laugh all day long driving to posh houses, getting the job done, and driving back, all in our own time. Our clients included Raphael Benitez, Joey Barton, Stan Boardman, and one or two notorious gangsters.

As a teenager, I’d spent six months in a secure psychiatric unit with identity issues after a psychotic reaction to cannabis; prison felt like a direct continuation of that nightmare. I thought I’d matured into a reasonable adult, considering, but one thing the sentence did was solidify all the fears and doubts from my adolescence, reaffirming my suspicions that I was, indeed, simply a failure, and nothing more.

It had been tough to cope with the environment I found myself in as a sixteen year old kid, when I had to lock my door every night because one patient believed I was responsible for his mother’s death. In his delusion, I was a murderer. He would walk past me and draw a finger across his throat as if to say he was going to cut me. He would sometimes freak out at me, unprovoked, once with a boiling kettle, and have to be restrained and sedated. The strangest part was when I saw him receive a visit from said Mother one time!

My only escape was to start writing, inspired by the teenage novellas my teachers would bring in for me to read at the time. I remember writing a whole book of my own in biro pen but then losing it upon my release. I never plugged that hollow feeling of loss until eleven years later, when again I was locked up, and again I decided to write my way out of it.

The scariest event I witnessed in prison was an inmate getting dragged into a cell by a gang and slashed with razor blades because he had stolen a mobile phone. I also saw a shit-slinger launch a tub of his waste over a female officer. It was difficult turning the other cheek in the face of constant racial abuse from the cocky young offenders, but if I’d started getting involved, I would never have got out.

One afternoon, as I was typing in the education suite, the manager showed me an entry form for a writing competition. I entered some of my work and scooped prizes right across the board. Certificates were pinned to the education suite wall. Money was put into my account. I left prison having promised myself that this achievement would be the beginning, not the end. It was all I had as I tackled the prospect, and real fear, of homelessness. I was so worrisome towards the end of my sentence that I almost didn’t want to leave. I’d slept on the streets before and never wanted to again, ever.

When aged thirteen, I’d run away and slept on a roof by the river Mersey. It was the windiest, wettest place I could have picked. I sold all my Sega Megadrive games to buy food and was eventually picked up by police, four days later, after my mum had reported me missing. It was the longest four days of my life. Aged seventeen, I was hiding in a train toilet with all my worldly possessions in a bin bag, travelling from a hostel to a YMCA without knowing if there was even a place for me. I kipped a couple of nights rough on the train station until one became available. It was freezing, the time dragged, and I was hassled by the police for hanging about.

Fortunately, accommodation was arranged at the last minute when leaving prison, and I moved into a resettlement hostel. Once more I was pointed in the right direction when the resident creative tutor, who also introduced a second passion, ceramics, into my life, suggested I contact the judges of the competition I won and seek further advice and guidance. I did so, and the judge was impressed enough to invite me to take his place and help judge that year’s upcoming competition! I was sent a stack of short stories written by people around the country in various secure units and prisons and told to crack on with it! It was a sincere privilege.

The one good friend I made in prison was inspired to write himself after seeing me win, and as a judge a year afterwards, while he was still inside, I came across a story he had submitted. That was a brilliant consequence. I could identify so much with all the entrants because I had been in their exact situation. It was one thing to have my own work read and receive feedback but to be in a position to critique other peoples was even better.

I was invited to meet the rest of the board of judges and other professionals one day in Manchester. I was nervous, but in a good way. I made some excellent contacts and enjoyed a fine meal. The very next year I did it all again, only this time down in London. After meeting everybody at the Koestler Trust’s breathtaking headquarters in the old Governor’s house of Wormwood Scrubs, where over five thousand entries of various art forms are pinned to every available inch of wall, I partook in a creative writing seminar and later performed my first ever public reading at a well-attended event in the Southbank Centre, which was a giant hurdle for me to overcome. Again I made more great contacts.

On the back of that I have enjoyed my first printed short story publication in a magazine, started my own blog, and am in the process of helping create a website specifically geared towards providing information for homeless people. Writing is a solitary habit but nobody can achieve anything on their own. I plan to pursue my artistic ambitions until I am rewarded with something that resembles a living in a creative field, regardless of my previous circumstances.

I believe it is where one is going that matters, not where one is from.

Click here for Andy’s previous guest blog at Jon’s Jail Journal

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Shaun Attwood