Mission to the misfit Crude spirit drinking and the vagrant life that goes with it present an unsavoury problem in most of Britain's major cities. It is estimated that up to 500 drinkers are living rough on bomb sites and waste lands of London alone. The job of tackling this social problem is largely left to voluntary organisations, one of the most active of which is the Simon Community. Julian Smithells describes the Community's unusual approach.
mid founder of the Simon Anton Wallich-Clifford (right), leader and Community, talking to a down-and-out who had not eaten for many days
'Ramp
life exerts
a
terrific draw. There all moral
values are lost in an alcoholic haze, you talk of your past achievements and believe every word of it, you are all in it together and there is this great sense of
comradeship. Perhaps there
is nobody in Britain who can better put into words what it is like to be a crude spirit drinker on a bomb site (the 'ramp') than Mr. Anton Wallich Clifford, whose life's work is devoted to helping the down-and-outs, people who have lost their footing in life, helped downwards by drink and drugs, lost their jobs, slipped through every safety net that the welfare state has stretched across their path, been rejected by most voluntary organisations or rejected their help themselves, and landed face down in the sump, from which many never emerge again. And it is there, at rock bottom, where the difference between life and death is often so small as to be hardly discernible, that Clifford's Simon Community finds work to do. Worker Simons, as Clifford's fellow workers are called, are all voluntary and committed to give up to two years of their life to this work. They get ?1 a week pocket money, two ounces of tobacco and board and lodging, none too luxurious, for the privilege of joining this 'Mission to the Misfit.' They raise money by running an old clothes stall, beg for food, pick up fruit and vegetables that fall off trucks and trolleys in Covent Garden in the early mornings to provide food for themselves and to run a mobile soup kitchen for Skid Row.
Regarded
as
hopeless
Clifford is a professional social worker. Part-Scandinavian, he served in the RAF during the war and afterwards worked as a probation officer, where he first made contact with the men and women for whom, it appeared, nobody was caring, people who even social workers apparently regarded as hopeless cases.
38
anything about probation officer, and
If he was to do
not do so as a
them he could he decided to
leave and try a new approach himself, starting the Simon Community for this purpose. Today Clifford and his team of helpers have become top authorities on Skid Row and so familiar are they with its haunts and personalities that they could probably find any one of the several hundred rough dwellers who haunt London's seamier quarters within the hour. Simon of Cyrene, after which Clifford named the organisation, carried Jesus's cross, and Clifford says grace before the communal meals held in the dining room of St. Joseph's House of Hospitality, the organisation's headquarters. He is also a vegetarian. But, as the Simon Community's energetic and enthusiastic public relations man, Tom Gifford, put it: 'We are not a denominational organisation. On our soupkitchen run we have a Methodist driver, a Catholic in charge of the operation, I am a Presbyterian, the ambulance was given to us by an atheist and we were based on a Jewish home.'
Among the down and outs The Community's headquarters is a one-time residential house in Maiden Road, Kentish Town. Here anyone in need of help will find a welcome at any time in the 24 hours. They will be offered a bed, a bath, food and friendship. Then they will be able to join in the activities of the day?foraging for food wherever it is to be had, in the London markets, from the local tradespeople, cutting up firewood, assisting in the second-hand clothes shop which raises money for the community. This will be the first step out of hopelessness for the many, reckoned in hundreds, who have passed through Simon hands in the last three years. The Simon approach to this social problem is to work at the 'coal face', on the bomb sites and city wastelands where the methylated spirit drinkers and homeless social rejects exist. Dressed in their shabbiest clothes, the Simon workers move among the downand-outs, talk to them, doss down with them and
i
Addiction: drugs and alcohol
almost become visually indistinguishable from them.
They
sit in
the 'meths schools' on the bomb sites, the groups of crude spirit drinkers, listen to their stories, befriend them and even pass round the bottle. They are well known among the meths drinkers and on
accepted. The crude spirit drinker has usually slid down to a level that even the most well-meaning and concerned social agencies may draw the line. They are still pre-
pared to help, but they insist that, as a condition, the meths or surgical spirit or drug is given up. The Simon workers keep a door open at a lower social level than most agencies and they do not insist that the meths drinker or drug addict give up their intake. They believe that they can help best by 'containing' the man and his problem, not insisting that he immediately leaves his problem behind. By the time most of these people have reached this level of existence the chances of helping them is small, but it is that small margin that Clifford and his workers are banking on and which, indeed, justifies the sacrifices that they make. It is a waiting game, Waiting for the moment when even the most hardened spirit drinker's self-sufficiency can desert him. He may then be ready to accept help and even wish for it.
Propping-up operation 'We don't look for success stories, as we are working at the failure level,' Clifford told me. 'Neither do we aim at rehabilitation. But you can contain the problem only temporarily. Ours is a propping-up operaon an unpressured approach. First the Propping-up, then partnership. We give the ex-drinker something to work for. We given them a chance to lick even if
tion based
their wounds and then pass them on to Cerne Abbas (the Franciscan Monastery) or to the SVP society.'
When I Clifford
called at the Maiden Street headquarters and his workers were holding a 'lecture' or self-appraisement session. In its short life the community has had to contend with many difficulties and the formulation of policy is a continual process. In a
room dense with tobacco smoke, Clifford was talking to his fellow workers. 'That piglet?do you remember how Bill took to it. He really doted on it, lived for it. Now that piglet was our friend?he did more than anyone of us could do to fiive Bill a new interest in life,' said Clifford, as the smoke from his pipe rose and was lost in the dense atmosphere of the room. He was talking about the farm which the Community owns in the country. This ^as one of several projects that Clifford's enthusiasm
had
realised.
^t present the Community is laying down plans which Promise to carry forward the Simon philosophy more effectively. Clifford is now searching the country for a place where he can establish a real community for those who have found the greater community too much. for them and who have fallen by the wayside. What is the size of the problem? According to the London County Council survey last year, before the
establishment of the Greater London Council, there about 150-200 crude spirit drinkers in London,
were
but this
was
only
an
approximation
gested that the figure might be
a
and evidence sugdeal higher.
good
Clifford's estimate is 500. While this does not amount to a major social problem the meths drinker is a nuisance, quite apart from the harm he is doing to himself. He is dirty and repulsive to himself and to others, often diseased and undernourished, he is an infestation risk, the bonfires, made of wood from ruined buildings, around which the meths school drinks, present a fire hazard, and death is not infrequent. The drinkers, ranging in age from 24 to old age, are gregarious, liking to drink in company, and schools can number from between seven and fifteen people, who spend the larger part of the day 'under the influence'. The younger or fitter ones emerge in the early mornings to earn a few shillings at the London markets by simple work, such as portering. They will probably be able to pick up some fish scraps which can be boiled down to provide soup for the 'school' and a few shillings will buy a bottle of methylated spirits. The school will start drinking around midday, continuing throughout the rest of the day and ending up insensible to spend the night under old newspapers on the site. Most schools include one or two women, usually unsuccessful prostitutes. The drinkers are not too fussy about what they drink?meths or surgical spirit or, if there is nothing better, diesel oil, melted boot polish, brass polish or crude cider. They are all cheap and easily obtained. Moment of crisis What kind of people take to this life? As Clifford puts it: 'Skid Row knows no social barriers.' They are usually single, widowed or divorced. Many are exArmy and Navy men and childhood environmental difficulties seem to be common backgrounds. 'Service life has often shown up their difficulties, and they have then turned to drink,' says Clifford. 'They are often quite successful army men who may even have reached the rank of sergeant. They find themselves in civvy street without support. 'They have probably gone through beer to whisky by this time and when they get a job their first week's pay will go on drink. Then they lose their job through drinking and also get turned out of their lodgings. Without a job they have only their army pension, and that all goes on drinking. They have now reached a moment of crisis?they either go on drinking conventionally within the limits of their pensions or they take to crude spirits.' On the whole, the authorities are relying on such voluntary organisations as the Simon Community to deal with the problem of the crude spirit drinker while formulating more concerted action to deal with it.
negotiating with Camden building in which he can these people.
Clifford himself is
Borough run a
now
to make available a
clinic for
39
mid founder of the Simon Anton Wallich-Clifford (right), leader and Community, talking to a down-and-out who had not eaten for many days
'Ramp
life exerts
a
terrific draw. There all moral
values are lost in an alcoholic haze, you talk of your past achievements and believe every word of it, you are all in it together and there is this great sense of
comradeship. Perhaps there
is nobody in Britain who can better put into words what it is like to be a crude spirit drinker on a bomb site (the 'ramp') than Mr. Anton Wallich Clifford, whose life's work is devoted to helping the down-and-outs, people who have lost their footing in life, helped downwards by drink and drugs, lost their jobs, slipped through every safety net that the welfare state has stretched across their path, been rejected by most voluntary organisations or rejected their help themselves, and landed face down in the sump, from which many never emerge again. And it is there, at rock bottom, where the difference between life and death is often so small as to be hardly discernible, that Clifford's Simon Community finds work to do. Worker Simons, as Clifford's fellow workers are called, are all voluntary and committed to give up to two years of their life to this work. They get ?1 a week pocket money, two ounces of tobacco and board and lodging, none too luxurious, for the privilege of joining this 'Mission to the Misfit.' They raise money by running an old clothes stall, beg for food, pick up fruit and vegetables that fall off trucks and trolleys in Covent Garden in the early mornings to provide food for themselves and to run a mobile soup kitchen for Skid Row.
Regarded
as
hopeless
Clifford is a professional social worker. Part-Scandinavian, he served in the RAF during the war and afterwards worked as a probation officer, where he first made contact with the men and women for whom, it appeared, nobody was caring, people who even social workers apparently regarded as hopeless cases.
38
anything about probation officer, and
If he was to do
not do so as a
them he could he decided to
leave and try a new approach himself, starting the Simon Community for this purpose. Today Clifford and his team of helpers have become top authorities on Skid Row and so familiar are they with its haunts and personalities that they could probably find any one of the several hundred rough dwellers who haunt London's seamier quarters within the hour. Simon of Cyrene, after which Clifford named the organisation, carried Jesus's cross, and Clifford says grace before the communal meals held in the dining room of St. Joseph's House of Hospitality, the organisation's headquarters. He is also a vegetarian. But, as the Simon Community's energetic and enthusiastic public relations man, Tom Gifford, put it: 'We are not a denominational organisation. On our soupkitchen run we have a Methodist driver, a Catholic in charge of the operation, I am a Presbyterian, the ambulance was given to us by an atheist and we were based on a Jewish home.'
Among the down and outs The Community's headquarters is a one-time residential house in Maiden Road, Kentish Town. Here anyone in need of help will find a welcome at any time in the 24 hours. They will be offered a bed, a bath, food and friendship. Then they will be able to join in the activities of the day?foraging for food wherever it is to be had, in the London markets, from the local tradespeople, cutting up firewood, assisting in the second-hand clothes shop which raises money for the community. This will be the first step out of hopelessness for the many, reckoned in hundreds, who have passed through Simon hands in the last three years. The Simon approach to this social problem is to work at the 'coal face', on the bomb sites and city wastelands where the methylated spirit drinkers and homeless social rejects exist. Dressed in their shabbiest clothes, the Simon workers move among the downand-outs, talk to them, doss down with them and
i
Addiction: drugs and alcohol
almost become visually indistinguishable from them.
They
sit in
the 'meths schools' on the bomb sites, the groups of crude spirit drinkers, listen to their stories, befriend them and even pass round the bottle. They are well known among the meths drinkers and on
accepted. The crude spirit drinker has usually slid down to a level that even the most well-meaning and concerned social agencies may draw the line. They are still pre-
pared to help, but they insist that, as a condition, the meths or surgical spirit or drug is given up. The Simon workers keep a door open at a lower social level than most agencies and they do not insist that the meths drinker or drug addict give up their intake. They believe that they can help best by 'containing' the man and his problem, not insisting that he immediately leaves his problem behind. By the time most of these people have reached this level of existence the chances of helping them is small, but it is that small margin that Clifford and his workers are banking on and which, indeed, justifies the sacrifices that they make. It is a waiting game, Waiting for the moment when even the most hardened spirit drinker's self-sufficiency can desert him. He may then be ready to accept help and even wish for it.
Propping-up operation 'We don't look for success stories, as we are working at the failure level,' Clifford told me. 'Neither do we aim at rehabilitation. But you can contain the problem only temporarily. Ours is a propping-up operaon an unpressured approach. First the Propping-up, then partnership. We give the ex-drinker something to work for. We given them a chance to lick even if
tion based
their wounds and then pass them on to Cerne Abbas (the Franciscan Monastery) or to the SVP society.'
When I Clifford
called at the Maiden Street headquarters and his workers were holding a 'lecture' or self-appraisement session. In its short life the community has had to contend with many difficulties and the formulation of policy is a continual process. In a
room dense with tobacco smoke, Clifford was talking to his fellow workers. 'That piglet?do you remember how Bill took to it. He really doted on it, lived for it. Now that piglet was our friend?he did more than anyone of us could do to fiive Bill a new interest in life,' said Clifford, as the smoke from his pipe rose and was lost in the dense atmosphere of the room. He was talking about the farm which the Community owns in the country. This ^as one of several projects that Clifford's enthusiasm
had
realised.
^t present the Community is laying down plans which Promise to carry forward the Simon philosophy more effectively. Clifford is now searching the country for a place where he can establish a real community for those who have found the greater community too much. for them and who have fallen by the wayside. What is the size of the problem? According to the London County Council survey last year, before the
establishment of the Greater London Council, there about 150-200 crude spirit drinkers in London,
were
but this
was
only
an
approximation
gested that the figure might be
a
and evidence sugdeal higher.
good
Clifford's estimate is 500. While this does not amount to a major social problem the meths drinker is a nuisance, quite apart from the harm he is doing to himself. He is dirty and repulsive to himself and to others, often diseased and undernourished, he is an infestation risk, the bonfires, made of wood from ruined buildings, around which the meths school drinks, present a fire hazard, and death is not infrequent. The drinkers, ranging in age from 24 to old age, are gregarious, liking to drink in company, and schools can number from between seven and fifteen people, who spend the larger part of the day 'under the influence'. The younger or fitter ones emerge in the early mornings to earn a few shillings at the London markets by simple work, such as portering. They will probably be able to pick up some fish scraps which can be boiled down to provide soup for the 'school' and a few shillings will buy a bottle of methylated spirits. The school will start drinking around midday, continuing throughout the rest of the day and ending up insensible to spend the night under old newspapers on the site. Most schools include one or two women, usually unsuccessful prostitutes. The drinkers are not too fussy about what they drink?meths or surgical spirit or, if there is nothing better, diesel oil, melted boot polish, brass polish or crude cider. They are all cheap and easily obtained. Moment of crisis What kind of people take to this life? As Clifford puts it: 'Skid Row knows no social barriers.' They are usually single, widowed or divorced. Many are exArmy and Navy men and childhood environmental difficulties seem to be common backgrounds. 'Service life has often shown up their difficulties, and they have then turned to drink,' says Clifford. 'They are often quite successful army men who may even have reached the rank of sergeant. They find themselves in civvy street without support. 'They have probably gone through beer to whisky by this time and when they get a job their first week's pay will go on drink. Then they lose their job through drinking and also get turned out of their lodgings. Without a job they have only their army pension, and that all goes on drinking. They have now reached a moment of crisis?they either go on drinking conventionally within the limits of their pensions or they take to crude spirits.' On the whole, the authorities are relying on such voluntary organisations as the Simon Community to deal with the problem of the crude spirit drinker while formulating more concerted action to deal with it.
negotiating with Camden building in which he can these people.
Clifford himself is
Borough run a
now
to make available a
clinic for
39
