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From: (Chris W)
Date: Fri, Dec 10, 2004, 7:15am (CST+17)
To: Curtis and Garith
Subject: The Party
I just want to write a bit about my visit to London yesterday. Curtis, I hope you will be able to get this to Garith or give him some sort of summary of my day.
As I told you, my long-standing friend (Peter) who is currently one of the Assistant Managers of a Homeless Day Hostel in the centre of London had asked me if I could help out with some of the music for their Christmas party. Peter hasn't been there very long but previous parties have taken place within the hostel's own premises. This year's venture was a bit of a trip into the Unknown because they were going to use the Hall of Westminster Cathedral and would be laying on far more entertainment than in previous years. Nobody really knew how it would go because they had no experience to draw on from previous years.
The hostel is not residential. It opens its doors around 7 in the morning and stays open until 2 in the afternoon. Nearly all of its 'clients' (as opposed to the 'vagrants' tag that most of the working population of the city centre would no doubt call them if they saw them queuing up to get in) have nowhere to live. A small number of clients turn up after they have left their residential hostels but the place was getting very congested inside and they have had to reduce the number of people they allow in. As a result, the percentage of completely homeless people that they look after has risen because some days they don't have the space for those who have had a bed for the night.
I left here just after 7 on a through train to the capital and got down to the hostel near Victoria station in central London about 9.30. It was a reasonably mild day for the time of year but there was already a growing queue outside waiting to get in, even though they had been forewarned that on this particular day there would be no admission until 11.30. I met Peter but almost immediately we walked across to the Cathedral Hall where the 'entertainers' would have a chance to familiarize themselves with the surroundings and do a little practice of whatever it was they were going to perform. The caretaker was there and we helped him wheel the grand piano from a corner of the room where it is stored overnight to an area near the stage. I had a quick run through of my music but it was more about familiarizing myself with the instrument than the music itself, which I had been diligently practising for the last few weeks. I rarely get a chance to play a proper piano these days so it came as a bit of shock to realise that the 'feel' of a piano is very different to that of the sort of keyboard I normally use. Another problem was that the stand on this particular grand was on the top of the piano whereas on a normal upright or a keyboard it is much lower. So that took some getting used to because it meant my eyes had to be looking higher than I expected to glance at the music but I coped with that ok. Other musicians/performers were arriving by now so I left them to it and we walked back to the hostel.
I was offered a Christmas lunch which I accepted mainly because I hadn't had time for breakfast
and very good it was too. They were having two sittings and that meant that whatever entertainment was being laid on in the Hall would happen twice as well, although the reality was that several of the clients who attended the first performance would probably stay for the second one too, if only because they would be somewhere warm and there would be more food available.
I didn't feel under any undue pressure performing and I had only been asked to play a few things in between the other 'acts', just filling in really during the breaks. And from that point of view, everything went well. But I don't want to talk about the performers. I want to talk about the clients.
Homeless people often get a tag that they don't deserve. But who are we to judge ? Who knows the personal stories and in many cases tragedies that have brought them to where they were yesterday ? Certainly not me. A broken marriage, a mental illness, an addiction to drugs or alcohol, losing a job
the list is endless. It's one of those things about which you can say "There but for the Grace of God go I".
The Shelter had given each client a present as they sat down to their Christmas dinners in the hostel. It was a very practical present too
a large holdall each. These people carry their lives around with them. They don't possess much but it moves with them because they have nowhere else to leave it. I watched as they arrived for the entertainment section of the party. Most of the staff and volunteers were dressed very casually, as was I. The only way you could tell who was staff and who was a client was because the staff were wearing name badges. Homeless people get access to second-hand clothes from the shelter, where they also have access to washing facilities as well as being able to shower and get a proper meal on a normal (meaning non Christmas party day). Society's view of the Homeless is usually that of the smelly old vagrant wandering around the streets muttering to himself carrying a large bag or pulling a shopping trolley into which are placed his few possessions. A lot of yesterday's clients had such bags but many were very smartly-dressed. Sure, they weren't clothes they had bought themselves but someone else's hand-me-downs. But they had made an effort for this party and it showed.
Nobody really knew how the entertainment would be received. At best I expected there to be a lot of noise while it was going on. At worst there could have been verbal interruptions to break the performers' concentration. Nobody played much attention to me which was just the way I wanted it ! But then I was only supposed to be 'filling in'; I wasn't giving a recital. After me came the father of Peter's partner Ruth (a very young-looking 84 year old) and the other part of his singing duo (they were called Side by Side). They sang stuff from the shows mostly but it was very well received and I was pleased for them because they had made a journey almost as long as I had and I knew they had spent time practising because their performance was very professional. After that I knew none of the other performers would have any problem with the audience
and nor did they. They were as good as gold and probably showed a lot more respect than some cinema or theatre audiences I can think of. One of the other acts was a group of street musicians and they did a short play before singing some carols. But before they started the carols, the manager of the hostel, one of the Sisters from the Cathedral environment because mostly the hostel is sponsored by the Catholic Church, got up to say a few words. Just a few thanks to different people and then a bit about Christmas but she wasn't trying to push her Faith or beliefs down anyone's throat. She just told it as it was, that Christmas can be a time of great celebration and happiness but it can also be a time of great sadness, that maybe the less you have the less it means but it doesn't mean you don't matter as a human being because you still do. And the room fell quiet and I knew that many of those clients were thinking about past Christmases where they had homes to go to and loved ones around them. But on this day they only had each other. I looked around the room. I saw people of all ages. I saw young men and women. I saw middle-aged of the same genders. And I saw elderly people who must have been in their 60's and 70's and maybe even 80's, with their bags of belongings clutched tightly to them because that was all they owned in the world and they couldn't bear to be parted from it. One woman of about 30 who had been the life and soul of the party until then wearing a silly hat and going around making a gentle nuisance of herself bowed her head and I knew she was crying. The lady next to her immediately turned and gave her a hug. I knew they and many others were thinking about what Christmas might have been for them in the past and what it had become for them now. The Sister finished her little speech but asked for a moment of silent reflection before the carols started. It was respected completely. You could have heard a pin drop. Then the street musicians started "Silent Night" but I couldn't join in because the tears were welling up in my eyes.
The caretaker
probably as suspicious of homeless people as many in full-time employment
had asked Peter (and he through me) to make sure that nobody used the piano who wasn't supposed to. I noticed as I was playing early on someone standing just behind me and he moved towards the piano and just bashed a few notes but I ignored him and I think he was shepherded away. Later on when I was again doing a stint behind the keys, I sensed another man behind me, this time sitting. He had moved his chair quite close to mine and was on my left. I finished and collected my music and moved off to the ante-room which had been allocated to the performers and as I did so he took my place and started playing. Peter must have realised it wasn't me because he started moving down from the back of the Hall but I gently motioned to him with my hand to stay where he was because I knew this interruption wasn't like the first one. I am a competent musician but the man who had taken my place was a genius. I can make a piano 'talk' but he could make it 'sing and dance'. It took your breath away. I was spellbound to hear such beauty. How many more homeless and disadvantaged people have really special gifts that they never or rarely get to use ? I could have listened to that man for the rest of the afternoon and quite a crowd gathered around him as he was playing because it was such a totally unexpected and astonishing interruption. I spoke to him afterwards. He was Irish and he was well-dressed and polite and we talked about music but we didn't talk about what had happened to make him homeless. "There but for the Grace of God go I".
Another man was walking around the room smartly-dressed doing some magic and conjuring tricks. I assumed he had been hired for the day but Peter told me this man was also one of their clients. I have seen close-up magic on television but I have never seen it up close myself
until yesterday. I stood right next to this guy and he did astonishing things with cards and coins and pieces of paper and handkerchiefs that made you just stand there and scratch your head and say "How did you do that" ?! And he just smiled because magicians of course don't reveal the secrets of their trade.
The gifted pianist, the awesome conjuring tricks
how many more people in that room had special gifts ? I am sure those two weren't the only ones.
The room had to be vacated at 4 in the afternoon. More thanks were given at the end, of which I was one embarrassed recipient. But MY thanks was just to be there. I walked out into the cold early evening air, I caught the Underground round to the main line station from which I would journey home and I returned to my warm living room and subsequently my warm bed. The clients walked out into the cold early evening air carrying or pulling their bags of possessions
their lives
and returned to the Railway arches, to the shop doorways and park benches, to the cardboard boxes that are their homes.
And you know something ? I felt God's presence more in that room yesterday afternoon than I have felt for years. And I learned more about what the word LOVE really means in the presence of those clients than I would have ever thought possible. There were no arguments. There were no fights. Nobody stole anything. Nobody embarrassed or humiliated anyone else. Yes, they were all homeless but they were all part of the same community and there was a common bond between them that is very difficult to describe. It was a truly humbling experience that gave me much to think about.
"There but for the Grace of God go I".
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