My mum, Christine, wasn’t in a position to look after me when I was a child, and I’ve never known my dad. I was looked after by some friends of my mum before ending up with my uncle, who I stayed with for four years. He put locks on all the doors, even the cupboards, to stop me taking any food, and then he started locking me in my bedroom. I’d come home from school, and at six o’ clock he would lock me up and let me out the next morning to go to school again. After four years he told my mum he didn’t want to look after me any more.

I was thirteen by then, and I came and lived in South Bank. I was in my mum’s house in Victoria Street, but she wasn’t there. The house has since been demolished, which I’m glad about because I have bad memories of living there. I remember the first winter as though it were yesterday: it was cold in the house and I was frightened. I remember thinking that I would have preferred to be back at my uncle’s. I’d gone to school when I was at my uncle’s and I wanted to sort out more school for myself, so I went to the induction day at Eston Park, and I turned up on the first day of term, but because I wasn’t in uniform I was sent home. I never went back.

The money I had came from stealing. I nicked things from backgardens and corner shops, and I took the copper from the derelict houses. There were plenty of them even back then. I started on the crack when I was fourteen because it took the edge off the bad feelings I had. I suppose it was inevitable I’d end up in prison and it wasn’t such a bad thing that I did: I learned to read and write and I stopped the drugs. I’ve been in prison a fair bit. My last sentence was for robbery. I robbed one of the lads coming out of the settlement on Redcar Road. I was hungry and I didn’t have any clothes, though that’s not to say it was right what I did. I got a twenty two month sentence for that, and I came out three months ago.

I’ve been with Natalie for four years now and we have Reece who’s sixteen months old. I want to give Reece the attention I didn’t have, but I need to stay out of prison to do that. I looked for love and attention, and I know what the lack of it has done to me, so that’s what I try to give him, though if you ask Natalie she’ll tell you she does the lion’s share, because I’ve been in prison most of the time, and even when I’m not in prison it’s her who gets up at night.

My mum came out of prison not long ago after serving five and a half years for importing cocaine from Jamaica. She lives with Natalie and me now, which is strange in a way, but your mum is your mum in the end. She gave birth to me and I thank her for that. We get on all right, but I constantly feel the lack of something. When I think about her I feel like I’m falling, like you get in a bad dream, and then I have to think about something else.