I used to be a glass engraver. My sister was the first woman tattoo artist in Scotland. She’s older than me and I used to go to her shop and watch and then I started tatooing myself. The two things, glass engraving and tattooing are not so different, just you’re engraving on skin not glass. Some people say that my tatooing looks like glass engraving and I take that as a compliment. That’s what I have done for the last fourteen years.

I ended up here because I couldn’t get far enough away from my ex-girlfriend. I met her on an internet chat site. She was English but she moved to Midlothian to be with me. She told me how wonderful it was that I already had kids because she had one of her own. So we all got a flat together, me, her and her daughter Abby who was four then. I remember her saying when she moved in that the flat was now under English rule and she meant it. She controlled everything including how I spent my own money. I tried to leave her not long into the relationship but for some reason I couldn’t get away. I suppose she had control over me as well as over my money and my possessions. But one morning I couldn’t stand it any longer. I told her that I was nipping out to buy some milk and I never went back. I left with nothing at all; I didn’t even put my coat on. I didn’t feel bad about walking out on her, nor about leaving behind all of my possessions, but I do still feel bad about Abby, who I was fond of, and who had asked to come with me to get the milk, and who must still wonder what happened to me.

Most people have moved on from here already. Some have gone to the Lakes Estate on the other side of Redcar, but they’re demolishing that as well, so it’s musical chairs really. Because we’ve stayed on here so long we’ll get more than five grand to move out, but we haven’t found anywhere else yet. I’ve been here seven years, and, even though it’s a ghost town now, it was a good community when I first came here. Nobody asked me whether I wanted it to be knocked down and if they had asked me I would have said that you used to get a bit of trouble here but no worse than a lot of other places.