My brother, who’s two years older than me, was a heroin and crack addict from when he was sixteen. He used to inject himself at home. We had to lock everything up or else he’d steal it and sell it. I had a Yale lock on my bedroom door but he used to unscrew it and nick my things anyway. Sometimes my parents threw him out, but they always had him back.

I misbehaved at school and I nicked off. I wasn’t the only one - there were loads of us doing the same. We used to go and hang out in the cemetery. In the end they gave up trying to get me to come in and I went to the South Bank Women’s Centre for two days a week instead. All of the other women were much older than me, but I didn’t mind it. I went back to school at the end and took GCSEs in Maths, English and Science and I passed those.

I was born in a house in Marquand Road that was knocked down fifteen years ago. That was the first phase of the destruction of South Bank. We moved from there to Redcar Road East, where my mum and dad are now. My mum works as a supervisor at ASDA and my dad cleans chemical tanks. They ask themselves why it is that their son turned out as he did, but I don’t think they’ve got any answers.

I’ve been away from here once, but that was only for fifteen weeks. I got a job as a waitress in a hotel in the Trossacks in Scotland. It was one of those places which caters for coach tours. It was fourteen miles from the nearest town, all on its own out in the hills. I suppose it was beautiful, but that wasn’t any help to me. I was desperate to come home, and so that’s what I did. I haven’t been away since. After that I became depressed. I went home to my mum’s and I didn’t go out at all for more than a year, and I cried all the time. I take tablets for it now and I feel better than I did, and I want to try working, but I’ll make sure I stay round here.