I lived in Shoreham on the South Coast till I was thirteen. My mum said we were going on holiday and she brought us to South Bank, which is a set of streets between Middlesbrough and Redcar. In fact it wasn’t a holiday and we never went home. I should’ve known that no one would choose to take a holiday in South Bank but it took a while to dawn on me that we were staying here.

Not that I was here long, because I went into care the same year because my mum couldn’t handle me, and I was away in care homes until I was sixteen. I still don’t get on with my mum, even though we both live in South Bank. I see her in the street but I don’t stop and talk to her. I haven’t spoken to her since she sent me away.

I’ve been in and out of prison. I came out two months ago. Whilst I was inside some people trashed my house so I’ve not got anywhere to live and I’m having to stay with friends, which isn’t easy because I have to find somewhere with a warm place for my pet lizard. I need a bond to get a new house and I can’t see myself being able to sort that out.

I started using amphetamines when I went into care and they’ve been part of my life all the way through, including the ten years during which I worked in the coke ovens at the steel works. I don’t see the drugs as a big thing: I only use them because my life is a load of rubbish and if it wasn’t then there would be no need for them.

There are a fair number of people, like my mum, who moved to South Bank because life went wrong for them elsewhere only to find that it is getting smaller by the day. The council uses this place as a dumping ground. They dump people here when they’re not wanted elsewhere - drug addicts and people out of prison -  and then they knock their houses down. It’s a strange form of punishment, gathering them all together and then bulldozing everything around them.