It’s strange how things can just fall into place. Time and again it seems that the right situations become inexplicably available and destiny works it’s magic. Hence I find myself, one cold Wednesday evening, outside Old Street station, about to get on the tube with all the time in the world to kill.
Anyone could be anywhere at any moment and yet circumstance simultaneously dictates that wherever we are at any given point is the only place where we ever could have been, so of course my encounter with Derek was always in the pipeline. At this moment, it seems time and space had reached an equilibrium which matched my desire to tell the stories of those without the voice with Derek’s search for the next opportunity to the right of basic necessities - food, shelter - which we all take for granted.
Sat at exits seven and eight, staring at the rich pass by with an all to familiar hopelessness in his eyes subconsciously blocked out by most, he notices my prolonged glance of apprehension as I wonder whether he is the right person to help me fulfil this task. He certainly looks old enough but I am hesitant as to whether this really could just have happened with no planning and no productiveness on my part.
As our eyes meet, to Derek’s delight, I head over. I can tell he’s hoping for change but I explain my intensions. He agrees to talk and, while I am aware that my recording equipment is locked uselessly in a draw more than 20 miles away, I can not resist the egresses with which he wants to tell his story.
We begin. Derek tells me he was born in London, one of four brothers and a sister, in 1937 but was evacuated shortly after war was declared. Having been lucky enough to be able to remain with the oldest of his parents’ children and his sister, their second eldest, he becomes evermore animated as he tells me of the stories he grew up with. London became a magical place where dreams could come true and his early love of the countryside evaporated, despite his relative good fortune when it came to rationing, given that his evacuee family, being of a farming background, were able to grow the likes of vegetables and herbs.
As we talk, it comes to light that he hated school and the idea of favouritism, with the more academic of the group being favoured by staff. There rose within him a real resentment of authority which resonated throughout his childhood and into his teenage years but he tells me that, though he regards this as being a characteristic which has held him back from such things as long-term employment or relationships, it was the best thing that ever happened to him as it gave him the determination to run from the structure of a family setting in pursuit of the life of crime he so desperately desired.
Intrigued, I probe further, asking him what it is about resisting the status quo that has so fascinated him and he explains that he has always wanted more than the average life, believing that what society offers its citizens is the basic minimum, while achievement lies in finding a way to reach beyond the boundaries of legality. He explains,
‘Son, society may not think I’ve done nothin’ but trust me I did more than them rich b******* at the top. People think I’m thick coz I’m here’, he says, glaring at a man walking past in a suit and glowering, ‘but I know that I got the attitude right and that’s what matters’.
I ask him to elaborate with regards to what it was like growing up in the war but he seems reluctant to talk, changing the subject when I raise the question. I can only imagine that he was so traumatised by what he went through that he has suppressed it to the recesses of his mind. Instead, I focus on his adult life. He tells me he has always chased a life of crime, been in prison countless times for countless small-time crimes and is now thinking of
‘milking society for everything it’s worth until I plonk it then spending my life savings on the best coffin I can find’. He says his biggest achievement has been managing to give up heroin and, worryingly, recommends I talk to a local dealer he knows, explaining that if you can get hooked then ‘overcome the juice’, you’ll be able to get through anything. At this point I hastily thank him for talking to me and cut the interview short with no intension of seeing him again but talking to him was exceptionally insightful.
During the last episode of his four part series, The Experiments, Derren Brown said that those who achive are the ones who actively seek out opportunity. Derek is testament to this. He seemingly had everything right, the drive, the productiveness, the ambition but what he got wrong was the PR. He actively wanted to avoid cooperating with society, believing that doing so would limit him. Hopefully, he will now finally begin to use society to his advantage but the thing I really took away from our conversation was that there must be so many out there who could have been everything had they simply had faith in the system, yet how can anyone place this expectation on a section - possibly even a generation within society who have lost all hope?
Over the coming weeks, I will seek to provide a platform to the forgotten of society. The internet gives everyone a massive opportunity to do some good if only we can take some time out from watching Nick Clegg humiliate himself to unleash it’s full potential. I hope I’m not coming across as fanatical, I just think it would be interesting to try to work out just how many out there have inspirational yet untold stories to tell.
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