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| Malbon |
on Fri 15 Jul 11, 12:26 AM to Malbon's blog.
I was a little early for my train, returning from LKD. I found it hard to go on my own, but I met a couple of people I knew vaguely and said hello to them, and then met up with DtB who was his usual marvellous, ebullient self, and I introduced myself to a couple of people I wanted to meet, who were both very agreeable and amiable.
I had been thinking about respect, and how it cannot be relied upon. You have to reach out to people, and show them something. They do not know you, or what you have done. They don't know who you are.
In the world we live in, youth, beauty, or money will get you respect, but once all three are gone then it can be tough going, as I have found out the hard way.
At the station I went outside to where the buses wait, to have a smoke. Two beggars approached me, one a man in his 40's I would guess, the other a young lad, 17 or something.
The older man sat down with me, as one might in a spirit of friendship, but then asked me for 90p. I told him that I did not give money to people on the street, but then a strange thing happened.
I spoke to him as if he were a man, just the same as me, and told him that I meant no disrespect to him, it was just that I didn't give money on the street. I treated him as if he were my equal and quietly asked him how things were. He started telling me something about how his parents had died, and I wasn't sure if there was any truth in it. But his eyes were wet, and I wondered for a moment if I had actually upset him, by showing him respect, as a man. Perhaps he had not been shown much in the times he had gone through.
The young boy began to blather on about himself, and some course he had applied for, and his energy took up the space and the time that was there, leaving the older man silent. I left them to catch my train, wished them both well, and we parted amicably.
But I had seen the look in the older man's eyes.
I think I was quite smug about things at one time. I earned a lot of money, and thought I was pretty clever. I don't think I was ever unpleasant to people begging on the street, but I was probably in a hurry, and probably thought myself too important and too busy to bother with them. Things are different now, and perhaps I have learned something from my own difficulties.
The only time I actually tried begging myself was on the street in Mile End, in London, and I didn't do very well. I think I had to get enough to make a phone call to the bank or something, it's a long time ago. I vaguely remember some woman telling me I ought to get a job or something. I was being a tourist, temporarily embarrassed, it wasn't meant to be a permanent state of affairs.
In some ways I think my man would have been happier if I had done what everybody does, and just given him the brush-off. Showing him the respect he deserved as another man seemed only to upset him.
Or then again, maybe a pound coin would have fitted the bill a little better.
| 15 Jul 11, 1:04 AM Happy_Monkey_J UK(B), 4 yrs |
Probably the quid Dominating a doormat is like wrestling a hamster. One sided, dull and not worth bragging about... | |
| 15 Jul 11, 1:19 AM Monkey_Wench UK(B), 20 mths    |
Funny the changes that time brings. x . | |
| 15 Jul 11, 3:03 AM SweetTorments 4 yrs |
Some beggars, (possibly tramps in old money) can really make one feel humble, some also have the ability to refresh ones faith in humanity. | |
| 15 Jul 11, 5:23 AM Perplexion 13 mths |
I prefer to offer fags, gloves in the winter and hot chocolate from costa or starbucks and , if time, a chat, than buy the sodding Big Issue. I don't care if someone's skint because they spent their last penny on crack, at that particular moment in time they are in need. I can part with a couple of fags and walk away from their problems and if it alleviates someone's suffering, job done. It is also worth remembering that since our psychiatric hospitals closed, many people with chronic but non-dangerous or obvious illnesses are left within a society they don't fit. I go by the grace of something far bigger than I and walk only in my shoes. So far that has not meant totally destitution. Yet. Edited 15 Jul 11, 5:57 AM by Perplexion | |
| 15 Jul 11, 7:44 AM River_Deep UK, 6 yrs |
I am no Mother Theresa but I started giving money to beggars daily when I was in Thailand. The people over there are horrifically deformed and it hurt me inside to walk past them when I knew I was a millionaire in their currency!! The streets of Manchester do have a few beggars on them and I pass one regularly as he is always around the Wetherspoons/Picadilly Station area. He got a wrap off me the other day and asked for money to buy his dog a tin of food. I declined as I had decided not to give money in this country. Yesterday I delivered the tin of dog food to him that I had been carrying around for 4 days! His face was a picture and was still saying thank you as I walked away, on air! Trying not to judge them to your life and social standards is hard. It is not what you say or do but the way you say or do it | |
| 15 Jul 11, 8:06 AM Betony UK, 7 yrs |
I used to work somewhere where people were housed, clothed, fed and had a very sociable time to say the least. Sometimes, when I went out at lunchtime I would see one of them begging on the street round the corner. It would make me laugh and I'd always say hello just to see the looks on their faces whilst they tried to control a mix of 'I've been rumbled' and 'I've never seen this woman before in my life'. I once gave quite a lot of money to some women begging with children at Picadilly Circus. The minute I handed it over four policemen swooped in from nowhere and the women were arrested. I panicked for a split second as I thought, not knowing the law, they were coming for me as well.
'I'm somewhat contemptuously convinced that sentimentality is the refuge of those without genuine emotions' Nigella Lawson Edited 15 Jul 11, 9:13 AM by Betony | |
| 15 Jul 11, 10:40 AM Call_Me_Harmony UK(CB), 5 yrs |
Reading this took me back to the only time in my life when I begged as a 13 year old runaway on the streets of London. Begging was hell but it beat starving. I didn't stay away long. I wasn't hard enough for the kind of life where survival meant begging or selling myself. So I went home in the end to parents whom I didn't stop hating until a good 20 years later. I remember that time when I see beggars and if I can afford it I give a little. I can't tell the difference between the fake and the genuine but I figure if I give a few bits of silver to a fake so what. It's worth it to know I could be helping somebody as desperate as I was. If you don't like what you see, what you read, then just move along. Life is too short to waste it arguing about the little things. | |
| 15 Jul 11, 11:10 AM FairyGirl UK(YO), 3 yrs   |
I tend to offer food, especially if they've a dog with them. Sandwiches, pasties, anything from somewhere nearby. I always make a point of asking them if they've eaten, somehow that gives them the chance to keep a tiny shred of dignity, rather than just having food thrown at them. There's always one, and if I'm in the vicinity, it's probably me. | |
| 15 Jul 11, 12:13 PM wonderer UK, 5 yrs |
I prefer to give money, and time when I can, to a local charity for homeless and vulnerably housed people rather than to random individuals. I don't have the expertise to know who's in greatest need and who may be faking in street encounters, and the charity does. Our church also routinely gives a sandwich and a cup of tea to those who are in need, and shelter, warmth and - when we can - companionship. Like the OP, I do find that if one takes the time to talk to someone who's begging or otherwise excluded and shunned, and takes them seriously as a person, that can be really valued and enriching experience for both, and sometimes can be more beneficial than a pound or two. "Wisdom begins in wonder” (Socrates) | |
| 15 Jul 11, 5:39 PM strokes321 UK(M), 2 yrs |
Skint, homeless and starving - Could it get any worse? Yes, some creep could wander along and start talking shit, i'd give you my last 50p to fuck off. Edited 15 Jul 11, 5:40 PM by strokes321 |
