Today we put on our third soup kitchen. It’s our fourth month, but we had to cancel the one in December because no-one could get to Oxford in the bad weather. We decided to make it another mobile one because we’re still getting to know the area and the habits of our potential guests, so we set off with our supplies of tobacco, soup, sandwiches, cake and fruit.
For an hour we trudged round the centre of Oxford. There must have been something exceptional happening because we didn’t see a single homeless person. Eventually we asked a community policeman and he directed us to Speedwell Street, where the night shelter is.
Once again, we trudged off down a long street, right out of the centre towards an area of “social” housing (built of dark brown brick so that it looms over you intimidatingly).
Once we got there, we found a short cul-de-sac with the night shelter, a dark, forbidding building, forming the end of it. As we walked down we could see huddled figures sitting on the pavement, and a few standing around the entrance to the shelter as well. We met a potential guest on his way out of the street and offered him free tobacco, which he accepted. I was aware of a flurry of movement at the other end of the street, followed by a watchful stillness as the package changed hands. Some of the figures jumped up and ran away into the building and I found myself thinking, “Do they really hate do-gooders so much?” Actually they were running in to call their friends out so that they could get freebies as well. We carried on and offered free tobacco to the group huddled on the ground. Instantly an arm was waved to the remaining men by the doorway of the shelter and the cry went up: “Hup! Tobaccoooooo! Hoy!” and suddenly men were running at us from all directions. It was slightly alarming for a moment. Without meaning to be disrespectful it reminded me of when cows run towards you: They all, apparently miraculously, stop simultaneously and perfectly in line and stand there jostling one another and looking at you curiously from about four feet away with a slightly embarrassed but benign air. That’s exactly what these poor men did. After a moment one of them coughed and said diffidently, “Er- did you say you had some tobacco?”
After that we were very busy for about half an hour doling out our goodies and chatting to them. They advised us to put posters up in the shelter and went with us eagerly to the door to make sure that we did.
They were quite a cross-section. There were people suffering from mental illness, one obviously suffering from the effects of a bad trip, one or two standing or sitting completely enveloped in their own misery, one who held forth on politics very coherently and clearly wanted to get out of his situation, and another who is just about to get his own accommodation and funding for a course who was quite elated. A few didn’t want to speak at first but came up later and some just wanted to be left alone.
Altogether we gave out food or tobacco to more than 15 people. We talked to more than that and we made the acquaintance of three or four in particular. We have taken our first mobile phone number, to help someone move into his flat. Apparently he has absolutely nothing to put in it; we are going to investigate what is available to him from Social Services or other sources and to try help him with other things. Watch this space for requests for household items.
Every month we say that we might be able to hold a meal in the cafe and every month we don’t, but we are going to try to next month, if we can get our publicity sorted.
For lay people who work in our various jobs in the world, one of the most striking things about the people we spoke to is that their conversation is genuine and adult in the sense that it is all about real things that actually matter, which is a breath of fresh air to some of us!
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