My Story - part 7

One of our Commissioners gives us a privileged insight into their life. They give us the good and they give us the bad. The story helps us understand poverty a little better. Here is part 7.

There hasn’t really been one turning point for me, because my life journey has been so rocky.  It’s been an unsteady road.  That’s the way it’s always been really, so many uneven roads.  

I started going along to the Lodging House Mission.  It’s a Day Centre for people with homelessness needs and stuff.  I went there for the cheap food, just to eat, but I wanted something more so I started getting involved in things.  I got involved in the choir they ran.  It was good - I grew to love singing.  

Scottish Opera ran a project with the Lodging House Mission, and I got my first lead role in their production - “Who Killed John King?”  We ended up performing it at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.  Who would ever have thought that I would be performing with the Scottish Opera at the Royal Opera House.  

Our play was 8 minutes long and there were other groups there from all over the world, all of us experiencing homelessness.  We got a standing ovation at the end of our piece.  I’ll never forget that.  It was a beautiful experience.  Our play was about two families and a gangland war.  I felt like I was going to be sick from nerves, heavy nervous before I went on - but I done it and it was good.  I still can’t believe I done that.  People dream of that sort of thing.

                                                                  

That’s when I got my first taste of acting, and I wanted to continue.  My heart is in singing and acting and I would love to be able to make a career out of them.

That gave me the confidence to go to college.  I did Sound Production, and the music side of stuff. I get to work on my own music. It’s amazing and has given me something that I like doing - singing is a big part of my life.  Learning how to deal with sound, adding sound onto your music and adding wee beats and stuff, and its amazing the door it opens, its just amazing.  

I want to be an actor; I’ve made my mind up.  I’m doing a course in the Citizens Theatre now.  Cause that’s what I want to be.  Like being on stage because you can get to be whatever you want. And then you just leave it on the stage at the end.

But day to day life isn’t easy.  I’m still running that race like when I was fifteen, but now there are lots of hurdles in the way too and people trying to pull you back. It’s a long road but I keep running in the race to win.  You want to beat the odds, you want to beat everything.  The finishing line is when you conquer everything, when you feel good in your head.  Instead of having all these worries about the DWP, sanctions, money and homelessness.  So you’re not going to be stressing, so your mind doesn’t play games with you - that’s all I want.  Poverty really affects your mental health, but I want to be strong, not back down the hole, not back in the slump.

Watch out for part 8, tomorrow...