I walked along the main street in Manchester last night, Market Street, at approx. 5.30pm. I was meeting my son and daughter, who work in Manchester. I passed at least three large banks with glass windows that accommodated some pretty comfy-looking empty settees and carpet flooring.
Let’s set the scene!
I walked around a vast Arndale Shopping Centre, heated with acres of empty space and lots of jolly, extremely rude, no manners, Christmas shoppers.
I trudged round there with a bleeding heart and actually felt like screaming. I had passed a paramedic on a bike who was attending a dying youth on the street, not in the centre. Oh no, they are not allowed in there! Who had taken Spice? Apparently a bad batch had been going around that day. People were taking photos because it is a freaky drug that makes these people like the living dead. Together we also witnessed a youth in a portrait position on the tram platform. My son told the paramedic so he could get aid. Every doorway contained a homeless person. It was freezing.
How can anybody think this is right? People are lying, dying as you pass them, and no one cares. I truly don’t understand what has happened to people. Where has compassion gone? These are not images from a war-torn country; this is daily life in the UK.
There are those that say don’t give “them” whoever “them” are. Money, “they” will spend it on drugs, but personally, I too think I might take drugs if that’s what it takes to cope with living on the streets. I can’t get past the callousness of people walking on by. I feel guilty, and I have nothing!
Do you really think that anyone chooses to live like this?
Let’s remember those empty banks that have those comfy settees and plush carpet with big glass windows! Lying in a cold, empty shop doorway! It used to be a child peering in a sweet shop window! How much lower can the UK sink under this Tory government before people make a stand?
Vanda Buxton
