Ben Myers has a very thoughtful and thought-provoking article on the Guardian site entitled "Does literature of the homeless exist?" It's a theme that's been rattling about inside my head for a while, since the recent cold spell.

A year and a half ago, my uncle Eamon "Budgie" Anderson (my cousin by birth but brought up alongside my dad and his brothers) died. He was a street alcoholic and he froze to death while he was homeless. The powers-that-be saw fit to close down the refuge that they had for street drinkers in Derry because of a lack of funding. For whatever reason, they ended up turfed out onto the street and Budgie died because of it. The reaction following his death, too late for him sadly, nonetheless showed the inherent decency of the people; most were shocked and appalled it could happen and shelters have been arranged since (one coming from an anonymous local businessman) but it took a man (a father, son and brother) to die for anything to happen. There's a BBC news archive on it (including an interview with his mother, my aunt Margaret).

Reading Ben's article got me thinking about it all and how it's almost impossible to articulate what someone goes through in that position (Orwell's Down and Out In Paris and London and Masters' Stuart: A Life Backwards are both stunning works but still somehow lacking). After all, it's people like Budgie who have truly lived it right to the sad end and who'll never get to tell their stories.

I started thinking of times when he would come up to me when I was a teenager, at the corner of Waterloo and William Street, and say "you're Seamus' son" and tap me for change and I'd give him some and have that self-satisfied glow that people get when they give money away. in reality I was more often embarrassed to the point of, I'm shamed to admit, quietly denying that he was family and just wanting him to beat it if I was standing with my mates or meeting a girl.

walking around Edinburgh in the last months with the snow two feet deep and winter winds howling in, I couldn't believe how many junkies and alcoholics were still on the streets at night, in sleeping bags by North Bridge or huddled in phonebooths on the Royal Mile and I kept thinking how the fuck do they survive and kept putting that shitty little voice out of my head, the inner Tory in everyone, that gets annoyed with their presence, the same one that's embarassed by a relative who's struggling and who's gone through a million times more than I could ever endure. anyone of us could slip, most of us being two wage packets or one breakdown away from destitution and that it's a constant fight to stay human these days, not for the homeless person necessarily but the person stepping over them. but you forget, you get lazy and the worst side of your being tends to take over which is why books and things are there to remind us I suppose; to stay human and not join the cynics. anyways check out Ben's article and Budgie, rest in peace.