FEATURES: Sidney Stewart was dead...

By MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
20 January 2010

SIDNEY Stewart was dead. Surrounded by paramedics and police officers, his body lay on the floor of a friend's flat, for a brief moment his life extinguished by a lethal cocktail of high strength lager and heroin.

But Sid was lucky. By either miracle or medicine the paramedics were able to resuscitate him, and, through a half-inebriated, half-oxygen starved fug, came a moment's self- revelation: "I need help."

Today, the 39-year-old looks happy as he tinkers with his tools in the workshop of Pilton-based homelessness charity Fresh Start.

His smile is an indication of just how much the charity has helped him get his life back on track, but the fading dark circles around his eyes give an indication of the life he led before that day in July 2006 when that life was almost snuffed out.

"I had just picked up my giro and I went out and bought seven cans of Tennent's Super Lager," recalls Sid, who has spent most of his adult life struggling with alcoholism.

"Drink had always been my drug but there were other drugs around too at times, and while I can't remember anything about it I apparently took a hit of heroin and overdosed.

"Waking up on the floor surrounded by policemen and paramedics was the last straw - I knew I had to get away."

Two weeks later he was on a train hurtling away from his home town of Aberdeen, and away from the cycle of pain and addiction that had dogged him.

Sid inherited his name and perhaps his alcoholic tendencies from his father, an unpleasant character who he says would regularly beat his mother in drink-fuelled frenzies.

"Some of the earliest memories I have are of jumping on my dad's back to stop him hitting my mum," he recalls.

"One day when I was about six he threw me into the fireplace and split my head open. My mum picked me and my brothers up that day and left for an abused women's hostel."

Sid had to move school and soon found himself the target of bullies who prayed on his already shattered self-esteem.

"At school I started bottling things up because I felt no one was listening," he continues.

"The teachers didn't understand, I had a social worker who wasn't much use and my brothers were too young to remember what it was like living with our dad so I couldn't talk to them either. I just retreated into myself.

"I left school at 15 and quickly got into the working routine of Friday nights down the pub. It started off with a few sociable pints but I gradually started drinking more and more.

"My mum moved to London when I was 16 and took us all with her but I didn't really like it. It was too busy and I missed Aberdeen so I moved back, and spent the next ten years or so drifting around. Initially I got my old job back at the fish plant, and then between 1988 and 1994 I went back to London and worked in several pubs, eventually working my way up to management level.

"The pub jobs were great because they were usually live-in jobs, with a flat upstairs but it meant that when I was made unemployed I was also left homeless."

Sid ended up in a hostel in south-west London, where he was introduced to heroin for the first time.

He had been supplementing his steady drinking habit with the occasional joint or tab of LSD since his mid-teens, so to him heroin seemed like just another drug to ease the pain.

He continues: "I started chasing the dragon - inhaling heroin smoke - between the ages of about 22 and 27, but never really to excess.

"With me it was always the drink and by the time I hit my late 20s I started turning into my dad. I lost two tenancies because I was spending all of my rent money on alcohol, and I spent my first spell on the streets during one winter in Aberdeen.

"It was very cold and I would spend the night getting a few hours' sleep, and then walking around in several inches of snow to heat myself up before getting another couple of hours' sleep again."

It was a harsh lesson, but one that would later stand him in good stead when his chaotic lifestyle finally came to a head on the floor of an Aberdeen drug den.

Following his overdose and exodus from Aberdeen, he spent his first night in Edinburgh sleeping rough near Haymarket Station, before checking into Bethany Christian Trust's hostel in Leith.

"When I woke up in Edinburgh I went to Access Point, a charity that phones round hostels and finds homeless people a place to stay, and they found me Bethany House. I'd also made up my mind to go to Alcoholics Anonymous to get off the drink for good.

"It was something I just couldn't do in Aberdeen because I had to break the cycle. The only way I could get off it was to get away from the circle of friends I was hanging around with, who didn't want to see me get better because they preferred to keep me down at their level."

In 2007 Sid was introduced to Fresh Start, a charity that provides support services for homeless people struggling to get back on their feet.

Their services include providing second-hand starter packs with essential household goods such as pots and pans, painting-and-decorating "hit squads" to help spruce up a new let, and a befriending service to offer moral and psychological support.

Fresh Start gave Sid a job testing appliances in its electrical re-use department which started out as a three-month placement and eventually blossomed into a full time job.

He still takes time out to visit his mum Roberta, 67, and his brothers Ian, 37, a furniture designer, and William, 35, a watersports instructor, in London.

He adds: "They're all proud to see me on the straight and narrow.

"My dad died in 2003 aged 62. I was told it was alcohol-related. We severed all contact when my mum left so I hadn't seen him since I was a boy, and I didn't go to the funeral."

He is now a fully fledged member of the Fresh Start team - fixing up lives as well as fixing appliances.

"Since I started working with Fresh Start my confidence is up here," he says, lifting his hands way above his head.

"I'm still off the drink, although I did have a few quiet ones at Christmas time which I'm proud to say I didn't allow to get out of hand.

"I like the work that I do and I'm always happy to give advice to the people I meet through the job.

"The main piece of advice I would give to anyone struggling with similar problems as I went through is to get away from it as quickly as you can and get some help.

"You will meet new friends who genuinely care about you and won't try to drag you down.

"I know now that real friends don't lead you into temptation, but help you face up to your problems and put them behind you.

"It might seem impossible at first - but it's not as hard as you may think."

FUTURE JOBS FUND MAKES A REAL DIFFERENCE

SID Stewart has the opportunity to help other people like himself through funding provided by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisation's (SCVO) share of the Scottish Government's Future Jobs Fund.

The fund was established in October 2009 to create 15,000 new jobs in Scotland by April 2011, and the SCVO - the national body representing the voluntary sector - administers grants to third-sector organisations offering work through the scheme.

Fresh Start managing director Keith Robertson (inset, below left) explains: "Sid was trained through a previous back-to-work scheme, and his job is currently funded by the commercial side of our portable appliance testing service.

"Sid will now be able to train up apprentices who will be funded through the Future Jobs Fund."

There are more than 45,000 voluntary organisations in Scotland involving around 130,000 paid staff and approximately 1.3 million volunteers. The sector manages an income of GBP 4.1 billion.

The Evening News is backing the UK's biggest voluntary sector event, The Gathering, organised by the SCVO, which takes place in the city next month. For more details, visit www.scvo.org.uk/thegathering.