Homeless Street Angels: How it felt when I walked over hot coals this week - Christa Ackroyd

Still as we all queued up to walk the walk the nerves were a-jangling. Deep breaths Christa, as my father would say.

When I was growing up and bemoaning some task I found impossible I would tell my father ‘but daddy I just can’t.’

To which he would reply ‘Christa there is no such word in the English dictionary as can’t. Just try.’

Obviously being a daddy’s girl I had attempted to abandon whatever task I was finding difficult by approaching my father first.

He rarely gave in. Left with no alternative than to seek help from my less pliable and all seeing mum I got short shrift there too. ‘

Christa,’ she would say. ‘It is simply a case of mind over matter.’

Granny was usually a pushover.

Funnily enough I have this morning just put her own granny’s painted egg hen out in my new kitchen and smiled at the memory of being invited to rummage around the eclectic items crammed in there from rubber bands to mint imperials until I found a sixpence which of course she had hidden for that very purpose.

Her response was at least more cheery. ‘If at first you don’t succeed Christa, try try again. Which all amounts to just get on with it.

I am going to be truthful here, I am still up to my eyes in boxes after moving house.

I haven’t found my television remote control yet, and the whole place looks like like disorganised chaos. Which it is.

And so last Sunday I almost ducked out of the fire walk. But you know how it is when often the thing you were dreading actually turns out to be the most rewarding. I am so glad I did.

This week is a lesson in no such word as can’t.

Forget the fire walk, yes it stung a little but, a bit like ripping a plaster off, it was soon over. It was the people I met there that are most memorable.

Firstly, there was nearly 90 year old Saul out to prove he still has what it takes, so much so he did the full length of smouldering charcoal three times.

Then there was the young girl on crutches who had to take it so slowly it must have hurt. Still she did it – twice.

One by one they queued up. And, if truth be told, it was absolutely fine. Mind over matter as my mum would say.

And that was the whole point of the exercise, to prove we can do anything if we are determined.

But that wasn’t why I was glad I had gone.

Abi House, the £300,000 support centre the two chief angels bought, or rather mortgaged, in memory of their sister was more than a leap of faith taking on such a commitment for a charity that started one Christmas Eve less than a decade ago.

It reminds me of that fabulous Kevin Costner film Field of Dreams when a voice from the gods proclaims ‘build it and they will come.’

Yes I expected those on the streets who wanted to turn their lives around to visit the dentist, the housing providers, the mental health experts and the form fillers, maybe to pick up a sleeping bag or some clean warm clothes if they had run out on the weekly outreach which is still ongoing, but never to take part in the classes the Angels always believed would and could be life-changing.

Cookery classes with the incredible award winning Masterchef runner up Matt Healy, acting with a real life soap star, art with a professional artist and keep fit with the lovely Sophie who is so flexible in both body and mind that Simon Cowell was rather taken with her belly dancing on Britain’s Got Talent.

All at the top of their game giving of their best to spread the message you are worth it.

But would our guys on the streets really take to my creative writing classes?

Why would anyone living in a tent, sleeping in a doorway or on someone’s sofa really drag themselves out for that.

It seemed so flippant, so impractical by comparison.

The first week only Phil turned up. I suspect he wanted to come in from the cold.

His first words,’ I can’t write, I don’t even know where to start,’ was a challenge.

Together we decided to write a memory from childhood when he had felt happy and content.

He told of his large family of nine sleeping top to tail in the same beds but more importantly of his mother peeling pan after pan of potatoes in front of the fireplace. And he cried. But they were happy tears. And boy could he write.

The next month we had half a dozen.

We chose the topic ‘Today is a good day because…’ One participant had just come out of prison. He was edgy and largely silent.

Reluctantly he said he would only write if no one read it.

By the end of the two hours he was reading his story aloud. ‘Today is a good day,’ he said, ‘because someone cared (the wonderful Becky had promised to get him a birth certificate – something he had never owned.)

And then there was Michael living either in a tent or on the streets. ‘Today is a good day,’ he said, ‘because for the first time I believe I am worthy of a better future.’

There was so much more, some too personal to share. But to listen to each of them reading their words and discussing their life stories was one of the most moving experiences of my life.

And so this week at the fire walk, both Michael and Phil came to update me on their progress.

Michael has for the first time in years got a place of his own. He is off the streets. Phil has enrolled in a college course in creative writing and sociology and says his life now has real purpose for the first time in years.

All of them have blown me away and reminded me of the power of writing, how just putting words on paper evokes memories but also releases the past.

I am so grateful to be a part of their new life. I am so sad that there are so many people still in the position they were in not too long ago.

But then as mother Theresa once said when asked how she could help the street children of Calcutta – one at a time.

And compared to the mountain they are now tackling, traipsing through hot coals was and always will be for those of us who have been so much luckier, a walk in the park.