Paddy and Linda

Lost Contacts, Paddy and Linda

10 years ago whilst studying documentary photography at Newport I worked part-time at a notorious homeless shelter in Cardiff. There I met Paddy and Linda, a homeless couple who had met on the streets. They had both been through harrowing times in their lives. They had just been kicked out of the shelter and were living under a railway bridge, in a small storage tunnel. Both of them spent the day sleeping, waking only to get up and buy heroin so they could ready their bodies for the night ahead. And yet they were two of the kindest and cleverest people I ever met. Linda was from an affluent background but had been abused by two partners and ended up running away to London and life on the streets. Paddy had been brought up in childrens’ homes. When he was fourteen he was sent to one in south Wales where he was constantly sexually abused before escaping to live on the streets. One day, whilst not in his right mind, he left the gas on in his kitchen — the scars on his body are a painful number of years spent in and out of the hospital after that.