Daniel

I started working as a waiter when I was thirteen. I was a proper waiter. You know, flambé, silver service, everything. In Dublin you had to go to college for three years to be a waiter. Not all the time. It was only two times a week in the winter time, you had to go. I trained as a sommelier as well, a wine waiter.

It was good. You could go anywhere and you’d get a job. You learn a lot about people and how to deal with them. You’re meeting people every day and everybody’s different.

Before the accident I was working in a hotel in Reading and I ended up being head waiter there. It was a live-in job. I was caught in a resident’s room, you know, so I got sacked for that. I said “what’ll I do now?” I went to London then and I was staying with a friend of mine. I don’t even remember where he lived.

I wasn’t working as a waiter then. I was a labourer. That was before ’90. It was Irish people. They were doing building. I met them and they gave me a job on that. They used to pay you £40 a day and that was a lot of money in 1990.

I never had my own place. I was living on jobs and all that. It was alright. I stayed with a lot of blokes, you know. Friends’ houses. It wasn’t a home or anything like that, it was just work, drinking and dancing. I knew a lot of people in London; friends, you know like – no family.

After that, I was working at another hotel as a waiter, and I had the accident. It wasn’t an accident, I got hit over the head, but I call it an accident.

When I woke up after the accident, I thought I was in a hotel room.

I seen all these wires. I remember pulling them all out, you know, and then they must’ve calmed me down. I tried to pull everything out with my left hand because the right wouldn’t move.

I just didn’t know what had happened. The nurses came in and one nurse I remember explaining everything to me. She helped me a lot.

I’d been in the hospital a month. It could have been two days. I’d a scar from here to there. There were no stitches, it was all staples, you know. Before I seen it, the nurse explained to me about it and then she showed me in the mirror. I said “Jesus Christ”. I had hair on one side, and they’d shaved me on the other, and the scar right there, with the staples in it. It’s just as well I’m not bald, because if I lose my hair I’d probably end up wearing a hat all the time! So thank God I’m not bald.

I laugh now, but I didn’t laugh then.

My right hand was dead. I can’t remember crying about it or anything. All I was looking for was a cigarette.

When I had the accident, no-one knew about it. I remember them asking ‘did I have a family?’ I couldn’t speak at the time. I said ‘no’, because I think if my mum had seen me at that time she’d have had a heart attack, you know. It would have killed her.

They put a sign on the board in the hospital – did anyone know me? And seemingly enough, they did. A woman was in the hospital visiting someone, and she’s seeing my name on the board and she had a son with my name. And she said “there’s only one other Daniel ______.” She knew my mum and dad and she knew I had to be me. So she rang up my parents. I was out of hospital when they found out, and my dad came over looking for me. I was in a flat by then. He wanted me to come home, and I said “No, I’m not going back.” Too many memories over there.

My father, I don’t know how he got to me. My mum wouldn’t have come over, because she was terrified.

The neurologist said to me “you are very, very lucky” because there was a mass of blood all over my head and they didn’t know which way to go (it’s twenty years ago, you know, and they are more upmarket now than twenty-odd years ago). They went this side. They done the right thing.

I was in hospital for six, seven months. I had to learn to move my right hand side. And then when I came out I had to learn how to speak and walk again. The walking took about three or four years. The speaking I’m still learning.

The neurologist said to me about when something happens to your brain, everything here tries to get over here to help repair it. It can heal itself, so I’m lucky really. I can use my hand again, but it’s still not right. They told me I’d get to a point that I can’t get any more back, with my speech and all that. Because some of the brain cells that I have lost do not reproduce. If someone asks me what’s wrong there I say it’s like a river with no water in it.

Even now, I can’t run. If I run I go to the right all the time – I don’t know why. See now, along my right leg I can’t feel all that. Just the top.

The doctor told me I would never work again, because I had epilepsy as well. I was devastated. Devastated… I just had one thing in my head, I was never going to walk properly.

They discharged me from hospital and put me into a hostel. So I am living in Whitechapel and I have to go to Ladbroke Grove for speech therapy. I get to Whitechapel Station but I can’t speak. I can’t say where I’m going.

I knew I was going to Ladbroke Grove. But I couldn’t read. That was gone. And I couldn’t say ‘Ladbroke Grove’. I knew where I was going and I was paying for it and the man was getting annoyed with me. So I went back to the hostel I was in and they wrote it down for me then. And when I got there I missed the appointment. It was things like that, you know.

I was given a key worker to go to appointments as I wasn’t able to arrive there or come back. I don’t know if that was before or after the Ladbroke Grove thing.

When I came out of hospital I remembered that maybe I was wanted by the police. I went to the police station to get sorted, because I knew I was charged with something. I said, “I think I’m wanted for something, and I don’t know what it was,” and they told me. It was the stickers.

Someone offered me £25 to put stickers in the telephone boxes. And I done that and I got caught. I was arrested. And after that I had the accident. I didn’t turn up in court – I was in hospital – and it’s only when I come out of hospital that I remembered something.

When I went to the police station, I couldn’t tell them or show them what happened. It was just after the accident and I couldn’t speak like I can now. I was brought to court and they remanded me in custody for two weeks. They put me in custody because I couldn’t speak properly and I couldn’t explain. They brought me in a van to Brixton Prison.

I was having a lot of fits. After I was taken into custody, I wasn’t taking any epilepsy tablets, because I didn’t know what they were called. I actually thought I was getting brought there to get executed. I had about twenty quid and I gave it away. I thought, ‘I don’t need this’. I really thought I was getting executed. Imagine that.

I didn’t remember who I gave the money to. But someone used to come along and throw cigarettes into my cell. I don’t know who it was.

I’d forgotten about all this.

They put me in the cell and after three or four days I must have come back to my senses, because before that I couldn’t remember what was going on. It’s called Fraggle Rock, this block I was on. There’s people go in there that have mental problems. And then they put me in a double cell. There was another man on the top bunk. The first night, when I woke up, I thought he’d pissed in his bed on top of me. But it was blood all over me. I thought it was me bleeding. I started screaming.

He’d committed suicide. Well, I don’t know whether he died or not. I’ll always remember it.

I don’t know what happened after that, but I went in the court after two weeks. The judge turned around and said to me, “you look a lot better this time”. And he gave me a conditional discharge.

When I got out, I went back to the hospital where I had the rehab: St Charles in Islington. I didn’t remember I’d been staying in the hostel, after the hospital. I had to find out. It’s a bit weird, really.

When the social worker brought me to sign on, I didn’t know where I was, because I had worked all my life and I didn’t know anything about the dole. And I thought it was horrendous, you know. But it did help me out.

They helped me out with a place to live as well. I was in the hospital for so many months, and then I went to a hostel and then another hostel and another hostel until I got this place now, a one-bedroomed flat. You see, in between that, I can’t remember what happened. I was in a hostel sharing a flat with another man, a drug addict. I’m in one room and he’s in another room and we share the kitchen and the bathroom. After that, I got a one room flat in Hackney. It was to do with an organisation called Single Homeless Project [10] getting me back together again. If you turned around you’d hit the door, you know, it was so small. But it’s the first stage of coming back to normal. So, I’m in there for a year and a half. I know that. And next I get a letter from the housing people: would I view a council flat? It was only up the road from the other flat, and I got it. I’ve a garden as well, and I’ve alarms everywhere. It’s secure. I think I’ve been there since ’94, ’95.

I’m finally at home now, you know. I’ve gone back to Dublin but I wouldn’t stay there. No, I’ve been over here too long.

There’s a lot of people that have helped me out over the years. I’d like to thank them, but I can’t remember all the details.

I don’t go out at night time. I imagine someone behind me all the time. And I won’t get on the bus unless it’s empty at the back. I have to be at the back so I can see no-one’s behind me. I always think I’m getting robbed again. I think I should have been a bleeding policeman, because ever since the accident I watch and look at everything.

The only, only time I go out at night – I’ll be honest. If I need cigarettes I’ll go out if it’s dark, if it’s four o’clock in the morning. If there’s a storm out there I’ll get them.

When things are bad I go to sleep! I sleep in the afternoon, but I don’t sleep at night time, that’s the bleeding worst of it.

I get very uptight all the time, you know? No patience. It’s so silly, I can’t wait for a boiled egg. I’ll fry it first, it’s quicker.

I did have patience before. Well, I think I did, because a couple of people have said to me “you’ve lost your patience”. I said “I’m getting on, I’m sixty, bleeding hell!” and they said “no, no”.

Anyone, anyone out there, they just don’t get it. They might see people getting better on the TV and all that, but that’s it, they don’t know how hard it is. I don’t know how to explain. I suppose sometimes I’m okay but most of the time I’m not.

I really don’t know what to tell them. I think it’s only when something happens to a family – that’s the only time they’ll know all about it. Like what happened to Schumacher. He still hasn’t woken up yet, you know.

My doctor knows about Headway, but a lot of people haven’t a clue about Headway. They really don’t. I had never heard of it. I found out about it through this alcohol rehab place. I’d stopped drinking, and they told me about Headway. So I got an interview through my doctor. I don’t know how long I’ve been going here. Probably two or three years.

There was a lad who used to come here, and I used to see him where I live and I just talked to him. I didn’t know he had a head injury and he didn’t know I had one. When I came here the first time, he was here and he said “Ah…” That’s how I mean. A lot of people, they wouldn’t tell anyone even when they come here.

I’m glad I told you about it all, you know. I just hope it will help someone else, I really do, because people don’t know about it, and I can think of a lot of people that are like the way I am now.

At the hospital, there are so many people involved, just to save one person. If I can help one person to know that you can get better, that’s alright with me, you know?