Anthony used to sleep on the bench by the football ground, every night. All year round. Officially it is not allowed to stay overnight, but I closed an eye for him because I was one of the few people that talked to him.

He was shy and not very social, but locals accepted him and even liked him somehow. So did I: when he died it was as if I lost a member of my family. It is a very sad story. He lived here for a very long time.

He had a hard time and one morning I found him with a serious fever so I called the mobile unit of the Salvation Army. But that didn’t do him any good. They forced him to go into an institution, although the world outside is his life. The open air is his past and his future, so he died unhappy in residential care for elderly only 3 months after I found him.
Antony was a part of the park. Many people know him. Some elderly brought leftovers for him. But other people like businessmen eating their lunch in the park had difficulties to understand him. Especially when he was drunk and making amok I had to intervene from time to time. You know what is funny, I heard recently that he had a lot of money on the bank when he died, but maybe that’s only a rumors.
He was not the only homeless person frequenting this park, but he was certainly the most colorful. I feel so sorry for him. He grew up in a bad situation with abuse and going from one stepfamily to an other. He spent time in institutions and prisons. Never ever in his life was able to grew over his unhappy childhood. This is why his relation with the other homeless was ambiguous. He was like a father for them, but on the other hand he was very afraid of getting attached to them. He never learned to build relations or became emotionally attached to others.

Adrian

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