The Sunday Times Magazine • 29
the Shrewsbury Ark, a local day centre for
homeless people, had advised them to take
out anything that could be used for suicide
attempts. As hoteliers they were used to
dealing with the unexpected and the
demanding, from the opera diva whose
agent kept calling from miles away to order
her room service to the furry red handcuffs
left in a four-poster bed. But this felt like
dealing with a complete unknown. None
of them had ever thought much about
homelessness before — Mike admitted he
wondered why they didn’t just get a job.
It was a view they would soon change.
The new guests included Neil Hallam,
who introduced himself as Stokesy. He had
a long, matted, gingery beard and strong
body odour. Stokesy was in his fifties and
originally from Stoke, hence his nickname,
and had not slept in a bed for decades. There
was also Tracy, a big girl with a pretty face
framed by reddish hair. An alcoholic, she’d
started drinking at an early age from the drip
trays under the beer taps in her grandad’s
pub. She had been sleeping in a tent and
wept when Charlie took her to her new
room, touching the marble in the bathroom.
One of the other new arrivals was a young
man called Tommo. After checking in he
went outside for a smoke. Not long
afterwards Jacki spotted him through a
window bent double with his head in the
flowerbed, as if he were eating the flowers.
She beckoned Charlie over. “What’s he
doing?” she asked. They went outside.
“I think he’s on something,” said Charlie.
“Tommo!” they shouted. Eventually he
came to and stood up, zombie-like, his eyes
red and hazy. As they pushed him inside and
upstairs, he swayed from side to side like a
praying mantis. “What has he taken?” asked
Jacki. It was their first encounter with
“mamba”, a synthetic cannabis substitute
that is cheaper than weed but more potent.
Tommo passed out on the bed but he
seemed OK, so they left him.
They came to recognise the zombie look
of someone who smoked mamba and learnt
from Chris Bennett that the best remedy
was to get them to drink orange juice,
because the sweetness revived them.
Richard Marshall, not even 5ft tall, was
the next to arrive. Everyone called him
Titch. He came in looking very scared, with
bug eyes on stalks as he approached the
reception desk. He said he’d been sleeping
in the doorway of a local fish and chip shop.
Titch was 31 but looked much younger. He
told them he had been sofa-surfing since
the age of 12, after his father died. Titch had
dropped out of school. “My mum couldn’t
cope, so they put me into care, but I ran
away from the children’s home and got in
with gangs,” he said. “I started stealing
because I didn’t have any money to live.
They would put me through house
TRACY HAD BEEN
SLEEPING IN A TENT
AND WEPT WHEN
CHARLIE TOOK HER
TO HER NEW ROOM,
TOUCHING THE
MARBLE IN THE
BATHROOM
From left: the Prince Rupert’s manager,
Charlie Green, owner, Mike Matthews,
and accountant, Jacki Law
ANDREW FOX FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES ➤
