Next of kin

A pitifully small collection of personal items in the backpack – some clothing (half clean, half worn) and a pair of trainers, toiletries, some torn-in-half pairs of movie and concert tickets, a pamphlet for a tourist park, a paperback on van Gogh, a small amount of money ... and his return airline ticket. It made for a tearful afternoon as the three of us went through his things and remembered Paul. In short, he had travelled to a city a few hundred miles off to spend a week with a friend he had met in college. Coming back from watching a sports match there one evening, the car they were travelling in had skidded on the slick of early summer rain and turned over. Paul, nineteen, was killed.

Paul had come to our program when he was fifteen as one of those kids that “nobody else wanted". The declared problem was “violent behaviour”, and the transfer report made graphic reference to verbal attacks and destruction of property, though, on more careful examination, hardly any mention of assaults on others. His admission was long argued by the teams in our program. Didn’t we have enough to work on our hands right now without taking on such a kid? How well equipped were we to handle this? What about the safety of the others? Where could we find a school for someone who had been expelled from other schools?

Like most programs we had our soft-heart and hard-hat units (along with those undeclared, undecided or even “experimental") and, ironically, it was a soft-heart unit that offered a place to Paul. And it was from him that we were all to learn one of the profound lessons of our field.

From his first day Paul was a man of peace. Quietly spoken, unaggressive, friendly, supportive, it seemed that the agency had sent us the wrong kid! He didn’t fit the data in the report at all. In fact several people, sad to say among staff as well as some of the other kids, had already positioned themselves adversarially towards the expected “trouble-maker", but although there was some initial teasing and taunting, Paul didn’t respond as anticipated. We were to learn that the hostile and belligerent behaviour in an agency report (usually taken as gospel) was as likely to be a function of the environment as much as being part of the child's own character: in a rational and accepting milieu there was no need for this, and a youth that “nobody else wanted" could be “magically” transformed by the experience of feeling wanted.

Paul had no family. His father had died, his mother was a chronic inmate in a mental home, and his only living grandparent was a senile old lady who was kept going by a welfare service. The boy set about constructing his own “family" from amongst the adults and other youngsters in our program – along with people at school and in the neighbourhood. He was to spend the last three years of his high school career with us.

Yet Paul didn’t easily outlive the negative referral report. The agency inexplicably adhered to an icy attitude and its statutory reports frequently harked back to his “anti-social" and “wayward" past. Likewise, there were a few staff (both program and school) and kids who maintained a “You'll see" position. So we were alarmed when there was talk (however vague) of his involvement in drugs ... It happened that Paul would regularly ask various staff members for a ride “downtown" during the afternoons. He would invariably ask to be set down in a part of the town which was considered risky and “unbefitting" and would be carrying with him a shoulder bag – “and we all know what that’s for," some would say.

One afternoon Bruce Maynard (the Director) was climbing into his car to go and fetch some new soccer balls. Paul came up and asked “Going to town?" This seemed to be uncomfortably close to the suspicions which were doing the rounds, and Bruce felt that he should follow through with the opportunity to check these out.

"Sure," he said. “Climb in."

As they passed through the “risky" part of town, Paul said “Anywhere round here will be fine, Bruce."

The Director pulled up, but before Paul could slip out of the car, he asked: “Paul, tell me where you are going, and what you are going to do down here?"

Paul replied: “Have you a few minutes? Come with me ..."

"OK," said Bruce as he locked the car and followed Paul. He at once felt uncomfortable in a part of town which was unfamiliar. Paul, carry bag over his shoulder, turned this way and that, and arrived at a decrepit door beyond which could be heard shouts and laughter.

Paul stepped aside to allow Bruce, with some disquiet, to enter the poorly furnished church hall where a dozen or so rather ragged local adolescents were fooling around, waiting.

Paul, now nearly seventeen, said to them: “Hi everyone, sorry I’m a bit late. I was waiting for a lift."

The group, with unexpected order, settled down at once.

Paul continued: “Before we start I want to introduce you to Bruce, who gave me a ride here today, but, far more than this, who has really been a father and friend to me for the past couple of years. He is the Director of the program where I live, and who has really inspired me to come and do what I do here in the afternoons with you guys."

Bruce felt utterly sheepish as the group murmured their approval and welcome.

Next thing, Paul opened his shoulder bag and pulled out three rather dated cameras and some film. “Today," he announced, “I thought we would look for interesting features on old buildings – and there are plenty of those around here! Get into three groups and think of some ideas for a few minutes ..."

Paul drew Bruce over to a cupboard standing against the wall and unlocked it. He pulled out several piles and rolls of photographic paper. “Here’s a selection of what these kids have been doing over the past few months. I begged these old cameras from a couple of shops, and they now also donate the film. Next month these kids are going to exhibit some of the work they've done so far at their school. Two or three of them have real talent, and the others are keen on learning, so it’s been a successful little group."

Bruce walked back to his car with jumbled thoughts – impressed by what Paul had been able to do, that he had been so independent about it and not thought it necessary to mention it to anyone ... and as for the drug involvement!

* * *
Now, more than a year later, Paul had himself finished his first year in a graphic arts course, and here again, this afternoon, was his shoulder bag, this time under tragic circumstances. The label on the bag reminded us of who we had unwittingly become for this young person: it was addressed to “Paul’s next of kin".