Stewart's Story

A true story update, happening now. The infinite power of love and compassion is making the world a better place. You are part of these magical energies. Please share them far and wide, thank you :)

The transcript is at alanchapman.com/love and below.

Stewart’s Story

This is a true story being lived (and written now) by the energies of love.

I first met Stewart in the middle of September 2023, when we were each out walking near where we each lived.

This was very near my home in Anstey, Leicestershire, at the footpath entrance to my local woods and meadow parkland, and then I discovered from Stewart’s explanation about himself, near where Stewart had lived since 2008, in a tent in the woods.

He helped me, giving me some toilet paper, because I’d been ‘caught short’ having to dive into some bushes with very sudden extreme diarrhoea (due to my failing to re-heat my pig trotters properly in my slow-cooker).

After producing a roll of toilet paper from one his two carrier bags, and my asking him about himself, he told me he’d been homeless since 2008.

I then asked Stewart what I could do for him in return.

He asked for some water, because getting water, by refilling his two-litre plastic bottles was very difficult for him, mainly due to the unhelpfulness and fear of people who live in houses, many with water meters and money worries, and/or suspicious minds about strangers who knock on doors asking for help. I said he could walk with me back to my house and refill his water bottles.

When I pressed him to think of anything else he needed, he said, “a pair of socks,” and he explained to me that very recently he’d had to move his tent and belongings very urgently away from another homeless friend with whom he’d been camping, due to the friend’s increasing mental illness problems and threatening behaviour towards him, so that Stewart was forced to leave some of his belongings behind, and so he only had one pair of socks, which he said were ‘battered’.

I walked with Stewart back to my house – via my local charity shop, to try to buy him a pack of a few pairs of new socks, which normally were in stock, but on this occasion, none were in stock.

Stewart refilled his water bottles and I gave him an empty five-litre plastic bottle, which also he filled. I gave him a pair of my sturdy ‘work socks’, and apologised for the fact that they were not as clean as most people’s ‘clean socks’ because I don’t have a washing machine, which has been my situation for most of the past fifteen years.

“Oh that’s okay, I normally only wash my socks in the river,” said Stewart.

Please consider here the concepts of abundance and gratitude: that the less we possess, the less we need, and the more grateful we are for small things.

Think about what you have and take for granted; and then think about Stewart and other people in situations like his.

Stewart explained to me that he’d become homeless, as a working qualified electrician, in the 2008 financial crash, when his father had lost his (and Stewart’s) home due to repossession by the bank.

I met Stewart several more times in the next few days, mostly when he came to refill his water bottle from my outside tap, but sometimes, interestingly, when our paths converged when we were each out walking, or I was walking and Stewart was cycling.

Stewart had also explained to me at our first meeting that he’d walked or cycled about 25 miles every day for many years. Stewart is extremely fit and healthy, and brilliantly intelligent, far beyond what we normally imagine ‘intelligence’ to be.

On the next occasions that I met Stewart he never asked me for anything. He doesn’t ask friends for anything, unless pressed to do so.

He asks for help from the state or government or local council, and receives about £300 each month in ‘state benefits’, and the lady at the ‘benefits office’ at one time was nearly in tears he told me, when he missed an appointment and his benefits were stopped for a year. The computer said no, and there was nothing that the lady could do to help him.

The local council, via one of its van patrol teams, threatened gleefully and psychopathically to take away and burn all of Stewart’s tent and belongings very recently. This is how our systems of governance often operate.

It brings people to tears very easily when they realise.

I gave Stewart a dozen eggs on one occasion. I didn’t like, nor do I like, the fact that Stewart has been forced by his circumstances to retrieve unhealthy foods from supermarket bins. Many thousands of people live like this, through no fault of their own.

I sent a couple of videos of me and Stewart discussing his situation to two of my friends, and I suggested that perhaps they could also help Stewart in some way.

After meeting Stewart, both of them decided they wanted to help, and they involved other people also, in helping Stewart.

Stewart has been given clothes and food, and very simple things to make his outdoors living more dry and weather-protected.

At the same time, we all, all of us who are helping Stewart (and more are helping as they hear about the chance to do so) understand that for Stewart to improve his situation, for example to get his driving licence back again, and to meet other complex criteria for being employed again, and being able to earn enough money to pay for rent and utilities in a home of his own, Stewart must be fully committed to wanting and pursuing his recovery of a ‘normal’ life.

So far so good. A plan has emerged, and as at today 28th October 2023, Stuart is being offered a very reliable staged process, which together we have researched, designed and assembled, all by like-minded souls working with Stewart, by which Stewart will become a working man again, with a safe and meaningful job, enabling him to have his own home and also a transcendent future, which will inspire and energise others, to show that love and compassion are the infinite fuel for making our world a better place.

Watch this space 🙂