My story

From homeless drug addict to having my work hung in the Tate Modern and meeting Prince Charles!

My name is Kacey and I am now 32 years old. To look at me, you might not guess that I have been a drug addict. You might not guess that I have been in trouble with the police in the past. You wouldn’t think I met HRH Prince Charles either.

I was born in Aldershot in 1977. My parents split up when I was 10- my sister, my brother and I had to move with our Mum to an area in London where we didn’t know anyone. My Dad and I had been very close in the past, but when this happened it broke that father-daughter bond we had.

I was pulled out of a school that I loved, where I had loads of friends and placed into a school where I was the ‘new kid’ and I stood out like a sore thumb because I was so much taller than anyone else. I was bullied- for my weight, and also because I had learning difficulties.

So I tried to fit in with people by playing the joker and giving the teachers at school a hard time. Being the class clown stopped most of the nasty comments- at least from the other kids. The teachers were another matter. My teachers ‘encouraged’ me by saying stuff like: “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” My sister and I are two very different people. She was always the ‘good one’- the one who was destined for ‘big things’. What did they predict for my future? ‘Encouraging’ things, such as “You will be dead by 18”.

I felt like I was nothing, By the time I was 11 I was smoking cigarettes to fit in with the older kids that I was hanging around with and because someone told me they would make me lose weight. Not long after that, I moved onto smoking cannabis- someone told me it would make me forget what was going on around me.

One bad drug leads to another and I went on to experiment with more illegal drugs as well as getting alcohol poisoning when I was 12- although thankfully that put me off it for life! I ended up getting kicked out of school permanently and by then, I was so far off the rails, no other school in the country would take me. Social services thought it best to put me into the care of Barnardos.

Barnardos had a place in Wokingham in Berkshire where there was a school in the middle of the grounds and six houses that were called units where the kids would live. I lived in a house with 11 boys and 2 girls. The staff at Barnados had me figured out in a positive way from day one and helped me discover a lot of my talents such as photography. They even got me work experience at a local newspaper.

I left Barnardos when I was 17. I didn’t go back to London because I didn’t want to fall into the traps of my old life. There was nothing there for me anymore. I started my independent life homeless. I was in a hostel for young homeless people and claiming benefits. I got £65.00 every two weeks to survive on. I started going to college. It was costing me £25.00 a week to get to college, so I was left with only £15 every two weeks to buy food, buy cigarettes and whatever else I needed. Even if I had managed to find a job, I would have had to pay £100 per week rent for the hostel and council tax of £50 a month- not forgetting all the other things, such as food, but who was going to employ me? I felt trapped so I stopped going to college and once again fell back into my old habits.

When I was 19, I decided to get away from the area and its problems completely, and moved to Bedford- but I knew nobody, I was back to being ‘the new kid’ and once again found myself hanging around with the ‘wrong kind’ of people. I was homeless and sleeping on the streets. Sometimes if I was lucky and there was a bed available I slept in the night shelter and sometimes I slept under a bridge.

By now I had developed a habit of developing a habit to try to escape what I was going through, but this time I turned to a much harder drug- heroin.

Drugs like heroin don’t come cheap and I ended up getting into trouble with the police and went to court for a burglary. I was lucky because I should have gone to prison but didn’t. This really woke me up and I got myself into the YMCA in Bedford. It was like a second chance really. It scared me enough to sort myself out. I got myself clean. I have been clean for 10 years now.

I got myself a flat and then even got into a happy relationship. I felt I took a lot from society when I was on drugs and wanted to give something back, so I started raising money for the NSPCC and took an active role in PLANB (Peer Led Active Network Bedfordshire)- going into schools. I was also an active member of the Pilgrims Housing Association residents’ board, arguing for better social housing conditions.

Then I got involved with the Princes Trust, and went on a ‘Sound Live’ music course, working with people who have worked for the really big names, like Tina Turner and the So Solid Crew! I was also given a development award, which funded my first ‘proper’ camera and started my photography career in earnest. The Princes Trust also helped me with putting together an art exhibition called ‘Running with the Herd’, which was about drugs and how they have affected people in Bedford. One of the visitors to that exhibition invited me to meet her at her office- she turned out to be the owner of a large, well-known recruitment agency and provided the funding for me to produce my booklet ‘Running with the Herd’!

Life was suddenly good! I started talking to the trust about setting up a business as a photographer and they gave me a grant to do this. I was so grateful that I wrote to Prince Charles thanking him and I also cheekily asked if I may photograph him. Can you believe, he wrote back within a week! He said yes, he would love to meet me. In November 2003, I was granted a private meeting with the Prince and was allowed to take his photograph for my portfolio!

Life went from good to great! The following month, in December 2003 one of my photos was displayed in the Millennium Commission exhibition at the Tate Modern- I didn’t know at the time that the Tate Modern is a famous art gallery and that work by artists like Dali, Monet and Picasso was in there! “The exhibition was created to celebrate the projects which had been achieved with National Lottery funding... Ms Jones used her award to create a photographic exhibition and website promoting drug awareness”. (BBC news website)

Because of all the attention in the press I was getting, I was invited to the MoBO awards to take photos.

I told you life was good and great- there was, however, some bad news for me at this time, something that was going to change my life forever. In the last months of 2003 I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is the most common disabling neurological condition affecting young adults. Around 85,000 people in the UK have MS. (mssociety.org.uk) MS affects the ability of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord to communicate with each other- symptoms such being tired all the time, having problems with co-ordination and memory lapses (among others) will affect me for the rest of my life...

Despite this major set-back to my health, I continued in my quest to change my world.

In May 08 and 09 I was an ‘Adult Achiever’ finalist at the annual ‘Pride in Bedford’ Awards. Many were nominated because they have shown great bravery, the ability to care for others above themselves or their desire to improve their community whatever the odds.

In November 08, I released my first track on download, called ‘Tightrope’. It went straight to No.1 and stayed for 3 weeks!

In conclusion there is so much more to my story. The next project I would like to do is to write my story in more detail “which I have started”. Something I feel that is very important to share with the world as I believe it would benefit others.