Low life | 12 February 2011

My boy and I were standing together outside the front door of his partner’s house while he smoked a cigarette. Since my boy’s first (and his partner’s fourth) child was born, they haven’t smoked inside the house. Fine drizzle was swirling in the orange glow of the streetlight. In comfortable silence we stood and contemplated the view of the council estate where he lives.

A tradition has grown up for dumping ‘problem’ families here from across the county, so this particular slough of despond is notorious for drugs, petty vandalism and domestic violence. The most pathetic of last week’s crop of court cases reported in the local paper was that of a 19-year-old man charged with possession of 0.05 of a gram of a class-A drug, breaching a restraining order by sending a text message to his former girlfriend, assaulting a police officer and causing criminal damage to a door, lock and doorframe.