When I first moved to London N1 four years ago, no one seemed to notice let alone discuss all the children stabbed to death in our neighbourhood. Boys from the local estates were hacking each other to pieces quite regularly, but middle-class N1 barely blinked. It was as if these two groups were, and still are, invisible to each other, though living cheek by jowl.
Four years later, it seems to me that there’s another set of players, just as isolated from the rest. Let’s call them the screaming souls in Hell.
They’re everywhere once you notice them, men and women suffering from some form of psychosis, usually homeless or on the edge of homelessness.
Everyone talks about mental health these days — for better and perhaps for worse. The young are triggered and traumatised; their parents not just busy but suffering from stress.
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