THE BIG SOCIETY?

If you see Dr Geebers in your town or on your travels than give him a bit of support. He deserves it.

I caught up with him in Skegness. He's already walked 4,800 miles on his mission to show what it's like to be homeless and how charities can be less than charitable to "his sort". He's been around for a couple of weeks and he built a formula one racing car out of pebbles on the beach and damn fine it looked too.

Local people, businesses and tourists have been looking out for him, bringing him coffee, and making donations in appreciation of his art. He does not claim benefits and he does not beg.

Help from places that have allowed him to use their facilities, people who have done his washing and supported him, cafes that have given him free food and drink might be what Cameron means when he talks about "The Big Society". But all is not well.

Dr Geebers has nothing but the clothes on his back, a pop up tent, and basic cooking facilities. While he was working in perishing temperatures on the beach, some arsehole or other found his tent, piled all of his stuff in it and burned the lot.

We got a call at our office next morning saying he'd slept in the rain all night. Luckily when a local business heard about what happened, they gave him a very basic tent. He was really grateful to have it.

Dr Geebers went back to finishing his work but someone trashed his art as soon as he turned his back again. He didn't have the heart to go back to the beginning with it so he packed up and is now headed for Norfolk. Local people were sad to see him go.

Of his general experience as a homeless person "trying to do something" he says :

We all have problems in life and I as a homless person knows this. I decided it was time to do something to get my life back together and started writing, creating pebble art etc.
Now I am walking the whole of the U.K. coast doing this on a homeless awearness mission. This is in fact to write a book to aid homeless charities in the U.K. and help 3rd world countries.
On this mission so far I have been robbed, things stolen, councils throw my sleeping bags away, peoplle phone the police on me and been arrested.
No one trust a homeless person not even homeless charities which in my eyes is a disgrace.
If you do not go to church then you cannot do good in this world. Well I even had churchs throw me out of their grounds for sleeping in their doorway, not want to charge phones for me and one even run me down in front of a bunch of school children coming to visit their church.
No much wonder so many homeless people stay homeless and become drink and drug addicts.

If you're on Facebook you can check out where he's likely to be.