Father Malcolm- making his church roof his home for the next ten days

Why I'm making the roof my home

Malcom Hunter is to spend 10 nights on the slopes of St Michael's Church roof. Here he reveals how his personal torments have given him an empathy with the dispossessed of Camden Town

I am sleeping and remaining for 10 nights and days on the highest slopes of St Michael’s Church roof, the Church of England church next to Sainsbury’s in Camden Town, without leaving once.
I am passionate about Camden. My deepest passion lies in the people. There are so many of us – all so different with very varied backgrounds and origins.
For some reason we all come together in Camden…some live in lovely houses, others live in flats, others in hostels, others on the streets, each of us with such interesting stories of our past lives – some very tragic. There is one common factor that unites us all – we are all human beings.
In being human we all have an element of vulnerability whether we acknowledge it or not. I know this from my own life. A life which at times I have lived with great regret, at times I tried to end my own life, at times I lived it without thinking about anybody else, at times I have lived it in good health, at other times I have spent years not well.
There is always a tremendous deep gratitude within me for some of the people in Camden. It was during some of the lowest moments of my life when I was running my own construction business that some people of Camden ‘carried’ me.
For instance, twice I was ill – once for over 10 years and another having major back problems. The people who worked alongside me lived mainly in Camden Town or Somers Town – they stood by me – as they also taught me how to come to terms with my own ‘addictions’.
They understood what it is like to be ‘down’ and ‘out on your luck’, for each one of them wrestled with maybe an addiction (drink/drug/violence) or a criminal record. Each of them knew what it was like to be ‘not good enough’ and ‘not acceptable’ to society. They knew what it was like to be ‘cast out’ and ‘rejected’. These men, and I thank God for them daily, looked after me until I was able to resume ‘normal service’.
We stayed working alongside each other for many years until I had to close my business due to major spinal surgery. It was not my business – it was all of ours – and they each knew this – it was our ‘space’ of belonging, value, discovery and friendships.
Some of these men are now running their own businesses, others are re-employed and one of my close Irish friends of 12 years committed suicide – he slashed his wrists and remained undiscovered in his flat for two weeks. It was only the smell of his rotting body which drew attention from his ‘neighbour’. He could not cope ‘out on his own’. He couldn’t cope with the numerous forms he had to fill in. I saw him the day he committed suicide, he came to see me as I lay recovering from spinal surgery. We filled in yet another form together …he took his life that evening, we believe.
Does this not say something to each of us about loneliness, isolation, vulnerability, as well as those who lack confidence in themselves?
I loved Jimmy – he had taught me so much about how to live. Jimmy’s photograph proudly sits in my bedroom at home – I miss his humour, his company, his honesty, his stories, his ability to tell me just as it is. He was always at his happiest when he had a broom in his hand and was sweeping up, and then when he was sitting on ‘his stool’ in the Cock Tavern in Somers Town drinking his tipple – Guinness. Jimmy helped to change my life.
It took me three years to recover from my spinal surgery – most of those years lying still on my back. Three years of thinking very closely about life. Three years, also, being stripped away, losing all control over what I thought was important at that time – my business with the money, power and status that went with it and my own very poor behaviour.
I now know my heart lies with those who are truly marginalised, outcast, voiceless, lonely, isolated and perceived as ‘no hopers’. I could not, if I could possibly help it, let another needless suicide like Jimmy’s ever happen again – I have to do something…however little.
This is precisely why I am doing what I am doing on St Michael’s roof. I don’t need to remind any of us that if we look around ourselves in Camden we see some very sad sights. There are many sights which break my heart.
What is our response to these sights? The council, ‘elected by the people’, wants to clean these people out of Camden. I cannot agree with this for, I believe – and I am only a very small cog in the wheel at St Michael’s and in Camden – that everybody, no matter who they are, need to be given another chance.
Everybody needs to be given time so their story can be listened to and discovered. Everybody needs to be given hope so that they can begin once again to live a life with hope, dignity and dreams. They each have as much right to ‘stay in their community’ as anybody else does.
I am that very person who many of us would have crossed by to the other side of the street some years ago to avoid. I have been so fortunate that some people and God have given me another chance.
Under God and caring people my life is being rebuilt – a life which was devastated by the most horrendous repetitive sexual abuse as a helpless young child…I, too, couldn’t cope. I also know, as well, that there was absolutely no excuse whatsoever for some of my behaviour. Why have I been given ‘another chance’ and others haven’t?
I am so grateful for and praise those members of the police force, street service, street wardens, residents and workers in Camden who are compassionate and believe so strongly within themselves about ‘transforming people’s lives’. There are many in this community of Camden who believe there is another way – a way of compassion, love and hope.
So many people are giving up of their time free of charge during www.a
nightonthetiles.org – they too wish to see this community of ours transformed.
The main reason I am staying up on the roof, is to raise £100,000 towards a new roof so that the ‘building that serves the poor will be saved’, but, also to say there is ‘another way’. I will be homeless without a roof over my head, no washing facilities, no clean clothes to ‘try and be at one’ with those who have no ‘hope’ so maybe the message will percolate through that we all need to be messengers and bringers of ‘hope, love and compassion’ to each other.
We, as a church at St Michael’s, know with our open doors that something in the region of 3,000 people a week come through – some come simply to pray or to light a candle, some to cry, some come to rant and rave, some come to be pastured and prayed with, some come for a hot, free cup of tea to warm themselves after a night spent on a cold, hard, wet pavement.
Yet, each one of us is surely just a whisker away from being ‘knocked down’ – inside our hostels are people who were once doctors, lawyers, teachers ... I ponder – who one day will look after us if we don’t fight for the weak, vulnerable, lonely, isolated, down trodden, cast out people of today as well as learn and receive from them? It could be us tomorrow!

• Drop in your sponsorship to Fr Malcolm on the roof, who will lower a bucket for you to put the money in.
Or send a cheque made payable to St Michael’s Church to The basement, 191 St Pancras Way, London NW1 9NH or go to www.anightonthetiles.org

See also Vicar on the roof prepares with ‘sidekick’