Monday 8th December 1997

Dictated by Bink about ten years ago:

‘When I was twelve, I ran away from home. I left a note which said: “I’ll be back soon, so don’t worry.” This was supposed to have a double meaning: at first my parents would think I had just gone for a walk and left a note saying that I would be back shortly. Then, when they realised that I had run away, they would reinterpret the message and realise I would come back one day soon.

‘I planned everything in advance. I decided that the best time to leave would be on a Saturday night, because with church on Sunday morning my parents might not notice that I wasn’t around, so it would give me the longest possible time to get as far away as possible.

‘I packed a sleeping bag and a rucksack full of food - at least, it was supposed to be full of food, but the only thing I could find in our fridge was a jar of cooked cabbage. I also took my Post Office Account book, in case I needed to take money out.

‘I left the house at about 5 in the morning and walked to Hammersmith, which was about two miles from our house and the area my school was in.

‘I spent the whole day just walking around Hammersmith. I didn’t have a coat and I think it was quite cold, but I didn’t really notice that. I didn’t feel like eating anything all day either. I wasn’t really thinking about anything - in the same situation now, my brain would be whirring round and round, turning everything over consciously - but I had a huge, deep feeling of sadness. The sadness was because there was something very badly wrong with my life. I didn’t know what it was but I knew there was.

‘On Sunday night I went to a cemetery which was on the route of my bicycle journey to school. I knew that the cemetery gates were locked each night at dusk, so I thought I would be pretty safe. I wondered why homeless people didn’t shelter there at nights. I hid in the cemetery and waited until the gates had been locked, and then I looked around for a place to sleep. There were bushes lining the cemetery walls. I chose a tree by the wall to sleep under and I got my sleeping bag out.

‘Several times during the night, I heard helicopters flying overhead...’