Companion Stories: Clayton Cutter

"I was in the RAF from the age of nineteen. I did my training at RAF Halton got posted to RAF Lossiemouth and then went to Norway. Just after September 11th I went to the Gulf for four months. I decided I wanted to join the Police and handed in my resignation to the RAF. When my application was still being processed, I injured my shoulder very badly and they couldn’t take me and because I had resigned from the RAF, I couldn’t go back there either.

I moved back to Halifax and got a job as a security guard until they decided to do their security in-house and I was out of work again. At around the same time I had to move out of my shared house because I discovered that my housemates were involved in drugs. I went off the rails for a while. It’s was as if I no longer knew what I was supposed to be doing. I lost contact with all my friends because I felt ashamed that things were not going well for me.

For about two months I was homeless. I spent some nights at a hostel in Leeds, but three times the number of people turned up every day than there were beds available so I ended up sleeping on the streets sometimes.

I wanted to come to Emmaus because I am an active person and I need focus and things to do. I think people who have been in the services find it very difficult to adapt to civilian life. When I was in the RAF I knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing at any given time. I had a clear structure for every day. Maybe I felt so at home at the Community because being here gives you back a sense of purpose. It also provides the support of staff and other residents. It feels like a family.

When I first arrived at the Community I became best friends with another resident called Alan. He was a really good bloke and a real hard worker. We spent a lot of time together. He had been a bit anxious about his brother coming to visit the Community because he was worried about what he would think about the place, but his brother thought it was brilliant and afterwards Alan said it was one of the best weekends he had ever had. He was so happy. The next weekend he was dead. I discovered him in his room. He had taken some drugs and it had gone wrong. The person who gave them to him wasn’t living in the Community, but Alan found it hard to say no to him. It was his weakness.

Alan’s death hit me hard and I think in retrospect I left the Community before I was ready. I asked to come back and luckily there was a place for me. Someone was looking after me because about a month after I came back my Mother who was an alcoholic died. She was 57 and she died because of her drinking. Her death on top of Alan’s was very difficult for me, but everyone at the Community gave me so much support I got through it. Ali the Community Leader came to the hospital with me to see my Mum and Anna the Deputy came to the funeral with me. When I needed someone to turn to it was Emmaus.

I am running the London Marathon in 2008 in aid of Emmaus. I am running to raise much needed funds for Emmaus because I will always be grateful for them being here when I needed them most, but I am also running in memory of my friend Alan. I am going to have his name on the arm of my jumper and whenever the going gets tough and I hit a wall, I’m going to look at his name and I know it will give me inspiration. I know that he would have been chuffed about me running a marathon.

I feel as if I have a lot of things that I want to do with my life. I really want to work as a Community Leader at an Emmaus Community. The way Emmaus operates and the way it transforms peoples’ lives are things that I really believe in."

"'The way Emmaus operates and the way it transforms peoples lives are things that I really believe in.”"