Robert Lancaster-Gaye sleeps out for Centrepoint
Tell us a bit about your Sleep Out - what does it involve?
Centrepoint organises a London based Sleep Out where people give up one night to sleep outside to try and get an idea of what it’s like for young people to sleep rough. It certainly doesn’t replicate the challenge and danger of sleeping rough every day but it gives you an idea of how bad it can be. If you aren’t in London you can do your own Sleep Out wherever you want. I decided to do mine outside the Tradelinens office in Dagnall.
How did you prepare?
I made my bed out of a couple of pallets, a thin cot mattress, an old deckchair cover, and several cardboard boxes. To add more realism I didn’t eat for 24 hours and as I don’t own a sleeping bag I wrapped up warmly!
Tell us about the conditions you slept in?
I hunkered down under the cardboard boxes at around 8.30pm and though it was raining very lightly it stopped and the skies cleared. This unfortunately meant that it then got very cold, around minus 2 degrees I think. It was minus 1.5 degrees when I got in my car to drive home around nine hours later. It was very uncomfortable, obviously, but the worst bit were my frozen feet – I had to get out of the boxes at 2 am to have a walk around the car park to get feeling back into them.
Why did you choose to take part in a sleep out?
I already support Centrepoint in a small way as one of my charities, so when I heard of the Sleep Out I decided to try to earn a much bigger donation by making myself as uncomfortable as possible for the night to highlight the problem of young people rough sleeping.
What are you taking away from the experience?
I have a fairly vivid imagination so I felt that I would have a pretty good idea how nasty sleeping rough is, but having had just one very bad night’s lack of sleep really focuses the mind on how truly dreadful rough sleeping is for young people if it goes on for days, weeks or months.