Tom.
12-15-2007, 09:32 PM
White collar homelessness: The £100,000-a-year ITN man forced to sleep rough because of debts ...
By PAUL BRACCHI and HELEN WEATHERS.
Source: Mail on-line .. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=502079&in_page_id=1770
All of Ed Mitchell's worldly possessions are in his rucksack these days. One Swiss army knife. A torch. Some old family photographs. And four pairs of underpants. "Apart from my sleeping bag, that's basically it," he says.
Normally, of course, this would be nothing unusual for a man who sleeps on a park bench, depends on soup kitchens and homeless charities for his food and was recently turned down for a job sweeping the streets.
Ed Mitchell is not a normal tramp. For a start, he speaks with a rather posh accent, which is perhaps the only real clue to his extraordinary - and dramatic - fall.
Not so long ago, Mitchell's colleagues and friends included John Humphrys, Carol Barnes, Alastair Stewart and Dermot Murnaghan, and Mitchell himself presented the Ten O'Clock News.
He earned a six-figure salary and during his career interviewed Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Margaret Thatcher and John Major. How he ended up with nothing is not only a personal tragedy but also a cautionary tale of the dangers of credit card borrowing. At one point, he says, his debt had spiralled to £250,000.
Today, with a credit crisis looming amid a frenzy of Christmas shopping, his story could not be more alarming. "If it could happen to me, then it could happen to anyone," he says.
"There are lots of us out here. Officially there are 25 homeless people in Brighton and Hove but there are scores more living rough, believe me. "I am on first-name terms with many of them and lots of them are just like me. "I've met former solicitors, estate agents, people who ran their own businesses and who have now fallen on hard times. I've even met a former millionaire who lost all his money.
"I suppose you could call this the age of the white-collar tramp. "Certainly that has been my experience. It's quite frightening."
Mitchell, a 54-year-old father of two, is clean-shaven and rather smartly dressed for a down-and-out (the result, he explains, of finding a "decent public toilet" with washing facilities near where he now sleeps in jeans, leather jacket and a pair of "designer shoes"."The label is George - from Asda," he jokes.
His catastrophic fall began in 2001, when he was made redundant by U.S. TV network CNBC. Until then, he and his family "wanted for nothing".
He lived with wife Judy and their two children, Freddy and Alexandra, now in their 20s, in a £500,000 house in Hove. "We had a very nice life," he said. "Two holidays a year, dinner parties. I travelled all over the world. My kids have turned out very nicely, so I must have done something right."
He admits drink played a part in his downfall but it was the ease with which he was able to obtain credit to make ends meet after he lost his job that eventually cost him everything.
"It's so easy to spend more than you actually have and very soon things are out of control," he said. "It wouldn't have made any difference to my financial situation if I had been teetotal.
"When you start spending on credit cards to pay off debt, it becomes a Catch-22 situation. "I ended up with 25 cards, and was using them to pay off each other. I had no trouble getting credit at all. "In fact, the damn things would turn up uninvited on my doormat."
There was £16,000 owed on his egg card, £33,000 to the Halifax and £30,000 to Barclays. "I received a letter from one company demanding a minimum payment of £2,000," he said. "Where was I going to get all that money?"
Inevitably, the pressure created tension with his wife. How could it not? Two years ago, his 25-year marriage ended in divorce. "Our split was amicable," he said. "We didn't get involved in solicitors and just used a mediator. "Our marriage just couldn't survive the financial pressures.
"When we split up, all the debts were in my name and my only concern was that my ex-wife should be comfortable and secure." Eventually, they had to sell their home.
His wife moved into a flat with their son (by then his daughter had already left home) and he spent his first night on the street in a walled garden nearby. ."It was a terrifying experience," he said. "One day I had a house, a bed, soft sheets, everything in fact, and the next, I was alone in the gutter."
Over the next year, he got by sleeping on friends' sofas but did not wish to impose for too long. For the past nine months he has been living rough.
At least, having been made bankrupt, he is no longer labouring with huge debts. "Sleeping rough is pretty stressful," he said.
"I've never been Mr Tough Guy. No one will ever starve in Brighton but someone could easily die from hypothermia. It gets very cold at night but you do get hardened to it." Indeed, his new "home" is a park bench just yards from his old house.
Tonight, like every night, he will settle down at 8pm in his sleeping bag with an Ian Rankin book. At 8.30pm, volunteers will bring him sandwiches and coffee, then he will try to sleep. "I usually get about three hours," he says.
His days are spent looking for work or visiting the library. "I've applied for everything, even cleaning the streets, but when people see my CV, they think I'm some kind of undercover reporter, trying to expose them for corruption or something, when all I want is a job.
"I may look like an emaciated, frozen figure on the bench sometimes, but to me this is a challenge, and if my story can help people also stuck in a financial hole, then I hope it will.
"Many people are on the verge of suicide over credit card debt and if my story serves as a warning to them, that must be a good thing."
Mitchell has no contact with his ex-wife. But he says he meets his children about once a month for a drink. His son is a web designer and his daughter runs a farm at a nearby public school.
Neither are in a position to help him financially, he says, and to begin with he did not tell them about his homelessness. "I didn't advertise the fact because I didn't want them to be embarrassed," he says. "But they are great kids and very supportive now they know. "They love their dad. "They think he's very good and will somehow manage to dig himself out of this hole. I'm planning to see them both on Boxing Day."
This morning, Mitchell was being interviewed on the BBC Today programme by John Humphrys, a former colleague from the 1980s. "I remember John gave me one very good piece of advice - never become a television presenter. "So when I speak to him, he'll either have a very good laugh at my expense or take me to task but I'm not embarrassed about what's happened to me because it could happen to anyone."
Another old colleague is Dermot Murnaghan. The two used to present C4 Daily.
Dermot once said of me: 'Ed Mitchell taught me everything I knew about broadcasting', and I can't deny that sometimes I've looked at him on television and wished it was still me instead of him but I don't envy him all those early mornings. "But I'm not racked with regret at what has happened. I made a few wrong decisions but I don't think of myself as a failure. "This is just another chapter in my life, a new challenge. This time the challenge is survival, rather than the advancement of my career. "The challenge is waking up alive each morning. "There's still the view that homeless people are dossers. "That's not the way it is any more.
"While credit cards and banks are pushing the idea of borrowing money, the 21st-century tramp in my experience is often a former white- collar worker and there's going to be lots more like me who struggle with their debts. 2I'm speaking for the tens of thousands of people who are going to go through what I've been through.
"You may think: how does a highflying presenter find himself on a park bench? But believe me, it's not far away from anyone."
"There are lots of us out here. Officially there are 25 homeless people in Brighton and Hove but there are scores more living rough, believe me." See: http://forums.homeless.org.au/showthread.php?t=288
By PAUL BRACCHI and HELEN WEATHERS.
Source: Mail on-line .. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=502079&in_page_id=1770
All of Ed Mitchell's worldly possessions are in his rucksack these days. One Swiss army knife. A torch. Some old family photographs. And four pairs of underpants. "Apart from my sleeping bag, that's basically it," he says.
Normally, of course, this would be nothing unusual for a man who sleeps on a park bench, depends on soup kitchens and homeless charities for his food and was recently turned down for a job sweeping the streets.
Ed Mitchell is not a normal tramp. For a start, he speaks with a rather posh accent, which is perhaps the only real clue to his extraordinary - and dramatic - fall.
Not so long ago, Mitchell's colleagues and friends included John Humphrys, Carol Barnes, Alastair Stewart and Dermot Murnaghan, and Mitchell himself presented the Ten O'Clock News.
He earned a six-figure salary and during his career interviewed Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Margaret Thatcher and John Major. How he ended up with nothing is not only a personal tragedy but also a cautionary tale of the dangers of credit card borrowing. At one point, he says, his debt had spiralled to £250,000.
Today, with a credit crisis looming amid a frenzy of Christmas shopping, his story could not be more alarming. "If it could happen to me, then it could happen to anyone," he says.
"There are lots of us out here. Officially there are 25 homeless people in Brighton and Hove but there are scores more living rough, believe me. "I am on first-name terms with many of them and lots of them are just like me. "I've met former solicitors, estate agents, people who ran their own businesses and who have now fallen on hard times. I've even met a former millionaire who lost all his money.
"I suppose you could call this the age of the white-collar tramp. "Certainly that has been my experience. It's quite frightening."
Mitchell, a 54-year-old father of two, is clean-shaven and rather smartly dressed for a down-and-out (the result, he explains, of finding a "decent public toilet" with washing facilities near where he now sleeps in jeans, leather jacket and a pair of "designer shoes"."The label is George - from Asda," he jokes.
His catastrophic fall began in 2001, when he was made redundant by U.S. TV network CNBC. Until then, he and his family "wanted for nothing".
He lived with wife Judy and their two children, Freddy and Alexandra, now in their 20s, in a £500,000 house in Hove. "We had a very nice life," he said. "Two holidays a year, dinner parties. I travelled all over the world. My kids have turned out very nicely, so I must have done something right."
He admits drink played a part in his downfall but it was the ease with which he was able to obtain credit to make ends meet after he lost his job that eventually cost him everything.
"It's so easy to spend more than you actually have and very soon things are out of control," he said. "It wouldn't have made any difference to my financial situation if I had been teetotal.
"When you start spending on credit cards to pay off debt, it becomes a Catch-22 situation. "I ended up with 25 cards, and was using them to pay off each other. I had no trouble getting credit at all. "In fact, the damn things would turn up uninvited on my doormat."
There was £16,000 owed on his egg card, £33,000 to the Halifax and £30,000 to Barclays. "I received a letter from one company demanding a minimum payment of £2,000," he said. "Where was I going to get all that money?"
Inevitably, the pressure created tension with his wife. How could it not? Two years ago, his 25-year marriage ended in divorce. "Our split was amicable," he said. "We didn't get involved in solicitors and just used a mediator. "Our marriage just couldn't survive the financial pressures.
"When we split up, all the debts were in my name and my only concern was that my ex-wife should be comfortable and secure." Eventually, they had to sell their home.
His wife moved into a flat with their son (by then his daughter had already left home) and he spent his first night on the street in a walled garden nearby. ."It was a terrifying experience," he said. "One day I had a house, a bed, soft sheets, everything in fact, and the next, I was alone in the gutter."
Over the next year, he got by sleeping on friends' sofas but did not wish to impose for too long. For the past nine months he has been living rough.
At least, having been made bankrupt, he is no longer labouring with huge debts. "Sleeping rough is pretty stressful," he said.
"I've never been Mr Tough Guy. No one will ever starve in Brighton but someone could easily die from hypothermia. It gets very cold at night but you do get hardened to it." Indeed, his new "home" is a park bench just yards from his old house.
Tonight, like every night, he will settle down at 8pm in his sleeping bag with an Ian Rankin book. At 8.30pm, volunteers will bring him sandwiches and coffee, then he will try to sleep. "I usually get about three hours," he says.
His days are spent looking for work or visiting the library. "I've applied for everything, even cleaning the streets, but when people see my CV, they think I'm some kind of undercover reporter, trying to expose them for corruption or something, when all I want is a job.
"I may look like an emaciated, frozen figure on the bench sometimes, but to me this is a challenge, and if my story can help people also stuck in a financial hole, then I hope it will.
"Many people are on the verge of suicide over credit card debt and if my story serves as a warning to them, that must be a good thing."
Mitchell has no contact with his ex-wife. But he says he meets his children about once a month for a drink. His son is a web designer and his daughter runs a farm at a nearby public school.
Neither are in a position to help him financially, he says, and to begin with he did not tell them about his homelessness. "I didn't advertise the fact because I didn't want them to be embarrassed," he says. "But they are great kids and very supportive now they know. "They love their dad. "They think he's very good and will somehow manage to dig himself out of this hole. I'm planning to see them both on Boxing Day."
This morning, Mitchell was being interviewed on the BBC Today programme by John Humphrys, a former colleague from the 1980s. "I remember John gave me one very good piece of advice - never become a television presenter. "So when I speak to him, he'll either have a very good laugh at my expense or take me to task but I'm not embarrassed about what's happened to me because it could happen to anyone."
Another old colleague is Dermot Murnaghan. The two used to present C4 Daily.
Dermot once said of me: 'Ed Mitchell taught me everything I knew about broadcasting', and I can't deny that sometimes I've looked at him on television and wished it was still me instead of him but I don't envy him all those early mornings. "But I'm not racked with regret at what has happened. I made a few wrong decisions but I don't think of myself as a failure. "This is just another chapter in my life, a new challenge. This time the challenge is survival, rather than the advancement of my career. "The challenge is waking up alive each morning. "There's still the view that homeless people are dossers. "That's not the way it is any more.
"While credit cards and banks are pushing the idea of borrowing money, the 21st-century tramp in my experience is often a former white- collar worker and there's going to be lots more like me who struggle with their debts. 2I'm speaking for the tens of thousands of people who are going to go through what I've been through.
"You may think: how does a highflying presenter find himself on a park bench? But believe me, it's not far away from anyone."
"There are lots of us out here. Officially there are 25 homeless people in Brighton and Hove but there are scores more living rough, believe me." See: http://forums.homeless.org.au/showthread.php?t=288