It was on a rain-sodden, windswept, winter's night in the London borough of Kentish town that I first met Anton Wallich-Clifford, the founder of the Simon Community, who died 25 years ago on July 30th, 1978, writes John McNamee.
The address of the Simon house on Maldon Road, in the adjacent borough of Chalk Farm, was provided by a kindly padre. It gave me hope in a hopeless situation. London is at its grimmest when you are cold, wet, hungry, penniless and homeless. I was carrying a suitcase with all my worldly possessions. I felt like a character in Ralph McTell's song, popular at the time, The Streets of London, whom Ralph had omitted to mention in his roll-call of London's misfits. I was part of the desperate army of night-walkers who just barely managed to survive by taking one step at a time in the uncharted world of the homeless. I knew I was on a very slippery slope.
On entering the house of hospitality, as Anton fondly christened his oasis of refuge, I knew instinctively by his striking humanity and aura of gentleness that this was a very special man, and as time passed and I got to know him better I found out why.
I was offered accommodation on a settee for the time it took to organise publishing my first book of poetry at the National Poetry Society in Earls Court Square. At the end of the daily efforts there was always a hot meal and a welcome rest.
The residents of the house on Maldon Road were an assortment of fascinating people. There was a frail Englishman, possibly from Manchester, with an angular, smallish, bird-like head and torso. There was an 18-year-old Turkish student, with a big bush of black curly hair and eyes like raspberries, who was more or less impossible to understand. Anton suggested that I might be able to help him with his English. There was Cyril, a classic study of a senior citizen always about to get fully out of his depth but not quite doing so. I saw him totally flummox a recent social work graduate more familiar with textbooks than people when she was reluctant to provide him with his ration of snout - cigarettes to you. Cyril simply said: "For Christ's sake I can't survive without them. Give me the bleedin' cigarettes."
There was the weather-beaten former Icelandic trawler captain who never lost his toughness and grit to survive even when the high seas of the Arctic Ocean were replaced by the waves of poverty. Then there was Lynn, a blonde, attractive girl in her mid-twenties who knew her way unescorted around the West End, maybe too well for her own good. The house was not without little moments of rancour and in such a small space tempers sometimes flared. There were moments of passion and crisis. But at the centre was Anton the pragmatist, the businessman and the serene saint, at times ruffled and beleaguered by the effort to make ends meet. There were workers and volunteers who did not always come up to scratch and expectation. There were disappointments - many of them; but there was also the support of many loyal friends and admirers. And there was also success - perhaps an outreach to a badly neglected group of meths drinkers.
On occasions, caught in the glue works of my own problems, I escorted Anton on his daily visits to Mass. These were to me quite inspirational moments. During the sign of peace in the Mass Anton seemed to arrive at a plateau of fulfilment, such was the warmth of his regard for his fellow travellers. Late at night at peace after the workload of another day, when we sometimes quietly chatted he showed a very lively sense of humour, a most necessary piece of equipment to survive in the face of struggle and adversity. With pipe in mouth, he resembled a bespectacled Indian chief, puffing smoke to heaven and sometimes serenely smiling.
He explained to me how the idea of the Simon Community germinated in his mind. After he was demobbed from the RAF where he served during the war he worked as a probation officer in Bow Street magistrates court in London. After the week's work and looking after his charges he would retire to have a pint with the landlord of a nearby hostelry.
From the landlord's office he could see the customers he looked after on a daily basis in his office. They were all, to varying degrees, in dire straits of desperation, moving from one crisis to the next, and always looking for a bed for the night, thanks to the makeshift facilities offered by the Department of Social Security and its allies in housing welfare agencies. He saw a chance to make a difference, to gain respite for these lives jammed between the devil and the deep abyss of no man's land.
Anton worked, cared and suffered for prostitutes, drug addicts, ex-convicts, pimps and all those who were burdened; and he loved them all. The last time I saw him was when he came to see me while visiting Dublin late in 1977. On occasions we would talk on the phone. His death after a short illness came as such a shock. But what a great and glorious thing he achieved when with simple faith and integrity he succeeded in lifting the burden of the homeless and heroically lightening their load.