Street life

BY DAY Lynda worked as a carer looking after vulnerable adults - and by night she sold her body on the streets of Southampton to pay for her alcohol and drug addiction.

The shocking double life she led was concealed from her workmates and family.

Despite consuming up to a bottle of vodka a day, her drinking problem was never detected by bosses.

While colleagues discussed what they had seen on TV the night before, Lynda, 39 (not her real name), never revealed her secret life of prostitution.

She was earning up to £100 a night but if asked about her night-time activities, she just said she had gone out with friends for the evening.

"This is something I have always done. I've always held down a full-time job and had this seedy side to my life," she said.

"I was always worried I might meet someone I knew but thankfully I never did."

She had turned to prostitution to fund her alternative lifestyle while she lived in London - and when she moved back to her home city, taking to the streets of Chapel held no fear for her.

She had worked as a prostitute at Kings Cross - and held down a full-time job, too.

And back in Southampton she merely carried on the routine.

"I started working on the streets in my early 20s. I thought it was a quick way to make money without resorting to crime - I didn't feel I was doing anybody else any harm.

"The first time I did it, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and I thought it was fab that in five minutes I could make £20."

"It was the only way I knew to earn extra money. But once your body gets used so much, you start to feel really abused. I needed more drugs and more drink to be able to go out on the street - it was a vicious circle"

She had a pimp but got rid of him when he took all her money and refused to give her the drugs she wanted.

And there have been scary times when her life has been threatened.

"I had a man who held a knife to my throat. He told me he didn't want to pay for sex and I had to talk myself out of the situation.

"I told him he might as well cut my throat because I didn't want to live any more.

"There was no way I was going to let him have it for nothing but when I told him to kill me, he didn't know what to do.

"In the end he let me go," she said.

After years of selling her body, Lynda decided she wanted to change her life after meeting Tricia Kenyon and other workers from the 3D Project.

By befriending and not judging the working girls, Tricia and her team hope to support those who want to give up their work on the street.

"I have tried a couple of times to clean myself up and get myself off the street. I can usually stay clean for a while and then I have a crisis in my life and I go back.

"But it does get to the stage where it's boring.

"I had never met anybody like Tricia. She was kind and considerate.

"I used to look forward to seeing her - it was someone to talk to and there were no conditions.

"It was nice having something normal to do when I met up with Tricia - she made me feel relaxed," she said.

Lynda has now come off the drugs and the drink - and she has turned her back on working the streets.

"I would never say never because I just don't know what will happen in the future.

"I do feel more determined than I have ever felt in my life. I have moments when I feel fed up - when I would normally have a drink to block out how I feel - but I am trying to learn that everyone feels like that from time to time."

REACHING OUT TO HELP WOMEN OFF THE STREETS

FOR THE past five months, Tricia Kenyon and her team have been working with Southampton's prostitutes to help them find a different way of life.

The 3D Outreach project was born from a need to offer support to the women who are giving up selling their bodies for cash.

Most are battling with drink, drugs or both and have chaotic lives that revolve around the next fix and earning the money to pay for it.

"In the five months we have been going we have so far helped 15 women.

"We are here to give the women the opportunity to leave prostitution and to encourage them along the way.

"In the process of doing that there will be a lot of issues that have to be dealt with before the women can come out of it.

"Virtually every woman we work with is an alcoholic, drug user or both and sex working can mean you are quite isolated.

"The women lose confidence in mixing with people outside that environment because of the stigma of being a prostitute," she said.

Tricia and her team go out on the streets and befriend the women and encourage them to come to drop-in sessions at their HQ in the city centre.

"We look at their long and short term goals and help them work out how to achieve them.

"Those goals will typically be stopping prostitution, coming off drink and drugs, finding somewhere to live and restoring family relationships that have been broken," she said.

Recently Southampton Test MP Alan Whitehead visited the project to meet the team and find out more about the work they do.

Funding is a continuing issue for 3D. Tricia has secured core funding from Southampton City Council but she needs to attract more money if the service is to grow.

Crack cocaine is the drug that most prostitutes favour so Tricia wants to run a day treatment programme for the women users.

And they hope to work with an employment agency in the future to prepare the former prostitutes for work to take them off the streets.

3D is always looking for more volunteers to help the service. If you would like to find out more, contact Heather on 023 8022 7704.