Last Exit to Lou Reed

And how I was transformed

I was sixteen, miles away from my Home Counties, and a voluntary worker living in Lozells Road, Handsworth, This was the hard edged side of Birmingham, a few years before the riots, full of pimps, prostitutes and drug pushers.

I was just a kid amongst the group of guys I lived and worked with. On Saturdays I went to the Bull Ring in the city centre to spend…