20/03/2017 Inside Out South


20/03/2017

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Transcript


LineFromTo

Hello, from the Isle of Wight.

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It's planes trains and automobiles, just not in that order.

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My dream is to end the need for anyone to sleep rough.

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This is the bus.

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We're on board the homeless shelter changing lives and perceptions.

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People expect us to smell and be addicted to anything under the sun,

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but hat's not true.

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-- People expect us to smell and be addicted to everything under

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the sun, but that's not true.

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If you just think how much I have thrown away.

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Without them, I would be on the street, living rough.

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Also, how this man is starting his own train service to take

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on failing Southern Rail.

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I thought, well, let's see what we can do.

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There's got to be room for competition out there.

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And we try to solve a South Coast World War II mystery.

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First, when the only emergency night shelter here on the Isle

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of Wight closed last winter, rough sleepers suddenly found

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themselves left out in the cold.

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Step forward an unlikely hero, Kevin Newton.

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It's not a safe place.

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It's somewhere that's out of the way.

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There was a tent here last time I came,

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a couple of weeks ago.

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Still remnants of it.

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My main concerns is they are lonely, they're vulnerable,

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they could be attacked.

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I was a rough sleeper, about 11 years ago.

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I slept in doorways, in blocks of flats.

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One time where I did get attacked, I was asleep.

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Somebody had saw me on the floor, kicked my head

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in and left me for dead.

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I fractured my skull, lost part sight in my right eye.

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And I could have died.

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I could have.

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I was nothing to them.

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I was just somebody lying on the streets.

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But far from being nothing, Kevin's a man with the plan.

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I knew of around 15 people that were rough sleeping,

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and I created something that could solve that problem.

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And this is what I created.

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This is the bus.

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Since Kevin raised the ?15,000 needed to convert his bus,

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22 people have got on board.

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At the permanent address it provides, they can

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access health care, benefits and other support.

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Some have been in prison, with addictions or mental health needs.

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A mixture of people, obviously there are some

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very strong characters.

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People with a lot of history.

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But everybody seems to support each other and get on well.

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Until three years ago, Jonathan was a successful

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agricultural scientist.

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Losing that job lead to depression, alcoholism and ultimately divorce.

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And, at Christmas, Jonathan found himself homeless.

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You never know what's around the corner anyway.

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I had a beautiful, five bedroom house.

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I had my own boat I used to go sailing on it at the weekends.

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A beautiful wife.

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It's all gone.

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Depression turned into alcoholism, but eventually the money

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and the health ran out, as it does with alcohol.

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I had to find somewhere pretty quick to live

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and the council suggested Kevin.

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Without them, I would be on the street, living rough.

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If you just think how much I've thrown away.

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Jonathan's drinking would have barred him from many shelters.

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But the bus is a wet shelter, meaning it is open to all,

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even those still on drink or drugs.

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Look at that.

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The only rule is they don't do them on board, or pose a danger

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to others, as Matty explains.

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If anyone comes in drunk, they will go into the tent,

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it is called the tent of shame.

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Basically they get put in the tent and get a sleeping bag and get put

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into the tent of shame.

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I have mental health problems and all the rest of it.

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We all have problems, we'll have demons.

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I hit addiction because it's like a blanket.

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You're right on the streets, you are cold.

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I think I would be dead by now.

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I would be.

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Being on the bus is a godsend.

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You can see we have 14 bunks.

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We find that when people come the first night,

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if they're not completely exhausted, they won't sleep very well anyhow.

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Just for a couple of hours because that is what their body

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is telling them to do.

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Without a good night's sleep, your mental health is not good,

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you can't function, you can't think properly, so we do see

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a massive difference, full of energy to start with.

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They are wanting to do more productive things.

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This is Parkside Pavilion.

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I was kindly invited to the Christmas party

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and they asked me to stay on and help them out,

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so I volunteer usually twice a week.

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Jonathan has been on the bus and stayed sober since Christmas.

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He is now able to see a future for himself.

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He is a lovely, caring person.

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He's a good man.

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We're blessed to have him.

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It's brought me up from where I was and it's given me

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another insight into life, brought back my confidence,

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effectively, where I can move on, find my own place to live,

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hopefully find a permanent position somewhere in the long run

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and start my life again, basically.

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We're going to Aspire, which is our partner charity,

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and we are going to get in our evening meal,

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they make it every night for us.

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Monday to Friday.

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There will be enough for about 20.

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So this is all waste food that's come from different supermarkets

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and would have been thrown away.

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But it's going to be reused.

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What have we got tonight?

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Barbecue potato wedges, cheese and garlic flatbread and beef lasagne.

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This is all come from the waste food?

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Come from waste food, yes, from Tesco's.

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There'd be no bus without partner charities like Aspire who supported

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Kevin from the very beginning.

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They also make a cracking lasagne.

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We have two lasagnes.

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There are some wedges.

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Evenings on the bus are quite chilled.

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Everyone mostly does their own thing.

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Some people colour, read, listen to music,

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we have a good laugh.

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There's also good bit of banter going around.

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We all look after each other.

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How many of us are there?

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Got a safe place to be with lots of other people.

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Meeting people who have been through similar situations.

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The community.

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We are all community.

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We've all been through everything.

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Holly has been lucky.

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Unable to pay her rent and she says with no support,

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the bus shelter opened just as she herself homeless.

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-- the bus shelter opened just as she found herself homeless.

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We can tell everyone what we have done and people will go, OK,

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that is fair enough.

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We don't get judged for anything.

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People expect us to be like in trench coats and smell

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and have no sense of hygiene, or, you know, be addicted

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to everything under the sun, but that's not true.

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I mean, you look at Lisa and Andy and you can look at me,

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a few other people on the bus, we are dressed nicely,

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we don't smell.

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You know?

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There's only a few rules.

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No smoking, no drinking, polite.

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I can't imagine not being on the bus.

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I can't imagine.

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I will get myself sorted out and I'm going to get myself sorted out.

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It's not going to take long now, no way.

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No.

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Meals happen at set times, to get people back into routines.

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Breakfast is from 7am until 9am and as well as those on board,

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Kevin is happy to feed anyone in need.

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There is no excuse for anyone being hungry.

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We know of about six people who don't want to engage with us

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but they are always welcome to come and have food here as well.

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We won't turn anyone away.

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How many?

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Two for each of us, is that OK?

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Like many rough sleepers, Mark came to the bus with no way

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of proving who he was.

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Thanks to Kevin, he now has his birth certificate

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and a safe place to sleep.

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They are very comfortable, memory foam mattresses.

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They are really comfy, you get a good night's sleep.

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Someone kindly donated these to me, the hat and trousers.

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There's kindess of people's hearts, where they do donate.

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Where they do give homeless people a chance, which Kevin

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has quite happily done.

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He's given me a chance.

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I can't repay that.

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After what he's done, bless him.

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He is a good man.

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We have motivation to get up in the morning and you can

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have a nice cup of tea.

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Makes all the difference.

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People to talk to.

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Get familiar with.

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Instead of not knowing who's there when you wake up in the morning.

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Until the bus came along, Lisa had spent months

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sleeping in a field.

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It was a frightening time.

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I did have a situation when there was a homeless guy,

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he would literally pick on homeless people out there,

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vulnerable people out there, who he knew was homeless.

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Being here is a safety net from all that.

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You have the option to either choose a safe

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or a better life for yourself.

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It is not easy but it is a step forward in the right

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direction, definitely.

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We have ended the need for anyone to sleep rough on the Isle of Wight

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and that will be my dream, is to end the need for anyone

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to sleep rough in the UK.

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It certainly gets people off the streets, it makes them safe,

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it gives them a chance to get their life back together.

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It's estimated there are more than 250,000

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homeless people in England.

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But today there is at least one less.

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Look at this.

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Wonderful.

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In just three months, Kevin has helped move

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11 of his passengers into permanent homes.

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A table someone donated, a television.

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And the support doesn't end when they step off the bus.

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Wonderful.

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It is one big family and, like all families,

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when your children leave home, you still keep in touch.

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As when your family move out, you help them with benefits,

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you help them with getting furniture, getting

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their place sorted.

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As we have done with Jonathan.

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It's a whole mix of people I would never have met in life before.

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I've never met drug users and those sort of people before,

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in my previous life.

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My whole view on life has probably changed with respect to I have a lot

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more respect for people and between us all we have

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managed to help each other and they have helped me,

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bringing my self confidence and my abilities and my self

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worth back and hopefully I have managed to give

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something back to them.

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To know that somebody like Jonathan, who has come from high up and had

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all the trappings of life and then has gone right down

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to the bottom and he's now, I'm enabling him to get

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back on the ladder,

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to be rebuild his life, there is a sense of pride.

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-- to rebuild his life, there is a sense of pride.

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There is.

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Now, Kevin's bus shelter idea certainly seems to be catching on.

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So far, five more buses are being converted and should be up

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and running on the mainland within the next few months.

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Still to come on the programme, a World War II mystery.

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I haven't got any idea what I was going to do,

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to be quite honest.

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I did the best I could when I was there.

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Next, if your train is late or cancelled, as a passenger,

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you have two options.

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One, you can get cross and rightly so.

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Two, you can try to set up your own real service and do better.

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Here's Natalie Graham.

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Many a boy has dreamed of running his own railway.

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But one man is setting about attempting to turn

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that dream into reality.

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Steve Williams would like his only grown-up train set.

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-- Steve Williams would like his own grown-up train set.

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Why?

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Because he's a passenger of Southern Rail.

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The eureka moment happened in the beginning of December,

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a train had been cancelled, I'd been left and abandoned.

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Pretty dire by the train company, absolutely disgusted.

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Steve used to work as a train dispatcher,

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at Gatwick Airport Station.

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Coming from a railway background, I thought, well,

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let's see what we can do.

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There's got to be room for competition out there.

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So this is Steve's big idea.

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Instead of moaning about Southern Rail,

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he wants to set up his own railway service in competition.

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I'm doing something about this, so people are no longer

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treated this way any more.

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So would Southern passengers like an alternative?

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Well, it makes more sense to have a choice on the railway,

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just because then competition leads to better service.

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It would be a brilliant to have a choice to whom to go with.

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I think Southern Rail are rubbish.

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This is all well and good but of course it's simply not

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possible to set up your own railway.

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I'm meeting up with Steve at King's Cross Station in London

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to find out why on earth he thinks it can be done.

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Steve, operating your own train company, it sounds crazy.

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It sounds crazy, but giving a customer a choice

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of who they want to travel with, you have a smaller company out

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there, it can be managed better, you can look after your customers

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a lot better and you can do great things for them.

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Tell me what your company is going to be called and why

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you have given it that name.

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Basically, we are going back to the old days of London,

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Britain and South Coast Railway.

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-- Brighton and South Coast Railway.

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We're going back to the golden era when you cared

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about your customers.

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So why are we on a train heading to Yorkshire?

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Well, we are on their way to meet somebody who had the same

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-- Well, we are on our way to meet somebody who had the same

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crazy idea up north.

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Several years ago, this man wanted to set up a railway service

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in competition with Virgin, from Yorkshire in the

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north-east to London.

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Hello, Ian.

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I'm Natalie and this is Steve.

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Hello, Steve.

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Nice to meet you.

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You will find a lot of people tell you it can't be done.

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You start to think, have they got a point?

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Particularly if it looks as if you're you're

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not moving forward.

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But here's the thing.

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The Government gives out franchisees to train companies to operate

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services in various parts of the country.

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But there is something called open access operation.

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It's technically possible for a company to apply for open

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access, to run a service in competition with

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the existing franchise holder.

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As long as they add something extra, like stopping at stations

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the existing service does not stop at.

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This is exactly what Ian did and the result

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was Grand Central Trains.

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Well, if you look at traditional type open access,

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which is where Grand Central came from, we have opened up areas

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of the country which long ago lost all their direct

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services to London.

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Oh, a Grand Central train.

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There it goes.

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Do you feel proud when you see that train?

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I do actually, still.

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It gives me a tingle.

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The very first train went through with less

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than 30 people on it.

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Grand Central now runs nine daily services from the north-east

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of West Yorkshire to central London.

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Other open access operators include Eurostar and the Heathrow Express.

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So, Steve wants to do the same in competition with Souther Rail

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and that is technically possible.

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-- So, Steve wants to do the same in competition with Southern Rail

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and that is technically possible.

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But Ian has worked as an entrepreneur in the railway

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industry for decades.

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Steve, on the other hand, is just a guy with a vision.

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As I'm sure Steve is finding, everyone is telling you it

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won't work, you won't make any money, and we found,

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it will, it takes a bit of time to get your plans

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right, it well.

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Open access operations have eased slightly so he's now looking

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for opportunities down at the southern end of the country.

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Namely, Southampton to London, to compete with Southwest trains.

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Nobody in the South has really any price competition,

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which is why your proposal has come along as well as the new journeys

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you offer and why we have also got an application

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currently, as well.

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Mainly to relieve passenger congestion, because there

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is significant overcrowding even on that route, but obviously

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to bring some price competition which is long, long overdue.

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We Southern Rail what they thought about Steve's plans to set himself

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-- We asked Southern Rail what they thought about Steve's

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plans to set himself up in competition with them.

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But they declined to comment.

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So, one frustrated Southern Rail passenger has a dream

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to set up an alternative.

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Some would say he is inexperienced and has no financial backing.

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But Ian has some words of encouragement.

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It is a difficult one.

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You have to believe it yourself, for starters.

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You will have to do, as I'm sure you're doing,

0:19:190:19:25

a detailed business plan, bearing in mind that most open

0:19:250:19:27

access operators haven't been successful and there is no reason

0:19:270:19:30

why you can find somebody who would be prepared

0:19:300:19:32

to invest in your proposal.

0:19:320:19:34

It sounds as if you have a mountain to climb, Steve.

0:19:340:19:38

Have you started?

0:19:380:19:41

Started to climb that mountain, yes.

0:19:410:19:43

One day we will reach the top.

0:19:430:19:48

I can't wait to see that you started.

0:19:480:19:50

One day we will reach the top.

0:19:500:19:52

I can't wait to see the view on the other side to be

0:19:520:19:55

absolutely beautiful.

0:19:550:19:56

Natalie Graham reporting there.

0:19:560:19:57

Finally, a World War II mystery which more than 70 years

0:19:570:20:00

on remains unsolved.

0:20:000:20:03

The events of the 18th of April 1944 over the South coast have inspired

0:20:030:20:07

books and then sparked debates ever since.

0:20:070:20:09

But what really happened to the bomber?

0:20:090:20:10

Early morning.

0:20:100:20:15

A bomber takes off from an airfield in central France.

0:20:150:20:21

It's due at a forward base in preparation

0:20:210:20:30

for a bombing raid on London.

0:20:300:20:34

But instead of heading for Holland, it turns

0:20:340:20:36

north-west towards England.

0:20:360:20:37

It's just after 6am.

0:20:370:20:45

On the south coast, the build-up for D-Day is underway.

0:20:450:20:48

If word gets out the most ambitious amphibious invasion

0:20:480:20:53

-- If word gets out the most ambitious amphibious invasion plan

0:20:530:20:55

in history will be in jeopardy.

0:20:560:20:57

The lone German bomber was first detected by British radar

0:20:570:21:01

at just after seven, 15 miles west of La Habra.

0:21:010:21:09

-- at just after seven, 15 miles west of La Havre.

0:21:090:21:15

It was following a course which would take it over the south

0:21:150:21:18

coast and the D-Day preparations.

0:21:180:21:19

But, surprisingly, no British aircraft are scrambled.

0:21:190:21:21

Author John Stanley picks up the story.

0:21:210:21:25

It was just before half past seven when it emerged from the crowds

0:21:250:21:30

on the Isle of Wight and started to circle variable, very

0:21:300:21:39

-- It was just before half past seven when it emerged

0:21:400:21:43

from the clouds on the Isle of Wight and started to circle

0:21:430:21:45

variable, very slowly.

0:21:460:21:47

The Royal Observer Corps, monitoring the movements

0:21:470:21:48

and watched in disbelief.

0:21:480:21:50

It was attacked on numerous occasions by anti-aircraft fire and,

0:21:500:21:57

interestingly, each time it was attacked, it did not

0:21:570:22:02

return fire nor do they try to evade the gunfire.

0:22:020:22:04

Instead it fired a series of red distress flares.

0:22:040:22:06

After circling the A-1, it headed from the mainland,

0:22:060:22:13

continuing to signal with flares also

0:22:130:22:14

known as lights.

0:22:140:22:18

A young Maldwin Drummond watched from his bedroom.

0:22:180:22:26

I could see it as it happened yesterday.

0:22:260:22:28

We heard machine gun fire outside the window

0:22:280:22:30

and rushed to the window, of course, the one thing

0:22:300:22:34

you shouldn't do, and saw two typhoons shooting at this bomber.

0:22:340:22:44

It had one engine on fire and I remember it fired flares.

0:22:450:22:48

I'd never seen anything so close.

0:22:480:22:49

It was literally, you almost felt you could picture and at the window

0:22:490:22:52

and touch one of the planes.

0:22:520:22:55

My father said, come on, boys, we hopped into the car

0:22:550:22:57

and we will drive over and see.

0:22:570:23:01

I think it's somewhere near Exbury it will have landed.

0:23:010:23:03

So we pursued it.

0:23:030:23:10

By 1944, Exbury had been commandeered by the Navy.

0:23:100:23:14

Named HMS Mastodon, it was involved in the planning and the temporary

0:23:140:23:17

home to hundreds of servicemen, amongst them, dispatch

0:23:170:23:19

rider Sam Mundy.

0:23:190:23:20

I saw it and I saw the German markings and I thought, it can't be

0:23:200:23:24

sore, and of course it disappeared.

0:23:240:23:25

It was all a matter of a few seconds.

0:23:250:23:27

I went back into the heart, said, lads, did you hear that noise,

0:23:270:23:31

that was a German plane.

0:23:310:23:32

We argued the toss and the plane came back again.

0:23:320:23:34

With an engine still on fire, do you wheeled around

0:23:340:23:37

expertise water tower, now in a shallow descent.

0:23:370:23:38

I started to rush towards the fence at the back and gathered up

0:23:380:23:42

lots of other people at the same time.

0:23:420:23:44

I hadn't got any idea what I was going to do when I got

0:23:440:23:47

there, to be quite honest.

0:23:470:23:48

I did the best they could when I was there.

0:23:480:23:50

Racing to the scene in a car with his father, Maldwin Drummond

0:23:500:23:55

Maldwin Drummond could see where the bomber came down.

0:23:550:23:57

You could see a plume of smoke over the top of those trees.

0:23:570:24:00

Goodness knows what was happening in the fuselage.

0:24:000:24:02

It must have been pretty horrific.

0:24:020:24:05

It hit the ground with such a force, didn't it?

0:24:050:24:09

Yes, it did.

0:24:100:24:19

It really had a violent impact, throwing several of the crew out

0:24:190:24:25

of the cockpit forwards against the hedge and indeed

0:24:250:24:27

into the road itself.

0:24:270:24:28

What is a significant about this area?

0:24:280:24:36

Well, if you look you can you can see a very thin area of hedge

0:24:360:24:41

and this was in fact where one of the engines of the bomber broke

0:24:410:24:44

free, the impact was so violent.

0:24:440:24:46

And there were three bodies.

0:24:460:24:47

Those arriving on the scene quickly discovered more.

0:24:470:24:51

Almost immediately, there was surprise at the number of men

0:24:510:24:53

who had been on board this plane.

0:24:530:24:55

Which, at the time was thought to carry a crew of just four.

0:24:550:24:58

And yet there had been seven men on board this plane.

0:24:580:25:01

So a lot of speculation about what on earth this bomber had

0:25:010:25:04

been doing with so many men on board.

0:25:040:25:11

Earhart had only joined the crew at the last minute in place

0:25:110:25:19

of the last minute in place of a sick colleague.

0:25:190:25:21

The initial thought was that it had been on a scouting mission to carry

0:25:210:25:24

out reconnaissance of the huge build-up of Allied troops

0:25:240:25:26

and shipping across this stretch of the south coast and maybe

0:25:260:25:29

the additional men on-board had been needed

0:25:290:25:31

for the special spying mission.

0:25:310:25:32

But those theories have been discounted.

0:25:320:25:42

The additional men

0:25:480:25:49

appear to have been the aircraft's ground crew crammed into the bomber

0:25:490:25:52

for the afflicted the foreign base.

0:25:520:25:53

But that doesn't explain why it ended up over the Hampshire coast.

0:25:530:25:56

The German bomber was what was known as a pathfinder aircraft.

0:25:560:26:01

Its job was to take bombers safely to and from their target.

0:26:010:26:04

It was thrown by competent clues with specialist equipment on board,

0:26:040:26:07

so how could it simply have got lost?

0:26:070:26:09

We know that the plane took off in very bad weather,

0:26:090:26:11

very poor visibility, and therefore the crew

0:26:110:26:13

would have had no official contact with the ground,

0:26:130:26:15

that said, there were navigational aids on-board this plane as befits

0:26:150:26:18

a specialist pathfinder crew, so direction-finding

0:26:180:26:22

equipment, to enable them to home in on beacons.

0:26:220:26:24

It is absolutely inconceivable that all this could have gone wrong

0:26:240:26:27

at the same time on the same flight.

0:26:270:26:29

And there's another mystery.

0:26:290:26:30

If the German bomber was picked up by British radar,

0:26:300:26:32

why was nothing scrambled to intercept an enemy

0:26:320:26:35

aircraft heading directly for for the D-Day preparations?

0:26:350:26:38

The combat log of one of the Typhoon pilots shows that the bomber

0:26:380:26:41

was only discovered by chance.

0:26:410:26:47

But one witness claimed to have perhaps overhead the reason

0:26:470:26:50

why nothing was sent.

0:26:500:26:59

I was contacted by a lady who had served with the Royal Observer Corps

0:26:590:27:03

in the headquarters at Winchester

0:27:030:27:05

and she had a very clear memory of this incident.

0:27:050:27:15

She remembered that she was just finshing her night shift

0:27:180:27:22

about 7.30am in the morning and she remembers the German bomber

0:27:220:27:27

appearing on the plotting board approaching the Isle of Wight.

0:27:270:27:29

She was then absolutely stunned to hear a conversation to the effect

0:27:290:27:32

that the German bomber was approaching the Isle of Wight,

0:27:320:27:34

it would be crossing the island and no offensive action would be

0:27:340:27:37

taken against it.

0:27:370:27:38

But no other witnesses can confirm the story.

0:27:380:27:40

The likeliest solution has to be that for some reason,

0:27:400:27:50

the crew did lose their way but they lost their way

0:27:510:27:54

immediately on take-off.

0:27:540:27:55

And by the time they realised their mistake, it was far too late.

0:27:550:27:58

But the cause for this catastrophic error remains unknown and I'm

0:27:580:28:01

afraid we will never know.

0:28:010:28:02

Three days after the crash, all seven men were buried

0:28:020:28:05

with full military honours at all Saints Church in Forley.

0:28:050:28:07

In 1963, they were moved here to the Cannock Chase German

0:28:070:28:13

military cemetery where they lie side by side, as they were on that

0:28:130:28:16

fateful day in 1944.

0:28:160:28:20

That's just about it for now.

0:28:200:28:25

More stories from the South the same time next week.

0:28:280:28:31

Till then, bye-bye.

0:28:310:28:40

Don't forget you can get involved in the show on email and Twitter.

0:28:400:28:43

Details on the screen.

0:28:430:28:44

Next week, the road to ruins.

0:28:440:28:46

We hear from the farmer at the centre of the row

0:28:460:28:49

over the proposed plans for the Stonehenge tunnel.

0:28:490:28:58

Hello, I'm Riz Lateef with your 90-second update.

0:29:100:29:12

Did some of President Trump's team collude with Russia

0:29:120:29:15

during his election campaign?

0:29:150:29:16

The head of the FBI says they are investigating the claims,

0:29:160:29:18

but says there's no evidence President Obama bugged Trump Tower.

0:29:180:29:21

The Prime Minister will give the formal go-ahead for Brexit

0:29:210:29:24

in nine days' time.

0:29:240:29:25

Theresa May will trigger what's known as Article 50,

0:29:250:29:27

kicking off two years of divorce negotiations with

0:29:270:29:30

the European Union.

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Google has apologised for letting adverts appear next

0:29:320:29:34

to offensive videos on YouTube.

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A number of big British companies like Marks and Spencer

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