Tony

Tony and Meech the dog 

I grew up locally in London and in East Africa, Somalia. I lived there from the ages of three to ten years old. It’s a wild and adventurous place where pirates roam. But the food is organic there, not like here where the food is processed. So you actually can eat like a rich person there and they give food to everyone if they can. I was sad leaving there but my whole life has been about leaving people. My mum died of cancer when I was young and my dad Ishmaili met someone else. Other family members took care of us initially. By the time dad bought us back here he had other children and other responsibilities. So My two brothers Hussian and Aiden and I ended up in care. I was pushed around from care home to care home, family to family. The care homes are crazy because there are usually around eight to ten other troubled kids like you, so it’s always kicking off, every day. I used to break plates on peoples heads. I was angry, upset and pissed-off pushed from place to place, wondering where is my family? I was a misunderstood child. I never got hugs or much love, so I wasn’t ever sure what that kind of love actually was? I never got birthday cakes or celebrated with people.

People get paid to foster and sadly many of them to it for the money. Not because they love troubled children. I was a troubled child, so the police would come to my care home in Ferry Lane in Tottenham. I was cared for my an older Rastafarian woman called Maria . She did look after me and taught me her language and everything. Even after going into a young offenders unit, she still took me back in. Other places, once I got back from prison they did not want me back. Rastafarians respect and love people from East Africa because they see us as their roots and Hali Salasi is East African. Maria looked after me and I loved her for real. I was with her until I was 15 and then they sent me to Aunty Ketchi, who was Nigerian and did not like me one bit because I used to bring problems to the house and come back at 3 or 4 in the morning. I was a difficult child because I did not have the right guidance and role model in my life. Kids are like trees, you have to nurture them. I was neglected and social services closed my case at 18 because I was just too much for them. I am a good person and I have a kind heart but in life sometimes you have to do the wrong things to survive because that is the situation you find yourself in. I don’t like the lifestyle. 18 years old with no qualifications or skills and I had to put a roof over my head. The only place I could turn to was the streets. 

People who grow up in care are very vulnerable to the streets. Boys especially. They end up in gangs getting stabbed and then long bird. Girls too, they end up getting sexually abused and groomed. The shit that I have seen in my life hurts my heart. This is my story from care home to street to prison. I’ve always been independent, and people come to me if they need cash or food and I look after them. From care home to care home I ended up on the streets with my boys and first of all it was petty shoplifting and all of that. Then we stepped it up a bit. Belonging to gangs was a big part of this and the tattoo on my neck CGM stands for ‘Crack Game Masters’. 

Prison escalated it because I made new contacts in Feltham young offenders’ unit. Prison can turn you into two types of a person. Either a good humble human being who does not want to commit crime no more, be bad no more or end up in that environment. You behave yourself, exclude yourself from everyone else and be good. Because you're scared of that prison, being in that environment and the people. And then you meet people who go in there and make new connections and money come out and link up with people and make even more money and that when it gets serious. So every time I have gone back into prison I have just made new connections one plus two… yeah let’s go..I spent 16 months in Feltham on remand and then they shipped me out to another prison in Ashford and Bristol and they were bare racist and me and my London inmates had to wrap up those Welsh gangs and that and it was nuts. I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve been through it. I have to survive and this was the only way I knew how to make money to eat

I have two children Jasmine and Violet, nineteen months and 5 weeks old. They are West Indian, African and English. My relationship with their mum is complicated as she’s only 21, babies having babies . Dalston and Gillett Square is somewhere that feels like home. I bring my dog Meech, named after the notorious Black Family Mafia member Demertrious ‘Big Meech’ my idol. 

I am ASBOS from the area in Tottenham where I was in care. I came out of my last stretch on December 17th, a week before Christmas… how lucky is that..do you get me? It’s difficult to make change but I have turned it around because I want to make a change in my life and there are things I want in my life. I want a normal life and a family. I want what I didn’t have, a family of my own, responsibilities, things in place and stability in life. I never had that, so I want it. That’s more precious to me than anything else..do you get it. So I work had for what’s mine. Life is what you make out of it, you get me. So if you want something really bad you have to strive for it. So for me, because I’ve learnt the hard way. I am not one of those people that make excuses. I am a chef and I have done gardening, music and painting and decorating and I have been a technician. I have done so many things in my life. I put my mind to it and I get it done. I don’t play about. At the end of the day if you want to do something, you have to put the dedication in and the time and effort and you will see where it goes. I don’t go and make excuses and say I can’t do it, I’m a go-getter. Do you know where people go wrong in life? They don’t want to make change they want to make excuses for themselves. I was up at six this morning. I am an early bird and I don’t waste time. The way I live my life now days I don’t even have any fear. It is what it is. Seriously I have been stabbed, shot and I have been through it with so many scars. If you are in the field where people are making money, people are selling drugs and doing risky things. Your life in going to be at risk and in danger. 

I used to cook for myself when I moved out of the care system and lived alone in Thamesmead. I was living on bread and eggs as I could not cook. I used to play my play station 2 and I ate egg and bread. I’d buy 30 eggs and cheap bread as that was all I could afford living off £50 for the whole week. When I you come out of prison you have to get back into the community bit by bit. So when I came out I did a food course and then did level 1 and 2. Cooking is now my passion, I took a course and learnt from an English guy. I find cooking and music very therapeutic. What people do as a hobby and what they do as a lifestyle to make money does not have to be the same thing. Do you know Scarface the movie? Scarface was a chef who used to flip burgers and hotdogs. What you got to remember at the end of the day is sometimes in life you don’t get to choose what you do, how you make a living or how you survive. If I had had an option I would have been a posh kid and lived the good life and gone to university and got something out of life, the right guidance, the right support and the right mentors. The right people to guide me. As a kid you are distracted, your focus is not there. However, I am happy now about how I raised myself because the truth is I raised myself and I am proud of that. I know how to do everything on my own.