“Jarvis brought me to LandWorks. Now, it’s gonna sound quite weird but at first they were like how about you go LandWorks, you try this, you try that … I was like nah, f*** it, that ain’t for me because it was like woodwork, gardening, pottery, I was like no, I don’t like getting dirty, I don’t like getting muddy. If you actually saw my life out of here, my clothes are pristine, I’m pristine, I don’t like stepping on grass. I’ve got pairs of shoes that have never even hit the concrete. I do not like mud. I don’t like dirt and getting myself in clay or getting myself in woodwork or something, that’s really not something that appealed to me really. I’m being straight, it wasn’t, so when I got told about LandWorks, at first I was like what’s the point? I’m gonna go up there and I’m not gonna do anything, […] I’m being straight and honest like, I wasn’t looking forward to it when I first got told and now I’m here I don’t wanna leave, I don’t wanna go home. I enjoy it a lot. I absolutely love it up here. I actually hate going home. It depresses me the second I get on the train and go back to *Town again. I’ve even been speaking to Chris about it, but yeah, unfortunately I can only stay during the hours of nine and three, but it is nice.
[Highlight] The things I’ve made in woodwork with Graham. I’ve been there … last Wednesday, last Thursday and this week, six days I’ve done. I have built 20 benches with Graham. I’ve done three chopping-boards, four picnic bench legs, and now I’m working on a picnic bench myself, plus I’ve done my own chopping-board, and I’ve done that in six days and then that was just in the woodwork. In the pottery I’ve done my tile. I’ve done 18 keyrings. I’ve done four egg baskets. I got rid of three rhubarb crowns with Chris … all this within six days.
Chris and Graham have let me log my last six days here at LandWorks, so I’ve got photos and videos and do you know the joy I get showing people … I’ve done it, what I’ve done here. I took my first ever tray home yesterday that I made, my first ever chopping-board tray and I’ve gone home and I’m like look what I’ve made, so that’s my most biggest joy … seeing the joy of making things … what I can make, what I never thought I could make, but shockingly I can.
I don’t have a home. I don’t feel like I have a home. I have a place that I’m staying at. I have houses that I can go stay at that are associates, but I don’t have a home. It’s getting sorted. It is getting sorted and maybe this place I find, I might feel like it is a home there, but for me, a home is a lovely place you feel safe, you can go to, you can sleep, eat, and you have family. I don’t have anything like that. The closest, right this second, I can say is home, is currently LandWorks. LandWorks is where I feel happiest, where I feel safe, don’t wanna leave, everyone’s like a big family here. I feel like LandWorks is more of a home than the place that I am actually having to stay every night. So yeah, the answer to your question where’s home for me at the moment, it would be LandWorks.
[Useful] People skills, people skills, I had no people skills, I f***ing hated people. I’d rather be with animals than people. I had no people skills. I didn’t know how to interact with people. I had no confidence to talk to people. Yeah, just people skills … communication. Here, you talk together, you sit together, you eat together, you got members of the public coming in that you can talk to, stuff like this. I’ve learnt being able to talk to people, communicate with people.
So it’s gone from me living on my phone with my vape in my mouth, being in trouble with Chris because I was vaping in the garden bit, to I’m not on my phone now, I’m not on my vape. I was on my phone at dinner time last week and Chris was there, and Chris was like Jax, we don’t really have phones out at this time, we try and communicate with each other. Now, I thought that was f***ed up … I want to speak to people on the phone, watch some videos, but now I don’t use my phone during the day […] Now here, when I’m at LandWorks, I don’t do anything, I don’t do anything at all on my phone.
So being able to learn people skills and communication, being able to interact with people is a lot better when you’re here because you’re not on your phone, you’re not glued into whatever the bloody matrix want you to f***ing do, you’re actually experiencing things with people, with humans, you’re cooking, like you’re eating and sitting down together.
Remember the last time I actually sat at a table with a bunch of people and ate a f***ing meal … when I lived at home with my mum and I was like 14. I’m 28 years old and I’ve been married with two kids and I’ve been to prison and I’ve been to college, and I can still sit there and say I’ve never sat at a f***ing table and ate dinner until I come here. It’s just them little things that you can pick up on. Do you know what I mean?
The talks with Graham or Steve as we’re driving to the train station, me and Graham had a beautiful conversation before I got here and that put me in the best mood ever. I jumped out the van, I skipped down there, and Chris was like are you alright Jax? Yeah.
In six days at LandWorks I’ve accomplished more than six months out of prison, believe it or not. Six months out of prison I have done less work than in the six days at LandWorks […] LandWorks is doing something right. It’s gave me a new purpose.
Here is completely different … we trust you until you give us a reason not to trust you, you can try whatever you like and if you don’t like it just tell us and we’ll put you on something else, you are welcome to do cooking, you are welcome to do this, you’re welcome to make a bench. I used a f***ing jig-saw cutter and a knife on my first day here. I didn’t even get given a butter knife to butter bread with after three months of being in an AP, I was still using a kiddy plastic, you know, baby spoon you feed with baby food. I was an animal, I was a monster and a dangerous person, but you’ve got to understand they get a bit of paper, they read the bit of paper and that is it, that is that. You lot actually get to know us, you lot give us that chance. So, that’s the difference and do you know, the way of being treated and because of that difference I’ve done more in six days than I have in six months because of that difference. I feel like I’ve gotten further.”
A window into LandWorks 