Addicts, prostitutes and the homeless

In the last couple of years on British TV there have been three documentaries about young women who have had three things in common, drug addiction, prostitution and homelessness. The fourth thing they had in common was that they were all pretty and cute. I expect the programme makers chose pretty girls because we would have more interest in them, and perhaps they are right.

In 1970 there was a documentary on BBC2 called 'Gale is Dead' about a drug addict called Gale Parsons. I imagine the recent documentaries are an attempt to emulate this.

These are the three girls, in order of appearance of their documentaries.

1. Stacey in a programme called Wasted
2. Another girl from Toxteth, Liverpool
3. Bianca in a programme called One Life

Stacey
Stacey lived in the delelict Tower House in East London with her two friends. This enormous and bleak building was a doss house but sheltered some well-known people in its time. They were very unhappy there, and Stacey kicked in the door of a house opposite. She looked so frail I'm surprised she could do this. They moved in and things started looking up for them. They decorated the rooms (Stacey looked at her cutest when telling the others what colours she wanted) but they knew they could be kicked out. She looked so vulnerable.

The inevitable happened and they cuddled on the bed waiting for the police to arrive. In the documentary Stacey told us about her life and abuse at the hands of punters. She read out some of her poems, which were lovely, but very sad.

update on Stacey

A Toxteth man made a documentary of a friend of his who he went to school with. He showed us a picture of her when she was a schoolgirl, but she is now a crack addict. I don't have a recording of the documentary so I can't tell you their names.

Bianca
Bianca had numerous problems with the authorities. In her early 20s she got her life together and started looking for her dad. He was a drug addict, like her mum, and eventually she found him in prison (for manslaughter). The programme showed her struggle to find him. Bianca showed us pictures of her when she was little girl, and told us of the child abuse she suffered at the hands of a family 'friend'.

My own experience of this type of girl