Mike Tuohy
The shift leader - 32 years of volunteering
An average Christmas day for me is getting up at 6am. We open presents, do the family bit. Have Christmas lunch at 9.30-10am. And then my wife and son stay at home whilst I go to Crisis. This is my 33rd year doing Crisis. I wouldn't want to change it. I'd miss it too much if I didn't do this
I started in 1979. My first shift was very in your face. The hard drinking. Very smelly. Heavily laden with smoke. Mattresses piled on floors. It was effectively a doss house. But it was a happy, warm environment. I made friends and came back the following year. Because it was only seven years old, people didn't have email or mobile phones so we didn't keep in touch. You just knew you'd see each other again the following Christmas. And as the years went on you recognised faces and people became more familiar.
I did 20 years volunteering on the night shift and then as a shift leader. Then I moved across about ten years ago to run the afternoon shift at the rough sleepers' centre.
I keep coming back because I think as a volunteer you're very lucky. You're at the coal face. Whatever you do has an instant impact on someone. If someone comes in wearing wet clothes, you can give them dry clothes. How brilliant is that? I mean you can't knock it. It's that ability to change something very quickly. I get a buzz out of helping people. It's a cliché but you always get out more than you ever put in.
I think guests spend so much time being ignored or talked at. They're told what to do, where to queue up, where to do this, where to do that. Crisis creates this atmosphere where volunteers and guests are equal. There are real conversations! And towards the end of the week, trying to work out the difference between a volunteer and a guest is quite hard!