Foley: No nonSeNse. Frances Bibby
I’m at the bar, finishing off a salad. Foley will arrive any moment. Just as I’m getting my bag Foley appears, his face resting in its usual calm expression. His hair is dark grey and brushed back with gel. He’s giving me a lift somewhere and while we’re driving I’m going to interview him. I know snippets about his childhood already. He went into foster care very young, his dad had a drinking problem and his sister suffered with problems caused by having one kidney. Foley is a quiet man who exudes no nonsense. I like Foley. Even though he’s had a tough life growing up with an alcoholic father, he’s pretty much a friend to everyone. He does odd jobs for people in Doncaster, usually things like painting and pub discos. He’ll give anyone he knows a lift to anywhere, as he’s doing for me today. ‘I’ll just grab a coffee,’ he says, and glides off to the coffee station. We’re in a restaurant, but he knows the owners so well he can go and help himself. I used to work behind the bar here and I remember one night there were high winds causing the door to blow open. Foley turned up just to call in. He was fresh from a job, covered head to toe in white paint. The owner asked him if he’d mind the door. He obliged, pocketed 40
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Photo Credit: ‘Foley’ by Joel Webb ©2014
quid and stood there all night, opening and closing the door for customers, taking intermittent drags on his trusty e-cig. He drew very odd looks from the few customers who didn’t know him. Most people know Foley around here.
He then tells me about setting traps for his dad on his way home. ‘I used to dig big holes for him so he’d fall in ’em when he were coming home. When he found out it was me who did it he beat hell out of me.’
We get into the car and I ask him my first question, which is more of an invitation: ‘Tell me about your childhood’. His initial response is ‘Got any tissues?’
Suddenly he pauses and stops smiling. Hand across mouth, eyes deep in thought, he then springs back into his story. ‘We literally had nothing.’ He emphasises ‘nothing’ with a swiping gesture. ‘I remember coming home from school … and there’s all these people wi’ posh cars. I didn’t have time to go in house. They took us away and put us in kids home. That was the best thing what ever happened to us. We had clean clothes, got fed.’
‘Had a shit upbringing really. Poor family. Dad were an alcoholic so he’d spend all the money.’ I relax, seeing that he’s comfortable talking about his upbringing. ‘Christmas time, we knew the presents weren’t new. They was from kids next door or something. We’d go out … and the kids would turn round and say ‘that’s my toy!’ Foley takes me through his memories from carrying his dad’s window cleaning ladders home with his brother at the mere age of 8 so his dad could go to the pub, to sneaking through his dad’s pockets for money while he slept. ‘When he were pissed he used to fall asleep in t’chair and me mum used to go through his pockets. We decided to do t’same, but didn’t tell each other and it were really funny. We bumped into each other in same spot in pitch black!’ He giggles loudly at the memory.
He tells me about working at Cooplands - baking and delivering bread as a teenager, working 70 hours a week for £69, getting the managers to install onsite showers so that staff didn’t have to walk home covered in flour. ‘I got really well known there. Even now people still talk about me there.’ That fond smile returns to his face. When I ask him about his present life he seems sad and directs his answers back to his younger years. ‘I like it when people ring me up and ask for lifts. Even