Meet the Mancunian: Talking supporting the youth with Nick Buckley

Meet the Mancunian – Talking youth with Nick Buckley

Intro

Hello and a warm Mancunian welcome to you today. I'm Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe, your host and it's an honour to share Season 7 of the Meet the Mancunian podcast: social impact stories from Manchester with you. This season is all about celebrating the stories of our local changemakers and the profound social impact that they are having.

Every Tuesday, I shine a spotlight on the incredible individuals weaving the fabric of our community, from grassroots heroes to local legends. Their stories are the soul of Manchester.

Whether you're tuning in on Apple, Spotify, Google, or www.meetthemancunian.co.uk, get ready for a season that showcases the incredible social impact within our community.

Welcome to the first episode of Season 7 of the Meet the Mancunian podcast: social impact stories from Manchester.

Episode 7.1

Passionate about supporting the youth? We hear from Nick Buckley, author and mayoral candidate, in this episode.

[00:01:09] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I'm delighted to introduce my guest, Nick Buckley, author and mayoral candidate. Thank you so much, Nick, for joining me today.

[00:01:18] Nick Buckley: You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:20] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: It's great to be talking on a Monday evening, and it was also nice to know that we have a common passion for collecting masks from our travels, so at some point we should exchange notes about that. I'm sure there'll be lots of interesting stories you can tell.

Can you tell us first how you found your passion for supporting the youth? Where did that come from?

[00:01:39] Nick Buckley: I fell into working with young people. I was in my thirties. I'd been self-employed, I'd worked in Manchester Airport, I'd went travelling around the world for a couple of years, came back, needed a job, and ended up with a job at Manchester Council working with young people and stopping them getting involved in crime.

And I excelled at it, and the reason why I excelled is because I was one of those kids, single parent household, living on a council estate, surrounded by crime, and making poor decisions. And I could relate to those kids.

And I think my biggest thing was I didn't take any BS. And before me, we would have, early twenties, university educated women who came from down south. Who didn't know these boys, who didn't know what their lives were.

And I came along, and I was different. I called it tough love. I was hard on them because I wanted the best for them. And when I saw them or heard them making mistakes and lying to me and lying to themselves, I didn't take it and I called them out and I told them, and I involved their parents. And that's how I got involved and this was nearly 20 years ago.

[00:02:47] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And I think the best stories come from that lived experience. Because you knew exactly that they needed that tough love.

And are there any current projects that you're involved in you'd like to share?

[00:02:59] Nick Buckley: At the moment, no, I don't have time. I've taken a year off working to run my mayoral campaign. But before that, when I left the council, I set a charity up called Mancunian Way. So the word Mancunian, you will know, it means somebody from Manchester. And as you also know, Mancunian Way is a motorway. It's the motorway that goes through the city centre. It's the only motorway in the country that has a name. Every other motorway just has a number.

And the reason why I picked that name for my charity is my dad built it. My dad was an Irish immigrant in the 60s. He was a labourer and he worked on building the Mancunian Way, hence why I named the charity that.

And the charity extended the work I was doing at the council before I was made redundant. And I don't know if you've ever worked for a big organisation or worked for government, but there's so much you can't do. There's so many rules to follow, there's so many procedures. And I got tired at the council because there were so many things in my way to make a difference.

So, when I left and took redundancy, I used that to set charity up and I wanted to be different. I wanted to make a real impact on those streets with young people. And that's what I did.

So the charity now is nearly 15 years old. It's a multi award winning charity. I've got a bookcase full of awards. Some national awards, regional awards. Of government, of the police, of councils. We've made a huge impact.

And we've made some serious discoveries and had some great results such as we've stopped 15 girls being raped. We've stopped one boy being raped. We've helped over 100 young men, and we've pulled them out of criminal gangs and stopped them going down a life of crime.

As well as lower-level stuff such as stopping kids smoking cannabis or making kids understand if you get a criminal record today at 15 you might think, who cares? But that might be enough to stop you getting a job you want in 10 years’ time. If you get a criminal conviction for smoking cannabis, that's enough for you to refuse the visa to go to America to take your kids to Disney World when you're older and you've got a family. So, do you want those barriers in the future for silly mistakes you make today?

The reason why they're making these mistakes, number one reason is no fathers in the home. I don't have a father in the home I had to figure out my way in life by myself and its hard work. When you just need a bit of guidance, you need someone to have your best interest at heart and not worrying are they using you, what they're trying to get out of you. Sometimes, you need that positive male role model.

That's what fathers are. And I wasn't trying to be someone else's father because you can never replace that, but what I was trying to replace, and with the charity as well, was we're trying to be that advice you would have got at home 30, 40 years ago, and now you don't, and you're having to make it all up as you go along. And if you're making up as you go along, you're bound to make mistakes. And I want young people and kids to avoid making those mistakes.

[00:06:01] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: The fact that your father was part of the team that built Mancunian Way. That's such a lovely way to pay tribute to him by naming the charity after him and the work he did. Thank you for sharing how you support the youth during their vulnerable times. That's really important.

Are there any challenges that you've faced in this journey? You've talked about the board losing confidence in you. That was obviously one challenge. But more broadly speaking, in supporting the community and working with the youth, have there been challenges you've had to navigate?

[00:06:34] Nick Buckley: Loads of challenges, but nothing that unexpected. Raising money is always a challenge. We employ staff, things cost money. People say to me all the time, oh, you don't need to pay staff because you can get volunteers. you can get volunteers, but the work we do is specialist work. It's like saying you don't need doctors or nurses; you just get volunteers. No, these are specialist jobs and you need specialist skills to do it. So, raising money is always an issue.

Other issues will be sometimes the young people themselves. It's so disheartening when you're watching a young person who you've engaged with for months, who you personally like, and you can see them making all the wrong choices. And you keep advising them, and you keep warning them, this is going to lead to this, and they won't listen to you, and they end up getting in trouble, or something else goes wrong. That's disheartening.

But the silver lining to that, I tell my staff is, engagement was just at the wrong time. Maybe we can sow the seeds, so after they make a mistake, our words of wisdom may revisit them a year from now, two years from now. It's never wasted. We just weren't successful at that time.

And my charity has got a policy, and we call it no last chances. So, we never give anyone a last chance. You can mess up with us time and time again. And do you know what? We'll start all over again with you because I don't want to write anybody off in our society. It just means you weren't good enough as a support worker or they're just not in the right frame of mind. But there might be a year from now, six months from now, so you start all over again.

I love the problems we had. It'll be some of the services like council, police, housing associations. They don't understand the work we do sometimes. And trying to make them understand, because sometimes they think you are mythical workers. We've paid you to work in this area, it's been three weeks. The problems are still there. We can work in this area for two years; the problems may still be there. We're not magicians.

And then sometimes they want you to get all the kids off the streets. If they live in that area, they should be allowed to socialise on the streets. If they want to socialise where they live, that's fine. What we need to do is make sure they're behaving in an appropriate manner.

We're not here to clear people off the streets. That's their neighbourhood and that's where they want to hang out. Fine. If they're misbehaving, we need to let them know their behaviour is not acceptable, but them being on the streets is perfectly acceptable.

[00:09:06] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I like that very much about the No Last Chances philosophy. You're absolutely right. Great advice, but at the wrong time or the wrong mindset for the individual concerned, it's going to fall on deaf ears, but at another time, the person may be more receptive. And sometimes people need to find their own lessons, having lived the experience as well.

You've also written some books. Do you want to talk about them?

[00:09:31] Nick Buckley: I've written three books now. One's not been published. One's going to get published spring next year. I just haven't got time yet to publish it. But the first two books are really about personal responsibility. Because that's what we're lacking in our community, in our country.

It's what we're lacking across the West actually. We don't have these problems, from other countries. Personal responsibility is still something to be desired. Something that is still pushed upon people by family, by friends, by community. We've lost that in the West now. So, the first book is called Lessons in Courage.

And for people who don't know, this is a long story but I'll make it short. I got into trouble in 2020 by criticising Black Lives Matter because they'd just come onto the scene. I'd heard them for the first time. I did a bit of research. I didn't like what they were saying. So, I wrote a blog about it, about Black Lives Matter (BLM). And the world turned against me. This was peak BLM. The board of the charity I founded, panicked and sacked me over email. Called me a racist and a Nazi.

And I decided, I'm not having that. So I fought back, I made the whole board resign in disgrace. And I took control back again of my charity. And then I've decided to write a book about that experience. The first couple of chapters is about what happened to me. But then the book expands then about why I fought back, how I had the courage and what lessons I'd had in my life.

I mean, I'm nothing special. I've not been to university, I don't call myself an intelligent, educated man. I've wasted decades of my life messing around not doing anything. So, I'm no role model. But some of the things that happened to me in my life gave me the strength and the courage to fight back.

Such as when I was at school, up to being 13 years old I had a stutter. That's not nice growing up in a council estate when you stutter. I was the butt of every joke, and life was hard. I was never a victim, but I overcame that.

I've had a gun pointed in my face when I worked in a shop and we were robbed. I've got 19 stitches in my head where I was beaten up with iron bars. When you've got people online calling you hurty words. You've got to realise, that's nothing, we've all overcome worse than that. So, I wrote a book, what happened to me, and then gave advice, about how we need people to take more personal responsibility.

You're the captain of your own destiny. Don't wait for the council, don't wait for the government to improve your life for you. Because you know what, you've been waiting a long time, they won't improve your life. They may give you some free stuff. But every time they give you free stuff, that chips away a little bit more of your personal responsibility. that's what the first book was about.

The second book went on from there. The second book is called The Making of a Beggar. And that really carries on from, we've always got our hands out now, wanting something for nothing. To the states, to the welfare system.

It's never my fault, I can't afford a new mobile phone. It must be someone else's fault. Why don't benefits pay me a decent amount of money so I can live on benefits? And we're always looking for someone to blame and the only person to blame in our lives is ourselves.

Now bad things can happen to us. You may be born into a family with poor parents, you're a drug addict, you might get taken into care. That wasn't your fault. But you've got to deal with it. You may get cancer. That's not your fault, but you've got to deal with it.

And we're becoming a nation of beggars, where we're expecting other people to solve our problems, to give us money, to give us things. If anything, we're getting more and more unhappy. Even though we have more and more stuff given to us. We're richer than we've ever been. We're richer now than the richest person in the country 50 years ago. We've got every smart technology.

Regardless of what people tell you, no one in this country is hungry. It's a myth. But yet, we're more and more unhappy. And the reason why we're more than happy is because we're not taking control of our lives. We're turning slowly into slaves with our hand out waiting for someone improve our life or give us something.

And I want people to take back that responsibility and make themselves safe, secure, and happy.

[00:13:43] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: It's a very interesting point about, personal responsibility and the role of society, the government, community, charities, and, how we all navigate that. And obviously that's different for each person based on their own context.

What's the impact you would say you've made so far through the charity and through your books?

[00:14:04] Nick Buckley: Through my books, probably not a lot, because nobody buys them. I've probably sold a couple of hundred copies of each book. I'm a grandad. I'm no Stephen King, I'm not selling millions of copies.

But through my work at the council and my work at the charity, absolutely huge impact. So, like I said before, I've stopped at least 15 girls being raped. If that's not an impact, I don't know what is. I've taken dozens of knives off young people and convinced them to hand them over to me. That could have saved someone's life, and it also could have saved those young people getting involved in knife crime and going to jail.

And then when you look at the lower-level stuff, the amount of young people we've helped get jobs, get off benefits, walk away from gangs, walk away from crime. Understand that they're the captain of their own destiny. Some of this work takes months and months.

We're not miracle workers. One chat with me doesn't change your life. Speaking to me over three, four, five months might change your life. I don't want this to sound like it's easy. It's not easy. We have more failures than successes.

But we've got to concentrate on the successes. But, if we can talk to a young person and get them to understand that their life is going down the wrong path and make them understand and make them see how it's going down the wrong path.

They then can make decisions to change their lives. I can't change their life for them. I can't be there all the time with advice and guidance because I won't always be there. My role is to empower them. Make them see the opportunities available to them. So, they start making better, more positive choices.

And they've got to improve their lives. All I'm doing is holding a map to success. They're the ones who decide. It's up to them. I just always give them the help and advice they need. And sometimes they make wrong decisions. And sometimes they'll make what I think's a wrong decision, but it turns out that wasn't a wrong decision. They were right, and it did lead to something better. Humans are complicated.

[00:16:04] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I like that very much about providing a map to success and then each person being the explorer and deciding how they take that map, right? They may take the easy route, the tough route, or the different path, right? The road less travelled.

[00:16:19] Nick Buckley: And we need to remember, there's more than one path to success. So, it's about showing them the map giving them advice, so they can make their own way in the world. Because the way I would go in life, doesn't mean it's right for them.

[00:16:31] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Absolutely.

How can interested people reach out to you and learn more? Where can they find you online? Is there a website? Is there social media?

[00:16:39] Nick Buckley: I'm on virtually every social media, so if you just look for Nick Buckley, MBE then you'll find me. So, I spend a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter. I've recently joined TikTok. But I'm on Instagram, I'm on everything. I'm posting every day, many times a day about my mayoral campaign, but also about social problems.

I discuss a lot about knife crime because it's getting out of hand now across the country and the problem is politicians are too cowardly to do what needs to be done to clamp down on it. You might not like all my views if you're tuning into my social media, but all my views come from 20 years of working the frontline and seeing what works and having the people we work with having their best interests at heart. That's what I push all the time.

[00:17:25] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that.

What advice would you have for people looking to start a similar movement in another part of the world or another part of the UK? How do they get started?

[00:17:35] Nick Buckley: My advice would be start something now. Don't wait until it's perfect. Don't wait until you've raised the money. Don't wait until you've bought the building. If you're waiting for it to be perfect before you start, that just means you're never going to start. Because it will never be perfect and you're never going to achieve everything you want to achieve the day you start. It takes years to build up.

If you want to make a difference where you live, then start something. It can be as simple as joining your church, your temple, starting a little youth club up, finding a building or finding a room in the building that you can get for free, or get for a couple of pounds a session.

Just get started. Get doing things because the more you do and the more you speak to people, the more you're active and you're on social media, more opportunities will come your way. You then will meet other like-minded people who are doing things and you connect.

But I hear so many people who tell me their big ideas. of what they want to do to tackle social problems. And when I ask him, oh when did you come up with this idea? 17 years ago, and what have you done about it? I'm still planning.

If you're planning over 17 years, it means you're not going to do anything, and people do those things because it makes us feel better. It makes us feel we're part of the solution because we're working towards it. If you're not active, it means you're just conning yourself. You being active in a tiny way is better than you planning for 17 years for something that's not going to happen.

There's 8 billion people in the world now, if every one of them did a tiny amount of good work and you add up those 8 billion, that's a tsunami of good work across the world. So don't worry about changing the world and changing where you live. Just change one or two people's lives near you. And if that's all you do in your life, you get a thumbs up from me, because that's ten times more than anybody else will ever do.

[00:19:49] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That hopefully inspires other people as well.

An opportunity now for you to talk about anything that I haven't asked you about anything coming up in the next few months.

[00:19:58] Nick Buckley: For me at the moment, it's just my mayoral campaign, but this is not a political podcast, so let's not get into that. But the elections are May next year. If you check me out on social media, you see all the policies I'm running on. It's basically what we've talked about. It's about personal responsibility. And again, if you're going to vote for me because you think I'm going to save your life, I'm not the man for you.

I'm going to run a mayoral administration that's going to give you more and more responsibility of your life. And put it in your hands. You might not like it. You might not want the responsibility. But to a certain extent I don't care, because that's where it should be - in your hands.

And you need to start making better decisions for you, for your family and for your community because we've been relying too much on government to improve our lives and I can tell you now for a fact it's not working. No one can say it's working. We're becoming unhappier, more violent, more fragmented. And it's not going to lead to a good place unless we start changing it.

[00:21:01] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that, Nick, and obviously good luck for the campaign and all the good work that you're trying to do.

I'll now move to the signature questions I ask all my guests. Can you describe the Mancunian spirit in a word or a phrase?

[00:21:16] Nick Buckley: Like you have, I've done a lot of travelling. I've been to countries that people have never heard of. And everybody is virtually the same. Everybody has the same dreams, the same passions, and to a certain extent, the same aims.

Because we're the same. And people like to say, oh, in Manchester we are different. In Bombay, we are different. We are not, we're virtually all the same. And the sooner we realise that, and the sooner we work together better, and we start sharing things more, the better world we're live in.

But we are no different from the person who lives in a small Nigerian village who wants their children to do better in life, who wants a little bit more food in the cupboard, who wants to spend time with their mum, dad, brothers, sisters. We're no different.

[00:22:01] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: What you said is very true. One of my favourite authors, Agatha Christie, says the same, that, there is nothing new under the sun. Human nature is the same and I think that's why perhaps people are listening to this podcast in so many countries now.

Because common issues face them, whether it's homelessness, whether it's sexual violence, whether it be suicide prevention or mental health. So many of these things resonate in any part of the globe and you're absolutely right about that.

Can you share a Mancunian who inspires you and why?

[00:22:32] Nick Buckley: I'm not one for idolising other people or needing to look up to somebody. I've always been very strong headed, single minded. I've always kept my own counsel. I've never needed other people to tell me this is right, this is wrong, you're doing a great job.

I've never needed any of that. I would have to say my mum, because I was about to say then my strongest thing in my personality I think is, I know right from wrong. How do I know right from wrong? I was taught it as a child, and that's how I've always lived my life.

I know right from wrong. And lots of people saying, as a man, or maybe as a woman as well, but as a man you need a code to live by, you need rules to live by. If you don't have rules, then life is very complicated because everything you do you're having to make decisions all the time and it wears you out.

Hence why we need a framework of rules, so we don't have to worry about everything we know. We need to do this; we don't have to deconstruct it and work out and we just know right from wrong and that's what I was taught. And I've just always followed that. So, I would say my mum, for teaching me that, making me a model person.

[00:23:44] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that and shout out to your mom because absolutely this is such an important thing having your personal credo, your values, your ethics which guide you and help you navigate the many challenges life throws at you and the decisions one needs to make. And that's absolutely right.

What's the most important life lesson you've learned so far?

[00:24:05] Nick Buckley: I tell people all the time, one of the comments I get off people is you're so confident Nick, you know what you're talking about. You're confident. I wish I was more confident.

And I tell them a little secret. There's no such thing as a confident person. There's only two types of people in this world unconfident people and people who pretend to be confident. Because everyone's unconfident. I do really well at hiding it and masking it. I'm just as worried about all those issues as everybody else. I'm just as worried about making a fool of myself being found out that I'm not as clever as I think I am.

That is the life lesson. Don't think you're amazing because then you're going too far then you're becoming conceited but give yourself credit. And you build up that credit by achieving things. So, you don't have to set a charity up like me and do things. But start achieving little things. What are the things you're not doing?

And it might be, when I was told to do this by my boss and he said it very rudely. I didn't say anything to him. Next time say something to him. I know you've asked me to do that but when you speak to me like that it upsets me a little bit and that will give you a bit of confidence.

When you walk into a room have your head up high and your shoulders back because if you portray your confidence, people will respect you more and treat you as a confident person. Look people in the eye. Don't do things you don't want to do. Use the word no.

No is one of the most powerful words we have in the English language. Excuse me, can you? No. Don't explain yourself. You don't have to explain yourself to anybody. Just say no, I don't want to.

And once you start achieving some of these little goals, you then over time will become more confident. But don't think that these people you're looking up to who look confident are. Because they're not, they're just hiding it better than you.

[00:26:00] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: So true, all of us suffer from imposter syndrome in some form or fashion. Thank you for sharing what you do. And I guess a shout out to all of us to step up more and have more faith in ourselves.

But I also believe as a philosophy that the universe is listening. If I say I'm confident this is going to go well, I think the universe will make steps happen so that things do go well. So, it's a bit of how much do you put out of that confidence and, fake it till you make it.

[00:26:30] Nick Buckley: We've also got to a stage now, especially in the West, that we're scared of failure. So rather than trying and failing, I just won't try. At least then I don't fail. If you don't try, it means you're not living a full life and there's nothing wrong in failing.

I've failed so many things I've tried. It only becomes a problem when you keep failing the same thing because that means you're not learning, that means you're making the same mistakes. But if you try something and you fail the first thing you should say to yourself is what can I learn from this because I don't want to do that again and then learn from it and try again.

You might fail again. Fine. The question then again, What did I do wrong this time? Ah, it was that. And there's nothing wrong in failing because failing is how you discover how not to do things.

There's a lesson in that but we become so pampered and so afraid and so scared that it's easier never to try because then you never fail. But I would argue you never live, and it means you can't ever achieve, because to achieve you've got to risk failure.

[00:27:35] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Absolutely. If you don't try something new, you don't grow, and if you're trying something new, you will fail, but learn lessons and, do it better. Figure it out. Absolutely.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?.

[00:27:49] Nick Buckley: I think I'd like to be able to show people a quick idea of their future if they keep making those same mistakes and making those same decisions. So, to be able to say, bang and suddenly you're looking at your life 10 years from now and you're behind bars or your children have discovered your heroin and swallowed it and now your seven year old daughter's dying on the bed because she swallowed it.

I want to show people the mistakes they're making will have consequences not only to their lives but the people they love around them because I think if they can see further enough into the future that would be the kick up the backside most people would need to start making better decisions.

I say to young people all the time if ten years from now, if I'm walking down the street, and I turn a corner, and two police officers have got you against a wall, and they're arresting you, and they're pulling out a big bag of cocaine out of your pocket, I say to them, Whose fault's that? And they always go, It's my fault for selling cocaine.

If I turn a corner, ten years from now, and you're in a car, with your wife and two children, and you call me over, and you tell me how good your life is. Who takes responsibility for that and they always go, Oh and they always go, you take responsibility for that because that means you make good decisions.

So it's easy to take responsibility for the bad stuff that happens to you, but you also need to take responsibility for the good stuff because good stuff doesn't happen by accident. You've got to pave the way for that good stuff to happen to you and that's what I want to see with young people I work with.

I want to see them 10 years from now, married, with children, half decent job. And that's a success to me. Not if they're a doctor, not if they're a lawyer, not if they're a millionaire. They can be stacking shelves at Tesco's, but if that's a full-time legal job and they've got children and they're happy and they're paying their own bills, that's a success in life.

But sometimes we tell people you're only a success if you've been to university, if you're a millionaire, if you're on Big Brother. And these are all false aims. Being a millionaire doesn't make you happy.

Look, all the millionaires that kill themselves, all the Hollywood stars who kill themselves, they've got everything fame, fortune, women throwing themselves at them and they kill themselves. You've got to pave the way to a good life.

And one of the ways of getting a good life is taking responsibility for other people. Hence why you need a partner and why you need children. Because once you've got children, you're not the priority anymore. You're working hard for them. You're not working hard to buy a new phone or new trainers.

You're working hard because you want the best for them. And the more you achieve for them, that makes you happy. It's not materialistic stuff that makes you happy. It's having a purpose in life that you're fulfilling that makes you happy.

[00:30:41] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I think that is so true and I hope that superpower could come to you and to others who need it. To show us the consequence of our decisions right now. And I really like that about taking that responsibility for yourself and being confident in the good decisions you make as well as the not so good decisions. And hopefully learning from that and sharing that with other people because so that other people can learn from you and not make those decisions, perhaps.

To end the podcast, is there a funny story or maybe a heart-warming story you'd like to share with listeners?

[00:31:14] Nick Buckley: I don't have any funny stories because the work we do is not funny. I can tell you, I'll be able to think of a really good result of something that we've achieved. I think the best result we've had. I've mentioned about some of the serious stuff we've done, about stopping girls being raped and pulling people out of organised crime. And that happens a few times a year.

But our bread and butter work is the stuff that nobody ever sees and that nobody would ever imagine leads to a better life. A couple of years ago we were working in Cheetham Hill in North Manchester. notorious for drugs and gangs and crime.

One day working with a group of teenagers, playing football with them, and using football as a way of having serious conversations. And one of the lads, 17, came up to us and said he's got a bit of a problem. He told us, he's still got friends in Cheetham Hill who he's playing football with, and he knows they're involved in criminality. And he's constantly worried that one day he's going to be stood with him and something's going to happen.

That someone's going to come along and stab somebody or shoot somebody and he's going to get involved in that and either die or get injured or get arrested because his mate's got a gun on him or something like that.

And he's at college. He's going, this is going to ruin my life. But they're my friends and you know we're 17 now, I've been playing with these boys since I was four. I can't just walk away from them and not be with them anymore. They're my friends. I've grew up with them.

So, over several weeks, we had several conversations about his college friends and about loyalty. And we came up with a bit of a plan, not for him, but with him. And the plan was, when you see these boys locally, who are your friends, stop and have a chat.

But you don't need to go out in the evenings to socialise with them. And when they ask you why not, the answer's easy. It's my last year of college. I've got so much work to do. And at weekends, why don't you start going and spending some time with your college friends where they live. That gets you out of the neighbourhood.

And then it also gives you an excuse why you're not hanging around with your old friends. But you don't have to lose friendships with them. You don't have to disrespect them. You don't have to ignore them. You just don't have to be in the area as much time.

And we had this conversation over weeks and then we stopped seeing him. And then six months later we bumped into him, and he said, I took that advice. I've not socialised on the streets now here for six months. I'm now spending every evening doing homework. My grades have improved because I've got my A Levels at the end of summer.

And at weekends, I'm visiting my friends who I go to college with. And we're studying together now at their houses at weekends and he says it was the best thing I've ever done. My grades are improving and I'm going to get better grades now, get to a better university. And I'm not afraid anymore that I'm going to get killed or I'm going to be arrested.

Now, that's not sexy. That's not Superman or Batman saving Gotham City. That's one 17-year-old lad that we've helped him understand and helped him pave the way to a better future. And that took months and months of work, but it worked for him.

And like I said before, we have more failures than successes, but that's changed his life. And when he now gets married and has children, his children won't be repeating the same mistakes he made, because he'll make sure of it. He'll make sure they've got a better upbringing, they're living in a better area.

And some of the work we do, it's about breaking that generational cycle of dysfunctionality. If you're brought up a certain way. That's all you know and if we allow you to bring up your children that same way, that's all they will know. And somewhere along the line you've got to break the cycle and you do it one person at a time.

[00:35:08] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That is a lovely story and absolutely this thing of the generational cycle as well as the fact that he can be a positive role model to his friends and to his children and, other influencers, colleagues or wherever he goes. So absolutely very nice story and what a great note to end the podcast.

Thank you so much for your time, Nick.

[00:35:30] Nick Buckley: You're welcome. Thank you for the conversation. I've enjoyed it.

Nick, I really enjoyed learning about supporting the youth today.

Outro

Dear listener, I hope you were inspired by today's episode and it sparks your passion to make change happen wherever you live and work. I would also like to extend a heartfelt thank you to our community for your support and feedback. Your stories inspire this podcast.

Next week, on Tuesday, 23 January 2024, I speak to Mona Moussa about supporting refugees and asylum seekers.

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Keep thriving, keep connecting, and remember, the power of change lies within us.

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