I always wanted to be a soldier, even as a wee boy. Growing up in Perthshire, I was in the Black Watch cadets at 13. From there I progressed to the full regiment of the Black Watch. There is a special kind of pride, because you’re serving with your friends, with people from the same part of the world as you.

I was bullied by a sergeant. He spat on me, hit me, kicked me. He made my life absolute hell. As a soldier you are trained to the point that you are ready to fight at a moment’s notice. One day he pressed that little red button and I lost it and went for him, I went straight for this throat and tried to strangle him.

Luckily they dragged me off him before I killed him. They didn’t want me to be court marshalled as this would put the regiment in a bad light, so it was swept under the carpet. It was difficult to leave, as I did in 1985. To leave is like being evicted by your family; it’s such a tight bond.

In 2005, I was living in London and took a nervous breakdown. It made day-to-day life very difficult, but I felt like I got no help whatsoever. The council – Enfield Council – were very difficult to deal with. I felt like a third-class citizen. I gave them doctors’ reports, but they weren’t interested in my history at all. They told me to go back to Scotland. Not what you want to after serving your Queen and country.

I was sleeping on the streets from around November 2005 until June 2006. I mostly slept in parks – I didn’t like the bridges. I’d try to find a garden shed or an empty house. January and February were the worst. I used anything: cardboard; a spare jacket someone left. I even had to pinch clothes from a charity shop. But whatever I was doing, I always found somewhere to have a wash.

I even tried to commit suicide a couple of times. I went to Borderline, and someone asked about me being a soldier. She said, ‘Hang on, you could go to Veterans Aid’. I’d never heard of them. Within 15 minutes of going to their office, I was offered a place here, at Whiteford House in Edinburgh, run by the Scottish Veterans Residences.

It felt like coming home, but the first nine months I was a mess. I suffered from depression, and I used alcohol as a way of escaping.
At one point I was drinking a bottle of rum a day. But I gave myself a boot up the arse. I got an amazing amount of support from the staff and the other residents here.

My GP was a great help to me and spent time listening to me and supporting me. Just having someone you could trust, to confide in, helped more than the medication at times. I was diagnosed with PTSD earlier this year, while I was at a combat stress clinic in Ayrshire.

Some of the psychiatrists and psychologists I’ve seen over the years have been useless, but this doctor finally saw the pattern. I did some driving and handiwork here in Edinburgh, and became more active again.

I applied for a maintenance job here, which I got, and it’s helped get me back on my feet again, get my self-respect back. I’m here for the other guys too because I know some of what they’re going through. If it wasn’t for this place, I’d be dead by now. I’d have been dead long ago.