Seven days living on the streets

By contributor, Rory

Working with the poor in Cambodia has made Rory aware of poverty in the UK

Rory McCormick has spent seven days living on the streets of Cambridge.

Using an audio recorder he captured his best and worst moments during 168 hours of homelessness.

Rory's challenge was aimed at raising money for the poor in Cambodia and, despite only being on the streets for a week, he did not find it easy.

During one cold night's sleep Rory said: "I had to curl up into a ball and shake back and forth for a bit to warm myself up."

Audio diary and street tweet

Rory has done it. He has lived on the streets for 168 hours.

He will be writing down his thoughts for the BBC Cambridgeshire website but has also recorded an audio diary. Listen to his seven days of homelessness below.

To get a taste of how life was for Rory we have taken a selection of his Twitter updates.

Day 7: Undefineable thanks to all those that supported me through this... It is now over and i am going to have a hot shower and some real sleep.

Day 6: Have sores all over my feet. I walk with a limp... In both legs.

Day 5: Wind chill factor really owned me last night. Freezing this morning. This is day 5. I have broken the back of this thing now.

Day 4: Have been begging today. It is humiliating. No one will look you in the eye. It's like being on the London Underground.

Day 3: Washed in the toilets of the Grand Arcade in town centre. They have Dyson Airblades... Very nice.

Day 2: Day 2 begins. Had a shivering nights sleep behind a shed. Sound of cars and stars. Felt very alone, but Spirits high.

Day 1: 1 hour busking = 62p. Sainsburys basics Cornish pasty = 31p. That's lunch and dinner then.

Keep checking this website to find out what life really is like on the streets of Cambridge.

Why am I doing it? Rory's story

Mosquito coils blazing red, like the sky reflected in the Cambodian Mekong, and in the last light of florescence, we sup some drinkables in the local riverside guesthouse.

We are thinking about how to raise some serious cash to help the rural poor of Cambodia.

Rory hopes his busking will raise enough money for his daily food

"Bath of beans? That's how most people raise money on TV Tele-thons, isn't it?"

"Hmm, not exactly unique though, it is? I wouldn't give you more than a fiver"

"Walking over hot coals?"

"Heard it before."

"Jumping out of a plane?"

"You'd do it for fun."

"Cycling to Glasgow?"

"A tenner at most."

"Eating a spider?"

"They're a delicacy over here, mate."

"Hmmm... sponsored homelessness?"

"Yes!"

That's pretty much how the conversation went and how the idea burst into my head.

I had seen and confronted so much poverty since coming to Cambodia, it struck me that perhaps I could confront poverty in Britain, too, as well as raise some Riels to help impoverished rural communities in Cambodia.

I am going to sleep rough for one week, that's 168 hours Rory

After four months volunteering for a local organisation called the Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT) in Kratie, north-eastern Cambodia, I was bowled over by the work this lot were doing for the poor and the environment they inhabit.

I think it took seeing the impoverished people in Asia to make me consider those destitute in my own country. An issue I have never really given any time or mind to.

I am going to sleep rough for one week, that's 168 hours, and am asking people to sponsor me. It hit me that perhaps there was more to be had here than just fundraising.

With a journalistic head on my investigative shoulders, could I write about my experiences and feelings of sleeping rough?

Could it shed light on the stereotypes I am guilty of holding when it comes to the homeless? Could I be 'Rory through the looking glass' and go further down the rabbit hole then I have gone before?

Without being a burden on services that are aimed at the vulnerable, I want to step into some well-worn clothes and integrate where possible, bring in the bacon from six busked guitar strings, live off what I earn and nothing more.

I want to do this to raise money for CRDT, but maybe in the process I can learn about homelessness in Britain from the ground up. Everybody has to have a cause. This is mine.

Poverty for poverty. See you on the streets.

Night shelters, help and advice for the homeless in Cambridgeshire