Saturday night out with regatta street pastors

A WOMAN in a floral dress is running, barefoot, across Henley Bridge. It’s 10pm on Saturday night during Henley Royal Regatta and the lights of the town are reflected in the dark water behind her.

Crowds of people in blazers are pushing past, laughing and shouting, but Eve Hughes is only looking at the woman.

“Do you want some flip-flops?” she calls after her. The woman just keeps running. Eve shrugs, unoffended. “Clearly not.”

Eve is one of the Street Pastors, a group of volunteers from different churches who come together to offer help to vulnerable people on the streets at night.

With backpacks stuffed with water bottles, lollipops, portable phone chargers, foil blankets, wipes, tissues and plasters, they give practical support to people who may be drunk and separated from their friends, ensuring they get home safely.

They also offer an ear to anyone struggling and in need of a chat.

Groups from the Newbury and Reading Street Pastors have been coming to the regatta for the past eight years.

In addition to regular Friday and Saturday night shifts in their own towns, they also cover big local events, such as the regatta and the Henley Festival, when there can be a high number of people needing assistance.

Eve is always on high alert at the bridge. Several years ago, on her first ever shift in Henley, she helped prevent a woman who was feeling suicidal from jumping into the river.

She recalls: “We were finishing our shift and heading back to base, when someone said there was someone sitting on the bridge. She was just about to go.

“Me and another pastor, we didn’t even talk about what we were going to do, we just went either side of her and slipped our arms through her arms and held her until a big 6ft policeman came along and helped.

“She told us afterwards about her circumstances and what she had been through. We weren’t even supposed to be there. It was a God moment. God directed our footsteps.”

Eve, 75, has been a street pastor in Newbury for 11 years. She is one of six on the streets of Henley on Saturday. They are based at the d:two centre and Henley Baptist Church, where 10 members of the church are taking it in turns across the week to offer tea, coffee and prayer support to the pastors for as long as they are out.

Maryann Green, from Henley, was at the base last night until 2.45am and is back again tonight.

“I enjoy doing it and meeting street pastors and backing them up in prayer,” she says. “I think they’re wonderful people and they are doing such a great job for the town.”

Before they leave, the pastors pack their backpacks and have a brief meeting with the police who are running an operation to reduce sexual violence in addition to their normal duties.

They share numbers so that they can call if one needs the other.

The group sit and pray before they leave, asking for protection for themselves, for the people in the town tonight and for help to see anyone in distress and for calm.

They split into two groups of three and head out into Market Place at 9.30pm. It’s still light and the atmosphere is jovial.

Dave Elliott, 57, a pastor from Reading, who works in construction IT, is leading the group and says they are looking for people who might be vulnerable.

He says: “You start to get an eye for people who have had a little bit too much to drink sometimes. If they are sort of struggling to walk or they’ve got their high heels in their hands. We’re looking for people who are perhaps on their own, particularly females.

“Doorways are classic. You find people discover a doorway to hang out in and then they’ll fall asleep. On a night like this, when it’s nice and warm, that’s not the end of the world but you’ve just got to be aware, you know, if they go unconscious or anything like that.”

As the pastors walk, they hand out lollipops to revellers, bouncers, policemen and women, and children out with their parents. People immediately smile and say thank you.

The lollipops have a dual effect — by raising blood sugar levels, they can help people to sober up and they also act as an immediate way of breaking the ice with individuals or groups.

“We try to calm situations down when people are a little bit frustrated and aggressive,” says Dave. “We’re very careful because we’ve got to protect ourselves first and foremost but, you know, often just a quiet word will do.

“The lolliops are one of our most lethal weapons because it’s very hard to shout at somebody when you’ve got one in your mouth. It gives people something to focus on, something to calm them down.

“Ninety-nine per cent of the time people are out just to have a great time. We just want to try to find that one per cent and make sure they remember the night in a positive way. Get them home, make sure they’re safe.

“Our motto is ‘caring, listening and helping’. So often it’s not even people who have had too much to drink, it’s just somebody on their own looking a bit sad and we’ll have a chat just to see how they are. Why are they feeling sad? What’s their story?”

We stop outside the Giggling Squid in Hart Street, where a man is carrying his girlfriend whose shoes have come off.

Pastor Gill McConkey, 76, gives her a pair of flip-flops. “I appreciate you so much,” says the man, looking relieved.

As the group walk across the bridge, they pick up glass bottles which could smash and hurt people’s feet, or be used in a fight, and put them into bins.

Before the pandemic, they picked up 479 bottles in Henley on one night. Someone has left two full bottles of Prosecco just past Leander Club. “Money to burn,” says Eve, pouring the fizz into the grass before throwing the empties into the bin.

A security guard waves us down. Many guards know the pastors as they share a radio system. The guard accepts a lollipop cheerily and says: “It’s kicking off tonight. Four riot vans down at the quad. We had two fights here. Get praying, guys, it’s going to be needed.”

It’s dark now but out of the thousands of people who are walking along the river, Eve and Gill quickly spot people who might need their help.

Two young women in leopard-print pink skirts are sitting at the back of one of the regatta tents.

“Do you want some water?” Gill asks.

“Thank you, babe,” says one. They decline any other help.

Another woman in a white dress has taken off her shoes and is walking barefoot. She eagerly accepts a pair of flip-flops. “Thank you, thank you!” she yells.

Eve meets some women who used to go to Langtree School in Woodcote and gives them some
lollipops.

“They said that they were sixth-formers. They had a talk from a pastor about how to stay safe on a night out,” she says. “They said they were 21 now and 16 then but they would never forget the impact of it. They knew immediately who we were.”

By 10.24pm we’ve run out of flipflops, so it’s back to the d:two to restock. Lana Del Ray’s Summertime Sadness is playing outside the Relais and the crowds crossing the bridge are growing larger.

“The second half of the evening is where things can hot up but it’s amazing how these things can calm folk down,” says Eve, brandishing a bunch of lollipops.

We spot the same woman in the white dress, sitting by herself in the doorway of Ballards.

“Hi, are you okay, Emma?” asks Dave.

“Yes, thanks, just waiting for my lift,” she replies. “Thank you very much, you’re all lovely.” The moon illuminates the crowds in Market Place. Alone on a bench under the shadow of a tree sits a blond American rower in what had once been a white blazer. Next to him is a puddle of vomit.

Dave approaches him. “How are you doing?” he asks, kindly.

“Not too hot,” is the rower’s assessment.

Dave hands him a bottle of water.

The rower eyes it. “Is that water?” he asks. “I’d really appreciate that.”

Dave chats to him to find out how he can help get him home safely. The rower breaks off their conversation periodically to be sick over the back of the bench. He insists he wants to wait on the bench for his friends.

“We’ll come back and check on him in five minutes,” says Dave.

After refilling the pastors’ backpacks with more flip-flops, we head back to Market Place.

The American is now crouched in a bush but he’s surrounded by other men in white blazers.

“Are you with him?” Dave asks, keen to ensure that he is no longer on his own.

“We’ve got him. Thank you so much for helping him,” says one.

We head to the Catherine Wheel in Hart Street, where people are dancing to Careless Whisper behind windows fogged with condensation.

Outside, next to the traffic lights, two men in white trousers and black blazers are having a huge row with two women.

One woman, in a pleated dress and gold shoes, repeatedly puts her hand around one of the men’s throats. They’re pushing and stumbling into the road, where cars edge around them.

Dave tries to intervene but they don’t stop. Another pastor waves to a passing policeman, who intervenes outside Sweaty Betty. The situation now under control, we press on to the river.

“Can I get some flip-flops?” asks a man in a tight white shirt outside Magoos. He sways slightly, leaning on his friend.

The pastors look at his feet: he is wearing fully-laced brown brogues.

The pastors begin to explain but the man interrupts: “So they’re just for women, then?”

“Could be for a man too, just in high heels,” says Dave.

The men laugh, take a lollipop and disappear up the street.

We go back for our mid-shift cup of tea and a break at the d:two. Eve has brought boxes of mini-Cornish pasties to share: “I never do a shift without them.”

Andy Rowe, who has been leading the other group of pastors, has brought samosas from a friend’s restaurant. They are delicious.

Town councillor David Eggleton is here. He has been helping the pastors at the regatta for the past four years. He has already broken up a fight outside the Three Tuns and got medical help for someone who fell face first on to the pavement and cut open his forehead.

“I’m just here for the lollipops,” he jokes.

David helped the other group of pastors pick up a young man, who had become separated from his friends and was clearly very drunk.

The man is sitting by the door, silently bent over a cup of tea with his eyes closed. The pastors have contacted his father, who is driving from Nottingham to collect him.

Suddenly, the man is sick all over his chinos, shoes and the floor. One of the church volunteers goes to look for some clean clothes.

His mum calls and begins to berate him over the speakerphone. The young man nods helplessly.

She softens at the end of the call. “We love you, okay? Take care of yourself. Dad will be there soon.”

“I love you too,” says the man.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of him,” Dave reassures her, before she thanks him and hangs up.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” mumbles the young man. “This has never happened before.”

“Don’t say sorry. There’s a first time for everything,” says Louise Hastings, who brings out a mop and starts wiping it around his feet.

“But tomorrow you might want to buy your mum a big bunch of flowers and buy your dad something he likes — and pay for his petrol.”

We head out again into the night. It’s nearly midnight now, the temperature has dropped and there is more jostling in the crowds.

It’s striking just how generous the pastors are in their interpretation of people’s actions, like the men weaving about on the pavement in front of us.

“It’s like they’re on a ski slope,” says Eve. A man is urinating against a wall in Friday Street. “Avert your eyes, Gill,” she says, cheerily. “There are some things you’d better not see.”

Do they ever get frustrated dealing with drunken strangers?

“I don’t know if you could really do this is if you did,” says Dave. “One of the things from our perspective as Christians is to have a bit of empathy with the situation.

“So if there’s three or four of us out, you know, we always try to choose the person who’s going to have the best way of building a
relationship.

“For example, I would never approach a female because I’m a male and I don’t want to frighten her. It would always be the ladies, and, frankly, they’re like your grannies, aren’t they, so you know they they’re not going to put anybody off.”

We walk back along the river again, scanning the field and car park. “Let’s go and check no one’s lying in a heap,” says Dave.

Two young men are lying against trees but both are on their phones and say they are fine, so we loop back towards town.

A man is giving a barefoot woman a piggyback on the towpath. When she is offered some flip-flops, she screams as though she has never had a better gift in all her life.

She throws her shoes, which have broken golden straps, to the side of the path.

“You are the best, thank you so much,” she says.

“You are angels,” agrees her friend. They stagger off.

The pastors pick up the shoes, and put them in the nearest bin.

We walk past St Mary’s Church, where during last year’s regatta Gill spent a large portion of her night helping a young man who had intended to propose to his girlfriend but had lost the engagement ring he had bought.

“We never found it,” she says.

It’s nearly 1am now but the team are still going strong. Eve says that young people can be surprised to see the pastors out so late.

She says: “We were out at a quarter to two and a young man said, ‘You should be tucked up in bed’ and we said we’d be out ’til 4”.

Eve has had a double hip replacement and broke her ankle last winter when she slipped on black ice but was determined to make a full recovery so that she could get back out to be a pastor at the coronation. She also volunteered at the Queen’s lying in state.

She says: “I didn’t come to faith until I was in my fifties, a late sort of Christian, if you like.

“People often ask us ‘Why do you do it?’ and ‘How did you become one?’

“ I don’t want to just sit in church on my own and that’s it. I want to practise it, you know, Jesus walked the streets with the vulnerable and the poor.

“I’ve never had a night when I don’t want to go out. I’ve been out in -10c. Honestly, I’m usually ready an hour before I need to be. Obviously when you’re retired like I am it gives you a purpose and what’s better than helping keep the
community?”

I leave the Street Pastors just after 1am after another group of thankful revellers hug them on the corner of Friday Street and
Riverside.

It has been eye-opening to see just how many people they have supported over the course of the night and how welcome their help has been.

Eve says: “The first thing they expect us to do is preach and we don’t. And they expect us to judge and we don’t. We’re out there to help anyone and everyone.”

To donate to the Street Pastors, or to learn more about their work, visit www.streetpastors.org