Emma Rule is on course to raise £300,000 (Image: Tim Merry)
She was a low-paid care worker giving up a well-earned day off to volunteer at a homeless centre. He was an abuse survivor who had fallen so low he just wanted to die. Lying outside in the cold, he had neither the energy nor the will to cross the threshold for a bed and a free meal. Emma Rule sat down beside him and talked softly to him throughout the night. By the time the sun came up, two things had happened. She had persuaded him to try to live for one more day. And his plight had persuaded her that she had to do more to end the scourge of homelessness.
A few days later she put a post on Facebook appealing for bands to set up a benefit concert.
Four years later her crusade has become Musicians Against Homelessness, she is on course to raise £300,000 and she has received an award for her work from Prime Minister Theresa May.
This summer Brian McFadden and Keith Duffy will headline two festival benefits. And other famous recruits include Shaun Ryder of the Happy Mondays, the X Factor’s Rowetta, Steve Diggle from the Buzzcocks, Neville Staple from the Specials and Scouting For Girls.
And yet it all started with that one chance encounter.
Emma, 47, told the Daily Express: “I was volunteering for Crisis At Christmas on Christmas Day in 2014. That night I found a man sitting humped in a corner outside with his head in his hands, it was bitterly cold.
“I tried to engage him in conversation but he would only slowly shake his head from side to side. He looked completely broken and empty. I went and got us both a coffee and sat down on the floor next to him. I tried for hours to get him to speak, sometimes asking questions, sometimes talking about life in general hoping to find some common ground.
“For long spells I just sat there in silence and he said nothing. Eventually I put my arm around his shoulders and pleaded with him to come inside out of the cold. He broke down sobbing and shaking. I held him for what seemed like a long time.
Emma hailed by Theresa May when they met as 'inspiring thousands' (Image: NC)
“Through the sobs he told me that this was to be his last night alive, that he had nothing to live for and that not one person would care if he was dead. He told me about his childhood and the horrific sexual and physical abuse he had suffered at the hands of numerous adults. His entire life had been horrendous and tragic.
“He had been homeless most of his adult life. He told me he’d never told anyone what happened to him before, he felt so ashamed and disgusted that he had locked it away. He said it didn’t matter now that I knew because he’d be dead by the morning, and that nobody would care anyway.
“I tried desperately to reassure him that people could help, that he could talk to people, that people cared and that I really did care. We were both crying. We made each other a promise – he would give life one more day and come into the shelter and let me find a safe place for him to lie down and be warm.
“I asked him to at least try and talk to someone about his problems, as now he’d managed to tell me. He promised me another day.
“I promised him that I cared and that other people would care too, and if he could trust me he would see that.
“He went into the centre and I saw him a few days later when I was volunteering again. He came over and gave me a huge hug.
“Through Crisis, he’d seen a doctor, a counsellor and all sorts of people. His life was obviously still in a dreadful state but some doors had opened to him.
“I’ll never forget that man or that night and have done everything I can to deliver my promise.”
