I’m only doing what God told me to
Britain’s sweetest mugging victim on why he’s selling up and moving north to windswept Shetland
LONG before Alan Barnes became the most famous mugging victim in the country, he was well known in the suburb of Gateshead where he’d lived all his life.
His daily walks, which have been known to turn into six-hour marathons, are punctuated by chats with friends. Sometimes he pops into their homes.
Occasionally, he’s asked to pray for someone — he’s devoutly religious — and children, especially, warm to him; perhaps because he’s little over 4ft tall, weighs just 6st and has the appearance of a benign elf in a fairy tale.
Alan’s memory is prodigious. He knows everyone’s age and most of their birthdays, including all those of his extended family of five siblings and 11 nieces and nephews, most of whom live nearby and visit regularly.
All of which makes it surprising — astounding, in fact — that after 67 years in the same community, Alan, who has poor sight and cannot drive, has decided to move to a place he has never even visited.
He is relocating to the Shetland Islands, that rugged, sub-Arctic archipelago drubbed on one side by the Atlantic and the other by the North Sea.
He knows nothing about the islands, other than that they are remote and rather chilly, but his conviction that he must go to live there is sincere and unwavering. His sudden decision to move has nothing to do with the brutal mugging outside his home at the beginning of the year, which thrust him into the national consciousness.
Alan has had a summons from the Almighty, and he knows, difficult though the move may be, he cannot ignore the Lord’s directive.
‘I knew I was going to move somewhere, but I didn’t know where,’ he explains. ‘Then, on July 24, the call came from God. I was standing by the window, lost in thought when it came to me. I’m open to the Holy Spirit, and a lot of people are uncomfortable with that, because it makes you do things you don’t always want to.
‘God spoke to me. It was a silent thought, not a voice, but I knew instinctively it was divine. Some people see lights and hear a physical voice, but I didn’t.
‘I don’t know why He’s decided I have to go to the Shetlands, but it will be for me to learn more about my faith or to inspire others to become Christians. I’d sung the hymn I’m Going To Trust In You at church the Sunday before, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m trusting in God.’
Three days after he got the call, Alan put his home on the market. He’s already had viewings and started packing. So what is he expecting?
‘I know it’s cold and windy with shorter days in winter and longer ones in summer. I’ve no idea where I’m going to live when I get there.’
Strangers and friends alike have urged him to be cautious about abandoning his roots.
‘I was on a walk yesterday when one stranger said: “Can I give you some advice? Don’t sell your house. Go for six weeks to see if you like it.”
‘I told him: “No, I’ve been called by God. I have to go. It’s nothing to do with whether I like it or not.” ’
So the f or- sale board i s up outside his two-up, two-down terrace home, and Alan — at an age when most are settling into a comfortable routine — is embarking on the greatest adventure of his life.
It’s been an extraordinary year for Alan. In January, he became the focus of an unprecedented outpouring of public generosity after he was mugged by a drug-addict while putting out his bins one evening.
Richard Gatiss, 25, is now serving four years in prison for the attack, in which Alan was flung to the ground, breaking his collar bone.
But from a cowardly act of evil, came heart-warming goodness.
Local beautician Katie Cutler, 22, read about the assault and, learning that Alan was afraid to go back to his one-bedroom council bungalow, set up an online donation page in his name. She hoped to raise £500 to help Alan furnish a new place where he felt secure. Within 21 days, well-wishers from around the world had donated £330,000 to the fund.
Alan and Katie, overwhelmed by such generosity, decided to share the donations with others in need.
So Katie set up her own charitable foundation and Alan used £150,000 to buy his current home. He moved into it, the first property he had owned, in April, and it’s now on the market for £155,000.
It happens to be opposite the house in which he grew up.
Alan was born with physical disabilities which were attributed to the fact that his mother had German measles during pregnancy. His new house — for which he is profoundly grateful — is pin-neat and freshly furnished. Alan sits on a low nursing chair he chose himself. His tiny legs just reach the floor.
‘It’s a much better house than I’ve ever had before,’ he concedes. ‘I feel safe here, but I’ve known the whole time that I wouldn’t stay; that something was going to happen. Then came the calling from God.’
He hopes, initially at least, to find a rented home in or near Lerwick, the islands’ main town.
‘I’d like to be linked to a family that’s part of a church so people will know I’m doing God’s work,’ says Alan, who believes his walks through the community are a form of evange- lising. He never imposes his faith, just spreads a message of kindliness.
But won’t he miss his friends? Won’t he be bereft without his supportive family close by?
‘I won’t really miss them, because they’ll be with me in spirit,’ he says. ‘They’ll become part of me. And I’ll hear about them through Facebook.
‘Although I’m not on it myself (he hasn’t got a computer and couldn’t see its screen even if he had because of his poor eyesight) other people will tell me what’s on it.’ I wonder, too, if he’ll miss Katie, with whom he formed an immediate bond when they met a few days after the attack.
‘Katie will always be in my life,’ he says. ‘I’ll always be thankful for what she did and I’d like her to visit me in the Shetlands if she wants to. And there’s always the telephone.’
His family have, it seems, treated the news of his move with remarkable equanimity.
‘Keith, my only brother, understands why I’m going,’ he says, ‘Although he’s warned me it will be chilly. But I can buy a Shetland jumper up there.
‘I don’t have any fear about going. And I don’t think I’ll have any trouble with the accent. I’ve been to Devon and I didn’t have any bother there.’
So Alan, who has never left these shores — but for a brief trip to Jersey — and doesn’t have a passport, prepares to make the most momentous journey of his life.
Has God ever called him to do anything so dramatic before?
‘He’s spoken to me once, in August 1992, when he told me to go to another church, which I did,’ he says.
His faith is broad and ecumenical. Although a Methodist, he also embraces Catholicism and occasionally goes to mass. Because of his disabilities, Alan has never worked, but had he been able to drive and see properly, he would have liked to be a church minister.
Now, of course, he is a man of means, although he has not been remotely extravagant with cash. ‘I vowed people would never hear about me going out for big feed-ups,’ he says, ‘so I’ve only been out for one meal and I had lentil soup.’
He’s indulged in one luxury since his windfall: a smart padded jacket his sister Carol persuaded him to buy.
‘It will keep me warm in the Shetlands,’ he smiles. ‘And I might get some tartan trousers, too, if they do them in children’s sizes.’
I ask if he’s content with his lot. ‘Oh yes,’ he says. ‘There are a lot of people worse off than me. I can walk. I do the best I can. I never get up in a bad mood. And I wouldn’t change myself.’
When he came into money, he worried people might resent it. But no one has — or thought him ‘ungrateful’ because he is moving.
‘They still come up and give me a hug, the same as always,’ he says.
He harbours not an ounce of bitterness to his attacker and forgave him almost instantly.
He asks for little from life other than to have a mission and he hopes his new adventure will bring this.
‘From one bad thing an awful lot of good has come,’ he reflects, ‘and it’s changed my life.
One of my sisters said, when I moved here: “That’s it now. End of story.”
‘In fact, it was just the beginning.’
‘It’ll be cold, but I’ve no fear in going and I’ll wear a jumper’ ‘I won’t miss my family — they’ll be with me in spirit