'Christmas? It's just another day out here...!

WHILE MOST WERE ENJOYING THE FESTIVITIES WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS, TOO MANY WERE OUT ON CITY CENTRE STREETS

- JAMES HOLT

IT'S Christmas morning in 2024.

Once again this year, as the sun rose over the otherwise deserted city centre, too many people were curled up and asleep in doorways.

One of them is Max. He is slouched outside the doors of a shop on St Mary's Gate, with a bacon sandwich in his hand.

"Merry Christmas," he says to passers-by.

He has spent much of the last 16 years on the streets after being kicked out by his parents as a teenager. Christmas morning is just two days after his 38th birthday yet another day experienced without celebration.

"It's horrible, seeing all these people walking past you," he admits.

"You say 'Merry Christmas' to people, and they just assume you want money. All I want to do is ask people how they are, and for them to stop judging me. But because I am on the street, people think we are all the same." Max is sat outside a Spar. He has a hot drink in a cup in front of him and is eating his breakfast - a bacon sandwich given to him by a volunteer. He has a blanket over his legs to keep him warm and a hat on.

"I sit outside Greggs most days.

People look at me like I am a piece of s**t." Max, originally from Nottingham, said. "I spent my birthday on the street too. I turned 38 on the 23rd of December. It's no different." Surrounded by only a few tattered possessions, the homeless don't have anyone to spend the day with.

As millions of others clinked glasses and sat beside their nearest and dearest for a dinner together, for those living on the streets, it was another regular day.

Pictures taken from the city centre on Christmas morning depict a stark reality.

Men and women, of all ages, were opening their eyes to yet another December 25 on street corners and in sheltered shop doorways.

The only difference was that the city centre, just a day before packed out with the hustle and bustle of lastminute shoppers, was almost completely deserted.