A middle-aged couple have revealed that they are living in Heathrow Airport, after losing their home.
Katrina Smith (62) and Alan Lane (71) used to live in a luxury three-bedroom bungalow but lost everything and now try to blend in with holidaymakers at the busy airport during the day, while sleeping at the facility at night.
“We spread ourselves thinly. We don’t want to stick out. So we change our locations within terminals. We don’t stay in the same place on two successive nights. Sometimes we sit in the upstairs lounge on hard, black plastic chairs, just because it’s the warmest place in Terminal 2. We drag our cases round with us all the time,” the couple told the Daily Mail.
“In the evening, we might watch an episode of a TV drama on our smart phone using the airport’s free wifi and we chase jobs advertised on line. We don’t want to stick out. So we change our locations within terminals. We don’t stay in the same place on two successive nights. We only go to sleep at 2am, when the airport sleeps, after the last flights have left and there are no more passengers. And we have just two hours until everything wakes again.”
They said that they are far from alone in their predicament and there is a community of people living in the airport
“I don’t know if the airport staff suspect we’re staying here — if they did, they could move us on — but we look presentable. That’s in our favour. And there are others like us; we’re a little community. But we only acknowledge each other’s presence with a sideways glance.”
“We’ve seen a smart young woman with a briefcase unfurling a blanket and sleeping here for several nights, and a young man in a leather jacket who got progressively more dishevelled as the days passed. Last night I went outside for a walk at 2am, to stretch my legs. It was minus three degrees. I felt grateful that I was here, at the airport, where it’s civilised and safe, and not on a park bench.”
