Culture

I was made homeless in my 60s and slept on night busses. Then I found opera – and it saved me

Streetwise Opera says every one of us can sing. You just have to try it

by: Denise Allison

11 Jan 2025

Denise Allison. Image: Rey Trombetta

Denise Allison’s life story could be the subject of an opera. The youthful 75-year-old became street homeless in her seventh decade and spent the best part of eight months using her Freedom Pass to keep warm on night buses in London. Then she found an unexpected source of salvation.

I found Streetwise Opera when I was losing my brains. I was homeless. I was a one-on-one carer and I used to live-in. When I injured my hand, I had nowhere to go. I got pretty desperate and my GP sent me to a psychologist who recommended I go to The Passage [a day centre for people experiencing homelessness].

For a couple of weeks, I heard them. You couldn’t help but hear Streetwise Opera because the sound reverberated right through the building. I thought, I must have the courage to join them. That beautiful sound, honestly, it was encouraging. But I was not in a good place.

Joining, I was so intimidated. I sat in the back corner all nervous. But it was so normal, so inviting, and I’m still singing with them today.

It starts with tea, coffee and cake at 3.30pm. If you’re not there in time, you don’t get the cake. Then 4pm, we start singing. We sing till five, have a 10-minute break for more coffee and tea and snacks if there are any left. Then we sing until six.

There’s always a positive vibe. It doesn’t matter how badly you sing, they always say, ‘What a wonderful song.’ If you sing like a turkey you’re still going to be told you sing beautifully. There’s no judgement. Eventually they say you’re a bass, or you’re a soprano, then you sing to your strengths. I’m lucky to be one of the few sopranos.

If we have a performance, we all wear our t-shirts and normally get given a meal and have our travel expenses covered. We’ve sung at the Royal Festival Hall, Buckingham Palace, the Royal Opera, the Albert Hall.

We do a lot of writing the music ourselves. Last year we worked with [opera singer] Abigail Kelly and
we performed music by Black composers with Black conductors. I like jazz, and that was the original origin of jazz. It’s music that’s travelled around the world.

There’s a good, hopeful feeling of camaraderie and friendship. We all work together. We’re all pleased to see each other every week. I’ve made some good friends from Streetwise and I’ve introduced people to Streetwise. It’s a place you have that’s steady in your life if you’re homeless.

Streetwise Opera says every single one of us can sing, even you reading this. You just have to go try it. You’ll fit into some group and you’ll be able to sing. There’s music in every single one of us.

When I heard that music in The Passage, it stimulated me to get out of my bad, sad mood because the music was happy, it was always uplifting.

And I’ve not stopped, because when you leave in the evenings, you leave with ear worms, you sing the last song that you’ve sung all the way home. You might even wake up the next morning with some of that in your brain as well.

Streetwise Opera is under threat and has launched an emergency appeal to raise funds to survive the most critical period in its 22-year history. You can find out more about Streetwise Opera’s emergency appeal here.

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