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Tragedy of well-respected professional who became alcoholic
EVEN when he lost his job, didn't have a roof over his head or any money to his name Paul Hackett still took pride in his appearance.
The dad of a son and four daughters from three relationships went from being a well-respected social worker dressed in a suit to a well known alcoholic who spent his days drinking around Sheffield Cathedral - just another drunk for shoppers and workers to walk past and ignore.
But until the last few months of his life, despite having barely a penny to his name, Mr Hackett would regularly trawl the city centre charity shops looking for smart clothes at bargain prices.
His pride in his profession also never left him and he would regularly spend time with the city's homeless and vulnerable, helping them fill in forms and paperwork for benefits and other entitlements.
His daughter Carla Hackett, of Fulwood, said it was "bizarre" that her father ended up living the life he did and said she wanted him to be remembered as more than a homeless drunk.
She said: "The way all his children remember him is as a very smart man - someone who always wore a suit and took pride in his appearance and the way we looked.
"He had a good job, was well-educated and brought up with well-educated parents, so it is really sad the way his life ended up. But it just shows how it can happen to anyone."
She said her father took great pride in his children and fellow street drinkers told her he often spoke about them.
Carla, who has a young son her father never met, said she knew he had developed a drink problem which coincided with him losing his adoptive father around 16 years ago. She said until recent years he had been involved in her life and with her siblings.
She told The Star: "He would keep in touch and take an interest in schooling and our wellbeing but as his situation declined it became more and more difficult for us to track him down because he would move from one address to the next, we never knew where he would be.
"I think he was like that with us because he had his pride and didn't want us to see him living like that."
Carla said her father always enjoyed helping people and she was proud of the way he carried on doing that even when he was on the streets himself.
She said: "He always wanted to help people, that was a driving force.
"And since his death we have spoken to people who knew him latterly who said how much of a help he was to others in the same situation - filling in forms, knowing their medical needs and helping them to read and write. When he was sober he was still the intell-ectual man he always was.
"It is very upsetting for us to have people think of him as nothing more than a homeless drunk - he was our father and very hard working for a lot of years."
His daughter Lauren, 20, said she wanted to thank the Archer Project in Sheffield, which helps homeless people.
She said: "People often walk past homeless people without a second thought but it could easily be them who ends up there next.
The Archer Project does a wond-erful job helping people, I don't know how they would manage without it.
"If one good thing could come from this it would be that the project gets more support to ensure it is always here to help others."
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Weather for Sheffield
Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
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