Mickley Lane: The Journey Home

By Jermaine E Heaven

"You don't know a person until you know where they are coming from", as the saying goes. This adage, I believe, pretty much sums up why I wrote this book.

It was Christmas 2014, and I was strolling through Sheffield city centre. It was a chilly, rainy evening. As I continued my journey, I noticed a few things. I saw some people dressed warmly in their winter coats, others not so warmly, as evidenced by their shivering, some people excited because it was the season to be jolly and Christmas was only a few days away, and others rushing because time was running out for Christmas shopping.

I also noticed those who would spend Christmas alone: they were begging for food, had no place to call home, and were most likely drug addicts, as statistics would suggest.

I was curious about their backstories. I began to wonder how they had ended up on the streets and who was to blame. Did their parents kick them out like mine did? Who gave them drugs? What blunder had sent them down this path? Did they go through a bad divorce and lose everything? Were they hooked on gambling? These, and many other thoughts, were racing through my head at the time.

I became engrossed in this thought, but as I dug deeper, a different line of thought presented itself to me, along with the question, "Could the bad decisions that led these people becoming homeless have been prevented, and if so, how"?
Then I asked myself, "What would you do to help people avoid reaching this stage"? I then had a flashback. My mind took me back to Mickley Lane, a place I had purposefully forgotten because it had been a nightmare. In an instant, I relived all my past experiences, including how I became homeless and addicted to drugs, and I wondered if I could write a book about them. I began to investigate the concept, and thus this book was born.

The goal of this book is to use my life experience to help both young people and adults choose a different path that will keep them from becoming homeless, addicted to drugs, or trapped in other negative vices like I did. I had to live with the consequences of poor decisions, even if some of them were not my fault.

This book will take you on an emotional journey. You may laugh, cry, and learn from my pain as well as the pain of the other characters in this story who have not been identified for legal reasons.
I also talk about how I overcame addiction and ended up on the right track after many years. I pray and hope that this book will help you make informed life decisions as a daughter, son, mother, and father. See you at the end of this adventure.

Jermaine E. Heaven

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0F3WXVBDX
• ISBN13: 9798316094981
• Release Date: May 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 50 Pages
• Weight: 0.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"