A talented artist has lifted the lid on his uplifting journey from rock bottom, and the depths of despair, to thriving in his own pottery studio.
In September Wayne Freeman smiled proudly as he stood on the steps of Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral, having graduated from Liverpool Hope University as a mature student.
Wayne, 58, is now an accomplished ceramics creator currently engaged in an exciting commercial project supplying items to international cosmetics store Lush.
But it hadn’t always been this way.
In fact, some of Wayne’s friends have told him he was more likely to be dead than to have completed a degree at university at this point in his life.
And now Wayne, a father of two from Toxteth, Liverpool, is speaking out about his transformation to give hope to others who might find themselves in the same position.
He reveals: “It’s never too late. And you can only get so low before there’s a turning point that allows you to climb the ladder of life again.
“I don’t believe I was put on this Earth to fail. And it doesn’t matter how old you are. I began my own journey when I was 53 years old, going back to college for the first time.
“It’s been a long five years. And it isn’t easy. But if you can find a way to drop the vices you have, like I did, and turn yourself around, you can only make people proud of you, rather than carrying around a terrible stigma.
“In my head, I’m now living the dream.”
Wayne grew up in a vibrant, creative, three-storey house in Toxteth with lots of his relatives, including aunties, uncles and his nan. His great grandmother, Eva Johnson, had been a famous vaudeville star who’d appeared on screen alongside the legendary American performer Paul Robeson.
A self-confessed ‘joker’ in school, Wayne never excelled, despite being good at art, and left aged 16 to work in the catering industry. By his mid-20s he was working as a Bluecoat at a holiday camp in Devon.
In the early 1990s, having been taught to sew by his mother, Kathleen, Wayne then started work as a tailor, selling clothes from his home. It was around this point he met his ex-partner and had two children, Amy, now 28, and Cleo, now 24.
Jumping from job to job, Wayne found employment as a train attendant, and also a ward host in a hospital. But he never found his ‘calling’ - and mum Kathleen continually pestered him to return to education.
Fast forward to 2010 and Wayne’s life began to unravel dramatically and tragically.
He badly broke his leg in an innocuous accident while crossing the road and he also suffered the trauma of finding his ex-docker father, Alfred, dead in his home. It had been the day of his dad’s 72nd birthday.
Unable to work, self-medicating became a real problem.
And Wayne, now a grandfather of two, explains: “My life was just spiralling out of control, largely because of the drink. Around this time I was also going through a very troubled relationship with an ex-partner. I lost my job, I lost my flat, I lost my partner. I’d drink just so I could sleep and not have to think about what was happening to me.”
The next four years saw Wayne made homeless and ultimately living in a hostel near Liverpool’s Sefton Park. He adds: “I wasn’t doing anything with my life. I couldn’t even see my children because I wasn’t in any fit state to be a parent.
“I was at rock bottom and I knew I had to dig myself out. Thoughts of suicide flashed through my mind - I can admit that now. But I also thought of all the people I would hurt if I was gone and I realised I was being selfish.”
Still struggling to find a way forward for himself, Wayne’s mum Kathleen then passed away in 2014. It was her dying wish that Wayne get back on track and start doing something with his life.
And while it was a devastatingly-sad moment for him, it was also the turning point he needed.
He finds it hard to explain why things changed in his head, but he says: “Something happened to me where I was just pushed onto the right path. I gave up all of my vices there and then - I just stopped. This was the moment I vowed to change my life.”
Taking heed of his mum’s deathbed plea, he enrolled at The City of Liverpool College to study for a Diploma in Design.
Wayne states: “I knew I wanted to go to university, and going to college was the first step I needed to take. At the time, I knew nothing about ceramics and clay. I just wanted to go and draw.
“But something just clicked as soon as I saw the pottery wheel. I didn’t leave the ceramics room. I wasn’t a natural, but I got there in the end with it and I knew that this was what I wanted to do.”
Having also studied a Foundation course at the College, he joined Liverpool Hope University in 2017 to study for a BA in Design, specialising in ceramics, and began honing his ceramics skills, experimenting with his love of Native American art in particular.
And after actually completing his course in 2020, he eventually graduated in September of this year, having had to wait for Covid-19 restrictions to ease enough for the ceremony to be able to take place.
He says: “Being stood there in my cap and gown was an incredible experience.
“On the graduation day itself, I carried a photograph of mum in my pocket. She was right here with me. She had to come. And I hope she was proud.”
Now Wayne is working with the innovative Granby Workshop in Liverpool, a social enterprise set up by Turner Prize-winning architecture collective Assemble.
The Granby Workshop forms part of ‘community-led efforts to rebuild Granby, a Liverpool neighbourhood that was nearly made derelict by decades of poorly-planned regeneration initiatives’, the initiative’s website states.
Wayne, who’s occupying a studio within the Granby complex, adds: “I’ve been working for Granby Workshop for a few months now and I absolutely love it. I’m the first here and I’m the last to leave.
“When I’ve told people I’m making products for Lush they just can’t believe it. They’ve told me, ‘Hold on a minute, is this you? Is this the same Wayne?’
“I’ve even had people who’ve said, ‘I thought you’d be well dead by now, not getting a degree from university! Wayne? A degree!?’
“I’m in a really good place now.”