This is our own summary of a feature by Cally Brooks for the Daily Mirror, published on 6 April 2026. The original reporting, interview and photographs belong to the Mirror. Read the full article on the Mirror's website.
In April, the Daily Mirror ran an exclusive feature on Gram's life. We're grateful to them for telling his story to a national audience.
A life on the edge
Gram's trouble started small, with petty theft on a Middlesbrough council estate. By his early teens he had joined a gang, and at 16 he was in a detention centre. Prison sentences followed, many linked to football violence, leaving him with scars he still carries.
By the early 1990s he had lost his home, his grandmother and his family's support. He ended up on the streets, addicted to heroin and crack, and in 1993 decided a Middlesbrough bench was where he would die.
Six days that changed everything
On 9 August 1996 he collapsed on that bench. In hospital his organs were failing, and doctors asked his mother to agree to switch off his life support. While she weighed it up, Christians who knew Gram from the streets prayed at his bedside. He woke after six days, determined never to drink or take drugs again.
Back to the same bench
By November 1996 he was back on the same bench, telling others there was hope. The Mirror describes his work since: anti-bullying projects in schools, substance misuse workshops, chaplaincy support in adult and youth custody, and nine years as chaplain at a secure training centre for young offenders.
Gram married Natasha in 1999, and they have two sons. Natasha runs a charity supporting vulnerable women, and Gram mentors people from every walk of life. Someone once called him “hope on legs”, and that's how he'd like to be remembered.