Mr Steve’s shop is so Top Drawer

“Walcot has had such bad publicity recently, and the square’s had such bad publicity recently, and I think most of it isn’t justified. I love this area.

“I see customers coming in now with their children at the age of five that I saw when they were babies. When I walk into work – I usually walk in from Old Town – everyone goes, ‘Can we come into Mr Steve’s shop? We keep a collection of Kinder eggs for the kids.”

Top Drawer sells donated furniture at affordable prices, and gives it free to especially needy people who are referred there by care organisations. It used to be funded by a charity called Stonham, but has made its way alone since the group pulled out last spring.

“I’m extraordinarily proud of the way we work together as a team,” said Stephen. “Our van crew have an average age of 60, which is wonderful in itself, and they work long hours. They work so hard.

“We do things that the furniture projects in town don’t do. For instance, the others will deliver to your door, charge you twenty-two quid and just leave it there. Our lads? They’ll spend two hours taking doors out, taking wheels off, taking windows out. They’re wonderful guys.

“We get customers coming back to us, giving us back furniture that we supplied to them when they were in a hole, when they were in a mess, and then they picked their lives up.

“People come in not just to buy things but to tell us how they’re doing. We all love that.

“I had a guy come in just after Christmas. I see a lot of people and I don’t always remember their faces. He said to me, ‘You don’t know who I am, do you?’ He gave me three ten-pound notes and I thought he was buying furniture.

“I said, ‘What is it that you’re buying?’ and he said, ‘Last year – what you did last year. You furnished my daughter’s home and I said I would come back and pay you. I know it’s not as much as you gave but it’s a start.’ “I tried to give it back to him and he absolutely refused.

“I’m not making us out to be saints or anything like that, but it’s the reality of what we do.”

Stephen comes from a working class background and grew up in central Manchester. He is a lifelong Christian. A successful career in advertising brought him to the Swindon area about eight years ago, and semi-retirement brought him to voluntary work at Top Drawer about five years ago. A friend had told him of the project.

“It’s kind of like I’ve come home. I was brought up in inner city Manchester and then I became successful and was no longer a working class man - although I’ll always be a working class man and I’m proud of it.”

He readily admits to being moved to tears quite often when the team is able to change somebody’s life for the better. The most recent example was when a woman with a learning disability was referred to Top Drawer for help with her new home. She left with the essentials she needed to begin turning a bare room into a home: “She’s received a wardrobe, a coffee table, a TV stand, a table and chairs, a chest of drawers and a washing machine, free of charge.

“There are other things that we do. For instance, we make our telephones available to anyone that wants to come in if they have a benefit problem and they can’t afford to ring an 0845 number.

“I don’t know any other project that does that. The door is always open for visitors to come in and sit down and talk about their problems.

“We’ve set up something called the Top Drawer Social Fund. People can’t just come in and claim it - it has to come in through a referral, and in the last few weeks we’ve been working with the learning disability team, children’s services and the adult services transition team. Under Stonham’s control this never happened, but under our control it does, so we’re quite unique.

“It’s so difficult and so strange for people, especially when they’ve been homeless. It’s almost like, ‘Okay, I can keep out of the cold, but I haven’t got anything. Before Christmas we had a very old man come in here. He had absolutely nothing. He didn’t have a knife or fork or a plate or a spoon but he had a flat the council had given him.

“He’d been living rough for 15 years and you could tell. His fingernails were about five inches long. We spent the afternoon with him and we got him everything sorted out. He said to me, ‘I came in here with a place to live and now I’ve got a home.’”

The planned redevelopment of Sussex Square means the ultimate fate of Top Drawer is uncertain, but Steve is certain of the strength of his team and the value of the organisation’s work.

He also has another source of inspiration: his faith. “I’m a Christian. God will show me the way.

“I honestly believe that - that God showed me the way here and he’ll show me the way on if there is a way on.

“I don’t know where we’ll go but I don’t want us to be just a furniture shop. We sell furniture but we’re much more than a furniture shop.

“The satisfaction that I get here is seeing the little babies grow up with their parents, looking after people, looking after the old folk. It’s lovely, it’s just lovely.

“It’s so, so much more important than advertising.”

Top Drawer can be contacted on 01793 536613.