It’s amazing what people throw away. Or leave behind. This dawned on me during a hot summer in the late 1990s, when in between leaving home and starting college, I took a temporary job for Leeds City Council.

It involved clearing waste and rubble from empty houses and gardens, heavy work I was not built for, and I faced daily ridicule over my inability to lift heavy objects.

In gardens piled high with household waste, the lads would throw frogs at each other, or chase each other through hedges. In high-rise flats, we’d pick up needles, reading abuse spray-painted on the walls to the council staff who had carried out the eviction.

After gaining entry to empty properties, my co-workers would sift through the unopened letters piled up by the front door. These would often tell the story behind the tenant losing their home. Unpaid rent and bills. A child in care. Time spent in prison.

Then what remained of their household possessions were thrown in the middle of the front room carpet and taken to the tip.

One afternoon towards the end of my time in the job, rubble needed clearing from a front garden and throwing over a fence into the back of the truck.

Weeks of ridicule from the male-dominated team had already taken their toll on my 19-year-old ego, and the banter was particularly harsh that day.

In a moment of determination, hell-bent on proving them wrong, I placed both hands around the largest rock to hand. As I stood up, my body gave way, and I rolled 20 yards down the grassy slope and came to rest against the bottom fence.

On my back, I looked up at the sky, dazed, and heard howls of laughter. I was nicknamed ‘Hercules’ for the rest of the summer.