Growing up in Grimsby, Thomas Turgoose barely went to school. He much preferred larking about in the street on his bike, and getting himself into all sorts of trouble - stealing things, smoking weed and going to pubs before he’d reached his teens. But there was one place he did listen and engage - his local youth club.
The This Is England actor, now 32, was 11 when he started going to the Shalom Youth Centre and credits the service with helping to get his life on track. As a result, Thomas feels passionately about youth services, a sector that has been decimated by 14 years of Tory cuts, with 70% of youth clubs in England closing since 2010 . “It’s so important that kids have got these centres and these groups of people who are constantly trying to pick kids up, steer them in the right direction, and teach them life skills and important things going forward,” says Thomas, who is speaking to the Mirror by a pool table in his old club.
In fact, the star owes his career to the Shalom Youth Centre, in East Marsh, as it was there in 2005, aged just 13, he ended up auditioning for the Shane Meadows cult classic film, This is England . “I just walked around the corner one day and saw a group of people outside of the Shalom, and I thought it was a fight, so went to check out. They asked me to audition for a film and I said ‘yeah if you give me a fiver,” laughs Thomas, who will star alongside Robert Pattison next year in SciFi film, Mickey 17.
But it is not just success .