'What's important in life is the truth'

Sixteen years ago, Charlie Veitch stood on pavements offering hugs, hope and a homemade philosophy of freedom. Today, he marches through Manchester flanked by bodyguards, a camera pointed at the city's most vulnerable. James Holt reports

- James Holt reports

Charlie Veitch in Piccadilly Gardens

T’S 2009 and Charlie Veitch is talking about the truth.

“What's important in life is truth”, he says. “And truth to me equals freedom. If you know the truth about yourself, then nobody can really hurt you. Nobody can take that away from you.”

Over the last 16 years Veitch has been on a significant philosophical journey. In the grainy home video at the end of the first decade of the new millennium he was explaining why he makes his content. He talks about his ‘duty’ to ‘make a difference in the world’ and continue with his ‘spiritual’ work.

At that point the YouTuber was growing an online following through his public activism on the streets of London. Fundamentally, it all started out as a message of hope.

It was a time when Veitch would hug strangers and bellow into a megaphone.