When you are poor, and I mean poor, it’s like you’re watching life move around you but you’re not moving with it, you’re somewhere else, you’re excluded from regular life, most things aren’t for you, Holidays, days out, going out with friends, even public transport #Dispatches
80% of the supermarket you can’t shop in, the internet, restaurants, cafes, clothes shops, even chemists. You exist on the fringes of society. You don’t even acknowledge most things because they simply aren’t for you. You learn how to be very creative, even when it’s exhausting
I invented ‘mitten monopoly’ teaching a 4 year old how to play monopoly is HARD, but snakes and ladders won’t see you through 3-4 hours of darkness in the evenings in winter,with no heating, so you turn it ‘fun’ by candlelight wearing mittens, he loved it, I hated it #dispatches
But when you know you will have no electricity and heating, and a 4 year old, you need a plan, Harry Potter by torchlight is good, wearing gloves and woolly hats in bed, and together because it’s warmer. When they are little it’s easier #Dispatches
Food is a problem, 12p smartprice mash, 99p 20 sausages (at 30% meat) and 18p tinned spaghetti. But that’s just dinner. Then there’s breakfast. Porridge oats with water is best, unless you’re having a ‘no electricity’ day, then it’s bread and smart price jam #dispatches
But then you better hope, they don’t put the bread up by 5p, or you don’t end up like that time where the checkout lady took pity on you, and winked at you and packed your pasta in your bag even though you somehow miscalculated by 60p I loved her, but hated the shame #Dispatches
Or worst of all, you’re so hungry on the way home you’re reduced to stealing a pack of smart price biscuits, and you’ve never stolen anything before, so your hearts pounding the whole time, all for the want of a custard cream. but it’s not is it. #Dispatches
When you’re child has nits, but there’s no way on earth you can afford the lotion, so you swallow your pride, and make your doctor furious by making an emergency appt to ask for a prescription for nit lotion and he’ll ‘do it this once’ but you must do better. #Dispatches
Poverty is, one chair in a room, a donated fridge and bed from the Salvation Army, a gut wrenching, guilt ridden, pride swallowing, shame fest and if you’re really good at it, no one will ever know just how bad it is, you’re a poverty ninja #Dispatches
And if like me, years later, you are one of the lucky ones whose life is very different mostly due to the compassion of others, it will become a story that you will never fully tell anyone about, a squatting toad of a story, that no matter what, will never leave. #Dispatches
I’ve just opened twitter to see all the lovely replies to this thread, I’m not sure where to begin in thanks, I will try to reply to all of you personally, but thank you to you all, as I say, I’m one of the lucky ones, life is very different now../1
But for so many others out there, this is still a reality, as shaming as it was, at least I had the nhs to turn to when I couldn’t afford nit lotion, what if it’s no longer there for people still in poverty? social housing is all but gone, 1000% increase in food banks /2
What I have learned is above all take nothing for granted, most people are only one step away from that life, have compassion, friends and family helped change my life, but I was lucky, not many have that. And tiny acts, mean the world /3
Weather it’s your mum, who secretly saved all year to give you a £100 gift card for Asda one Xmas so you can feel a bit normal, or your lovely brother who you don’t often see, who sends up £100 in a brown envelope on 23rd Dec and it may as well be a Million /4
Or one sister, who turns up with a new pair of shoes for you because you have holes in the soles of yours from walking your son to school each day 2 miles there and 2 miles back Morning and night /5
And the other sister who gives you £30 out of her petty cash cleaning biz because you have nothing, Not a penny. All these acts stay with you forever. /6
Or the best friend who gives you HER last tenner to take to the council, in hopes that it will placate them and stop them from sending the bailiffs round because they have been threatening too, for unpaid council tax /7
I’m lucky, I had these people but most don’t, I’m not religious at all, but the Salvation Army will always hold a special place for me, they were very good to me. So if you are in the position, give to your local food bank if you can, help if you can, no matter how small /8
And if you are still going through this, there is nothing I can say to make it better, but feel no shame, and let them take as little from you as you can. Its your life, no matter how you have to live it, don’t let anyone take you to pieces. /End
