My Body Isn’t Subject For Debate.

On Wednesday, 24th February, a video opinion piece I had filmed with the Guardian Newspaper went live on their website and Facebook page. It was the video accompaniment to my ‘Modern Day Poverty‘ article.

I was excited.

I had managed to (finally) grow out the ridiculous haircut I had done last February, an entire year ago, which was a treat, supposedly, after not visiting a hairdresser for close to a decade. After looking in the mirror at the new ‘style’ I remembered why I hadn’t been for a decade and wished I’d stayed away. But anyway, my hair had grown back, and I’d even used some straighteners on it. It looked good.

I had watched make up tutorials and managed to conceal, contour and powder away my strawberry-red skin. I was happy with the result. I looked a normal human colour instead of like an extra from Attack of The Killer Tomatoes. My skin condition (an allergy to one of my medicines) had cleared up, so I didn’t look like a tomato pizza either.

And I had bought a nice top from Select for the occasion. In a size 14, if you care. Not because of any massive amount of vanity, but honestly because my wardrobe had come down to three T-shirts from Primark and two pairs of jeans. If I was going to be seen by thousands, maybe millions, then I owed it to myself to make an effort.

And here’s the thing. You don’t see my body in the film. At all. You can see the width of my shoulders, my neck, and my face. My face, which was bloated, because on a day when I will be spending hours travelling to and from London, across our great Capital, into Guardian offices, filming, I was not going to take my usual two water pills and be stuck without a toilet.

Oh, yeah. Let’s be blunt about it, as no-one seemed to have issues being ‘honest’ about my weight.

Each morning, I wake up between seven and eight pounds heavier than I weigh when I go to bed. My heart is too weak to effectively stop water building up in my body, and the tablets I take allow me to, frankly, piss away the excess. The water gathers around my ankles and my calves…and my face. It makes me look bloated. It makes me look fat. It gathers during the day, and again through the night. My pills stop it building up, because oedema, especially around a heart as strained as mine, is dangerous.

Now, I’m not one for body positivity. In keeping with the blunt theme here, I hate myself. I can’t stand the way I look. I detest what has happened to my body since my heart attack. My reflection fills me with disgust, shame, and grief. It makes me cry. There is no part of my body left, which I can look at and know as my own. It’s bloated, tired, scarred, and isn’t recognisable as the ‘me’ I used to be. I avoid cameras and photos as much as I can, and only use a mirror to do my hair–and on this day, my make up.

I felt good, when I filmed the opinion piece, though. I felt confident. I was wearing size 14 clothes, didn’t look terrible, and my angina was behaving.

And I knew the instant I caught a reflected glimpse of myself in a window, that I would be ripped apart because my face was fat. So I prepared myself for it. I knew it was coming, and I battened down my mental hatches and waved a figurative hand in a ‘whatever’ gesture, and waited for the onslaught. An onslaught, which pissed me off because my gods there are some dickheads out there! An onslaught, which pissed me off because rather than focus on the very real struggle of so many thousands of people, day in, day out, there were dickheads discussing my size–which they couldn’t see.

For all you can see of my body in this video, I could have been wearing a light grey scarf, and had the rest of me naked, painted blue, with a fucking rainbow across my missing nipple! But despite my anger at their ignorance, I wasn’t upset.

And then I was. Because there are thousands of women, and more than a few men, who were reading those comments, and they had not had the time to prepare themselves for what was being said. They were reading those comments, overweight, perhaps having so little money available that their meals are largely consisting of Iceland Value sausages (40 for £2) and bread (10p if you can get it at the end of a day in Tesco). And I started to get angrier and upset on their behalf. I have a fat face, which deflates when I take some pills. Whatever. But the reality of poverty, as so many people face, means subsistence living and cheap, fatty, unhealthy meals. It means so many people living under the breadline are medically overweight. So, so many.

I am fortunate. As I have previously posted, I learnt to cook by watching Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsey, The Hairy Bikers and Rick Stein. My meals consist of a lot of rice, pulses, pasta, vegetables, and cheap meat (sorry, it’s not free range organic, but it’s cheap and it’s enough to fill us all up). I can cook. I cook without oils and without fats, Slimming World style. I use herbs, spices, and I am consistently losing weight despite the medication and the water retention.

But there are thousands out there who don’t know how to cook, and they had to also read the vitriol aimed at my head. A message that said clearly, “You can’t be struggling, you are fat.” “You’re obviously not starved.” “You have enough to buy food, obviously.” (I do have enough – I have never said it’s not enough)

I am so sorry, to all of you who might struggle with your weight, and who read the crap written by the sanctimonious arseholes in those comment sections. Thank you for getting in touch with me to see if I was okay–I was. I am. I hope you are too. You’re beautiful–more than those idiots typing vileness into a comment box can ever hope to be.

But, for goodness sake, people, since when is it okay to ball out someone for their size? To insult a body you can’t see? To grind away the small bit of pride I had felt in my appearance on the day I filmed?

Since when do you have the right to use my body as a debate about poverty? When did my face get in on the argument and write anything? The only thing my face does is act as a front-piece for my head, which holds my brain. My face, and the size of my chins has no bearing on my intelligence. It holds no bearing on my financial status, and none at all on how much money I have left after paying all my bills.

It’s just chins. It’s just a face. Most people have them. They’re nothing special.

And mine, away from the cameras, aren’t much bigger than the average. But if they were?

That’s not up for debate either.

It Could Be Worse? Try Saying It Another Way!

It’s just a saying, isn’t it? People say it all the time. They look at a broken leg, and tell themselves they should be thankful they have a leg to break. They get the flu, and tell themselves they should be thankful it’s not pneumonia. Some, like me, get pneumonia in the middle of summer, and are thankful it’s not some fatal rapid-onset variety of lung cancer. We all do it. We see ourselves, and our friends in situations, and we say “It could be worse.”

But, and here’s the thing, saying that doesn’t help. It doesn’t make things better. It doesn’t change the dire situation someone is in, just because, somewhere, somehow, it could be worse.

The other night (just before payday, which happened and then, faster than I could appreciate it had happened, it had gone again) I was staring at the contents of my fridge and wondering what the bloody hell I could cook for dinner. As most of you will know, there’s only so many times you can feed kids pasta with a chopped onion and some tomatoes before they begin to riot like French Peasants prior to the revolution. They probably feel the same way about rice, near the end of the month.

You can jazz it up all you want, but it’s still pasta. And that gets bloody boring, right?

So there I was, staring into my fridge, wondering what I could do with some limp spring onions, half an aubergine, and a withering pepper which, to be fair, looked as terrible as I was feeling (I had a cold last week – my heart hates me getting colds and objects in terms I can’t ignore). There was enough to feed one adult, in my fridge. So I looked at my bank balance and decided to risk a small top-up shop. Up the road to Tesco I went, and began to choose the cheapest food my extortionate little corner-Tesco offers. Seriously…it’s a Tesco Metro. This means they can scrap their value range, replacing it with premium brands. It means tomatoes aren’t 32p. They’re, like, a million pounds (or 85p, whatever). Anyway, I was staring just as blankly at the shelves in Tesco as I had stared at my fridge. I debated walking the two miles to the bigger Tesco, but my energy was gone. I thought about walking the mile to Lidl, but honestly, walking to the end of the road was already pushing my hard limits that day.

Then, miracle of miracles, I saw the man with his mark-down gun. He marked down chicken, and potatoes, and vegetables. I tell you, I grabbed that food as though I was in a bread queue in the USSR circa 1986. I paid (it came to under £3.00, and I had two days food, plus lunches. RESULT!) and I went home. And I told myself ‘Well, it could be worse. I have food. Many don’t. There are starving people in the world. Homeless people. My husband has a job, many don’t. I’m not dead yet, so that’s something.”

And it sounded, for once, like what it was. A trite remark, which is meaningless. It’s something people in dire situations tell themselves, and others, in the hope that it will carry them through one more hour, one more day. The politicians, bludgeoning us all with figures to make it seem we’re better off than we are, love it when we look at each other and say ‘It could be worse!’

Maybe, instead of saying ‘It could be worse’, we should start saying, ‘It should be better’. Because when we realise it should be better, we will make other people hear the truth. The truth about rents of £1100: more than the total take home pay of an average earner each month. The truth of council tax that costs close to an entire week’s income, every month. The truth of shops who hike up prices to over double the cost, because they’ve not got competition and because they can. The truth of energy suppliers, who are given a license to steal our money and increase their prices, because no one will stop them. The truth of a government who would have their cronies believe a working family with Tax Credits is playing the system and deserves the same irrational contempt they give someone who isn’t, for whatever reason (and there are many) in work. The truth about media portrayal of the poor, victim shaming and blaming until everyone is too scared to admit the struggle they face, despite being nurses, or office workers, or managers, or shop assistants. The truth that poverty is real, but hidden, and shameful.

So yes, it could be worse. But, for crying out loud, it should be so much better.

Disconnect The Poor In The Internet Age

The Internet Is Not A Luxury. It needs to be said before we go any further.

If you have children, they need it for homework and studies. They need it to send in assignments and to keep up to date with coursework. “Libraries!” I hear some of you shouting, “Go to an Internet Cafe!” All well and good, but for a lot of people, their nearest library is in the centre of their town or city and would mean a two mile walk each way. Sometimes more. The walk would have to be done daily after school–because buses are not cheap and feet are free. This is, of course, after leaving the house at 7:30am, walking the half an hour to school in all weathers and putting in a full day of studying. Internet Cafes’ charge for the privilege of using the computers. It is not a viable option for most.

To not have the internet at home, a child from a poor family would have to stay out of the family home for approximately (in our case and based on the distances my daughter walks to school) another three hours. She would not get home until around 7pm at night…and would have to walk in the dark, through a not-exactly-great area of the city (neither myself or my husband drive; we cannot afford a car…and cannot afford the lessons anyway). Meg is a straight A student. She dreams of university life and becoming a doctor. It is all she has wanted to do since she was four years old. At just turned sixteen, she keeps a relentless study schedule. She works from 8.00am through to 9.00pm as it is. At home, she is safe, [mostly]warm and can eat her dinner as she studies.

The Internet Is Essential. We are told the way to lift ourselves high and achieve riches untold, is to be well-educated and get a professional career. Are only the children of the comfortable and the rich allowed to follow this dream? Are the children of the poor to be raised with the depressing knowledge in their young heads that their lot in life is to serve the children of the rich? To clean, and sweep and toil and slave, with no hope of realising their aspirations and dreams…because school work now requires an internet connection, to get the best education available. Each time a struggling family is told their internet is a luxury, they are told their children do not deserve the access to it in the home. They are told their children should be thankful for their lot, and stay in the ‘place’ they were born.

There are disabled people, housebound and alone for weeks on end. They do not have the option of walking the two miles (or more) to their library, to be able to sit down and make some contact with relatives living apart from them. To see pictures of their newest little cousins, or a new grandchild. They cannot spare the money from their living allowances or benefits to use an internet cafe. To say to them that the Internet is a luxury they can do without, to save money, is to isolate them and cage them in their loneliness. The quality of life of the elderly and infirm increases dramatically, if they are taught to use a computer, laptop or even a smart-phone, and can access and utilise the web. Depression caused by isolated living is lifted, just a little. Shopping can be done, friends spoken with, people contacted, programmes watched. The Internet is essential. That they need to choose between eating, heating, or human contact is appalling, and they should not be expected to make that choice.

Job seekers are told, by the Job Centre, to apply for an initial interview online. School Admittance Forms? Fill them out online. Best grocery offers? Online. Job searching? Property rental? Council Housing Register? You’ve guessed it–it’s all online.

Is it reasonable, therefore, to look at the poorest sections of our society and tell them to save money–sometimes as little as £6.99 a month–by getting rid of their internet. Are we, as a society, so judgemental that we believe those in the poorest households must sit in the dark, without a television, without a computer, without communication? Is that what we have become, now, thanks to the portrayal of poverty in the media? To take away the web, is to disconnect more than Google. It is to disconnect ourselves.

If you are affected by any of these issues and would like to chat, or ask for help, please do contact my Facebook page HERE. I answer all messages that come through to me and will always try to point you in the right direction if you need help/advice.

The Graduate Trap

An Interesting Perspective of The University Path.

My Fluid Self: My search for a narrative

I graduated but I didn’t attend graduation. I had made the choice long before then that I wasn’t to be cajoled by sentiment into paying out yet more money I didn’t have to attend pomp. Instead, I rewarded myself for battling up through the tumult of Portsmouth’s hostel system – a web of housing associations and halfway-houses harder to ride out to a successful conclusion than an evening alone with Amnesia: The Dark Descent – and visited Granada, Spain. It may have been, in hindsight, a luxury too late and money misplaced to indulge my fancies so close to the end of my undergraduate lifeline.

As the day of my graduation loomed, the contents of my bank withered and the possibility of a late moment of caprice was revoked. Graduation, at least from an undergraduate degree, would be an experience to pass me by. Thankfully, I was granted a small…

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The Upsetting Truth…Part Two!

Everything I do seems to have a sequel. It’s funny how life can be like that. I really felt that some points needed to be addressed, however. There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding the Unseen Poor. Let’s kick back with a cuppa and have a chat about a few of them, shall we? Make yourself comfortable and come sit with me. Keep your coat on, it’s not cold enough for heating, but you’re probably going to feel the chill in my house if you’re not used to it. My family and I are used to it. Our old house never had heating for three years, thanks to an indifferent and incompetent landlord. While being evicted when he sold the house was distressing and has left me terrified it will happen again, this house is better. Even with penetrating damp, crumbling walls and mould. We had white fluffy mould and green mildew in the last house–this time we have black mould. It’s good to switch it up, don’t you think? Look carefully and you can make patterns and faces from it. It passes the time.

Comfy? As warm as you’re likely to get? Great! Let’s do this thing…

Jamie Oliver did not deserve your anger. How dare you insult him? He’s trying to help you, you ungrateful b**ch. Get a grip, he’s doing the best he can.

Okay, now. Hold your horses and calm down a little. Take a deep calming breath.

My post was not a direct attack at Jamie personally. I am disappointed that I am unlikely to get the chance to divorce ‘The Hubs’ and marry Jamie now, but it was not a sensationalist piece of writing done with the sole aim to piss off all my fellow Jamie fans. What angered me is that the tag line for his show was “You Can Eat Like A King Whatever Your Budget.” My budget, Jamie, is £45 a week to feed a family of five. I eat healthy and I eat well, but it sure ain’t like a king.

I manage to do it and I never said I could not feed my children. I said that there are times I might have to make do with a bowl of rice, so they can eat the 20p packet of spaghetti with a home made tomato sauce, pimped up with some Tesco Value dried oregano, so it tastes Italian. I have said that there are times that I can’t afford to heat my house (I already spend £20 a week on gas, thanks to the meter taking a debt as well) and I have to choose between heating, or buying food. I will drink a lot of water, instead of eating a lunch, if the cupboards are depleted. The kids need that food, I am old enough to wait and bide awhile. My mum helps a lot, but I do get by on the budget I have. I don’t find it too hard, either. I never meant to imply that £45 is not enough for food, it is. Mostly.

Now, Jamie, what upset me…really upset me to the point of nearly crying, was when you, on your programme, Money Saving Meals, tried to tell me, with my £45 a week food budget, that I could save money by buying a £22 shoulder of lamb. I am certain Jack Monroe was likewise appalled at the blasé presumption that this richly priced joint of meat could ever be seen as affordable by a large portion of the people you purport to be helping. I hope that clears it up a little bit for anyone who thought I was simply laying into you for no reason. My ire was not only directed at you, but at the producers, programme developers and all the rest of you who, rightly, do not have to live as I do. It is not budget. Give me a call, Jamie–you taught me all I know, I would be more than happy to teach you in return. I make a wicked vegetable curry.

Sell your computer. Get rid of your TV. You have luxury items.

No, no and…no.

This is indicative of how well we are socially conditioned to believe those left wanting can heal their situation simply by getting rid of parts of their lives deemed superfluous. My children, the three at home, are all at school. Their homework requires the internet. A lot does. My son’s college course is entirely computer based (it is a computer course, so this makes sense). He would love a laptop, but I can’t get him one. He works part time and has recently had to purchase a new bed for himself as I could not afford it. He went to Ikea and got a nice one–and my youngest daughter received a ‘new’ mattress as a result. This is how things work, you see? We re-use, recycle, stick together and get on through! We have the one computer, which is my main source of income. I am an author, I am just starting, in the scheme of things. I have no agent, no publicist, no advertising budget aside from my Facebook Page and word of mouth. And now this blog. Yes, I will use it to promote my work; I self publish and I am only just starting to see anything come from it. I had my first book out for free, to get my name seen, for several months, while I wrote the sequel. I write–it is how I will make money and get off benefits. If there are any legit agents out there…well, you know, I’m free. You all rejected me once, but I’m open to the idea of a second chance 😉

To tell me to lose the web and to sell my PC (A GIFT FROM A FRIEND) is to tell my children they cannot do their coursework, studies, homework and research to the absolute best standard available to them in this country. It is to tell me I do not have the right to work as an author. Work. I do not, as has been said, lounge around writing blogs for my entertainment. I am a selling author and have been for 7 months. I have no intention and no reason to sell the TV. It is the only one in the house, and the kids enjoy it. Why shouldn’t they? Giving up the TV will not make the hard times better. These suggestions are painful to read. You are telling me that I can ‘fix’ my poverty by removing a television and my source of income. It’s not fair to assume a torn off limb could be mended with a plaster; please realise this situation is not going to be helped by losing my children’s source of enjoyment and it will be worsened if I cannot write and earn royalties from my books.

Thank you so much, all of you who bought a book. You have no idea how fast the 29p royalties add up when hundreds are buying.

You took your daughter to Cardiff

This one is an easy one. I should not have to justify taking one of my four children somewhere for their birthday, but I will. I’ll also tell you how I did it.

Meg, my daughter, turned 16 shortly after the new year. All of her friends are doing the big American parties and ‘Sweet Sixteen’ stuff. I said I would try and find a free hall, maybe pay for a DJ and lay out an Iceland Party-Style buffet. She said no, thank you but no thank you, because it would end up very expensive and she’d have nothing to show for it afterwards. She said it was a waste of money. I save up for the Big occasions, and 16 is a milestone. I told Meg I would give her a party, that I could afford it. She said no. She asked, instead, to go to The Doctor Who Experience. She asked in October–do you know many 15 year old girls who would have the foresight to ask 4 months in advance to go to to something where the tickets cost £16.00 for an adult? Me neither, but my daughter did just that. I Immediately went onto hostelworld.com. They gather all the backpacker hostels on one site, you punch in a postcode, they show you what’s available in that area. We stayed in a room with bunk beds and a single bed. My mum came to help cover the cost of the room, and to buy us some food while we were there. Luckily, the Nomad has a big kitchen you can use, so it’s almost like self catering. They also feed you cereal in the morning. All this is £40 a night for the room and breakfast for three people. I booked in October and paid a £20 deposit. I then started squirrelling the money away for the extortionate train tickets and the tickets for Doctor Who himself.

We did not spend a fortune in the mall–I said go prepared to spend a lot, because it is very expensive…if you buy anything. I should have added that we window shopped in that mall for 6 hours. It was good fun. They have a Lego Store and we looked at individual Lego, but we did not buy any. We walked to Cardiff Castle, and we looked at that too. We did not pay £22 each to walk up the stairs and actually see it. That’s how much they charge, to walk past the gates. I never had that much in my purse, not for me and Meg to go. Had she really wanted to have seen inside, I would have paid for her ticket and sat looking at the walls, with my mum. Meg said no. The Saturday night was spent in the recreation room of the Nomad, talking to a backpacker and watching the voice, munching on a Tesco salad bowl. The high life of luxury? Not quite.

I loved visiting, but I found it over priced and impossible, even though I left all my family at home, bar one daughter. Please do not resent her birthday present. She has a right to be allowed gifts and treats, just the same as other children. Without my mum, we could not have gone at all.

You should not have bred. You shouldn’t have had children. You’re not fit to parent. You should have got Critical Illness Cover. Kill yourself, they’ll be better off. Just go die somewhere and stop moaning. You should have insurance. You should have saved.

This is simply ignorance at its best, isn’t it?

Because I am poor, I should not have children? I work and work hard. So does my husband. We did not know what was coming and we were young enough to feel immortal. Why would I have thought of critical illness cover? I have life insurance–when this illness kills me, which it will one day, my husband and children will be shooting out of this poverty trap. I have to die to fix this. I will not cancel an insurance I had the foresight to take out aged 22. Not to save pennies. It’s a good policy and I got it before my condition. It will leave my family comfortable. I myself will be going off to medical science when I do die. Rest assured, it won’t be because I have taken the above advice though–that would void my insurance.

On a side note, when I said ‘the good times’ they were simply comfortable, not rich. I could fill my cupboards and not worry about feeding us all. I was able to replace shoes/trainers and I could meet expenses. At no point have I had enough to take my kids abroad. They have been on two Haven Holidays; one in 2004, to Warmwell (it was amazing, even though I was pregnant), and one in 2006, just before it all went downhill, to Clacton-On-Sea. They loved it and I hope to be able to go again, one day.

Now that’s over, onto the good stuff!!! (Yay, I was depressing myself, and I’m not a gloomy kind of gal.)

Food Banks do not require Social Services Intervention. You will not be deemed as Too Poor To Parent, if you go to your GP and get a referral. The Citizens’ Advice Bureau can also do this, as do some churches, outreach programs and community-based groups. Some do not need a referral. If you are in dire need and cannot find these resources, please contact your local Sikh Temple. I was contacted by a few dozen lovely people from a temple who said all are welcome to sit with them, enjoy a vegetarian meal. It is, to the Sikh Community, a religious obligation to help their fellow humans and treat all equally. They will welcome you and your children. Women, please wear a headscarf, if you have no scarf, they will supply one for you.
There are a lot of benefits a lot of the ‘invisible working poor’ are not aware of. If you are struggling, please go to your Citizens’ Advice Centre. They will make bloody sure you are getting all you can. I have done this and I *do* receive all I am entitled to. It is simply not enough to cover rent, council tax, heating, water, electric, other bills…you get the idea. You, though, may be in a different place and there may be more help available to you. I shall be applying for this PIP allowance everyone has told me about. I have had a little over a thousand messages and comments telling me about this. I was turned down for DLA, but who knows, eh? I’ll be doing that next week.
There are community groups that might sound a bit like a communist soup kitchen to the uninitiated, but are actually amazing when you delve a bit deeper. These places will have community gardens and often an attached hall. Sign up, learn some gardening, cook and eat what you grow with new friends–all in the same boat. You can ask about these at your local council offices.
Poverty is a big issue amongst LGBT people. Please know there is support and people out there who will be able to talk to you and help you. There is no need to be alone. If you want advice, a chat, or help with anything, please contact Stonewall as a starting point–they will point you in the right direction.
You can get emergency payments to cover rent, from your local council, if you are entitled. It is not simply Housing Benefit. This is a further award that might be given, if you are in dire straits.
There are support groups as well. These vary considerably depending on where you live, but they should be there. If not, come out as ‘poor’ and see if one can be started. I have had an overwhelming response. Not simply from people who are jobless and on JSA, but nurses, teachers, office staff, waiting staff–the list is as varied as any community ever is. I…we…are not alone, and we have nothing at all to be ashamed of. Poverty shaming only works if you allow it to work. Group together and stand tall.

Please please please feel free to contact me via my Facebook Page if you need a friendly ear, or are unsure of which way to turn, just email me or send me a FB Message. You are not alone. I have asked a friend and my husband to help admin the site. We are keeping on top of all messages and, where we can, we will point you in the right direction, if you need help. Even if you just need to offload and reach out to someone, that’s okay too. Please be aware that my page is all about full equality in all things. Please be respectful of everyone who likes it and pops by to visit. We’re a motley bunch of all things Rainbow. We don’t care how you identify, what your sexual preference is, or where you come from. You will be welcomed.

I would also like to say if you would like to donate and help food poverty, contact your local food banks or The Trussel Trust, who will be able to help you.

Please feel free to pick up one of my books (shameless plug, I know, but it is seriously the only job I have to be able to work my way out of the Grey Area). The series is called Searching For Eden, and there are currently two books available here (uk) and here (rest of world). The paperback of #1, Into The Woods, can be found here.

Thank you all again for all the support. I am humbled by you all.

The Upsetting Reality Of Modern Day Poverty.

This is a post about a subject very close to home. My home. It is about politicians who wouldn’t know poverty if it chewed on their overpaid arses.

It’s about, in part, Jamie Oliver.

Now, to put this out there, I love Jamie. For years and years, I idolised the man. He taught me to cook, when I could barely operate a Pot Noodle and we lived off Smash (dehydrated potatoes) and pasta (we even overcooked that). I would watch all his shows and learn, slowly, from the TV. In less than a year, I was able to cook a three course meal for 15 people. Gourmet became easy and I was soon laughing my way through 3 meat roasts and cooked-from-scratch curries. I owe my skill in the kitchen to Jamie. I have a lot to thank him for.

Jamie Oliver was good to watch, when I had money. Before I had six operations, culminating in a partial mastectomy of my right breast. He was great, before I had a heart attack–caused, in part, by the amount of strain the constant general anaesthetics put on the organ. Before I was diagnosed with Unstable Angina (that’s the bad sort, if you’re interested. It means there are days when rolling over in bed causes my heart to seize up and my oxygen levels to fall drastically–on these days, I can just about, with the constant administration of GTN spray, make it to the loo). Jamie was excellent, before I had to leave a well paid job and fall back on the State and Child Tax Credits, just to help me survive.

I lived comfortably and we wanted for pretty much nothing important. We were young, in our late twenties, with well paid good jobs and four beautiful, if a bit spoiled, children. Life was good.

Until it wasn’t good and all I could do was watch, helplessly, as it spiralled down the pan. I was laid out on the couch every day with a sick-bucket as my constant companion. They don’t tell you that part–heart failure makes you puke. A lot. I couldn’t walk to the shop, 100m from my front door. I had to stop and rest, sitting on my neighbours walls, every couple of feet. Work was an impossibility.

Enter the recession. Goodbye Hubby’s job…thank you and goodnight. We were now, without question, in the deepest shit it was possible to get into. Then our landlord sold the house from under us and we were homeless as well. Luckily, we found another house and my husband found another job pretty bloody quick. It’s important to feel as though you’re earning money and not sitting on your arse having it handed to you. Trust me, I know this from experience; it is a major reason I started writing ‘seriously’.

My Food Budget? About £45 a week. That’s for five days worth of packed lunches for four people, two lunches for five at the weekend, and seven evening meals. £45.00. I was over the moon, when I saw Jamie had a new show on 4oD (yes, I know it’s not *new*, but I don’t watch a lot of TV). Food on a budget, that sort of thing. “Hooray,” I thought, “he’ll show me how to feed us all on the money I have.”

Nope. Not a bit of it. You see, to Jamie Oliver, a £20 shoulder of lamb is ‘cheap’, because it can do two meals and it’s not the leg, so costs less per kilo. Two meals, Jamie? For twenty bloody quid, I want at least four meals. It’s a sad day when I get angry at Jamie Oliver for being a pretentious arrogant prick.

The reality of poverty is not what you might see on TV, with those delightful characters from Benefit Street (Channel 4). It isn’t all about people, cursing loudly in the street with a fag in hand and their pyjamas on, while they scream at little 2 year-old Albie to get ‘the fuck indoors, ya little shit, or I’ll faaahkin slap ya, innit!’ It’s not sitting around on a bench with a can of Special Brew, unwashed and stinking of urine, roll-up in filthy fingers. I don’t smoke. I can’t afford to smoke. I don’t know many people who can. I have bars of soap next to my sinks and I am able to use them to good effect. I am not dirty. I am relatively poor. There is a difference. It’s not even about food banks, because I don’t know what the hell you have to do to get referred to one, but it’s complicated, a long process. I have a fear the food banks might be linked to Social Services and I, like most of my peers, were raised to avoid them at all possible costs. (please see part 2 of this blog for details of how to find and get help from your local food bank if you need one. I know, now, that it is not complicated and does not involve social services.)

The reality of poverty is counting the 2p & 5p coins saved in a bottle, and sending a 10 year old to buy a packet of cheap pasta and a tin of tomatoes, because it’s sort of embarrassing to have to pay with coins and count them out while there is someone behind you with a £20 note. The reality is eating plain boiled rice and pretending to like it, so the kids don’t know there’s no other food except for what is on their plates. The reality is having an electric meter, running always on emergency credit, because you can’t afford to get out of the cycle you’re trapped in. It’s making the choice between putting the heating on for an hour, or going cold and being able to buy a pack of sausages and some potatoes.

The reality of relative poverty is going to the butcher and asking for a pound of mince to be separated into three bags for three meals. You’d be amazed what I can do with mince. The reality is going to the supermarkets just before they close, and buying all you can for a fraction of the cost, because it’s going out of date tomorrow. That’s okay–you’re eating it tomorrow. It’s value priced peanut butters and cheap cuts of fatty meat. It’s poor-quality chicken and eggs from barn hens. It’s learning to mend, reuse, recycle and go without. It’s washing your hair with washing-up liquid, because it’s all you have until Wednesday, when the Holy Grail of Child Tax Credit hits your account and there’s £50 for shopping.

The reality of poverty is the shame of always having to say, “Sorry, I can’t afford it.” It’s calling your mum, in tears, because there are bailiffs pounding on the door. It’s drinking so much water you feel ill, simply so your stomach isn’t painfully empty.

So, Jamie, forgive me for not watching your show. Forgive me for breaking up with you. You’re as clueless, you see, as those politicians you hound into raising the school meal standards. I can’t afford for my kids to eat school meals–not at £2 per child per day (that’s £20 I simply don’t have) and we can’t get them for free, because we’re not ‘on the dole’. I suggest, before churning out the tripe you film, you come and spend a day in my world. I’m so cold I can’t feel my fingers as I type this blog about poverty on a computer bought for me by a friend. I will let you sit next to me and we’ll laugh at how you can see your breath misting in the air above my charity-shop desk. I’ll show you which needle is used to stitch a hole in the toe of a canvas trainer. I’ll make you a coffee, but only if you don’t have sugar–that’s a luxury we only buy in if we’re going to make a cake. You can help me scrub some of the mould from the walls, before it takes over the house entirely.

We can do all of that. Then, maybe, you’ll realise what poverty is.

Read More here: The Upsetting Truth…Part Two! A follow-on from this article. Please read this BEFORE leaving comments on this page. Many thanks.

(A quick addendum: thank you all so much for the messages of support and the overwhelming goodwill. Answering messages, sending people to the correct links, where they can get help, is time consuming, so please be patient – I am only one person. Please get in touch via email, if you know of organisations that could be of help to others. I will be sure to pass all information along the line – and share it all on my Facebook page. If you are looking for help, advice or just someone to talk to, please contact me either through email or my Facebook page HERE. I am great at finding numbers and websites that might help.

If you would like to donate to any of the causes that have cropped up thanks to this article, please contact your local food bank, or the Trussel Trust, who will be happy for any donations you can give!

I am an author. I am Indie-Published and I sell my books through Amazon. I am very new at it all (in the scheme of things – only 7 months old) and I have no outside help or agents to publicise me, pay me, or do any of ‘that stuff’. I live in rented accommodation and I *do* receive a small amount from Child Tax Credits. My husband works. We are above the ‘cut off’ wage of £16,190 p.a and are not entitled to any more than we already claim. While I see the goodwill behind the thousands of comments telling me to claim free meals, Working Tax Credit etc. etc, we are not entitled to them. We live in the Grey Area of the benefit system and actually make less than those on benefits, after taxes (but the amount after taxes is not the amount used for calculations).

To do my ‘job’, which is writing, I need the computer to be able to both write and publish my work. My work supplements my husband’s wage. It is a necessity not a luxury. It is the tool of my trade. While it seems to make sense to say that my computer is a luxury, it was actually a very generous gift from a friend who was staying with us for a while, when he was made homeless after a bereavement. That I feel the need to justify having a computer is indicative of the ‘stigma and shame’ surrounding poverty. As though not having a TV, not having Internet, not having a computer, keeping the gas off, eating less…(the list here is endless) will somehow magically change the poverty-stricken situation into one of good times and plenty.)

My books can be found here if you are in the UK, and here if you are elsewhere in the world. Thank you.

As so many people have asked…here is the link to the paperback version.

kathleen kerridge

Tag: Surviving