As more people wind up in dire need, they will realise that being on the breadline isn’t the result of their individual failings, says author Kerry Hudson
As more people wind up in dire need, they will realise that being on the breadline isn’t the result of their individual failings: dispatches from the frontline of Britain’s cost of living emergencyLast modified on Fri 17 Jun 2022 10.13 BSThree years ago, having passed the audition to play myself, I sat in a sweltering recording studio with a Very Nice Middle Class sound technician recording the audiobook for.
I am used to this question: “What can I do?” I have been asked it hundreds of times by overwhelmed, decent-hearted people who have done their food bank drop-offs, circulated petitions, donated what they can, and still feel helpless. And, along with my stock response – that a society needs affordable housing, functional social security, state education and medical care – I felt that I gave him as good an answer as I could. Because in that moment I was shuttled back to another sweltering recording studio, 10 years earlier. Visiting a national radio station as part of my job with a charity, a quite-famous-at-the-time breakfast presenter told me a particular X Factor contestant was actually “a nasty little chav”.
Of course, the pandemic and current cost of living crisis means that in recent years those who have never been touched by hardship have suddenly found themselves squeezed financially. And, no, perhaps they have not been in the grip of the sort of poverty I found myself in as a child, and millions of people find themselves in today – when there was not enough food, the electric was off for two days, or we were sleeping in coach stations.