People shouldn't have to beg for food: My Wigan Pier Story
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Vi Wood, 56, is a carer and charity worker from Stourbridge. Originally from Germany, she set up support group, Leslie’s Care Packages, two years ago, in memory of her late husband, to help poor families in the town. As she tells Claire Donnelly, demand for help is growing.
I help people in pain as a way of dealing with my own pain - and it seems that there are more people than ever needing help.
I started volunteering in August 2016, after losing my husband, Leslie, in the April.
I had been living in the UK since 1977 but when he passed I went through five months of hell.
(Image: Daily Mirror)
The authorities said I might have to leave, to lose my home. I had to show my working status but I’d been caring for Leslie for the last ten years.
I was terrified I’d lose everything. I was grieving and trying to deal with all this. Even though we were married and I’d been here so long it looked like I might have to leave the country.
Eventually I was able to show that I had been working before - as a cleaner for a dentist - and I found a new job as a part-time carer.
I’ve been trying to find more work - maybe retail or cleaning - but the jobs just aren’t there.
I knew there were other people who were in pain - people who were homeless or living in poverty - so I set up Leslie’s Care Packages to help them.
I’d collect food and toiletries and take them to where people were rough sleeping.
Bit by bit I got to know other people, the hidden homeless, people living in bad, emergency accommodation, people being given flats but nothing to furnish them, people working but not having enough wages to pay their bills.
Poverty doesn’t just affect people in the big cities, it’s everywhere. And it’s getting worse. It feels like things are going backwards.
People are trying their best but whatever they do, some families just don’t have enough.
So I know families where the only meals their children eat are their free school meals or where a change to Universal Credit means they have no money coming in for seven weeks.
People shouldn’t have to beg for food but they do.
Recently I visited two pregnant women who had nothing - I was able to give them some nappies and a Moses basket to get them started.
A lot of working people can pay the bills but not have anything left for food. They don’t necessarily meet the criteria for a food bank voucher either so they fall between the cracks.
I’ll take them a food parcel to keep them going.
It’s disgusting that this is happening in a civilised society. All we can do is try and help.
Maybe we need another Robin Hood.
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We are retracing the journey George Orwell made in his book, The Road to Wigan Pier, throughout 2018 to tell modern stories of working and unemployed poverty.
They'll appear in a regular series in the Daily Mirror newspaper and here, on our special anniversary website.