Broke and disabled in Tory Britain: the reality of life on one meal a day
In his Buckinghamshire front room, Mike is working out how many meals he has to skip this week to make sure his wife can afford to eat.
Sandra, 38, has bipolar disorder, on top of multiple physical health problems, and has long been too sick to work. Mike – himself slowly recovering from agoraphobia – is needed at home as her full-time carer. A large turntable setup fills one side of the room. “I was a DJ in another life,” Mike, 40, explains wistfully.
Heavy steroids for severe asthma have damaged Sandra’s bones and she struggles to walk to the bottom of the garden, let alone do a nine to five. Like many disabled families in houses across Britain, the couple have no choice but to rely solely on benefits – or, to put it another way, the kind of income that leaves your kitchen cupboards empty.
The front room is filled with sci-fi film memorabilia, collected at a time when there was still a little money for hobbies; stormtroopers stand in a display case, topped with a lifesize metallic red helmet and large model spacecraft. But these days, Mike can’t escape more earthly concerns.
As well as caring for Sandra full-time, he helps her disabled son, Andy, in nearby supported living and has also started caring for Sandra’s nan, cooking her dinners, keeping her house clean and doing her shopping. “It feels like a lot of caring for £69 [carer’s allowance] a week,” he admits. To get through it all, and make everything add up, Mike typically has just one meal a day, “whatever is yellow-stickered at Morrisons”. Sandra’s pain and breathing would only worsen if she became malnourished, so he prioritises her meals. Some of the few meals they can count on come from a local food pantry – a charitable scheme that sells donated food close to
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