Prue Leith; delicious
Prue has come through this week and described my book, EATING MY WORDS, as a foodie’s handbook. She said she enjoyed it more than Anthony Bourdain’s KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL, a comparison which delights me as I loved his white knuckle ride account of cheffing in New York’s restaurants.
I was ready for a bit of good news this week as I’ve been running around like a mad thing begging all and sundry for supplies for the food bank at Grassroots after stocks ran dry. I was so stressed out that I forgot to pick up my friend Louise’s child from school – yes, I left little Lucas at the school gates instead of delivering him to after school club as promised. The after school club called Louise to ask where Lucas was and you can imagine her visions of car accidents etc. I’ve been picking him up every Wednesday and Thursday for over a year now so I really have no excuse for forgetting him.
Then I managed to send Zoe to school without any money on her lunch card so she starved all day. How ironic is that when I’m supplying food to schools for breakfast clubs and packed lunch top-ups for the less fortunate children? My poor daughter is one of the less fortunate now due to a neglectful mother.
On Sunday I stood in the pulpit at St Mary’s church and read from The Road to Wigan Pier. I declared Orwell’s 1936 report on poverty in the North West my new bible. Poor Ged-the-husband was horrified and said that declaring the work of an atheist as a bible was really not the thing to do. But Orwell served to answer the people who think it’s okay us to ignore the starving children because the parents have a TV in the house. Orwell said;
Twenty million people are underfed but literally everyone in England has a radio. What we have lost in food we have gained in electricity. The development of cheap luxuries, fish and chips, the radio, the movies and the Football Pools – have been a very fortunate thing for our rulers. For they have averted revolution.
The congregation of St Thomas’s church gave very generously and have promised to continue bringing a tin or packet of cereal with them on a Sunday. Next came Morrison’s who let me put a trolley at the entrance to their Nelson store for a week. Even though it had to compete with the ‘Cat and Dog Food Donation Trolley’ it still did quite well.
Then Asda (namely the feisty Diane Sprinthorpe at Colne branch) came through with a donation of £160 and a trolley behind the tills. I’ve just been to check on it and it’s already half full after only one day.
I took a food parcel to a mum of three this week. She showed me a list of her income and budget and I was horrified to see she has only £31 per week left after bills. That has to pay for everything – food, washing powder, loo rolls, clothes. It costs her £23 in bus fares to get her kids to school and she’s considering home schooling for her eight year old so she can save half of that. But that would mean the child was at home all day in a freezing cold house. Her vacuum cleaner has broken and there is no way she can ever consider putting money aside to save for a repair or for a second hand one.
I’ll leave you with some dreadful pictures of me with my begging trolleys. And don’t forget –
Please click on the image of the schoolgirl on my homepage to sign the petition to ensure all children in poverty receive a free school meal. Thank you!
£160 from Asda to re stock the food bank and a begging trolley by the tills.
- A full trolley from Morrison’s. My bum is not that big, really.
