Peas and Pay Packets Living with Poverty

a pea factory in my hometown of Hull. I was a cassie, a casual

worker taken on for the summer season. They were hard but good

times. I made my first film there. Now I'm going back to Hull to see if

I can find the other cassies - to see what is happening in their world

You've got a bigger microphone than me! Phil is an unemployed friend of

mine, who has always dreamed of making films. He's looking for a

Waddsworth. I just wondered. If Antonello knew the number he lives

weeks each summer working twelve hours a night, seven nights a week.

I've just come to hull because I'm doing some sort of filming thing.

Tracking down the old pea factory workers isn't so easy, so I head

over to a street where I know one of them lives. It's just one of those

working to his phone. I wonder if you know the number of his address

old pea factory workers. I base myself at my parents house. They've

lived in Hull all their lives in the home where I grew up. I manage to

make contact with the old supervisor, but he's now a hospital

porter and not interested in being filmed. Then I discover another

worker, but he's now living in Sydney. Finally my mother suggests I

go over the road to Kieran, an old school friend, who I've not seen in

years. This is so bizarre. The last time I was here was like I was a

in. You been asleep?Yes, just dozed off. 23 years ago I made a film in

the pea factory. 23 years?How many years did you do the pea factory?

Seven or eight. Did you? '84 to '91? How many seasons did we do together?

You did more than me. No, did we work together in the factory on the

same shift? Oh, yes.Did we? Yes, but you were in the office and I was

in QC at the end. Oh, right, right, right. That was good days, wasn't

it? Patrick was supervising. Yes, then he slipped on the peas. Oh,

broke his arm. Kieran had gone of to university, but would return to the

pea factory each summer to pay off his debts. Today he works as an

over-qualified care assistant. at the end of the day it was like

camaraderie weren't it, you know what I mean? There was Damien and

Frank and Patrick and yourself and Steve and all that point You knew

people, didn't you? It was good times really. Lots of respect,

wasn't it? It was the best of working times. I use to look forward

to it. Yes, it was a bit tiring, but you got to know people. It was eight

weeks a year. Yes, it was all go, weren't it? Never any chance to

spend any money! Well, no, but it the production line use to break

down you use to go out and have a drink, didn't we? We'd go out and

Steve Waddie in his local pub which had only just reopened. In the old

days there use to be a hole here, where you could be served beer when

you were 17 or 16. Steve's been in and out of factory work all his

life, and is currently looking for his next cassie job. Do you remember

throwing peas at my camera? No.In the film? No? There's a pea fight

and you started it! Don't remember that point. I remember Kieran

filling his mouth with peas, and going like that point The landlady

of the pub had recently taken over the business on a salary-only deal.

The pub had been closed for months, and even she was struggling to make

ends meet. I worked here 20 years ago? Here? Not here, but in Hull

with him in a factory, and I've come back to make a little film about

what work is like 20 years on, to see how much things have changed. Do

you think you're better off now working than you were 20 years ago?

I'm actually a senior support worker for people with special needs.

you? We lived in Gibraltar, then we moved to Spain, then we came back,

because I'm from Doncaster, a Donnie lass, and we came back and someone

said do you fancy taking over this bar in Hull? And Steve, he's a

publican. He's got a licence and I went "Yes, I think I'll have a go at

it!" Any deposable income for holidays or for special things, or

is it just working to live? Yep, basically yep. I meet a van driver

at the bar whose new contract means that he's on flat rate for all the

hours he works. It seems the bonus of time and half and double time pay

at weekends has now gone. But it doesn't pay to work at the minute?

No, it don't pay me to work, no, but I've worked all my life, and I like

to work. Do you think wages are too low or that benefits are too high?

Good question. I haven't been on benefits for a long time, so I don't

know how it works now. But my wage for what I do, getting up at half

past two in the morning, is rubbish, really. How do you meet your bills

and outgoings? I don't. I'm in debt. It's only because I've got a good

family, mum and dad what help me out. My mother worked 60 hours a

week as a nurse at a hospital. Yet we still couldn't afford to have

food in all the time. She's still working at 70, my mum. Frustrated at

not being able to meet any more factory workers, I head over to meet

Ron. He's an old tutor of mine who had a big influence on me when I

went back to college to study. You're in a city that's a special

case, because it's an isolated city. Do you call that geographical

poverty? Well, in a Sense it is.Ron always enjoyed a political

discussion. It was good to see he hadn't changed. My parents were

working poor. As far as my father was concerned, he was never better

off when he retired. He never had continuity before then. And that is

what makes the working poor, poor - lack of continuity. But you have a

situation where you're hiccupping from one job to the next - agency

work, short term contract work, then you are always trying to catch up.

can't find many ex pea workers, but I'm hearing a lot about modern day

cassies, and what the papers are calling 'the working poor' - people

struggling to make ends meet despite having a job, I want to find more

people and decide to make an appeal. A bit of T-Rex and 20th Century Boy.

We'd love to hear from you. We're talking about jobs this morning.

We're going to meet a Hull born filmmaker. Sean, nice to see you,

what are you up to? Well, I came back to Hull with a brief from the

BBC to dig out some former pea pushers. I use to work in a pea

factory, and what it's actually developed into, because I can't

really find any other pea pushers - there is a new breed of working poor

- people in those jobs that are basically doing those day-to-day

jobs and still living on the bread line. So have you found all the

people you need now? No, if there are people out there doing

interesting jobs, that feel that they are working full time and not

making ends meet, I'd like to speak responds to my radio appeal. Another

friend puts me in touch with a worker at a local factory, but just

as I'm about to meet him he pulls out of filming. Finally, I meet

Rachel who is more then happy to be filmed. I've bought a film crew with

me! She'd ran two successful cafes in a nearby seaside town, but they'd

gone under, as did her marriage in here to open a cafe, or did you just

do it? No, I just did it. Mum's personality is to be sociable, to be

happy and welcoming, and obviously if you're going to go to a cafe

that's what you want. I think the cafe was both my biggest success and

my biggest failure to be honest. do you punish yourself? Because it

was me that started it, I couldn't have met that bill, you know what I

mean? She was asking me to pay out really double in rent that I were

paying out in the beginning. With the work that you are doing now, are

you making enough money to have a decent life with the family and have

holidays? Don't have the money to go on holiday. I wouldn't mind going

away for the weekend! But you are working full time every week?

think you need two full time wages coming in to a house before you can

contemplate going on holiday. There are benefits, but for my own sanity

seven to go to her job at a call centre. It's a journey that takes

two hours of her day and one she can hardly afford to make. I decide to

meet Steve and Kieran on the pier for a catch up and leave the pub out

remember any of them at all. What were you on when you were taking

these? What was I on? Night shift! That's the thing you say in the film

university, Kieran didn't think that it had got him a better job. For

Steve that didn't matter, it was all about gaining more knowledge.

you feel a bit annoyed what he told you. Who told you? From the

education system! You had to get a good job and a degree and you're all

right and it's not the case, is it? It's not! What are you laughing at?

He's so negative about it. No I'm realistic. Don't say negative, I'm

realistic. Are you positive? I think so, yes. You're deluded!I'm

deluded! Yer, the best of us are deluded, old chap. But dude, I know

what you're saying about expectations. You're going through a

certain framework - going to university and doing your social

stuff. It's knowledge. Yes, it is knowledge. He's talking about wonga

- making some money and having a career, not just knowledge.

sociology was good because that does give you knowledge, yer, but didn't

help you. It lets you know about the reality of life. Sociology does.

University is great for that point Everyone should go. That's what I

say. But now they can't afford to go can they. It's �9,000 a year.

I'm �21,000 in debt! On the other side of the city I came across a

very unusual sight, a strike at the local cake factory. The company says

it wants to talk to the staff and settle the dispute, but the workers

have had enough. Like the driver I met in the pub they've had their

terms and conditions changed. What's your terms and conditions worth to

you in your pay packet? For me personally, the main thing I've lost

is my overtime. For these guys here, they've all lost their shift bonus,

which is?about �35 a week taken off their wages. Plus bank holidays,

overtime rates, premium rates. double-time and time-and-half all of

that's gone? Yes. If we were to do 60 hours a week, every one of those

hours would be flat rate. It costs me �150 to go home. I can't afford

that point Sadly Phil's microphone couldn't compete with the winter

wind, but this Scottish worker was telling me that he couldn't afford

to go home to visit his family, and he hadn't had a holiday in years.

The dispute was eventually settled with a wage increase and a return to

overtime pay. But during my time in Hull, I'd heard that people were

struggling. I wanted to hear from someone who had a Sense of what's

going on, someone who meets people who are finding it difficult to

cope. Just the fact that you're working doesn't bring the things

that perhaps people think it should. Then we have things like gas and

electricity and food prices all going through the roof, and when you

combine all those things, you've got a disaster waiting to happen.

you see real despair? I'm afraid so, yes. When someone is sat in front of

you, and we can't simply make a plan to pay their very basics in life,

what are we suppose to do? People are really struggling, and

I'm afraid to say that over the last year or so I've seen people coming

in here for food parcels who are working. But the food banks are a

new thing? Fairly new, I mean there's always been organisations

who have done food parcels. The one that springs to mind is the

Salvation Army. But that's usually for homeless people, not for working

people? Well, it's considered for homeless people isn't it, you know.

That's what people think, but increasingly it's working people who

are needing food parcels to make ends meet.

I wanted to know more about who was using the food banks in Hull. I

discovered a charity called Real Aid whose work was originally to help

the poor in Africa, but after the floods in 2007, they saw such a dire

need in the city they redirected their efforts to Hull. They source

high quality food that they save from going to the landfill, products

that have just passed their sell-by-date or disfigured fruit.

It's all bagged up by volunteers and sent to community centres around the

city. The fresh food would have otherwise been mashed into animal

feed, some of it having been flown half way across the world to get

here. You said that 40 tonnes of food goes to landfill every week?

Yes! We did have one pallet of tomatoes that came in. The top

punnet had a mouldy tomato in it, so the whole pallet was rejected. I

think there were 1500 punnets of tomatoes. So we took that punnet

away and checked the rest as they were put on the van for delivery.

That was the only mouldy punnet. you doing this every day? It's

rather shocking for us to come here and see all this food! Yes.I don't

think a lot of people realise... they don't. There is absolutely

nothing wrong with it. Perfectly good tomatoes. There is nothing

wrong with those. It varies every week. This week it was just

tomatoes. Other weeks it might be pears or apples. It could be a right

mix. Nectarines. Grapes. Apricots. We get all sorts. I couldn't help

thinking of the people I'd met, like Steve, who'd benefited from this

food parcel service. How I see it is that we're just

saving this from landfill, and it's meeting a need. There is a

tremendous need for it in the community. In every community, not

just here. It has become a little industry. Well, it has. People are

depending on it now, which is a terrible state of affairs, really.

You won't need ladders to paint your ceiling.

I join Steve round at Kieran's for a few beers the following night and

the conversation turns to the rapid growth of food banks in Europe.

I watched a programme about the Spanish. There are a million people

in Spain now who go to food banks on a weekly basis. A million?Yes!

Because the recession hit really bad. A lady said for two years you

are allowed to claim, then it stops. So she said the position her and her

mother were in, she had a choice - she could either pay for food and

not pay the bills, which means she'll get into trouble, or she can

pay the bills and go to the food bank. She said she was embarrassed

when she first went, but the people were nice, so she's no longer

embarrassed about going. Are you embarrassed about going tomorrow?

No, I'm not. I don't want to sleep on the street, but I'd get into the

hostels, if it came to that. Do you think it could come to that?

Currently, at the minute, yes! What's going on here then?

The next day I join Real Aid At the North Hull Community Centre a

team of volunteers are on hand to people volunteering. Steve comes

along to get a bag to see him over the Christmas period.

Marvellous! Are you getting a bag, Phil? No? The staff tell me that

they are seeing more and more working poor using the food parcel

service. At the moment, even down my street,

people are saying, "Do we get vouchers for our gas and electric or

do we buy food?" The community centre offers cookery

courses to help with often exotic food that comes each week. Steve

gets ideas about his own community centre in the Spring Bank area.

Why do you think the Spring Bank community aren't doing it? I don't

know. Do you think they don't know about it? Maybe they don't know

about it. Do you think there is the need for it on Spring Bank? Yes.

Definitely. People are hungry?Yes. After dividing the food into

separate parcels, the doors open and locals arrive. Anyone can come for

the food, a nominal charge is made to cover the transport.

�1.50. Only �1.50?Yes, I'll get you some change. That's a bit of a

bargain, isn't it? Yes, it's the first time I've been told about it.

Did someone mention it? Yes, my daughter-in-law. Because they're on

the dole, she said why don't you go. She said even pensioners go. It does

help. Food going up every week. The cost of living has gone up. Are your

bills going high? My gas bill is. Have you noticed a big difference?

With my gas, yes, an awful lot. I used to pay in �10 a week, now I'm

putting in double that. It now costs me �22 a week. That's not bad for

�1.50? No, I'm getting it for my mum and dad. Well, I don't want them

coming out in this weather and getting cold. Is that three or two?

Two. Look at that! With them being not very well, I said, "I'll get

yours and save you coming out." That's better than the buy one, get

one free deals. It is. Well, thanks ever so much! So do you find it

helps? Just recently my brother moved from Ipswich with his

girlfriend and four kids, so it's helped us a lot more.

Have you found it inspirational? Yes, it's great, absolutely. You

know all over the world people live on dumps. You know the one in Russia

and another in India... Is that what we're doing here?

It was impressive to see the food parcel service in full swing, but

equally sad that a rich country like Britain, in the 21st century, should

need food handouts to feed its people.

We used to do broad beans after the peas. Yes, I'll eat all this. That's

sorted my Christmas out. It helps everyone.

Steve takes his food parcel to his local community centre. It says no

food to be brought onto the Inside he meets the centre manager

and discusses the idea of finding himself a new job, distributing the

food parcel service to the Spring Bank community.

You'd buy this if it was here, wouldn't you? Oh yes, definitely!

For �1.50? I'd buy it for a fiver, easily.

How can you plan the life that you imagine you're going to have, if you

have short-term contracts, if you have this agency work, if you have

this hiccupping from one unemployed situation to the next? You can't

establish yourself in what really makes people prosperous in our

society - bricks and mortar. You can't buy yourself a house. You are

forever in subsidised or rented accommodation.

There's no way you could've saved it? When the banks failed to step in

and help Rachel, she lost her dream home.

No, I couldn't afford it. I asked the mortgage company to help, but

they wanted �500 or �600 a month, and I wasn't working at time. Any

savings I did have went on that, which was a waste of money really,

because I ended up with nothing. I ended up in debt because when they

sold the house it went for �75,000. And what did you owe on it? �99,000.

But they didn't care about that? because I'll be responsible for

debt, won't I? How can you get out of that debt? What can you do?

clue. Pay it back at �1 a week? Well, I will have to pay it back,

but at the moment it's probably what they will get, a �1 a week. How long

had you lived there? Seven years. Could you see the house slipping

away? Yes, I knew it would go.What do you do when that sort of thing

happens? You just have to do it. I had to stay strong for the girls.

You didn't hit the bottle or anything? No, thankfully. I could

have done. You can see why people break and kill themselves. Yes, you

go through all sorts of emotions, because there was never a point. I

was going to work and I still couldn't keep the roof over my kids

heads. Before I left, Rachel wanted to show

me the cafe that she still dreams of running again.

See if Lorna will talk to me? let's get Lorna in. Hello, I'm only

showing them where I use to have the cafe. All right. Are you all right?

They are doing a television documentary. Are you in it? So are

you! Do you spend a lot of time thinking

about the cafe, or have you forgotten about it? No, I'll never

forget about it. It will always stay a dream, because I don't think I

will never have the money to do it again, not unless someone gives me a

lucky lotto ticket. If I ever for the chance of another cafe, everyone

around me would say it would fail, but I would still do it. I would

still take that chance. But now I think it's something I've done and I

will always talk about it. I was impressed by the drive and

determination of the people I met like Rachel but couldn't help

thinking of the countless others like her working but struggling to

make ends meet. It was difficult to imagine the full scale of the crisis

across Britain today. I arranged for a goodbye pint at Steve's local but

by the time we arrived we realised the economic downturn had beaten us

to it and the pub was closed again. I get a call from Rachel to say that

she has moved on from her job at the call centre and found herself a new

job as a care assistant paying an extra 50p an hour. She said the �20

extra in her pay packet will come in handy. It was great to see the