A Slice of Bread and Butter
The voice of The Bread and Butter Thing - with stories from the frontline of the cost of living crisis from one of the UK's leading food charities.
A Slice of Bread and Butter
Surviving on 70 Pence a Day: Deano's Story
This week we talk to Deano, a former pub manager whose life was unexpectedly turned upside down by the pandemic. At 66, Deano found himself unemployed after a lifetime of hard work in various roles. With no family and few friends to rely on, his journey of resilience is pretty humbling. Join Mark and Vic as they chat with him about learning to live on a shoestring, creative meal combinations and what Bread and Butter means to him.
Welcome back to A Slice of Bread and Butter with Vic and Mark from the Bread and Butter Thing. We're a charity that delivers affordable food into the heart of deprived neighbourhoods to help nourish communities and act as a catalyst for change.
Speaker 2:We provide access to a nutritious, affordable range of food, which means that our members can save money on their shopping, feed the families, as well as access other support too, right in the heart of their communities.
Speaker 1:And this is where we share a slice of life with somebody involved in the bread and butter and hear about how they connect with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this one is Dino, a top bloke who's clearly had a full-time working life and come to the end of his career. Well, have a listen and we'll come back, okay.
Speaker 3:My name's Dean Deakin.
Speaker 2:Or Dino.
Speaker 3:Or Dino. Yeah, I prefer to be nicknamed Dino. Everyone calls me Dino. I became unemployed the year before last in October. I used to run pubs and I had a pub in Ripon. Due to lockdown, it made it impossible, you know, being home, being there, it was just like, and the key's over and there was nothing in my pockets, nothing in the bank bank.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to ask you some cheeky questions. So how old are you now? 66, right? So what? 62 ish when you shut the pubs, or was it?
Speaker 3:yeah, about 2020, yeah had you always worked up until that point yeah, I mean even when I was managing pubs yeah um, because I used to do a lot of managements where I'd go in, build the trade back up the wet and dry. Once it got to a stable amount, they'd then start fielding it out for a tenant that lasted until 2012.
Speaker 2:So a bit of a troubleshooter then, yeah.
Speaker 3:I used to do with Bass, northwest years ago as a kid, but in between times, if there's no pub available immediately, you have to find work in between. One of them was driving a. Immediately you have to find work in between. One of them was driving a wagon.
Speaker 3:I used to deliver for curries. Yeah, I used to deliver install washing machines, tvs, and on top of that I used to work at the Crown Court on Mintrell Street. I used to be a clerk of the court there, so it was things that you took on. You had to because I couldn't afford to be unemployed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get it, but you were always busy right, yeah, always did something. This was a way of life. This wasn't just a job.
Speaker 3:Well, it was a way of life. Yeah, it's like any pub I've ever run. I never had that day off. I always worked. Every pub that's been mine or have managed it, it's seven days a week, even though I only got paid five days a week. It was silly, I wish, because I could do line cleaning at about six in the morning because a dray was coming that morning, so I'd be up early, give them a bacon butty, a cup of coffee, get everything put away, stop my bar ready for 12 o'clock opening and, like I said, even then I used to do my own pub until it got busier and then the staff would come on when it got busier.
Speaker 2:So how did you adjust? Very difficult, it's not. Do you have family friends?
Speaker 3:No, I have no family Friends very far and few between A lot of acquaintances. I was in a bad way, not Christmas, just gone to Christmas before, and I got a text from a friend how are you Not seeing you? He was friendly with my mum. He knew my mum because he used to come in my pub as well and I said, oh, I'm on my arse, not doing well, but I'm still breathing, not so bad, but I won't be out because I can't afford it. And he just turned around and said, right, no problem, watch your bank details. And and it's a £100 put in my bank. But I was godsmacked. I was in tears actually, because I've never had anyone give me anything like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's the same. As it was very difficult to go into Brendan Butty's not Brendan Butty's so much because I like for Sue, I wouldn't be here now. Sue's made me feel right at home and looked after me.
Speaker 2:Well, Sue has sat just like you have, and she's done her life story on here as well Good heavens People listening. There is a CDDDO podcast about Sue. Did you know that she was one of the first female farmers in the UK?
Speaker 3:No, she has spoke briefly that she used to farm and she would have a she was a chicken farmer. That's a dirty, stinking job.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's how I used to work as a kid. I used to work on a farm cutting pigs teeth and collecting eggs.
Speaker 2:That's how I know how she feels you've been there, done it all really jack of all, master and honours, but like you, say you were on your arse a couple of years ago at Christmas. You don't look like you're on your arse now. Do you know?
Speaker 3:doing a lot going to bread and butters because without getting the food and I'm not exaggerating when I say there was no food in the cupboard, in the fridge, sometimes no milk. So I've gone to something that I haven't done for years sterilised milk. Never had sterilised milk. I grew up on it. I used to be able to drink it, have it on my cereals and my tea and coffee, and now I can't stand it in tea and coffee. And now I can't stand it in tea and coffee.
Speaker 3:But, ben Butties, when they come in, because it was a variety of stuff that you got and I could make things. So if it was mincemeat, which we've had a few times, and maybe even a steak, and I've cut it up into cubes and made a pie or a stew, and if I make a stew, I've always made more than I need. So I just put it into the little cartons you get from Chinese chippy and freeze it off. So that'll do me maybe five cartons. So that'll do me another five meals, brilliant. So same with mincemeat. Do anything, make a curry or chicken. We've had quite a few times we've had chicken fillets from bread and butters and I've made a chicken curry.
Speaker 2:So I do ask a lot of people but what's the weirdest thing you've had from bread and butter? Weirdest?
Speaker 3:See anything that I don't like whatsoever. I'm not a big lover of veg unless I'm doing a stew or a curry. Yeah, then to lock and go and I don't go. I even diced my onions that fine, they disappear in the cooking, I think it was. Uh, I mean, I'm not. I'm not into anything. Fancy me, get avocados well, I would never clue what to do. Nice bit of guacamole, all that. No, I've never been one for fancy food. Nearest I get to fancy food would be going to french restaurants and order steak diana. Yeah, because it's done in a lovely white wine sauce, onions and mushrooms. But some of the stuff that we've had from there cartons of food that are sealed, obviously from Morrison's or wherever it's come from, anything that's got chorizo in shy, away from it. I've never liked chorizo and it could have just a hint of chorizo. I just wouldn't enjoy it. I don't mind even hot curry, because I know to break it down, make it mild, but that doesn't bother me. I like curry with mash, you know, I like a.
Speaker 3:Curry with mash did you say Chicken curry?
Speaker 2:Mashed potato.
Speaker 3:With mashed potato on the side Absolutely beautiful. That's a first for me.
Speaker 2:Dino Chicken curry with mash Like a Fin.
Speaker 3:Finny Haddock Finny Haddock With mashed potato and mushy peas.
Speaker 2:What's Finny?
Speaker 3:Haddock. It's smoky haddock, it's fresh haddock, it's been smoked. You can do artificial taste in it or you can have it properly smoked like Manx Kippers. They smoke it a similar way.
Speaker 2:Lots of people talk about why the benefits of bread and butter. What about you mentioned Sue? Do you tend to meet people there?
Speaker 3:I've got to know, obviously, a lot of the volunteers that work there. Apparently, two of them I must have known for 50 years. Wow, we've drank with the same people. We've gone in the nightclub with the same people that used to own it or manage it.
Speaker 2:So do you mind me asking? We do annual surveys right, and one of the questions that we always ask people is after your housing and your energy bills on a monthly basis, how much do you think you've got left for food and other essentials?
Speaker 3:um, I've just cut all my debts off. Now I'm going through step change to obviously to come up with some solution debt relief order. No, not quite right. I'm looking at that as a debt relief order, because that might not be possible, because whether you owe the money, to.
Speaker 2:They have to agree to that. Does that mean that this is debts because of when you became unemployed, or is it stuff that you had before then?
Speaker 3:Stuff I had before I became unemployed.
Speaker 2:You could obviously comfortably repay it then, but when you became unemployed you couldn't afford it. Yeah, being unemployed.
Speaker 3:there's no way. And at first I tried Peter, paul, Peter, but it was back and forth trying to pay everybody and I think in total it was about 20 grand credit card loans that I've had over the years.
Speaker 2:I would like to say I always had the money to pay it off every month and you just kept cycling around right from one credit card to the next sort of thing yeah, so pay that off.
Speaker 3:So when minimum amount came in, I had a booster set up on my direct debit so I used to pay a little bit extra, but as soon as that became, it was impossible.
Speaker 2:So you've got all that going on and step change, which I'm really glad you mentioned. The number of times I've heard step change you're doing the right thing is brilliant, so massive shout out to them. But what are you living on on a daily basis, sort of thing well, I paid everything off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um if um. Sometimes I don't have anything, sometimes I do, sometimes I have enough. I'll have 20 quid left a month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, about 70p a day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've never looked at it like that. But yeah, roughly Anything that I get now there's 20 pound in there and that's my electric and gas Right. So you know you want pay as you go. Yeah, Sometimes I had a friend who says he's been given energy voucher. Yeah, he said, give me a key card, I'll put it on yours, and I thought that was another. You know, I had to blow tap water to say no. Hence I've got that extra money.
Speaker 2:Just describe that hand movement that you just did.
Speaker 3:I just looked after him, paid him half the money. Yeah, he said, give me half what it's worth. So I did, I just looked after him, paid him half the money. Yeah, he said give me half what it's worth. So I did and I'm glad I did because, like I said, it helped me out, it helps him out.
Speaker 2:As an audio reference you go.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, sort of yes.
Speaker 2:So typically you've got about 20 quid a month to survive on.
Speaker 3:After paying everything out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes, not always, always on a good month you got 20 quid yeah and you're on your own. Yeah, and how long have you been on your own?
Speaker 3:uh, I've been here now six, nearly seven years, seven years september other than bread and butter?
Speaker 2:how do you get out and meet people? Do you know?
Speaker 3:I don't spread and butter. This is my only point of contact now. So just have a chin, wag a go there early, doesn't start till half one. I get there about eleven, quarter past eleven. I help out, set up anything that he's doing, break it boxes down, put them in big sacks, helping unload the van if they need me and, of course, cups of tea so I can go in and get a cup of tea first thing, quite past 11, as soon as that kettle's boiled and they say right, and they let me have a cup of tea and I was in the kitchen waiting for you yeah apart from bread and butter, do you go out at all?
Speaker 3:I have. I have bouts where I sit at home I mean before you came that chair. So you, by coming, you've made me do more than I would normally do. I just sit there and just take it off there. It's all clean laundry, and when I need some I just take it off there and when I'm finished with it I bring it and wash it. Same as here. I had all my paperwork here, so all that's gone. So you've had a tidy for me coming. Yeah, so you prompted me to do something. You do get in a rut sometimes, but then I'll have a blitz. It could be three in the morning and I can't sleep. I just get up cup of tea and I start doing things. My mental faculties or anything. Everything up there is fine. It's just down there a bit of legs that don't go on so well so have you ever had chicken curry with mashed potato?
Speaker 1:categorically not I? I've never known it as a thing no, I've heard of some crazy combinations like fish and parsley sauce with gravy. That's also slightly weird, and we were talking with the team this morning about the Wigan kebab.
Speaker 2:Well, what's not to like about a Wigan kebab?
Speaker 1:I've never tried one. Sounds carb-tastic.
Speaker 2:I feel like we should do that tomorrow. I feel like we should just get a load of born cakes and a load of pies in the office tomorrow and introduce everybody to a Wigan kebab. Okay yeah.
Speaker 1:He office tomorrow and introduce everybody to a wigim kebab. Okay, yeah, he was really creative with the food, though, wasn't he? He knew what he was doing with different things and yeah, and I loved the fact that veg was a no-go unless it was in the stew I know he's like one of your kids, right, he?
Speaker 2:just as long as it's chopped up and I can't recognize it, it's fine, yeah, totally but what a life. I mean, don't we see this time and again? And isn't this all about the working poor, right? So Dino has really, really worked hard up until COVID he was 62, had been self-employed, doing everything he could to make ends meet and then bang, it's gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was his whole life too. So he was saying you know, I get paid for five days, but I'm in there seven proper hospitality.
Speaker 2:That must have been a huge change for him, not only financially, but just like losing connections and things, and that loss of connections is really weird as well, because I stayed there and we had a proper chat and all the rest of it, so I I can throw more bits in as well. So there's two volunteers at the hub that he goes to, so it's all community, it's all where he's lived for ages, right, and there's two volunteers in there and he's known them for over 50 years.
Speaker 1:He said that Right.
Speaker 2:The freaky thing was that he's lived all over Manchester and he's lived in Preston and other places. He's come back full circle to his kind of family roots to retire and that was really sweet.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But then talking about sue the cddo, what a rock star. Yeah, she clearly looks after him, but he did say didn't know what he'd do without it. But she kind of met him and put her arm around him and took him in. Yeah, there's a lot of them about. There's a lot of lonely men about that. Just live on their own and don't do or see anyone totally.
Speaker 1:But that's great, isn't it? Because he's getting a double bubble from bread and butter. It's helping him financially. He gets the veg that he doesn't want to eat, that he eats anyway, yeah, and you know, and. But then also he's getting some more connection through the hub. And then the other thing he's got some great friends.
Speaker 2:He didn't think he got a lot of friends, but you don't need a lot when they're that good, exactly again he was saying these are ex-customers over the bar oh wow, yeah so this is a guy that used to come into his pub and he was saying, when he was on his arse he used to slip him a free meal every now and then and he's paid it forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:It's fantastic right yeah but could you live on 70 pence a day?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I mean bloody hell, yeah, 70 pence a day. So I'm going to put it in context, right. So about 10 years ago I don't think they do it anymore but there was a charity that looked at global hunger, right. That basically said can you live below the line? So once a year you do a week living at two quid a day for everything, for your food right and drink right, and I used to do it, recognizing global hunger and all the rest of it.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure I could have done 70 pence back then, so I dread to think what it feels like nowadays to try and do that.
Speaker 1:We should probably do that as I was just thinking that we need to do it anyway. We should do it, which is you and me? Yeah, we need to plan that we do need to plan it very carefully yeah, but but this is the other thing.
Speaker 2:Right, look at us planning it, thinking that's going to be really hard. Yeah, he's just got to do it, yeah but I think we need to do it right, okay, we will do it with some planning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but great that he's volunteering. You know the connections.
Speaker 2:He's coming because he's helping people yeah, and you know he doesn't think he's a volunteer right.
Speaker 1:I totally got that from how he? Well, I'll just come in and have a brew and I'll help with the cardboard a little bit and maybe some crates, and then I might unload the van. But yeah, that's brilliant because it's on his terms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but again you've got to find ways of getting out. He just goes out to bread and butter and that's like a couple of hours a week I know and that's it for him but you were on it. You got a tidy I did get a tidy, yeah, yeah, yeah luckily he's kind of found the help through step change yeah, we need to get a step change on the podcast because time and again, they keep coming up.
Speaker 2:They're clearly diamond geezers working a fantastic job in this sector, right, and they could give us some proper stats around just how bad it is because the number of debt relief orders they must be helping with must be through the roof yeah, but good he found the support, because lots of people don't yeah, people know how to find step change. Clearly our members do so. Whatever they're doing from a reaching out marketing perspective, they're doing it right, and we don't see that often, do we? Vic?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:People are normally coming to us and saying how do we engage with your members? Step change don't really work with us, and yet our members are getting to them, yeah, so yeah, we need to work out what their mojo is as well with the marketing.
Speaker 1:It's on my list.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Dino mentioned you know it's kind of hard, and then he thought about it, didn't he? It's like we're not a food bank and he's like, no, it wasn't that hard coming to you. I guess that's the thing that other people need to recognise as well, and I don't know how to get that across that it's a much more community and positive interaction with bread and butter.
Speaker 1:Totally, it's led by the community. The volunteers are shopping with us at the same time. Nobody's judging anybody, everybody's in the same boat, and you hear that quite a few times, that people are kind of like, well, I was a little bit worried and then, oh, I was so daft, I shouldn't have been, which is great to hear. But yeah, I mean, it's the pride, isn't it? Taking help from his friends, taking help from us?
Speaker 2:yeah, walking away from this podcast, you've got a job. Because I'm not telling jane that we're going to do the 70 pence a day, because she'll want to do it with me, okay, and then tanny has to do it yeah, it gets a bit hard, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, it gets a bit hard but it comes back to the um when we were saying before do we really understand what it's like for our members and the food insecurity piece and stuff?
Speaker 2:yeah, which is why I'm saying we should do it as a wider campaign, right? Because even if we don't do it as a sponsorship or anything, just get people to try it and then they'll understand just how difficult life can be.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Even with a job, even when you're working, even when you've put all of your working life into. Well, especially when you're working, especially because you're juggling all of that stuff, yeah, and hungry yeah, sounds like a plan cool so if you'd like to know more about the bread and butter thing and what we get up to, you can find us at team tbbt, on Instagram and Twitter, on LinkedIn or online at breadandbutterthingorg and I believe we're on TikTok somewhere- yeah, I've not found that yet.
Speaker 1:I'm a bit old and if you have any feedback or thoughts on the podcast, you can get in touch with us by email at podcast at breadandbutterthingorg.
Speaker 2:Lastly, we're always open to new members at all of our hubs, so if you or someone you know would benefit from an affordable food scheme like Bread Butter, you can find the nearest hub on the Become a Member page of the website.
Speaker 1:And please do all of those things that podcasts ask you to do. Like us, subscribe, leave a review, share us with your friends, chat about us on social and tell your mum.
Speaker 2:Tell your mum to tell her friends.
Speaker 1:Okay, then See you next time. See you next time, see you next time.
