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
Working full time, still struggling: What happens when wages don't stretch
From hospital wards to hub volunteering, Sarah bulldozes her way through life with tonnes of energy, honesty and humour. Despite working 12-hour shifts as a healthcare assistant, she makes time every Saturday to volunteer at our Neon hub in Oldham. Join Mark and Alex as they chat about the reality of working full-time yet still struggling, challenge assumptions about who needs food support and Pickles the wolf-whistling parrot.
Welcome back to a slice of bread and butter with Mark and Alex from the bread and butter thing.
Speaker 2:We're a charity that delivers affordable food to the heart of deprived neighborhoods to help nourish communities and act as a catalyst for change we provide access to nutritious, affordable range of food, which means our members can save money on their shopping, feed their families healthily, 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 of somebody involved in Brennan Butter and hear about how they connect with us. Who is it this week? Dare I say Gobby Sarah?
Speaker 2:Yep, I think she'd be quite proud that you'd refer to her. After having a little listen to the podcast, I'm Sarah.
Speaker 3:I work as an HCA at Ryle Odom Hospital, a healthcare assistant. I was a porter before that. Before that I was in construction. Yeah, I'm not a girly girl.
Speaker 1:No, no, but you've worked all your life.
Speaker 3:Yes, since I was 15. Okay, first job, a fruit and veg fan, 15 year old, oh you know our game then?
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, I do. I joined here fruit and veg fan, 15 year old. Well, you know our game then?
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, I do. I joined here about four years ago at Neon.
Speaker 1:You started as a member, a customer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did so. We call our customers members, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:This is the interesting thing for me. So you're working, so why do you need bread and butter?
Speaker 3:I particularly need it for the simple factors because of the wages you don't get enough money. Basically, how can I say not everybody is well off?
Speaker 1:it's not stretching far enough. No, it's not. So before bread and butter, then could you find fruit and veg and stuff that was affordable. How did you find it?
Speaker 3:I was actually off for 12 months. I'd had a false knee so I was like scrimping and scraping, trying to survive.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:And then I got First Choice Homes involved and First Choice Homes directed me straight to bread and butter and then it was £7.50. Came, it was absolutely brilliant. The food was absolutely amazing, the meat and everything. Fruit and veg which I do have parrots goes to my birds, so I don't have to buy fruit and veg anymore because it's always there for them.
Speaker 1:yeah, Sarah, you're supposed to eat fruit and veg yourself.
Speaker 3:I know, but I don't, I really don't.
Speaker 1:OK, so what's your diet like?
Speaker 3:Meat, meat, ok, meat. I don't have takeaways. I don't believe in takeaways. I will not pay for a takeaway. I refuse to pay for a takeaway if you can't afford it in your own fridge. That's the way I look at it. I do eat fruit and veg. I can only eat bananas because I've got dentures, so that doesn't help. Can't eat apples I have to have a soft pair.
Speaker 1:So first choice homes put you in touch with us because you'd had 12 months off yeah budget's tight. You've had a knee replacement and then you're back in work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I just I liked coming here, yeah, meeting the different people. I'm a people person so I really did like coming here. I met the volunteers. They're a really, really good bunch.
Speaker 1:And you volunteer now.
Speaker 3:And then I volunteered, yeah, which was four years ago.
Speaker 1:So have you found friends here.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, every one of them's my friend, nice. We have a lot of jokes in here, we have a lot of laughs. We're good people, we get on, we all get on. We always give out extras. If there's extras, we do sort people out. We do give extras out to people and that's only if the driver says we can keep it and we can give it out. So we do, we do good, we are a good team here. I do like everyone in here, but, like you say, I am the gobby one and I will say my piece.
Speaker 1:Just for the record, you told me you were the gobby one.
Speaker 3:I am yes and I will say it to everyone, Even at the hospital. I will say I'm the gobby one.
Speaker 1:Well, let's go back to hospital and care work and things. So are you full time? I am. I work 37 and a half hours. I'm always amazed by people like you 12 hours a day.
Speaker 3:I work.
Speaker 1:Because you do this work and it's knacker in work right, it is yeah. And then you come and volunteer. Yeah, where do you find the energy?
Speaker 3:I'm full of energy, it's like I will go to work. I do my 12 hour shift. If I'm not sleeping at night at 2 o'clock in the morning, I will get up and I will tidy my house and then I'll go to work and people go. How do you manage to stay awake that long?
Speaker 1:So you told me before that we're not at your house and we're recording this at the neon hub.
Speaker 3:Only because my parrot swear Believe me, he'd be swearing all day to you. Did you teach him that? No, he actually came like that. I got him off.
Speaker 1:Because they're normally cheaper right, If they swear?
Speaker 3:I don't know. I've had him 18 years. He's a cockatoo, but yeah, pickles is naughty. He came to me as a swearer. I'm not going to say his favourite word on podcast, but yeah, yeah, and if he gets in a bad mood he will go full blow. I can't have my windows open because he wolf whistles and people shout pervert and I'm like sorry, it's the bird. Yeah, right, whatever.
Speaker 1:I'm like yeah, it's the bird so is that your family, or do you have family as well?
Speaker 3:that is that is my family I've got. I've got family. I've got a brother. I've got a disabled brother. He had a motorbike accident 20 years ago. He's still got his arm, but he's got no use of it. My other brother we don't really talk about him. He's a drug addict. I don't really associate with him. But yeah, that's basically my family. I don't have a mum and dad. They passed away. Oh, my dad's been dead about 20 years. My mum's been dead about 13. She died at 62 of an heart attack.
Speaker 1:So you're on your own. Yeah, I live on my own. Yeah, with your parrots, oh, with my birds and my cats Cats and birds yes, cats and birds.
Speaker 3:I didn't think they mixed. Now everyone says that I've got a cat called rogue. She grew up with the bird. She used to climb in his cage. He used to go down to the bottom and cuddle her. Honestly, they really, really get on. I love my cats and I love my birds and that's my life about my birds.
Speaker 1:You're working full-time, you're volunteering here. How do you find your budget?
Speaker 3:Budget's OK. I know it pays more to be an HCA than what it does to be a porter, because I do a month for days and then I do a month for nights. But yeah, I won't give this job up for anybody the volunteering. I will do this for the rest of my life if it runs I will.
Speaker 1:I love it, absolutely love this job we ask everybody about two things what do you say is nowadays a luxury that used to be an everyday thing? Meat is a luxury.
Speaker 3:Wow, meat is a really luxury. If we get meat on the van, it's where everybody I mean, I didn't even have to finish that question.
Speaker 1:it's just like, like meat. I can't afford meat, yeah meat.
Speaker 3:Everyone wants meat to either make a meal or put towards a meal.
Speaker 1:So the other thing we asked Sarah as well is what's the weirdest thing you've had in the bags?
Speaker 3:Right, you're not going to believe this, but pig's feet, they're absolutely disgusting. The first time I ever saw them I nearly spewed up. I was like, is that for real? Everyone's getting pig feet. I went don't put that in my bag. I went, in fact, put it in my bag. I said because I'll give it to the dog over at Bikeyard.
Speaker 1:And I did. And is that because they look like pig's feet? Yeah, you can literally see the pig's feet. So you're one of them that's happy to eat a lot of meat, as long as it doesn't look like an animal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's true, yeah, that's me.
Speaker 1:That's me getting in my soapbox as a veggie, you see.
Speaker 3:Ah, you're a veggie. Yeah, ah, no.
Speaker 1:So pig's trotters is your weird one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the good one was I think it was about two years ago you put like some white boxes on the van and I looked into it and everyone was so happy. They got a joint of beef and I cut mine up into three so I knew I could make three different Sunday dinners or three different meals. The only thing I don't like is your saurine and scotch eggs. Please stop putting them on your van.
Speaker 1:It's a good Manchester brand, saurine.
Speaker 3:Do you know I take it into work? I Please stop putting them on your van. It's a good Manchester brand soaring. Do you know I take it into work? I actually take all the soaring into work because people do like it. And as for scotch eggs, they go to my brother.
Speaker 1:I was going to say because even in your complaints area you're demonstrating. You're doing exactly the right thing, because you share the food, you don't put it in the bin, which is beautiful.
Speaker 3:No, it's like if I've got a chest freezer and a freezer at home and I've always got food in there and a neighbour at the back of us struggles, she won't ask. I do share it. It's like some fruit and vegetables. I pick up my brother's and my friend's stuff as well, and then also his dad jumps in. I could do with some of that. So basically, I'm hardly getting anything out of my bag now, but I don't mind because I'm sharing. I like sharing my stuff with people. It is a kind ish.
Speaker 2:I'm gutted, I have to say I'm quite gutted. I have to say I'm quite gutted that there were no parrots in the background Sweary pervy parrots as well. Pickle sounds like quite something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe we can get her to send us a voice note or something.
Speaker 2:Of pickles in action. Of pickles in action. Of Pickles in action Wolf whistling.
Speaker 1:But it's not going to hit the edit though, is it? Otherwise, we're going to get X-rated on Spotify, or something.
Speaker 2:Maybe Pickles needs his own podcast.
Speaker 1:I bet he's got his own Instagram feed.
Speaker 2:I reckon I'm going to go searching after this.
Speaker 1:I don't know where to start, because Sarah's yet another person that is struggling to get by, that's in full-time work and doing amazing stuff 12-hour shifts and not much sleep and volunteering.
Speaker 2:What a ledge. She's an absolute legend, isn't she?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so moved on from being a porter to become a full-time healthcare assistant. I don't know how she does it. I genuinely don't know how she gets up on a Saturday and does like a full day's work, volunteering with us as well.
Speaker 2:I'd be grumpy and I can't imagine Sarah on a grumpy day. She's so full of beans, isn't she?
Speaker 1:She is, but do you think there's something about carers? I know this sounds weird, right, but carers seem to just not be able to switch it off.
Speaker 2:They able to switch it off. They're cut from a very special cloth, aren't they?
Speaker 1:they are, they are, they really are and we don't recognize it and I don't know. You know, lots of government and everyone else say they're underpaid and all that, but they're just amazing people if you were miserable in a hospital bed.
Speaker 2:I think sarah would brighten up the ward as she bulldozed in.
Speaker 1:That's a really good way of describing her. Yeah, bulldozing that positivity in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I will make you laugh, whether you like it or not, she's at Neon, another one of our Oldham hubs.
Speaker 1:It's run in conjunction with First Choice Homes. They funded it Again. Second mention of First Choice they seem to be one of the better social landlords that are out there at the moment.
Speaker 2:They seem to be really on it. Quick referrals, looking after their residents, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they still turn up and they still help at bread and butter events in the Oldham hubs. So you know, hats off to them, because we don't hear much of that with the others.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely not. A sort of faceless housing association and people speaking highly of them. And that says a lot, doesn't it, when the residents speak highly of them.
Speaker 1:I think it does, because our typical experience is members don't because they're struggling to pay them, so they try to avoid their landlord. That really does give them kudos if they're out there in their own community. And their tenants are prepared to talk to them.
Speaker 2:That's a really good acid test yeah, and community, the old friend of a theme, community, that came through isn't it?
Speaker 1:everything we do? Community, the community volunteers. Everything is about bringing the community together and it's almost like that attracts people in like sarah as well, because she likes it for the community.
Speaker 2:And if she's solo as well, living with just her cats and her birds, she's got a disabled brother and a drug addict brother. She sounds like the absolute opposite end of a drug addict brother.
Speaker 1:She wouldn't go amiss in a Tweety Pie cartoon, would she? With the birds and the cat and behind her back? The cat and the bird actually hate each other.
Speaker 2:It's a Hanna-Barbara moment, isn't?
Speaker 1:it yeah, but the power of pets.
Speaker 2:Power of pets. Well, we see that a lot as well, don't we Just having that companionship constantly?
Speaker 1:You're never alone when there's an animal in the room so are you gonna admit to what you just told me about pets?
Speaker 2:yeah, I did every. I said everybody should have a pet. I don't, but I have two kids and they are my equivalent. That's all I can cope with at the moment. So then, that team that she talks so fondly about, they've become her family, and she's got friendships from there, and you can imagine, though, wherever Sarah goes, she pulls in people around her. I bet they gravitate towards her, and I bet there's always laughs. I might swing by Neon. It sounds like a whole bunch of fun.
Speaker 1:It is. I was possibly embarrassed because when I turned up there it had been four or five years since I'd been there. I remembered everybody. They remembered me, but they remembered exactly how long it had been since I'd been there and I felt so, I felt so bad yeah so I will go back and be more of a frequent flyer there I'll jump in with you on saturday well, top tip, they do a proper fry up on a friday brunch really sold and the the whole sharing food again, although it is cherry food that she doesn't want, but it's still sharing.
Speaker 1:What is the thing about trotters, right? So why is it you meat eaters? Let's caveat this with a mark, if you didn't know already, is a veggie but why is it you meat eaters won't eat meat that looks like an animal? I don't have, because you're the same right, I am exactly the same. But why is it you meat eaters won't eat?
Speaker 2:meat that looks like an animal.
Speaker 1:I don't have, Because you're the same right I am exactly the same yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't want to know where it's come from. Ignorance is bliss, which is terrible, I know, I know.
Speaker 1:I can feel my soapbox growing at the side of me.
Speaker 2:Bacon tastes so good.
Speaker 1:I have no words. You know sarah's on the one hand saying give me meat and on the other, but as long as it doesn't look like an animal, yeah that's a really tricky one guilty as charged I'm in sarah's lane with that one, but I do get that it is problematic it is because you're bordering on that process. Piece right, so okay here we go.
Speaker 2:Here's the reverse psychology bit for you do you not feel you're being conditioned?
Speaker 1:because actually, if you had to go and buy it from a butcher's or whatever, it'd be hanging up behind him and they'd be cut it off? 100 but you just want it in a packet and stick it in the oven. Yes, absolutely, do you not? And the irony of my surname being butcher absolutely. Your ancestors are turning in the grave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, I know Guilty guilty.
Speaker 1:And what's wrong with saurine?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not even with Sarah on that one. Saurine's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, every day I'd eat saurine. I love a bit of saurine. What a terrific Manchester brand. Saurine is Centuries old Manchester brand and she's dissing it. I'm disappointed in Sarah.
Speaker 2:I heard that that came through.
Speaker 1:But at least she's sharing it. As you say, she's got the bread and butter vibe because she's sharing the food, yeah, with everybody, friends and neighbours, and birds.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm still slightly concerned about Sarah's diet, because she eats all the meat and then gives all the fruit and veg to the birds.
Speaker 2:I know, yeah, although she did say she did eat a little bit of it. But Pickles isn't complaining.
Speaker 1:No, but what a joy it was to sit and talk to Sarah. You can hear all the complexities of her life Full-time worker, full-time carer, then coming in to volunteer really complicated family life and yet she rocks up every Saturday with a smile on her face and a voice that bellows. I think we love her for that.
Speaker 2:Yes, couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1:So if you'd like to know more about bread and butter thing and what we get up to, you can find us at team tbbt, on instagram and twitter and on linkedin or online at breadandbutterthingorg. And must not forget tiktok, yes tiktok too, please.
Speaker 1:And if you have any feedback or thoughts on the podcast, you can get in touch with us by emailing podcast at breadandbutterthingorg lastly, we're always open to new members at all the water hubs, so if you or someone you know would benefit from our affordable food scheme, you can find your nearest hub on the become a member page of the website and please do all the things that podcasts ask you to do.
Speaker 2:like us, subscribe, leave us a review and share us with your mates, and chat about us on social, too, please.
Speaker 1:Perfect and tell your mum.
Speaker 2:See you next time. Bye.
