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
Listen again - Deano
What does life look like when the pub lights go out for good? We sit with Dino, a veteran publican whose seven-day workweeks ended in lockdown, and follow his path through empty cupboards, mounting debt, and the quiet bravery of asking for help. His story is raw, practical, and full of heart: batch cooking stews into freezer tubs, turning chicken fillets into comfort curries, and finding a brew and a chat at a community food hub when the world felt small.
We explore how The Bread and Butter Thing’s neighbourhood model lowers grocery costs while restoring dignity, with volunteers and members sharing the same line and the same laughs. Dino arrives early to lend a hand, not for a badge, but for belonging. Along the way, StepChange becomes a lifeline for managing old credit card balances that no longer add up, showing how debt advice and affordable food work together to create breathing room. The maths is stark—sometimes £20 left after rent and energy, roughly 70p a day—but the solutions are human: kindness from friends, energy top-ups, and a welcoming space that turns isolation into community.
Our conversation looks beyond crisis to the architecture of resilience. We talk practical tips for stretching ingredients, the stigma that keeps people away from help, and why designing support to feel like a local shop matters for mental health and dignity. We even dare each other to try a 70p-a-day challenge, not as a stunt, but to understand the grind so many face. If you care about food poverty, community, and realistic ways to help, this story will stay with you.
If this resonates, follow and subscribe, share the episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review so others can find these stories. And if you or a friend could benefit from affordable food and a friendly hub, head to breadandbutterthing.org to find your nearest location.
Welcome back to a slice of bread and butter with Vic and Mart 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_03: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 sports to right in the heart of their communities.
SPEAKER_00: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_03: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.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:My name's Dean Deakin.
SPEAKER_03:Or Dino?
SPEAKER_01:Oh Dino, yeah. So I prefer to be uh nicknamed Dino, everyone calls me Dino.
SPEAKER_02: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 keys over and there was nothing in my pockets, nothing in the bank.
SPEAKER_03:So I'm I'm gonna ask you some cheeky questions. So how old are you now? 66. Right, so what 62-ish when you shut the uh pubs, or was it?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, 2020, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Had you always worked up until that point?
SPEAKER_02: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. Yeah. That lasted, I'd say, until 2012.
SPEAKER_03:So you're a bit of a troubleshooter then.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, 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 wagon. I used to deliver for curries. Yeah. I used to deliver install washing machines, TBs, and on top of that, I used to work at uh the Crown Court on Minchill Street. I used to be a clerk of the court there. So it was things that you took on, you had to. I you could I couldn't afford to be unemployed.
SPEAKER_03:But you were always busy, right? Yeah, always did something. This was a way of life, this wasn't just a job.
SPEAKER_02: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. Silly hours because I I could do line cleaning up by six in the morning because a Dre was coming that morning. So I'd be up early, give them a bacon butter, a cup of coffee, get a bit in 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_03:So, how did you adjust?
SPEAKER_02:Uh very difficult. It's not. Do you have family? Friends? No, no family. Friends, very far and few between, a lot of acquaintances. Uh, I was in a bad way, not Christmas just gone, the Christmas is before. And I got a I got a text to a friend. Oh, yeah, not seen 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 mummy, I'm 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, uh, right, no problem. Watch your bank details, and within five minutes it was£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. Yeah. It's the same as it was very difficult to go into bed and butties, not bed and butties so much, because and like for Sue, I I wouldn't be here now.
SPEAKER_03:Sue's made me feel right at home and looked after me. Well, Sue is sat just like you have, and she's done her life story on here as well. Good heavens. People listening, there is a uh CD DDO podcast about Sue. Did you know that she was one of the first female farmers in the UK?
SPEAKER_02:No. She she has spoken briefly that she used to farm and should whatever bought. She was a chicken farmer. That's a dirty stinking job. Yeah. That's how I used to work as a kid. I used to work on a farm, cutting pig's teeth and collecting eggs. That's how I know she feels.
SPEAKER_03:You've been there done it all, really.
SPEAKER_02:Jack of all master anonymous.
SPEAKER_03: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_02:Doing a lot better.
SPEAKER_03:What's turned it round?
SPEAKER_02:Um going to bread and butters because without getting the food, and I'm not exaggeration when I said 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.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I have my cereals in my tin coffee. And now I can't stand it in tea and coffee. But blend 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.
SPEAKER_03:Brilliant.
SPEAKER_02:So same with mincemeats. 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_03:So I do ask a lot of people, but what's the weirdest thing you've had from bread and butter?
SPEAKER_02:Weirdest. See anything that I don't like, what's the Weber? I'm not a big lover of a veg unless I'm doing a stew or a curry. Yeah. Then the lock can go in, I don't go. I even dice 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. I'd get avocados. Well, I wouldn't have a clue what to do. Nice bit of guacamole. Oh 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.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because it's done in a lovely white wine sauce, onions, mushrooms. But some of the stuff that we've had from there, cartons of food that are sealed, uh obviously from Morrison's or wherever it's come from. Anything that's got chorizo in, shy away from it. I've never liked to eat to rizzo. And it could have just a hint of tourizo. I just wouldn't enjoy it. I don't mind even hot curry, because I know to break it down, make it mild, whatever. That doesn't bother me. I like curry with mash. You know, like a curry with mash, did you say? Chicken curry. Mashed potato with mashed potato one side. Absolutely beautiful. That's a first from A Dino. Chicken curry. Finny haddock. Finny haddock. Umdock with mashed potato and um mushy peas. What's finny haddock? It's um smoky haddock. Okay. It's fresh haddock, it's been smoked. You can do artificial taste, so in it, or you can have it properly smoke, like Mank Skippers. They'd smoke it similar similar way.
SPEAKER_03:Lots of people talk about wider benefits of bread and butter. What about you you mentioned Sue? Do you tend to meet people?
SPEAKER_02:The uh I've got to know obviously a lot of the um 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 in the nightclub with the same people that used to own it or manage it.
SPEAKER_03:So do you mind me asking? We do annual surveys, right? And 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_02:Um I've just cut all my debts off now. Um going through step change to obviously to come up with some sort of thing. No, not quite right. I'm lunking at that as a debt relief order because that might not be possible because the whoever you owe the money to, they have to agree to that.
SPEAKER_03:Does that mean that this is debts that because of when you became unemployed, or is it stuff that you had before then? Stuff I had before I became unemployed. You could obviously comfortably repay it then, but when you became unemployed you couldn't afford it, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Being unemployed, there's no way. And I at first I tried p Peter, Paul, Peter, Paul. It was back and forth trying to pay everybody. And I think in Tokal it was about 20 grand credit card loans that I've had over the years. I would like to say, I always had the money to pay it off every month.
SPEAKER_03:And you just kept cycling around, right, from one credit card to the next, sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so pay that off. So when the minimal amount came in, I had a booster set up on my direct debit, so I used to pay a little bit extra. But like I said, as soon as that became i it was impossible.
SPEAKER_03:So you 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 and 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.
SPEAKER_02:Well I paid everything off. 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. Yeah. About 70p a day. Yeah, I've never I've never looked at it like that, but yeah, roughly. Anything that I get now puts 20 pounds in there and that's me, electric and gas. Right. So you want to pay as you go. Yeah. Uh sometimes I had a friend who says he's been given energy patra. Yeah. He said, Give me a key card, I'll put it on yours. And I thought that was another, you know, I believe I can't afford to say no. Hence I've got that extra money.
SPEAKER_03:Just describe that hand movement that you just did.
SPEAKER_02:I just looked after him, paid him half the money.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh he said, give me half what it's worth, so I did. And uh I'm glad I did because it like I said, it helped me out, it helped him out.
SPEAKER_03:As an audio reference, you go well, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Sottom, yes.
SPEAKER_03:So typically you've got about 20 quid a month to survive on. After paying everything out, yeah, sometimes not always. On a good month, you've got 20 quid. Yeah. And you're on your own. Yeah. And how long have you been on your own?
SPEAKER_02:Uh I've been here now, six, nearly seven years. Seven years September.
SPEAKER_03:And uh, other than bread and butter, how do you get out and meet people, do you know?
SPEAKER_02:I don't. Bread and butter is my only point of contract now. So just I'm a chin wagon, go there early. Doesn't start till half one. Uh I get there about eleven, quarter past eleven. I help out, set up and anything that he's doing, break it boxes down, put them in big sacks, helping unload the ban if they need me. And of course, cups of tea, so I can go in and get a cup of tea first thing, you know, quarter past eleven. So as that kettle's boiled, and they say, right, and uh and this and they let me have a cup of tea.
SPEAKER_03:And I was in the kitchen waiting for you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um apart from bread and butter, do you go out at all?
SPEAKER_02:I have I have bouts where I sit at home. I mean, before you came, that chair, so you made by coming, you've made me do more than I would normally do. I just sit there and just take it off. There's all clean laundry, and when I need some, I just take it off there, and when I've finished with it, I put it in it wash it. Same as here, I had all my paperwork here. So that's gone.
SPEAKER_03:So you've had a tidy for me coming.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so you've made 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, cover tea, and I start doing things. My mental faculties or anything, everything up there's fine, it's just down there with legs that don't go on too well.
SPEAKER_03:So, have you ever had chicken curry with mashed potatoes?
SPEAKER_00:Categorically not.
SPEAKER_03:I I've never known it as a thing.
SPEAKER_00:No. I've heard of some crazy combinations like fishing parsley sauce with gravy. That's also slightly weird. And we were talking with the team this morning about the wigan kebab.
SPEAKER_03:Well, what's not to like about a wiggin kebab?
SPEAKER_00:I've never tried one. Sounds carbastic.
SPEAKER_03:I feel like we should do that tomorrow. I think I feel like we should just get a load of barn cakes and a load of pies in the office tomorrow and introduce everybody to a Wigan kebab.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Yeah. He was really creative with the food though, wasn't he? He knew what he was doing with different things, and I loved the fact that veg was a no-go unless it was in the stew.
SPEAKER_03:I know he's like one of your kids, right? He just as long as it's chopped up and I can't recognise 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, been self-employed, doing everything he could to make ends meet, and then bang, it's gone.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and it's 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. Yeah. That must have been a huge change for him, not only financially, but just like losing connections and things.
SPEAKER_03:And that loss of connections is really weird as well, because what I I stayed there and we had a proper chat and all the rest of it. So I I can uh 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 fifty years. I said that. Right. 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 his kind of family roots to retire, and that was really sweet. Yeah. But then talking about Sue, the CD DO, 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 tuck him in.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: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.
SPEAKER_00:Totally. But that's great, isn't it? Because it's getting the 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. He didn't think he got a lot of friends, but you don't need a lot when they're that good.
SPEAKER_03:Wait, exactly. Again, he was saying these are ex-customers over the bar.
SPEAKER_00:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_03: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. Yeah, exactly. It's fantastic, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But could you live on 70 pence a day?
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, bloody hell.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But 70 pence a day. So I'm gonna put it in context, right? So about 10 years ago, 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'd do a week at living at two quid a day for everything, for your food and drink, right? And I used to do it recognising global hunger and all the rest of it. 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. We should probably do that as a candidate.
SPEAKER_00:I was just thinking that. We need to do it anyway. We should do it.
SPEAKER_03:But just you and me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:We need to plan that.
SPEAKER_00:We do need to plan it very carefully.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. But this is the other thing, right? Look at us planning it, thinking that's gonna be really hard.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:He's just gotta do it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But I I think we need to do it. Right.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. We will do it.
SPEAKER_00:With some planning. Yeah. Yeah. But great that he's volunteering. You know, the connections he's coming, because he's helping people.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and you know he doesn't think he's a volunteer, right?
SPEAKER_00:I 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_03:Yeah, but again, gotta find ways of getting out. He just goes out to bread and butter, and that's like a couple of hours a week.
SPEAKER_00:I know.
SPEAKER_03:And that's it for him.
SPEAKER_00:But you were on it, you got a tidy.
SPEAKER_03:I did get a tidy, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Luckily, he's kind of found the help through step change.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we need to get a step change on the podcast because time and again they keep coming up. They're clearly Diamond Geese 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 helpful with must be through the roof.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But Goody found the support because lots of people don't.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. People know how to find step change. Clearly, our members do.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03: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? 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.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, we need to work out what the mojo is as well with the marketing.
SPEAKER_00:It's on the list.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So Dino mentioned it's you know it's kind of hard. And then he he thought about it, didn't he? It's like we're not a food bank, and he's like, No, it's it wasn't that hard coming to you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I guess that's the thing that other people need to recognise as well. I I don't know how to get that across, that it's a much more community and positive interaction with bread and butter.
SPEAKER_00: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, the pride, isn't it? Taking help from his friends, taking help from us. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Walking away from this podcast, you've got a job because I'm not telling Jane that we're gonna do the 70 pence a day because she'll want to do it with me.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. And then Tany has to do it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, gets a bit hard, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: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_03:Yeah. Which is why I'm saying we should do it as a wider campaign, right? Because um, 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_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: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.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And hungry. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Sounds like a plan.
SPEAKER_00:Cool.
SPEAKER_03: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 breadandbutterthing.org, and I believe we're on TikTok somewhere.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I've not found that yet. 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 breadandbutterthing.org.
SPEAKER_03: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 and butter, you can find the nearest hub on the become a member page of the website.
SPEAKER_00: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.
SPEAKER_03:And tell your mum. Tell your mum to tell a friend.
SPEAKER_00:Okay then. See you next time.
SPEAKER_03:See you next time.
