What Does A Fair Benefits System Look Like When You Can Barely Stand

A single jump. No warning. One second you’re proud of a job well done, the next you can’t feel your legs. For our 100th episode, Vic phones in as a roving reporter from rainy York and we share Steve’s story from Manchester, starting with the day in 2015 when a routine bit of landscape gardening ended in a serious back injury and long-term nerve damage. It’s a conversation about how fast ordinary life can change, and what it takes to keep going when it does. 

We talk about the real-world impact of disability and chronic pain: the loss of work, the shock of going from a strong self-employed income to a tiny monthly benefit, and the way identity can fracture when you can’t do the things that once defined you. Steve opens up about repeated falls, the constant uncertainty of a leg giving way, and the impossible choices that come with treatment, including surgery that carries the risk of never walking again. Throughout, his children are the anchor point, shaping every decision and keeping him connected to hope. 

We also dig into the UK benefits system, including PIP assessments, appeals, and the emotional cost of having to prove your needs again and again. Steve’s experience of taking the DWP to court, winning, and still ending up worn down by the process is hard to hear, but vital to understand. On the practical side, we chat about finding The Bread and Butter Thing, stretching the budget through affordable food, and the surprisingly powerful routine of batch cooking meals that last. There are lighter moments too, from “Turkey teeth” to Charlie the Chihuahua trying to run the interview. 

If Steve’s story makes you think, please subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave us a review. What part of the system do you most want to see changed, and why?

Transcript

Hundredth Episode From Rainy York

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So Vic, our one hundredth episode. And not only is it our one hundredth episode, it's also you as a roving reporter today. Where are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:10

I'm in Rainy York on the top of a a car park.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

And fingers crossed that uh you keep some bandwidth. So should we crack on?

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Yeah. So, hello and welcome back to a slice of bread and butter with me, Vic, and Mark. We're from the Bread and Butter Thing.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

We run a network of mobile food clubs that take surplus food from supermarkets, farms and factories. We take it straight into communities where families are struggling to get by.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Yeah, for less than a tenner, our members get bags packed with fruit, veg, fridge food, and cupboard staples. It's a weekly shop that helps stretch the budget and take some of the pressure off.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

And our members are at the heart of everything we do. They turn food into friendship and neighbours into community, and that's what makes us tick.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Yeah, and today, celebrating our hundredth episode with us, is Steve from Manchester.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

I'm gonna talk about the day of my accident, which was the 6th of May 2015. I was a landscape gardener, work for myself, a small company. So I thought, hmm, that's big enough. I dragged it over to the corner. I used my ladders to climb up on top of it, and I cut the hedge beautifully.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

And now your Charlie, Charlie the Chihuahua, is in my uh recording equipment. It looks like he's gonna make a bed in my uh audio equipment.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

You're probably sitting it.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah. So sorry.

Loss Of Work And Family Life

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Well, I was looking at the hedge and I was so proud of it. It it it really was something to behold and I didn't think. I I just it wasn't high, it was a fridge freezer, and I just jumped off it. Wow. Once my feet hit the floor, yeah, I was paralyzed. Did you feel any pain? I didn't feel any pain. I didn't feel nothing. I didn't feel my legs and I fell to the floor. So can you move anything? I could move the top half of my body, yeah, but not my legs. But then there was this um heartbeat, if that's the right type of word, a pulse in the lower part of my back. Right. And it was quite a frightening experience because I'd never been in nothing like that before. Yeah. And then I was taken to hospital and I'd broken my back, I'd squashed the L4, L5 together so quickly, the disc in between these had flew out and hit my sciatic nerve. It was quite horrifying because I was unable to get upstairs, I was unable to take my children out, I was unable to do anything which was not Steve. Steve was a grafter. Steve worked really hard. So this accident stopped everything.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

So you were earning a decent crust.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Yes, yeah, I was. I was earning really good money. Five and a half, six thousand a month. Good.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Can't complain. No, no, no, but there was that sounds like good money for landscape gardening.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Long hours. I mean, I'd be out at six in the morning, I wouldn't get home until seven, eight at night. Yeah, yeah. Um, I'd have a team, so I'd have all the books, the wages, all that kind of stuff to do. Yeah. And then once I had the accident, yeah, it all fell apart. I ended up not being able to work, quitting it all. So you had to quit the company. I had to quit the company, to go unemployed, and I was given a benefit, like a sickness benefit. Like£250 a month.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Yeah, compared to your six grand.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Compared to my six grand, it it was totally different. Like I I couldn't cope. Like I had bills, which they don't stop coming. Once I stopped working, that was it. And I suppose my partner found it hard to deal with the fact that I'm sat at home unable to do anything. And when she left on the 21st of September 2021, I was literally devastated. I had no idea that it would go this far. Did you have much in savings? Did you have anything in the tank? I could live comfortably for a year.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

But then I'm thinking it's gonna get better.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

You think you're gonna recover?

SPEAKER_02 5:23

I think I'm gonna recover. Got it. But unfortunately, I didn't. Yeah. It got worse. I would go up the stairs. I have a um a banister, an extra banister to put on the other side of the wall. So that I can use both to pull myself up. But I kept falling head first onto the stairs. Right. And my teeth all got knocked out. I have a pallet.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

But they was all like Turkey teeth, if you understand the meaning. A lot of people go to Turkey now and have their teeth done. But I had mine done in Manchester.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Uh cost of 10,000. And one by one, I'd knock it out. I ended up with one tooth in the middle of my doing your best, Nanny McPhee impersonation.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Falls, Chronic Nerve Pain And Hard Choices

SPEAKER_02 6:25

It was really like that. But I I didn't, it didn't look good. You know, and then I couldn't afford to have them redone. Things were slipping away from me. And it became a drag. Look, we're talking 11 years ago now. I fell the other day, uh well, four weeks ago, broke my nose. On the stair, just totally gone. But these are things that I have to overcome every day. You know, I know that there is a possibility that my leg will just give way. The nerve. You can't control it. I said to the neurological surgeon, it feels like something's bubbling up, it gets to the top of my skin, then goes. He said, Well, if I operate, there's a 50% chance you'll never walk again. What do you do when when you're told that? What what what's your answer?

SPEAKER_01 7:20

How many things go through your head when somebody gives you a choice like that?

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Um I blatantly said no. That it's not going to happen then. I will put up and shut up.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

What got you to that decision? What was it that you thought I can't risk?

SPEAKER_02 7:34

My boys?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

My children? I couldn't be in a wheelchair forever for my children. No. No, it wouldn't work. It wouldn't have worked for me. I um I've got football boys.

unknown 7:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

You know, they they both play for football teams. Alfie played for Manchester United, the the Academy. Used to go to Carrington. Yeah. It was a thrill. I'm a United man. Yeah, yeah. Sarah's a blue. Yeah. My ex-partner. That can't have been easy. Well, there's an another point to that, but So you've said no to the surgery for the right reasons for your kids. I could I couldn't do it. I couldn't put I couldn't put myself through it.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah. I was gonna say you still look like a fit lad.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Well, for my age, I'm I'm 60 in August, so I feel good. Yeah. I just got some health issues, which anyway, I can't walk up a an incline. Like my footpath outside, I can't walk from here to the corner. I don't often go out. My car. I love my car. I spent an awful lot of money on my car. It might be an 11 plate, but it drives like a 26 plate. Pushing the clutch left leg. Can't do it. I can, but I'm in pain after a certain amount of time. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Your head's saying one thing and your heart's saying another, because your heart's looking after the car.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

But you but your head's like, I I don't like driving anymore.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

No, no, I can't do it. I can't do it. I bought shoes which I thought, like get down, Charlie. I bought shoes which I believed would help me balance properly. Dr. Martin's boots costed£200. Night trainers cost of£210. The pins and needles that I get now in my toes and my foot on my left side.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Well when you when you put shoes on you.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

All this has a mental effect. Yeah. I don't want to go out. I don't want to go walking. I I don't want to go anywhere.

Finding Food Support And Batch Cooking

SPEAKER_01 9:58

You are now obviously separated. Yes. And you've had to kind of rebuild your life. What brought you to bread and butter?

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Um I think somebody told me that you pay eight pounds, I think it was at the time, and you get two bags of shopping. One greens and groceries and potatoes and stuff like that. I'm a chef too. Ah. And I make food to last me four four days, so I will make curry, then I will put it in containers.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

So you're a batch cooker.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

I'm a batch cooker because I was the cook at home. So to transform your mind into cooking for just one when you've been cooking for five, it's difficult. But I like to make my own soups, I make pies, which all these things that I make they will last four or five days. I can make a cream of chicken pie and the it'd be this big. And I'd cut it up into sections and freeze it.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Charlie's ragging a toy now.

PIP Battles And The Cost Of Fighting

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Oh, he's a funny dog. He he somebody gave him to me a year ago, said, Do you want a dog? And I said, Yeah. We fell in love with him, but he sheds a lot of fur and breaks a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

What's finance like nowadays then? Um I'm guessing you still can't work.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

No, no, I can't work. I'm banned from working.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Have you got any savings left?

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Um no. I've used them to go through the courts and get some custody of my boy. Yeah. Um I live on benefits, I get universal credit, and I applied then for this other benefit which was called um personal independence payment to help with my everyday needs. Yeah. And they refused to give it me. Because they didn't give a reason, they just said I don't meet the qualifying criteria. Right. And I appealed against the decision and they said no. So I took DWP to court and won. But what they did was they give me the lowest form of pip. Yeah. Which was acceptable because it was more than that I had coming in.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

I mean, daddy hell, you you've had some battles, having to battle for your benefits as well. Yes. Was anybody advising you that actually you should qualify for pip? And right. Who was that?

SPEAKER_02 12:38

I had friends who have got children with autism and ADHD. And they said, but you should qualify for more. You should be able to be given an automatic car so that you can get about. But no, no. I just got fed up of fighting. I've gone through the fight with for my child, and I went through the long fight with benefits. I've fed up of it. They send me a review form, and I write, nothing's changed. So then I have to go through the process all again. Which nothing's changed, so it's a drag. It's mentally absorbing. It's enough to make you feel suicidal. I've had it.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

But I've got a beautiful eight-year-old son, Tommy. And he keeps you going. Pure love. More than I've ever felt in my life.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

What a tragic accident. How unlucky it was Steve.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

That was one of those everyday decisions that you just don't like. It doesn't cross your mind that anything so significant could happen.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

No, I have done things like that so many times in my life, Vic, and I just really, really bad luck.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yeah, I haven't, just for the record.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Okay, I'm the stupid when I get it.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

But it I you know, I think just such a massive change of life, being so independent, working so hard, doing something that he clearly loved and was physical and out and about, and then what a contrast.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Well, physically, emotionally, financially, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Everything.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

All of it.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

He struggles to go out now, all of that stuff. So just a complete 180 flip in not a great direction for him.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

He's still, I feel, adjusting to his new way. And it's been 10 years. Yeah. And overnight, you know, going from six grand a month to 250 a month. I challenge anyone to try and deal with that emotionally.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Well, just deal with it full stop. You know, how much does that kind of rein you in with everything that you can well, everything that you can't do, basically? Everything that you were used to doing and being, you know, it's that independence at all levels, isn't it?

Grief, Resilience And What Has Not Changed

SPEAKER_01 15:08

It is. You know, I I spent a lot of time with Steve. I was probably there a couple of hours, and I know we've got like 10, 12 minutes of Steve, but there was so much more to his story. But one of the things he did say is he he said it he it was like grief. He he he had to mourn the loss of his abilities, but also he was a really proud landscaper and he loved his job.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

He still misses it.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Yeah, you can totally understand that. I mean, thank God for the kids, right? Because they keep him going.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yeah. Oh, I mean, he tugged at my heart right at the end when he's just like my little one, my eight-year-old. I don't I don't know how I didn't did your chin go. Chin went, throat went. Yeah. Gave him a hug as I left.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Yeah, it felt like he needed a hug. That was nice. Yeah. I tell you what, the other weekend I went to see at the theatre I Daniel Blake and I'd never watched it when it was the film. Two reasons. One, I don't really like films. You don't. And two, I was working really closely with Job Centre Plus trying to help people get into work, and it was just like it would have been a busman's holiday. It would have just been like, you know, not enjoyable. And the one thing that I walked out of the theatre having thinking was, good God, that's 10 years ago, and absolutely nothing has changed. And when Steve was talking about his pip and how he had to take them to court, and he'd got other people saying, Of course you need it, like bloody hell, like my kids are getting it, and they're not half of the situation that you're in.

unknown 16:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Just made me think of that scene from my Daniel Blake where he's right at the beginning, he's doing his pip assessment, and they're like, Can you wiggle your fingers? And it's like, it's my bloody ticker, it's my heart. Of course I can wiggle my fingers. And uh, yeah, just how they're not set up to help people uh really explain what their challenges are in life. So yeah, I thought about that with Steve because um really true portrayal, sadly, of what people have put through.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Yeah, I found a lot of Steve's story really difficult, and the fact that he spent eight grand on court fees to go to fight the DWP and win.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

You know, I bet he didn't get that eight grand back.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

No, and he's actually just on the lowest one, but because and it's it's that almost a reticence. Like, I've got PTSD from the first time, so every time they do a review, I just go nothing's changed. Because even though I could get more, I just don't have the energy for the for the fight, for the conversation, for whatever it looks like. And we hear that from loads of our members, don't we? Yeah. That it's just they're struggling so hard with life that they don't have the energy to take that stuff on. So they end up compromising with what they can get because it's just too hard work.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Well, it took him to the edge, right? He said it himself, and you can see why, because when he's lost everything, he's lost all his income, he's lost all his savings, he's lost his physical abilities. Then yeah, he went to a dark place, and yeah, some of that was down to this.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yeah. However, on the on the upside, he's shopping with bread and butter and doing what sounds like some pretty fancy batch cooking.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah, it was strange. As I walked in the house, I saw the bar stools in the kitchen and I'm like, I wonder what they're for. You know, it was a galley kitchen, yeah, you couldn't walk around the stools, and it made a ton of sense when he said I batch cook. You know, there was like a prep area where it there was a bar stool and then in front of the cooker there was a bar stool. So you could see it just go from one to the other, sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Yeah. Adapting.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah, because it is hard to cook for one, isn't it? You always end up cooking more.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

You do.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

But if you're aiming to batch cook, then that's a winner, isn't it, really?

SPEAKER_01 19:00

I think that is difficult and it I don't tend to cook if it's just me.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah, I eat rubbish if it's just me. But if it's not, then I'll like proper cook.

Lighter Moments And How To Get Involved

SPEAKER_01 19:08

If you live on your own long term, I guess you have to then just think about trying to get a better rhythm, which Steve obviously has, but I think Tommy has encouraged him to do that as well. Yeah. I have to say, on a lighter note, it did make me giggle about his turkey teeth. Because immediately I thought he meant like shattered teeth because when he fell over and hit his jaw on the stairs, sort of thing, I thought he was saying jagged teeth. I didn't, I'm glad he explained that he he meant everybody going to get the posh white teeth and their implants.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yeah. The other highlight is uh Charlie the Chihuahua.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Oh, Charlie was a a threatening little bug. He was really funny because as I as I uh sat down with Steve when I first went in and had a brewing a chat with him, but he'd left Charlie in the back and I said, I'm totally fine with dogs. He said, Yeah, he doesn't like blokes. I said, All right, but you can let him out if you want, he won't bother me. And then we had a stirring session. Charlie just came in and he put his little front legs on my shin, and he's just with those bulging eyes of a chihuahua just staring me down.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

It's like Charlie 10 then.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Yeah, exactly. That dog clearly thinks he's a master for something.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Good for him, good for him. It's all in the mind, Charlie. All in the mind. 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 TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or online at breadandbutterthing.org.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

And if you have any feedback or thoughts on the podcast, or you want to come and have an attack and be a guest, drop us an email at the podcast at breadandbutterthing.org.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

You know, it's becoming a bit of a rule that if you don't have a dog, you're not allowed to be a guest. Is it? There's a pattern forming.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Do you know it's not deliberate? And Tracy next week's got three dogs.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Um pattern forming, just telling you. Um and we're always open to new members at all of our 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 our website.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

And please do all those things that podcasts asks you to do. Like us, subscribe, leave us a review, share us with your friends. I don't know, tell us about your dogs, chat about us on social. We'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

See ya.