Life on the front-line, in Stoke-on-Trent

A lot of folks are lucky to have no idea how tough it is on the front-line. My friend Jennifer Spice is finding her voice. Here’s what she says, from the frontline.

“The health of all people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all powers in a state depend.”

“Power has only one duty — to secure the social welfare of the people.”

Two famous quotes, by Benjamin Disraeli, a former Conservative Prime Minister;

and here we are in 2021, fighting a pandemic and also facing the social and economic upheaval, that it’s causing.

Hearsay is, that Universal Credit is now a 6-months wait, to get signed up to, with a face-to-face meeting, over zoom, to prove ID.

If you have no savings, the feelings reflected down the phone, are distinctly judgmental — you are already desperate and anxious at this stage. What is going on?

It inspired the following words:

Time for action,

don’t you find,

What’s it cost?

to be kind,

time for a levelling up,

not a hand out,

but a hand up,

mental health issues,

we can’t deny,

poverty, under — employment,

stress,

underlie,

we’ve started

research,

we wanna reach out,

give a voice to all,

together shout out,

“This is all of us talking;

please listen,

be fair;

level the social scale,

a little, do share;

vol-un-teer-ing

gives of time,

develops new skills,

soothes the mind;

understand,

recognise,

social impact

is great,

Community Shares count,

for real,

they relate.

It feels like the government want to help, as in, they make the right noises, but to embrace a shift in perceptions from the peoples’ perspective seems a long way off.

It will take all our cooperation, and a multi-angled approach, to fulfil a long-standing aspiration.

Jennifer Spice 18.1.21

Beautifully said.

#BeKind