“My front row seat to the end of the world” – delivery driving during COVID

The Bunker

Podmasters

News, Politics, Society & Culture, Government

4.6 • 984 Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Stu Hennigan took up a job as a council food parcel delivery driver during lockdown, he realised he had a “front row seat to the end of the world”. Every day he kept a diary as he witnessed families struggling with isolation, poverty, and the worst impacts of austerity. He joins Hannah Fearn to talk about his book Ghost Signs. “This is literally like front row seats to the end of the world.” “There was a little girl one day who started dancing when she saw all of the food. You’d have thought I was Father Christmas when I showed up at her house.” “To me the book is about austerity as much as it’s about the pandemic. The pandemic is just the framing story.” Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Hannah Fearn. Producer Jet Gerbertson. Assistant producer Kasia Tomasiewicz. Lead producer Jacob Jarvis. Bunker music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Jade Bailey. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved
0:05.5	photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.
0:11.8	Well college. I loved going to college. It's good you can retry. I'm enrolled on the day course. But college?
0:13.0	I loved going to college.
0:14.0	It's good you can retrain and do something.
0:16.0	Yeah, yeah.
0:17.0	Let's talk about working, learning, saving and making the most of living longer.
0:22.0	Phoenix Group is the UK's largest long-term savings and retirement business.
0:28.0	Search Phoenix Group living longer.
0:30.0	Pets brings so much joy.
0:32.0	From those happy greetings at the door to the warm cuddles on the sofa
0:36.7	so give a little love back with dental life from Purina a range of delicious chues made for dogs and tasty snacks for cats that help clean and support your pets, teeth and gums, essential for their overall well-being and a happy, healthy life. They give you plenty of smiles so
0:55.3	look after theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Hello and welcome to the bunker I'm Hannah Fern. When the first COVID lockdowns were imposed in March 2020, teachers and social workers were really worried that being trapped in our homes would conceal poverty, hunger and abuse.
1:23.0	But Stue Hennigan, an author and librarian,
1:25.7	volunteered as a council delivery driver in Leeds,
1:28.6	distributing food parcels and medicines
1:30.9	to people who were self-isulating, and he saw it all firsthand. He recorded what he witnessed in a diary which has
1:37.3	become a short but devastating book, Ghost Signs, tracking the spread of poverty
1:41.6	in Britain during the pandemic.
1:43.2	The book has been shortlisted for a bunch of awards now and is forcing politicians
1:47.0	to confront the extent of working poverty and deprivation across every English city.
1:51.8	And Stue is with me today.
	...

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