Home comfort

It's the end of another busy week. Here's the pile of 'stuff' that me and Roland plonk onto a chair as we come in through the front door of our home. The home that we are not - at the moment - in danger of losing due to the implementation of a completely ill-thought out and unjust new tax that is being brought in at the beginning of April. The so-called 'bedroom tax' which will hit those people with the least resources.

Our own situation is that we don't rent our home but have a small mortgage. It's small but since I took a 44% pay cut at the beginning of 2010 due to redundancy we have sometimes struggled to pay. The bank don't give a shit about struggles, they just want their money. But we are in a far, far better position than people in social housing.

And even though I am in a job (which I love) that pays well below the national average and Roland does not have a regular income we are in a far, far better position than front-line advice workers who have to deal with increasing workloads and having to tell people that they are unable to help them due to cuts in benefit regulations and other means of government support.

Today we heard of a former colleague of Roland who, for the second time in two weeks, has been faced with two different clients who have been so distraught that they have threatened to smash the advice centre to pieces, and her too, and then kill themselves.

Another friend has told of when he went to sign on there was a woman with two young children who was in tears because she would not receive any money for several days. She had to feed herself and her children, what could she do? My friend and other claimants in the Job Centre had a collection for her. A couple of Job Centre staff chipped in.

And tomorrow I will be photographing a protest against the Bedroom Tax and I leave you all with these two phrases that I will have in my head:

1) If I can't shoot with a gun I will shoot with my camera
2) Photography is my escape from all the bullshit in life

Have a good weekend.