The last time I signed on, two planes flew into the World Trade Centre. It felt surreal sitting in the tatty benefits office, which had no TV screen, with no real sense that anything was amiss, as three thousand miles away the “real” world changed for ever.
My world changed, too. I became a father, got myself an MA, started getting published; novels, short stories, articles in the national papers, lecturing gigs at university. I even received an unexpected inheritance. My life seemed to be on an upward trajectory that — not being an expert in physics — I assumed would continue.
Then, imperceptibly at first, things did change. My books refused to sell, newspaper sales dipped and so did article commissions; my inheritance dwindled. My wife suggested that I sign on again, but I hated the idea: it felt like admitting defeat. Not only had I spent much of the Eighties and Nineties bouncing between job and dole, I’d also stood in the queue for free school dinners as a kid, and I didn’t want my children to feel that stigma.
Despite the lazy headlines about lazy scroungers, most working people still regard signing-on as stigmatic. Who would willingly live on 100 quid a week when they could be working hard, earning, without having to explain every aspect of their lives to a bureaucrat behind a desk?
The papers are full of stories about people receiving vast amounts in benefits. Even people I have long admired, like John Bird from the Big Issue, talk of a benefits trap. But people aren’t trapped by the availability of benefits; they are trapped by the lack of available work.
Advertisement
Finally, however, I admitted defeat and filled in an online form — much improved from the phonebook-sized ones I remembered. Even when I received a text message from the job centre, telling me when to see an adviser, I told myself that maybe my agent would have good news or a job would come up in the nick of time. As the day drew nearer all the CVs that I’d sent off had vanished without a ripple.With heavy heart I walked to what I still think of as the “dole office”, close to the London estate where I lived in the 1980s. I stood outside the Jobcentre Plus and looked up at the bleak grey building, and swallowed. One of my daughter’s friend’s parents lived on this street; it wouldn’t do for them to see me. With tears in my eyes, I walked inside.
Here I had a surprise: staff and claimants reclining in comfortable seats, not even a barrier between Them and Us. As I waited in the large, open-plan office, which seemed to have more staff than claimants, I was impressed by the business-like atmosphere.
My interview was only half an hour late; I was greeted by a smiling lady who led me to a desk. I felt nervous, as if attending a job interview.
We went through my online claim. It seemed that I had failed to answer all the questions. Or rather, where on the form it had asked if I had reasonable prospects of more work, I had put “don’t know”. I was expected to have an answer. I didn’t.
She then spent a bewildering amount of time inputting my data. “You have two appointments,” she said at last. “One is for signing on, the other is parental advice.”
Advertisement
I swallowed. “Um. ‘Parental advice’?”
Apparently, anyone who is a parent must also attend a special interview to help them back to work. Then the adviser asked if I had proof of my rent. I hadn’t; no one had asked me to provide it, and when applying online I had stated that it was fine for them to contact my housing association. I was told to take proof of my rent to the nearby housing office the next morning.
That office is in the middle of the estate on which I lived in the Eighties; the same walkways with tyres over the bollards and the same barbed wire-decorated community centre. But the pub where we played pool has closed and the condemned street where I lived is now a row of self-build Swiss-style chalets. I entered the housing office, the woman behind the desk stared at me blankly as I explained why I was there.
“Do you have proof of ID?” She sounded American.
“Well, no, I was only told to bring . . .”
Advertisement
“Do you have information about your change of circumstances?”
“Well, no, I . . .”
“If you want housing benefit you’ll need to complete a form.”
“But I did all that at the . . .”
“I have no record of your application.”
Advertisement
Now I realised that she wasn’t American, but Eastern European; maybe that explained her hostility. She, who had arrived from some poverty-stricken zone and got herself a job, whereas I, who had been given every opportunity in this rich country, had palpably failed.
I felt angry, not at her, but at the bankers for creating this mess, at the Government for believing that the solution is to cut public spending and benefits, at the internet for systematically destroying my two chosen professions and at myself, for making such a mess of things.
The woman tapped at her keyboard.
“You’re still on our system from ten years ago. Have your circumstances changed since then?”
I thought back to my two book launches, the spreads in the broadsheets, my interviews with politicians, my Master of Arts, the lecturing, my lavish wedding and two beautiful children. Everything has changed, but perhaps the biggest change has been an internal one: I no longer feel at home here, being grilled by this woman. I no longer want this life. I just want to work.
Advertisement
A week later I receive a letter from the council benefits service, which is connected to the housing office. The letter informs me that before I am to receive anything I must provide a list of items, including proof of identity and national insurance number. That I had already brought in all this information counts for nothing.
Luckily, time is a resource in which I’m temporarily flush. Almost a month since signing on again, I’ve yet to receive a penny.
How many politicians have ever been in this position? If more of them had ever known how humiliating and energy-sapping it is, maybe they’d understand that high unemployment isn’t “a price worth paying”; it’s a national scandal.
Like millions of others, I’m still not working. Nor is the system.
Liam Mark’s novel Jellyfish (The Harry Biggs Adventures) is available on Kindle via Amazon, price 77p