The cost of living crisis is nothing new to me; I’ve suffered at the sharp end of the UK’s punitive welfare system for the best part of a decade.
I taught English to international students for 18 years before illness forced me to leave in 2014. Despite having worked for the school for many years, when they were hit by a shrinking demand for lessons they changed all our shifts around. The rota I was given conflicted with my childcare duties. I have two children who were young at the time and as their mother and I are divorced, we have a shared residency agreement. This means I had little flexibility with shift patterns.
