The cost of living crisis is destroying communities, the country and people's 'souls', according to big-hearted James Anderson, the formerly homeless founder of an anti-poverty charity now known as 'Britain's kindest plumber'.
James has often been described as a 'hero' thanks his selfless work helping some of the region's most vulnerable people. His charity DEPHER, which stands for Disabled and Elderly Heating Emergency Repairs, has provided a welcome lifeline for thousands of struggling families across Lancashire and parts of the UK since it formed in 2017.
But were it not for a chance encounter six years ago, things might have turned out a lot differently for James and DEPHER. Back in 2017, the plumber James was called out to visit an elderly man whose boiler was apparently in need of repair.
READ MORE : The families forced to choose between feeding themselves or the dog - and the heartbreaking consequences
"He was an elderly gentleman up by Burnley Football Club. He was in a bed, had a hoist because he couldn't get up and he had carers coming in every day," James told LancsLive. James had been called-out to the property to give a second opinion as the elderly man had been quoted £5,500 for a new boiler which he could not afford.
To James' surprise however, he discovered that the vulnerable individual's heating system had been tampered with. "Somebody else had manipulated the boiler so that it would make noises, they managed to stop water from getting to the taps and so the gentleman believed he needed a new boiler," James said.
"That's when I sat back and thought, how many other people are going though this same stuff? How many other people are getting ripped off."
The experience proved to be a huge turning point for James and led him to establish DEPHER. The 55-year-old now uses his own time to help others in a selfless venture partly motivated by his own experience of being homeless earlier in life.
However, his charitable work is not only inspired by his struggle with hardship but also by a promise he made during an unimaginable personal tragedy.
In 2013, his baby son William died and it was then he made a promise to become a better man in his memory. He previously said: "I made a promise to William the day we turned that machine off. I said to him, 'That's it, I'm gonna be a better man. I'm going to be the man that you would have grown up to have been.
"I really do hope I've done him proud. Every time we go to a job, every time we say 'yeah', every time we show people humanity, there's a little bit of William in there."
"Lo and behold, we started doing DEPHER and hundreds and hundreds of people every week were telling us their stories and that's how we were born."
But starting up a service that provides repairs, feeds and supports struggling families came with its own challenges. James says that in 2017, he was £18,000 in debt when he first began his charity work. It took him three years before he ever saw a penny of his own work come back into his pocket.
James says that charity's success 'went viral' in 2019 when his small team saw a rapid influx of support and donations. One of the most substantial of these came from a mystery London donor who 'out of the blue' paid off every penny of James' debts and was never seen or heard from again.
From that moment on, DEPHER really took shape - laying down roots at a premises in Burnley, expanding its fleet of vans, growing its team to 13 members. Since the pandemic hit, the charity says it has experienced a huge increase in demand for its services.
"We only began offering the food, gas and electricity at the beginning of the pandemic and we haven't stopped," added James. "We got towards the end of the pandemic and we thought we might stop offering those services now and carry on concentrating on the plumbing and heating but then the cost of living crisis hit us but this time, much harder.
"We've been doing it for the last two or three years now. This winter has been severe, it's been very very severe. We went down to house where it was colder inside than it was outside - the young mum is standing there shaking, not because she's scared, because she was that cold.
"She had £1.16 on her gas which she only turned on to make a meal for her kids. This is a young girl who is raising her young family in the United Kingdom, the fifth richest country in the world, who is scared to put the electric on. It's an absolute farce, it's a disgrace."
The cost of living crisis has seen demand for DEPHER's service reach record breaking levels which James says reduces him to tears at times. He sees first hand how the cost of living crisis is impacting the nation and thinks that if things carry on for much longer it will "destroy the country".
"It's destroying communities, it's destroying this country and it's destroying people's souls because they'll just get to the end of their tether and they'll say why do I want to work? Why do I want to put into this system that doesn't care about me," he added.
"If we don't help them, whose going to help them?
"You've got food banks - brilliant places - and warm hubs but you can only go so many times, you've got to have a referral. The demand for our services now are very very high, only two or three months ago, we had £45,000, in the pot now we've got £130."
DEPHER's services were stretched so much that the charity ran out of funds to keep going, forcing James to make the difficult decision to put a temporary stop to the charity's services on Thursday.
However, less than 24 hours after the announcement, an incredible £26,121 in donations had been raised thanks to a GoFundMe page set up on behalf of the charity.
James was grateful for the support but said the organisation needed a steady stream of funds to continue to ease the suffering being experienced by society's most vulnerable people during the cost of living crisis.
In a direct appeal, James said: "Please help us to feed the nation. Please help us to keep the boilers working.
"Please help us to keep the lights on. Especially during this time.
"Especially now when it's more important. Next month we're looking at the drop of the price cap. What kind of nightmare are we going to be going into then?
DEPHER has served the nation for the last six years but James says he has "no intention of slowing down" any time soon. Seeing the growth of his charity since its start in 2017, he says he is immensely proud of what his team of helpers can offer people.
"Everything we do, we do with the purpose of making people safe, make them understand that there's somebody there who cares and remove the stigma, " James said.
"DEPHER need to be national, I'm expecting us to be in every single city and town in the UK as a visible part of the community where we have a shop or maybe a hub so people can see us. We want to access everybody and we want everybody to be able to access us- we want DEPHER to become a household name."
You can donate to DEPHER via their emergency appeal GoFundMe page here.
Read more of today's top stories here
READ NEXT:
