‘I lost it all in pandemic’
From top jobs to claiming Universal Credit due to Covid
UNTIL recently, Tony Cliff was a high powered managing director at a national company.
Now he’s been out of work for six months, is struggling with his mental health, is on medication and says he’s drinking too much.
The number of people claiming Universal Credit has soared since the pandemic began last March and has doubled across Greater Manchester. Tony is one of those new claimants.
He signed on for the first time in his working life in September – and is now one of six million people, just under 10 per cent of the population, now claiming the all-in-one benefit across the UK.
As someone who has worked all his life, unemployment has come as a massive shock to his system.
The 51-year-old joined the car firm he worked for at 16, as soon as he’d left school.
With no qualifications, he started as a fuel pump attendant and worked his way up through the ranks until he was responsible for more than 800 staff, travelling up and down the country for work and putting in 60-hour weeks.
But in July last year, the senior executive was brought into his head office by his management and made unexpectedly redundant.
The rapid and dramatic change in his life ‘absolutely shattered’ Tony and he’s now on anti-depressants and sleeping medication to help him cope.
“It was completely out of the blue, there was no explanation, no rationale, nothing.,” he said. “It was unbelievable.”
“The company I worked for considered my salary significant and they felt that could be saved,” he added.
“I’ve never applied for a job before or ever been in the job market. It was everything to me, my job, my social life, my friends and when you’re gone that all disappears. People avoid you because they’re faithful to their job.
“You go from having your phone going ringing every 20 minutes to nothing, your phone pinging with emails every two minutes to nothing.
“If you said to me 12 months ago that that would be me, I would have laughed in your face. I would have said I’ve got the most secure job in the world.
“It completely shattered me, I don’t know if I’m ready to go back into the job market. I just kept thinking what do I do, I’ve never been in a Job Centre in my life.”
Tony began drinking heavily to try and cope.
“Initially I was struggling to sleep and when I would sleep I had horrible nightmares,” he said. “I knew I needed help from my doctor so I was given sleeping pills. They knock you out for four to five hours then the nightmares come back and you feel groggy the next day.
“My anti-depressants took about a month to kick in and they do help but I was drinking ridiculously. At first it was a bottle of wine and a couple of beers in the garden in the summer. On furlough it felt like a holiday in the sunshine. Then I was drinking to go to sleep.”
Tony also had to deal with the impact his job loss and mental health crisis had on his relationships – his partner moved out in January this year. They’re currently trying to piece things back together and Tony has been assigned a work coach and a mental health worker to support him.
He said he considers himself a success story from the support he’s managed to get through the Department for Work and Pensions and now has weekly zoom calls with a counsellor and regular calls with his work coach.
“It’s not about the money at all, I am and have been in a very bad place,” he said. “I’m lucky, I have paid off my mortgage and have savings. It was about the support, the advice.
“I can’t imagine what it must be like for some of the people I knew who had massive mortgages, had bought a new car for their missus there must be some dreadful situations out there.”
Emily Thornton is among the new claimants in Salford.
She was living a good life in London before the pandemic struck, working her dream job in the box office of a West End theatre, with a buzzing social life, spending £700 on rent each month.
But in March last year, all of that changed.
First she was put on furlough. Then, four months later, she was made redundant.
She signed onto Universal Credit, but the money, around £50 a week, was barely enough to live on.
After running out of funds, Emily moved to Eccles in search of cheaper rent and to be near her family.
Recalling life after she lost her job, the 32-year-old said: “We hardly ever turned on our heating on in our London flat, despite it being constantly freezing.
“I was searching the bargain section of items about to go out of date in the supermarket and freezing them, making large batch cooks to last the week rather than cooking individual meals.”
When meeting up with her friends, Emily would walk 70 minutes each way to avoid paying the bus fare.
“Universal Credit was great but it wasn’t enough to live off,” she said. “You don’t get that much. People think you’re just sat at home for it, but the worry and anxiety of it being taken away, you’re always on the edge of your seat.
“I was so lucky with furlough and Universal Credit was a lifeline, but it’s not enough to survive.
“I think they need to consider how much they give to people in bigger cities. Even outside those areas I still don’t think you could survive on that.”
A few of Emily’s friends had also signed up for UC since the pandemic started.
She said they’d all had their reservations before asking for help.
“I don’t think I realised what it was like as I’ve worked my whole life,” she said. “It’s awful to say but I had that shame, that embarrassment about signing up. But my thinking was I’ve paid taxes since I was 15, it’s okay in the situation we’re in, it’s a pandemic, it’s OK to ask for help and you shouldn’t feel embarrassed.”
Emily is now freelancing from the home she shares with a friend in Salford and is looking forward to the entertainment industry reopening this summer.
She’s hopeful of finding a role at one of Manchester’s theatre box offices.
12 months ago I would have said I’ve got the most secure job in the world. It completely shattered me.
Tony Cliff