The person I told you about in tale 18 came back to see us this morning. We didn’t even open until 1.00pm but they arrived well before that when the community café was still operating. The person caused a great deal of concern among people who were present as they launched into a loud series of expletives. They were furious the food bank wasn’t open already and took their anger out on the café volunteers. Whether out of fear or kindness, they gave the person some food and the food bank full-time managers gave them a parcel of food to take with them. I doubt that they would have got either without being shouty and aggressive. I can’t imagine a group of volunteers who deserve this kind of treatment any less. I only wish I’d been there. I’ll explain why here.
It did not take much to work out that this person had serious mental health issues. Having met them before, I was sure that their aggression was laced with the threat of violence. That’s certainly how I felt when I was explaining how our food bank worked but I wasn’t prepared to back down, despite this person towering over me. In a fist fight, I’d have been mince in seconds but for me it was a matter of doing the right thing. I told the person I respected the reasons for their anger, even though I didn’t agree with them, but this was how it worked and that was that. Things calmed down a little, but two weeks on it was obviously a temporary thing.
I sympathise with anyone who has a mental health issue in a country where there is no meaningful support for them. In an ideal world, such a person would never have been in the position of having to come to see us, but this is not an ideal world. It is a world where filthy rich politicians can hand out our money to their rich friends and look the other way when poor people suffer.
My suggestion to the food bank managers is that the police should be informed. Not with a view to pressing any kind of charges, just that maybe they could ‘have a quiet word’. Our people have already contacted the people who referred them to us in the first place in the hope that somewhere along the line picks up the issues and helps them deal with it. Let’s face it: except the food bank managers, we are all volunteers. No one should be spoken to like that but if the person speaking like that then they clearly need help. There are all manner of ways of dealing that, including having people coming along with or instead of the person concerned.
If one aspect of today’s shift was dispiriting and upsetting, another was the opposite. Among the many callers today – and we were not just very busy but short on volunteers, too – was a bunch of middle-aged men who arrived independently but knew each other. They chatted among themselves as we worked as quickly as we could to pack their bags for them. As the afternoon ground to a close, all three of them helped us tidy the church hall, putting away chairs and tables and the like. We would never ask anyone to do that, but they did. It was one of those days when one’s faith in human nature fell and then rose again. I am not dividing the people into good and bad, because it wasn’t that. The person who kicked off didn’t mean it and couldn’t control the anger. Fair play to these blokes.
As I mentioned, we were low on volunteer numbers today and that meant that for the first hour and a half or so, we worked flat out. I explained to our callers that there would be delays in packing food today and not one of them complained. I could be wrong but it suggests to me that they were all genuine callers.
One caller came to see us because they had started work and, as their benefits had now stopped and they had to wait for their first wage, they had no food. That’s a simplified version of the circumstances but it’s accurate. Someone doing The Right Thing but then having no food to eat until their first wage. I despair of this country, not least because the chancellor Jeremy Hunt in his budget just yesterday acted only to help the rich get richer.
I’m tired after today’s efforts but I am glad I went. And I stand by my view that most people are good people and even the ones who don’t necessarily behave properly aren’t necessarily bad.
