Help the Hungry: Smiles at the end of a lockdown journey that left a father in tears

Outside the empty Spurs stadium, you can almost feel the electric atmosphere. You can almost hear the roar of the crowd and feel the jostling of the fans. But for many families in the local area, it is the rumble of hunger that most occupies the mind.

David and Rachel Hutt, who live close enough to see the stadium, spoke to me about how food from The Independent’s campaign saved them during the pandemic. With their four-year-old son Dee-jay, they occupy a one-bed flat in an affordable housing block. They spent all of lockdown in three rooms.

Their ordeal began early in February when David was hospitalised with pneumonia. It transpired that he had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung condition that causes long-term breathing problems.

He lost his work as a roofer and his wife Rachel, who also suffers from lung problems, does not work. Confined to his bed, he felt powerless and unable to look after Dee-jay. “I was really upset, breaking down in tears,” David says. “It started getting the better of me. Not being able to go shopping for myself, then being turned down for the food bank twice.”

He spent the first half of the year going back and forth from hospital. In early summer they began to visit the Haringey Play Association, a children’s play area and family support charity, which is a recipient of support from our Help the Hungry campaign.

Tam Carrigan, a Glaswegian former bank robber who is now senior play worker for the charity, says of the family: “They’ve had quite a hard time. There was a lot of anxiety.” An essential part of Haringey Play is allowing families to interact outside their homes, where they were forced to spend almost all their time since lockdown began in March. The charity also operates a food bank, supplied with produce from The Independent’s charity partner The Felix Project.

David and Rachel said they felt unsafe in their home. During one of his return trips to hospital, David had to re-enter the building past a group of balaclava-clad men. Some of their neighbours have installed metal shutters in front of their doors.

Carrigan tells me: “That block is notorious for drug use. A lot of people using drugs will access the corridors just to trip out.” Rachel adds that she worries that Dee-jay is being exposed to inappropriate scenes just outside his home: “I don’t like to go out after 6pm.” David and Rachel gladly confess their gratitude to Carrigan and the support of Haringey Play in such a difficult time. They say that the food they received saved them during lockdown.

“Because we’re on universal credit, you pay your rent, you pay your bills and you don’t have much left.”

David also displays a characteristic that is familiar to many users of foodbanks: pride. “I only take what I need,” he says. “If I’ve got too much then I make a big box up with stuff and I take it down to the church.”

The couple also help their neighbours by checking in and leaving them meals. David is a keen cook and appreciates the fact that the Felix Project’s fresh ingredients allow him to feed Dee-jay more than cheap fried food. They have harsh words for a government that they feel abandoned them. David says: “They should have done more, they weren’t ready for it. I thought the way I was treated when I came out of hospital was disgusting.” 

The Independent’s Help the Hungry appeal launched in March to tackle the rise in food poverty. This Christmas we are campaigning to continue supporting the work of The Felix Project and working towards ending food poverty in the UK.

The family is doing better now. They tell me their fridge is full of goods from Haringey Play. David enjoys baking cakes for his family and neighbours. Carrigan says of the Hutts: “They’ve been on quite a long journey and have got themselves in a position where they are a strong family. You can see that in the way their boy plays and the closeness of the family.”

Carrigan phones me back later to let me know that David and Rachel really appreciated sharing their story. “They were saying how good it was to be listened to.”

This Christmas, we are making sure that we help more families than ever, and tell their stories too.

This November and December we will be delivering food directly to 1,000 people a day through our partner With Compassion. Please donate here to help us do all we can to ensure no one goes hungry this Christmas