It’s frightening how life can change. Over a decade ago, Thomas Hemingford, now 45, was on a comfortable wage as a software development manager. His family – his wife Helen and their three children – lived in a home they owned on the outskirts of Harrogate in North Yorkshire. They went on holidays abroad, had two cars – and even bought a convertible as a “Sunday car”. But in 2002, bad luck hit: Helen became severely ill with ME and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a progressive disability that affects her legs, arms, hearing and sight.
Helen, now 41, had to give up work as a financial consultant and Thomas left his job to become his wife’s full-time carer. Because they were unable to make the mortgage payments they had to sell their house. At first they downsized, but within two years they lost that too. The cars went next. By 2007, Thomas says they’d “lost everything”, including savings.
Despite it all, the family got through it – applying for benefits, stretching each pound, and juggling bills. Then the ground was moved from under them: in 2010, Britain’s austerity measures hit.
Read my latest Guardian austerity column in full here.
Dr. Frances Ryan 