'Not an Easy Option'

Thursday February 23 2017

^{Craig and Angela Brydson}

A Church of Scotland deacon and her husband lived on the contents of a food parcel for nearly a week to raise money and awareness for their nearby foodbank.

Angela Brydson serves the rural area of Lochmaben, Lockerbie and Moffat in the south-west Presbytery of Annandale and Eskdale. She has supported the independent Dumfries foodbank First Base for several years, and now represents the church on its management committee.

Last summer, First Base supporters were challenged to help the charity raise £20,000 by living off a three-day food parcel. Angela and her husband, Craig, felt that three days was not long enough to get an understanding of life on a food parcel, so decided to try to make it last for six days.

The food parcel consisted of cereal, long life milk, bread, margarine, ham, rice, instant pasta, noodles and mash; tins of baked beans, spaghetti and meatballs; cup soup, instant custard, rice pudding and strawberry whip.

Angela said: “Unlike Craig I was never overly hungry as I don’t eat as much as him but he constantly felt hungry and had little or no energy which was really hard for him as his job is very physical. Craig also struggled to sleep much because he felt hungry and had a persistent headache.  

“As the week went on, it was a struggle as we were repeating the same meals. It was great from a cleaning perspective as it was mostly hot water or microwave cooking, so very little washing up, but it meant you didn’t have a lovely cooking smell which I had never realised I would miss.”

She said her biggest struggle was that there was no fruit and vegetables, but she did manage to forage some apples and brambles, which ‘tasted even better than normal’.

Angela and Craig raised £820 for First Base through the challenge, as well as gaining greater awareness of the problem of food poverty.

She added: “Neither of us regret doing this challenge as it caused us to be more aware of the fact that there are many families throughout our area who can’t afford to put food on the table each night for a variety of reasons: debt, addiction, sanctioning of benefits or just not being able to budget.

"Living off a food parcel is not an easy option. It is there to help you survive, but they are only a stop gap until folk are back on their feet. It really upsets me when the media portrays this as a lifestyle choice. It really isn’t.”

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