Remembering how it used to be. Remember our part-timers’ summers.
The summer signing on. The summer humiliation. The summer dole office queue. The summer farce of pretending to apply for jobs. Of proving that you were job-seeking.
Wasn’t summer when our humiliation was at its deepest. Our suffering? Because it was summer, and we couldn’t partake of the summer. Because summer blazed all around us, and we couldn’t let it touch us. Couldn’t let it lift our spirits.
Because we were abandoned in the summer. That’s when we were abandoned most deeply.
Left to fend for ourselves. Left behind. Left over. Cast aside. Not needed.
And having to force ourselves to work. Making ourselves work on those long summer days. Writing our papers. Rewriting our papers. Studying the day long. And trying to write! Trying to publish!
And never understood in the dole office. What were we doing with our lives? Where were we going?
And skint – so skint. A tenner a day – was that all we had to live on?
Work in Progress 