Ghost signs : poverty and the pandemic

When Covid struck in early 2020, librarian Stu Hennigan volunteered to deliver food parcels to vulnerable people in Leeds who were self-isolating and had no other access to food during the savage days of the first lockdown; but when word got out that the council were giving away food, people on low incomes struggling to feed themselves and their families were quick to accept the offer of help and it became immediately apparent that the pandemic was not the whole story. Ghost Signs is Stu's account of the scandalous deprivation he encountered during that time, and shows up close how a decade of Austerity has ravaged our most vulnerable communities and left local authorities financially unable to cope with a crisis of this magnitude.

It's also a day-to-day diary of the earliest months of the pandemic which holds up a mirror to the trauma inflicted by lockdown on the national psyche while the Prime Minister and his government partied in Downing Street in flagrant breach of their own draconian rules.