Below The Breadline

A poignant and brilliant account of trying to live in Britain today on the minimum wage - GBP4.10 an hour Fran Abrams was commissioned by the Guardian to work as a night cleaner at the Savoy - living on (or as it turned out - below) the minimum wage. A short version of that experience appeared in the paper in January 2002. For Profile, she spent a month living on (in fact below) the minimum wage in South Yorkshire working in a pickle factory and then another month in Scotland working as a care assistant. In the tradition of George Orwell's Down & Out in London & Paris, this book shows what it is like to try to live on GBP4.10 an hour. Where can you live? What can you afford to eat? Or do in the evening? What are the jobs - and the workmates and bosses like? This book, in entertaining prose, sympathetic portraits and a telling eye for detail reveals all - including the extraordinary differences across the length of Britain.