NORTHERN PLANNER

I was reading the paper and came accross the story of a former down-on-her luck single mother who's written a cookbook on how to take control of your family food on just a few pounds a week.

It started as a very real exercise to regain some dignity and control in her life and, as her blog about got traction, very real way to make some much needed money.

I liked the bravery, I liked the demonstration of iron will when it would have been easy to cave in and accept her fate.

But that''s not what got me. It was her description of feeding her little boy one weetabix mashed up with water for breakfast, and the helplessness when the hungry child innocently asked his mummy if he could have some more, maybe just some bread and jam. Neither of which she had, or could afford. Didn't have the budget for milk even.

I thought of my little boy and could easily imagine how I would feel if he asked me, the shame, the helplessness and the deep, searing motivation to give him a good life, to be worthy of him.

All the talk about austerity, feckless people on benefits, deserving or undeserving poor. All rendered meaningless to me by one little story about weetabix. Because its about the very real lives of people, children and families.

It's almost too trite to shoe-horn the 'what planners can learn from this' bit, but the power of real stories that make you feel something will always trump 'persuasion' 'facts' and 'argument'. Find a way to make people empathise within their own frame of reference.

Back on the subject which is too important to reduce to stuff about 'planning', Mrs Northern and I agreed that we cant' change much, but sitting on your hands achieved even less. So I'm going to look into working in a food bank one night a week.It's not much, but it's something.