Ghost Signs: Poverty and the Pandemic

by Stu Hennigan

Stu Hennigan delivered emergency medicine and food parcels during the the first 6 months of Covid-19 in inner city Leeds. Ghost Signs highlights the issue of 21st century poverty and how a decade of Austerity has devastated our most vulnerable communities.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Politics, Society, Book Club

180 pages, Paperback

Published June 23, 2022

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off before I start this review I have to say that in my opinion this book is going to go down as one of the most important eyewitness accounts of the Tory government before and during the COVID pandemic and that anything I write after this sentence ends is never going to do justice in showing just how much this book has affected me.

Stu Hennigan was a volunteer during the first lock-down in 2020 delivering food parcels/collecting prescriptions for those in self isolation and this job was to become far more harrowing than he could possibly have expected. Day after day he would visit the poorest most run down places in Leeds, seeing people living in filth, so starved of food that they don’t have the strength to lift the bag of food he had just delivered. He would meet people who were dying, lonely people that were starved of human contact and those too scared to even answer the door even though they were expecting a food delivery. Most traumatic of all though were the children, what sort of world are we living in when a company like A****n can make £Billions whilst a child can be in tears when given a free bag of food?

Whilst it is disgusting that a situation exists where this book has the material to be created there are some good moments, Leeds council seemed to have been quick of the mark to get this food project off the ground and it wasn’t long before the public took advantage, it wasn’t just those in isolation needing the food, it was the starving, those who had lost their jobs and unable to get by and not once does it get mentioned that they were turned away, fantastic response in my opinion. Then we have the many volunteers, what they achieved was incredible, at times fearing for their safety, witnessing poverty far beyond what you could comprehend, what this book shows is how amazing it was that they kept it up, Hennigan was a wreck after only a few deliveries and in my eyes he put in a super-hero effort to keep going. I know that I couldn’t have done it, I was welling up at times just from reading the book.

The damage caused by so many years under Tory rule is staggering, will we ever be able to recover? The leaders of Labour and Lib Dems need to pick up this book and use it as their biggest weapon to take down the most corrupt government the UK has ever lived under.

Bluemoose books have published their first Non-Fiction book and what a book to kick it all off with! Not only is Hennigan a mighty human being he is a fantastic writer…it truly was an honour to read these words, the experience is never going to leave me.

Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2022...

[Mark Hebden · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Covid-19 pandemic condensed into the performance the UK government will be written about by historians of the future as one of the most chaotic and mismanaged operations this country has ever seen. We had the worst possible prime minister for the occasion; a lying narcissist who ignored the science, broke the rules his own government set and lacked the courage to do what was necessary to keep the public safe – surely the overriding burden of any government. Future books will judge the national leadership and this book does not do that, it will however be illustrative to those future scholars about the social fabric of the country and what happened to it in the lead up to the pandemic which made us so ill-equipped, socially, to deal with the impact of a pandemic.

Hennigan’s book is essentially a diary of his time working as a distributor of food parcels and medicines to the people of Leeds who were isolating in the early days of lockdown. In his usual job he is a library worker and has worked at several of the branch libraries around the city over the years meaning he has a good knowledge of the city and it seemed logical to him to offer his services as a driver to the service which would send out food parcels. What follows are his experiences of a city he thought he knew; but the levels of poverty and destitution he witnessed shocked someone who has worked with vulnerable people before and recalls images witnessed by Engels in his seminal Condition of the Working Class in England.

The first drop off we read about is in an area of Seacroft, which is my own birthplace and was once one of the largest council estates in Europe. It was rough when I grew up there in the 80s and I was last a regular visitor in the early to mid-2000s; it seemed to be getting better but reading the account of Hennigan’s several visits to the area it has more than dropped backwards as so many other areas of Leeds have. We read of people utterly forgotten by the state, left to rot and cast aside by a government that either wants to pretend such people don’t exist or that they are how and who they are through their own bad choices.

The book is a cartography of human misery; gossamer thin wraiths shuffling to their eventual end with no hope in sight. Visions of people literally starving, addicted to drink and worse, naturally sceptical of public services and authorities from whom they have only known accusation and disenfranchisement. To offset the general feeling there are some heart-warming stories but these are set against the context of people happy to receive food who would otherwise not eat; from primary school aged children to the long-retired. A general theme of the book is that the older people were the more they couldn’t understand the service being free – experience of years of accepting “you don’t get sommert for nowt” from the council / government. These are very much Thatcher’s children. Stories of young children literally jumping for joy at receiving a bag of dried pasta / rice etc is truly heartbreaking.

What is apparent is that a service designed for people unable to get to the shops was used en masse by people who were just too poor to eat. The book shows how entire communities have been left behind by governments of multiples hues over the past 40 years and we’re now left with broken and jagged shards of society for whom there is no way out of the poverty trap. I am reviewing this as someone who hates; quite literally hates the Conservative Party but the author is remarkably able to stick to the facts and not bring their own emotions into it outside of what they felt at the encounters they describe. If a Conservative voter reads this book they won’t feel like it is a j’accuse against them, but hopefully it would make them question what is happening in the country outside of leafy suburbs and shires and interrogate what has happened over the past 40 years to lead us to this point.

It would speak to anyone who wants to know more about how the pandemic was felt at the sharp end of society. Leeds isn’t unique and these vignettes portray a truth utterly typical to working class communities over the past two years. The pain and suffering contained within must be 10, 20 or a hundred times more vivid across the entire country. The people carrying out the service performed wonderfully and the local council is credited by the author for their undoubted miracle working in terms of the logistics involved to set up such a service. To recoup that money the government have once again demanded huge cuts to local budgets and public services; knowing no other language than that of punishment the Tories will continue to slice up safety nets and pull apart the infrastructure that made even this meagre service possible. One day there will be a reckoning for all this and one day it will change but by God it needs to be soon, or next time it will be even worse than what Stu Hennigan describes here.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather depressing and repetitive after a while but really brings home how the pandemic affected the less well off much more than others and the extremes of poverty that we have in our country now.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I rarely read non fiction but when I saw this book had been published it was one that I felt I needed to read. I started to read it when another pandemic diaries that were being published were being mentioned a lot by the UK media. That was one that I definitely won’t be reading but it did remind me that I needed to read this account. More people should do the same so they can see what damage is being caused in many areas of the UK.
One of the strangest feelings when reading was the amount of things I had forgotten about the first lockdown. The eerie quiet roads, especially the motorways, the deserted town centres, windows full of posters thanking the NHS and the often shambolic efforts by government of which there are too many to mention. Each chapter in the book started with a reminder.
I don’t know Leeds that well but it didn’t matter. The people that needed help there are typical of anywhere. It was impossible to judge any of them, even though some appeared ungrateful. I just thought that they felt uncomfortable having to rely on food parcels.
There were many scenes that upset me ( usually on the bus) the family who needed baby products, the elderly who were terrified and countless others. And it was evident that what the author saw on a daily basis was starting to seriously affect him emotionally, leading to sleepless nights and an inability to discuss what he was experiencing.
It wasn’t just the hardship experienced by others that were revealed, there was also the impact on his family. The upset that his children felt over missing school and friends and the knock on problems that caused, especially to his wife who was working from home and having to keep them entertained.
One of the saddest emotions, weeks after finishing the book was that for many the situation will just be getting worse. A pandemic problem that has turned into a huge cost of living crisis.
Every politician, and anybody who can make a difference should read this account.

[Fionnuala · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a record and witness to poverty during a very specific time in British history, this book is a solid testimony. It's detailed and meticulous in its observations, and presents many valid criticisms of government response to the crisis. It also covers a monumental community effort to try to alleviate some of the problems caused by the extended lockdown, and is an eerie and sober portrayal of a very unusual time. Its strength here is undeniable, hence the three stars despite my criticisms.

The fact is there were some issues with this book. I have to admit that, while clearly not intended to be so, this book was pretty offensive on several levels. I believe completely that Hennigan's heart was in the right place, and the work he did was important and based purely in the desire to help others. What he did was difficult and admirable. It's just unfortunate that Hennigan does not trust the scenes he witnessed and subsequently wrote about to speak for themselves. He tries so hard to emphasis how dreadful the deprivation is that he not only ends up accidentally centring himself in the narrative, but he also comes across as ill-equipped to deal with this job. He's going into communities where people have to spend decades of their lives, if not their whole lives, and he's coming out talking about staggering home to suffer from nightmares and insomnia and chug nine-packs to cope like he's a journalist getting out of war-torn Rwanda in the 1990s. While this level of poverty is dreadful, I do not think this reaction and emphasis tells the story that Hennigan wants to tell. It unfortunately becomes increasingly akin to a privileged man on poverty safari spending space he should devote to the people whose stories he's trying to tell on instead letting us know how sensitive and decent he is by his reactions to witnessing such things. Don't get me wrong -- witnessing is not a passive or neutral act. It's fully possible to be traumatised by the act of witnessing. But this just doesn't feel like that.

I really can't explain it other than it feels self-indulgent and appropriative. If this is sincerely the effect it had over so brief an exposure, I wonder about the appropriateness of Hennigan being sent into such environments. I know places like this well -- I lived for three years on an estate that ranked in the top 1% most deprived areas in the entire UK. It was exactly like the places described in this book. And yes, it was depressing, but overall it was alright and 99% of people I met there were decent people who kept to themselves. Meanwhile Hennigan spends six months running deliveries and talks like he's coming out of combat. While I think he truly believes in his duty to witness, there's a certain desperation to be seen as an object of bravery and admiration that I'm uncomfortably familiar with from my work as a conflict journalist, and it's not enjoyable to read about nor flattering to anyone involved.

While I can excuse the majority of this under the umbrella of overenthusiasm and perhaps a slight lack of faith in his own witnessed accounts, I can't excuse the other major gripe I had. Hennigan makes some questionable choices that reveal an undeniable prejudice and voyeurism. While he thankfully stays clear of some of the more infuriating examples of this (he never equates cleanliness with morality, for example) he dwells a little too enthusiastically upon physical appearance, seeming almost thrilled and scandalised and revelling in the unkindest details, such as those who appear to struggle with continence. He also draws attention to women and girls in a way that he does not to boys and men, with predictable ire for those dressed in manners he clearly thinks to be too revealing. At one point he makes a comment about the length of the shorts a pair of girls he says to look about 14 are wearing that I doubt he'd appreciate an adult man directing at his own daughter. Naturally he makes no similar comments about men or boys in revealing clothing or lack thereof, such as shirtlessness, wearing only boxers, etc. There's also a lot of mentions of women wearing ill-fitting or revealing or "slipping" dressing gowns, but not men.

Finally, his most major bias seems to be that people from deprived areas are all violent. He constantly interpreted the dirty looks given to him and his work van to be a flaw on the residents' part, without really examining the fact that these marginalised people were probably glaring at the council livery on the van, expecting further trouble and stress they couldn't deal with on top of everything else. Even when he acknowledges their attitude changing when they realise he's just there to help (they become enthusiastic, welcoming, and chatty) he still puts the onus on them for their initial reaction and not the council's wisdom in sending him into areas who might distrust the council at a tough and stressful time in a vehicle plastered with council logos. Most damningly of all, however, is the fact that throughout the entire book, he is constantly mentioning how his adrenaline spikes and he's waiting for someone to attack him. He is always assuming these people are violent by nature, when every single time somebody approached him or spoke to him first, it was to ask him if he was lost and if he needed help finding the address. The first couple of times I could accept it as perhaps someone unlearning a bias, but he never let go of the idea that he was about to be beaten up imminently. It leaves a sour taste in the mouth; like he can spend so much time with these people (both with this volunteer work and the outreach work he did before) and still see them as half-savage unpredictable animals.

Overall, a decent witness to this time. But it should certainly be read with a critical eye, and with the biases running through it I worry that some people might get out of this book messages and lessons the author certainly did not intend. I've already seen people elsewhere using the contents of this book to justify their classism, when it's clear this book's intent was to encourage the complete opposite. It's a delicate subject that was unfortunately mishandled quite severely in places.

[Sophy H · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried but this is a hard NO from me!

Who wants to read about a sanctimonious Mr Benevolent driving round during lockdown delivering food parcels to various groups of people living in shithole parts of Leeds?!! Hmm anyone??

There are multiple things that annoyed me about this book.

1) The author's attitude. He acts like he's a modern day Jeebubs, look at me, aren't I good and wholesome delivering food parcels, in my own car with my own petrol no less! Then all he does is comment on the physical description of every person he meets, from their skanky teeth to their "piss stained trousers" to their tattoos. Way to go Hennigan! Are you delivering food or assassinating personalities?!!

2) He is ecstatic when people gush and thank him and say they "couldn't have done without it", "they really didn't deserve it", and seems overly bothered when others don't and just take the parcels. What is he expecting, a royal thank you!

3) This to me isn't a true representation of poverty. He visits areas that are deprived but mentions people sitting round drinking in the daytime, smoking ciggies (some people ask if there are ciggies in the food parcel?!!), chillin with weed. So enough money for booze, fags and weed but can't afford food. Okay then! This probably sounds judgmental of me and do you know what, yeah it is. I'm judging. While some of these people were sat on their arses daytime drinking, smoking ciggies and weed, getting their food delivered, some of us were working on wards taking care of patients with actual Covid! All I can say is that Leeds Council must have deep pockets to have been able to provide food parcels for all those that can't be arsed going to work or participating in society. It is frustrating because it seems that the system was flawed and just delivered to anyone living in a shitty postcode, regardless of their circumstances. Elderly, yes, vulnerable, yes, ill, yes, lazy gets, no.

4) There were sweeping generalizations aplenty. Listen to talk of the "toilet roll debacle"- it was the middle classes that were responsible, they were buying it all because they're the only ones who can afford to bulk buy! Er okay Detective Hennigan, because the working class areas I know were stripped of their bog rolls by every gobshite, from B&M to Asda to Spar, and mate, it certainly wasn't the middle classes snatching it up there. What a dickhead statement to make! There were other grand sweeping statements that were equally annoying.

Overall this book really annoyed me. It was false, overinflated, self-serving, sanctimonious bullshit! Don't waste your money.

[Robert Welbourn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A painfully brilliant look at the way our country has been destroyed from the inside out in the last few decades. The pandemic only exacerbated already existing problems, and Stu does an amazing job of, as he says, 'giving a human face to this tragedy'.

A must read for all regardless of race, colour, creed, and perhaps most importantly political affiliation.

[Lady R · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely haunting, vital, visceral and raw read. I’m left reeling after racing through it and some of the images will remain in my mind for a very long time.

I just wish that everyone in the country with money, power and influence could be forced to read it.

[Jo Greaves · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very repetitive

[Jennifer]

I was profoundly disturbed and disappointed by this book, which I'd been keen to read ever since it came out. I thought the concept was excellent. Stu Hennigan is normally Stock and Reader Development Librarian for Leeds City Council - the kind of important role of which I am slightly in awe, and on social media he seems a good egg. During the time libraries were shut for the pandemic, workers were invited to take on other roles and so he took on deliveries for the council food project, intended to deliver food to people who couldn't get out due to their vulnerabilities. This, unsurprisingly, exposed him to the levels of poverty and yes degradation that people can be living in. I wasn't 'shocked' as such (having had home visiting roles) and I wouldn't have thought he would have been because he does so much outreach work... although not in people's homes. So... an excellent endeavour, even though I felt a tiny bit concerned about the immediate "I could get a book out of this" thought (perhaps that's what makes me Not A Writer) I have no doubt that the book will be of value as a historical document.

I have often wondered how anyone who has worked in any kind of health or social care role could ever vote for the far right but I think this book shows me how. I'm confident those aren't, thank goodness, Stu Hennigan's actual cross-making politics, but I feel the book does show that you can scratch the surface of right-on socialist leaning politics in an individual and find.... something else. A strength of the book in some ways is that he doesn't go in for much analysis or prescription (and despite all I am about to say, he doesn't ever explicitly ask a question about starving people's seemingly readier access to alcohol and drugs) He writes from the perspective of the role he was fulfilling at the time - again that's a strength.

I appreciated the account of the practicalities and frustrations of the job (the business of picking up and delivering prescriptions with the same request having gone out to multiple entities so that often he was coming as the umpteenth individual to do a job that had already been done - exasperating) Unlike some other reviewers I am not surprised that he felt frightened sometimes in areas with which he was previously familiar. It was a very strained, fractious time. Some of the issues would be the same for an Amazon driver today, except that he was never supposed to leave the bags of food unattended. (I thought his several quiet references to the number of lorries at the Amazon warehouse was important... and at the end he refers to their profits)

What I found very troubling was the tone of the descriptions of the people he encountered, relentlessly describing their physical appearance and their surroundings (there's even a classic and unironic comment on the size of someone's TV at one point - that made me laugh). It really does feel as though he was mentally putting people into deserving and undeserving boxes and that was a surprise (there's a little complexity there but not much). Their level of gratitude seems disproportionately important to him. He notices that the very old are surprised the food parcels are free... doesn't seem to think this might be an issue with the information people are given when they contact the service, memory problems or hearing impairment, and decides they are morally made of sterner stuff from before 'government handouts' (not worried about accruing debt) I'd've liked a bit more detail about how the scheme was administered as background.

His perspective on people's varying attitude to the risks of contracting Covid-19 does seem to be fair to reflect the contradictory thoughts the pandemic engendered, everyone judging from their own standpoint - those who seem to be carrying on socially regardless, and those who are taking precautions - some of which were not backed up by the developing evidence, and others which were ('paranoid' he calls them, and there's no mention of him ever wearing a mask to speak to people, although that may reflect the precise time frame)

Meanwhile, it is clear this is a man who has entered this difficult time and this challenging work not in the sunniest of demeanours anyway. He's already chronically troubled with insomnia (I'd've liked to have known what books he read during the night... there's so little mention of reading) and some of what he sees makes it worse. He writes about how his own little family with two young children who would be in primary school that finds lockdown difficult: his children fight, his wife, who is furloughed, is frazzled and he's trying to process what he's seeing (and writing a book...).

It was so important to have a perspective of someone who wasn't a 'hero' doctor (I think here also of Marcus Druse's excellent hospital cleaner memoir) I remain shocked that this was such a curdled one.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Repetitive in the essential way that reinforces the realities of a dogshit Tory government that we've ensured for a long time now.

Subjective use of personal funds aside, Stu's experiences with retirees, jacked millennials and single mothers reflects a city that clearly has many issues.

Too much for me to go into depth with personally, but this recollection hits hard and shows the underbelly of a city/people (like many others) that has struggled greatly under the governing of a group of utter bastards.

Essential sociopolitical reading!!

[Emma Goldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A harrowing account of poverty, distress, and suffering in Leeds. And not merely due to Covid and lock down. These are people whom austerity and lack of provision for health, both mental and physical, have driven to and over the edge.
The worst thing is that this has been brought on them by governments too concerned with profits, prestige, their own comfort, to act ethically, decently, or with consideration for those who elect them.
I live in Leeds, and have done so for 44 years. This situation is neither new, nor has it changed in that time. Do we need a revolution to solve the problem of governments who will never care about the poor?

[Pete · Rating 5 out of 5]

There certainly won't be a more important book published this year. A brilliant account of poverty in broken Britain during the start of the pandemic. Stu was a volunteer delivering food and meds to the needy in the Leeds area during the pandemic and this is his account of what he saw and experienced. Superbly written, and had me alternating between reaching for the tissues and kicking inanimate objects. This book deserves as wide an audience as possible and deserves to be on every best of the year list going. Absolutely vital.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a book that I would have picked up without the push of my book club but an important read, probably my most important read of this year or in fact the last few years. The stories of a food parcel delivery driver during the height of the covid pandemic reveals a level of poverty and deprivation in my home city that is almost unbelievable. Stu Hennigan attended a book club session and it was a pleasure to hear him speak about this book, his writing process and his experiences as an author.

[Jamila Wo · Rating 2 out of 5]

He is unbelievably judgmental and rude about people he delivers to. “I buzz and am met with the sight of a corpulent man wearing nothing but his piss-stained pants, which I can smell from six feet away. He’s has (sic) wiry black hair sprouting out of the white blubber that covers his bones, tattoos
everywhere, a couple of gold rings on one of his giant paws …” This is not an exception. As with many people who he delivers to, he doesn’t have an actual meaningful exchange, so he describes their physicality. He repeatedly talks about: skinny, track marks, smells of weed, smoke stained, people
being high, dressing gowns, bad tattoos, dog shit, broken furniture in gardens, dogs.
He loves if they are meek – old people (that try to pay and are overly grateful) and children (but not too loud). There is a strong sense of the “deserving and non-deserving” He also seems very fearful of these communities – considering he claims to have worked within these areas for years, I am
puzzled. But also not.

[Esther · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author Amy Liptrot recommended this and I saw it in a bookshop whilst here in Yorkshire. It’s so interesting and yes at times harrowing, but an important record of life in 2020 in some of the most deprived areas of Leeds where the author was volunteering for the council to deliver food to those sheltering. It’s matter of fact as the facts speak for themselves and clearly written. The impact of 12 years of austerity coupled with general Tory ineptitude are shocking.

[Louise Bentley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been reading this slowly because it’s challenging. We’re never often confronted with a deep hard stare at poverty, not what we think it is, but what it actually is. So many years of Daily Mail quips about the ‘benefit scroungers’ with huge TV’s have hardened opinion away from the realities of what it means to be poor in 2022.

Across the pandemic lockdowns Stu Hennigan, a Community Librarian from Leeds, worked as part of a huge team delivering food parcels and medicines to the people of Leeds. He journaled his experiences of what he encountered during this time and this is presented alongside the Government daily reporting, the SAGE advice, the headlines during this period.

We all have a tale to tell about how we lived through the Covid-19 pandemic, the furlough, the homeschooling, long queues to get in the supermarkets, the eerie silence of the streets. Health walks, chained and padlocked playgrounds. It was quite rightly, to use a very oft repeated word, unprecedented, and this caused us all to stop and reflect.

Stu’s work took him to all the parts of Leeds we’d perhaps prefer to ignore, the tower blocks, the crumbling back to backs, the boarded up windows of overcrowded HIMO’s. It’s testament to Stu’s humanity that he recorded what he saw there. He had a job to do and he could have walked in and out safe in the knowledge that he’d done his bit to justify his public service wages. What he chose to do though was see, really see the people he met, his book gives a voice to all those who exist on the margins of what we widely believe is our thriving, modern city.

I love Leeds, I’m so proud to live and work here but we can’t go on pretending that the inequality in this City is ok. It’s not ok. It’s not ok for families to live in squalor, it’s not ok for pensioners to live in homes with no flooring and with broken furniture, it’s not ok for women to walk through streets that throb with barely suppressed violence. It’s not ok for children to be filled with joy at the sight of a food parcel.


So many people have done so much for our communities over the last decade of shit show from our government and they continue to keep trying to patch up the broken bits. Please read this book, head over to your usual bookseller or reserve for free from Leeds Libraries. You need to hear this, you need to confront the reality that ultimately nothing has changed in our cities. Yes folk have big TV’s and yes you’ll often see them smashed up in gardens but spiritually our people are still broken by a system that is leaving them behind.

[Anne Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars for me... as other's have noted, it is repetitive to read. I appreciate though that this was how lock downs, and the food delivery service must have felt - same thing, day after day, even if it's a different address, street or tower block. I note a couple of reviewers have criticised Stu's physical descriptions of the people he delivers to, that the descriptions denigrate the people involve. And a couple of other reviewers comment that it isn't real poverty when people are spending their money on fags, booze and drugs, it's a choice - one where they chose to be "lazy gits". Personally I don't question that this is poverty - it's structural, conditioned behaviour and often intergenerational - it's simplistic to call it a "choice" and decide that the booze, fags and drugs are what stands between people and "social mobilty" or a more positive contribution to society. As a New Zealander I was interested that the face of poverty in England (or Leeds) is by-and-large quite different to what it is here. In New Zealand it is often considered to be brown and over-weight rather than white and emaciated. However intergenerational unemployment, poor housing, lack of transport options, booze, drugs and fags or vapes, are common factors.

Stu doesn't attempt to offer solutions to what he saw, simply to open our eyes to it if we weren't already aware. He opens each chapter with a summary of the current UK covid death toll, and the government's most recent pronouncements and directives. This is an interesting record of the lock down weeks and months as they roll by.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny and heartbreaking by turns, it's hard to believe that Hennigan's deft and confident lockdown memoir is his first publication. A litany of brief encounters with strangers could become tedious, but every one of the scores of recipients of Leeds City Council's food or medicine parcels to whom he delivers is sketched with such idiosyncratic mastery that each lives vividly in the mind. These people become the heroes in an unfolding tragedy, the author's own role functioning like a Greek chorus, reflecting back to readers our own recent yet oddly distant history. What politics there is serves clear narrative purposes and never cajoles. Leeds becomes more than a setting, emerging as a multifaceted personality, and also a convincing microcosm of a nation on its knees. Much of the content is emotionally tough to read, yet I found myself impatient to pick up my copy to continue because there is a kind of unbridled joy in the prose. Commentators have likened it to Orwell's The Road To Wigan Pier for its unflinching expose of poverty in the UK, but for me Ghost Signs manages to convey a similar gravitas free of Orwell's Etonian entitlement. And Hennigan's turn of phrase is wittier. It surely is a book that will be referenced in political discourse for a long time to come, but I suspect it will also become a touchstone for many writers.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A non-fiction journalised account of a Leeds-based volunteer driver delivering food & meds during the first six weeks of lockdown. The book really brought back the sense of tension (mixed with the joy of open roads) of this unique period when COVID-19 & how best to deal with it became a (inter)national obsession affecting absolutely everybody. Set in my home town of Leeds, I am familiar with the locations & recognise the validity of the descriptions, especially of places such as Harehills & Armley. The theme of the book switches from social reorientation in the early weeks to the extent & depth of unacknowledged poverty later on as the delivery service was broadened to meet the needs of a large cohort unable to obtain food. Perhaps needless to say, given the rise & rise of the bully-boy fascist tendency amongst our governing institutions, the situation that has not improved since.
A compelling primary source document.

[John Tales from Absurdia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ghost Signs, Stu Hennigan’s debut publication, is a non-fiction book set in Leeds during the first UK lockdown of 2020, following the arrival of COVID-19.

Ordinarily a librarian, Hennigan volunteered to be a delivery driver for the local council, providing fresh food for families shielding or economically impacted by the lockdown. This took him to some of the most impoverished places in the entire country.

A desperately sad read, Ghost Signs is an eye-opening account of poverty in the 5th biggest economy in the world, whilst highlighting the crippling human cost of an absence of sensible domestic social policies.

It’s also a shocking indictment of the lack of vision from 12 years of successive Conservative governments.

Read the full review on talesfromabsurdia.com

[Rob S · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5

I work in Collections & Research in the museums sector and am utterly convinced that this will be essential reading for researchers 100 years from now exploring the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK.

The diarised accounts of a key worker, written in such a personal and emotive way will prove exceptionally important.

The whole thing is immensely sad and intensely real. It brings back a lot of memories but exposes so much of what I was hidden from (and am still hidden from) as I spent the pandemic isolating in a part of Leeds rarely referenced in the book.

Did I enjoy reading this? Not massively to be honest! It was heartbreaking and repetitive and draining. But fucking important!

[Andrea Barlien · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to take this book in small bites; I followed Stu’s trips in the van in real time via a friendship established on Twitter during the lockdowns and knew the challenges that he faced. Perhaps this was why I needed to read it slowly. I also found it harrowing. I was new to the country with no support but was working online daily teaching upper school students. So lockdown was a mental health challenge for me.
The book is tough but brilliant. It must be read more widely. It’s well written, stark and worth it.

[Brent Matley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ghost Signs by Stu Hennigan is a crucial real-life insight into poverty and the pandemic. It is, to put it simply: A must read!

Stu details his daily life while volunteering throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. There are many poignant moments in the book and it illustrates how many ordinary people have been left struggling alone with no support. The Government failed the very people who they are supposed to serve, time and time again!

Thank you to Stu Hennigan for writing this book and to Bluemoose Publishers for publishing.

[Andy Haigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stu Hennigan's searing account of delivering food and medicine to the vulnerable and deprived in Leeds during the 2020 lockdown will no doubt seem unbelievable to some, the idea that such deprivation and abject poverty could exist in 21st century Britain, well, it's not that bad, is it?

Over a decade of Conservative austerity has gutted public services, the NHS is running on fumes and then there's the council funding cuts.

Things are undoubtedly worse now than when Hennigan wrote this.

A powerful and haunting book, one which stays with you long after you put it down.

[James Tidd · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author gives us abstracts from a journal he kept from March to May 2020, whilst working as a volunteer driver in Leeds for the Food Distribution Project, at the height of the first lockdown, caused by the Covid 19 pandemic. Hennigan is brutally honest, as he deals with not only the deliveries he makes but also his struggles with family life and his increasing awareness of his own mental health issues, which are caused by the near slum like conditions that he sees people living in, in a supposed first world country.

[Louisa Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliantly written, devastating and important book.

With a background in mental health nursing, I'm particularly impressed with the author's ability to do what is often sadly too difficult for a man to do: express his emotions.

I'll be telling everyone I can to read this book. Bravo to Stu Hennigan for living the experiences described in the book — and writing about them— so well, and to Bluemoose Books for publishing 'Ghost Signs'.

[Adam Steiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deep thumbnail portraits of impoverished lives made harder under Covid pandemic lockdowns and increasing pressure on hospital systems across the city of Leeds. Stu is a library worker who travels all over Leeds delivering food parcels and nightly records his experiences in a journal as he steps in and out of other people's lives.

Essential read for an insight into the impact of deprivation and Tory government cuts under a global pandemic in the UK.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive account of the ups and downs of delivering food to the vulnerable and left-behind in Leeds in April / May 2020.

Honest & heartfelt, the diary entries are given context with news updates relating the government's lacklustre efforts to stop the pandemic spread.

More people should read this book.

[Orla Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb book from Stu Hennigan. I've recommended it to so many people. An account of his work delivering food for a food bank in Leeds during the pandemic - heart breaking and gripping - highly recommend.