Peter and Ann

Peter: I do currently have a job. It is one day a week, part-time, at a well known supermarket every Saturday.

Ann: The issue about him working one day a week at this big brand supermarket, is that actually, for Peter to spend one day appearing normal is quite difficult, quite stressful. We’ve been with employment advisors that think that he should be able to do that five days a week.

Peter: What I really want to do is teaching. I’m looking into that at the moment. It’s only something that I’ve recently figured out that I wanted to do. The area that I’m strongest in is maths, so that’s what I’d like to teach. I have a passion for it and apparently some skill in it.

Ann: More than some skill, he’s got a master’s degree in astrophysics and when he was at university, the mathematics he was doing for that was way above what his supervisors could really understand as well. So, he has a good grasp of maths but also he’s very able to teach it, he taught me quadratic equations and I was a dunce at school.

Peter: I get Disability Living Allowance, the lowest band on both of those. I’ve recently got Employment Support Allowance, we’re actually in the middle of the process of that. So, I think, was it last year we applied for it?

Ann: Well, we started applying for it in October. We actually sent it in January, which meant they came back and asked us for some more up to date information because it had taken so long to get Peter to sign the forms, which is another issue altogether.

Peter: Yes, the forms weren’t exactly easy to fill in.

Ann: No, they were-,

Peter: It was just a case that I had to literally hand it over to my mum and say, ‘Look, I’m struggling with this.’