For the fifth year running, the National Centre for Writing is thrilled to support the national Living Wage Campaign and Norwich’s status as a Living Wage city with an original poetry commission.
Each year, we ask a different poet to share their response to the spirit and ethos of the campaign, which seeks to foreground the importance of a Living wage: the amount that allows a person to live, rather than just survive. You can read and listen to the new poem here and it will also be performed live by Julia Webb at a special event celebrating Living Wage Week 2024, held at Norwich Theatre.
The difference between minimum wage and living wage
for adults over 21 is £1.16 per hour
I work 8-hour days at Pumpkin Crunch Cafe, up and down the wobbly
metal staircase, balancing trays of sandwiches, soup, cups of hot coffee.
puffy ankles, grated fingers, rubber glove hands, tinnitus, breakages
deducted from my wages, pressure headaches, a side helping of rudeness
The difference per week is £46.40 or £2412.80 a year – enough to pay for this year’s
£780 rent increase, a trip to my mother’s, and buy a happier Christmas for the kids.
*
I work 10-hour shifts at the book wholesalers piling bestsellers and glossy
hardbacks into shopping trollies, or nestling them amongst shredded paper.
back ache, papercuts, chilblains, varicose veins, the manager sneaking
up behind you if you stop to read, discounts only on damaged goods
The difference per week is £58.00, that’s £3016 a year – enough
for this year’s rent increase, to buy new school blazers, a trip to my mother’s,
a Christmas turkey with all the trimmings and a tin of chocolates for the kids.
*
I work 12-hour days at my local supermarket: unloading, labelling, a stint
on the checkouts, and, if I’m lucky, carting baked goods from oven to shelves.
itchy uniforms, burnt arms, backache, rude customers,
paying for my own protective footwear, RSI, 6am starts
The difference per week is £69.60 – per year that’s £3619.20 – enough
to pay this year’s rent increase, have a small holiday, and let Santa
conjure some Christmas magic, and deliver a Playstation 5 for the kids.
Listen now
Julia Webb
Julia Webb is a neurodiverse writer and artist from a working-class background. She has three poetry collections with Nine Arches Press: Bird Sisters (2016), Threat (2019) and The Telling (2022). She has a first class honours degree in creative writing from Norwich University of the Arts and a poetry MA from the University of East Anglia. She has had two poems highly commended in the Forward Prize (2016, 2022). Julia has taught creative writing for organisations such as Lapidus, MIND, Norfolk County Council, and The SAW Trust. She currently runs real world and email poetry courses, and mentors for The Writing Coach. She is steering editor for Lighthouse – a journal for new writers. She lives in Norwich.
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