“Please sir, may I have some… work?”

Oliver Twist I’m not – not yet anyway do I need to grovel for a second serving of gruel. However, grovelling it appears is what I must do.

After nudging five years out of the workplace I am officially a luddite and beyond employable. Emails to ex-employers remain unanswered; enquiries to potential employers disappear into the mire. The world of work suddenly seems severely hostile – as if repaying me for spurning his offers to hold onto me those many moons ago when the needy cries of newborn babies drowned out anything in its vicinity.

Because now he’s moved on, probably more than once, to pastures new. Fresh talent, youth and the hunger that drives career ambition that only comes without the burden of young children – all things I no longer possess. What about my decade plus of experience I counter? Pah, he spits back, all negated by the half decade of brain and soul-destroying nappy changing. And off he sends me to the scrap heap, sentenced to a lifetime of worthlessness.