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Chris Thorley, 39, is an unemployed dad from Stoke. As he tells Claire Donnelly, an unexpected bill and a visit from bailiffs have left him with unmanageable debts.

I’ve had a nightmare with bailiffs, they've ruined my finances and left me needing to use a food bank to feed my children.

Having no money, having debt is a nightmare. You go to bed thinking about it and you wake up thinking about it, every day

Basically I was getting my council tax paid then the benefits changed and I needed to pay 30 per cent of it myself - but I didn't know that. So I got a bill saying I owed £373. I rang straight away and said I’d pay £50 a month.

I’m on JSA so it was a lot but I wanted to get it sorted. I almost killed myself paying it back.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

I had one payment of £50 left. One day I came out to see a letter from the bailiffs taped to the wall outside my house - not even put through the letter box - saying they’d visited my home so were charging me £235 for a visit and a late payment fee of £75.

I spoke to the council but they said it was up to the bailiffs because my debt had been sold on to them.

So now I’m paying back an additional debt I’ve got for no reason and my this year’s council tax. I can’t afford to do both so I’m alway falling behind on this year’s council tax.

It’s like a wheel, I can’t get off.

After I’ve paid the debt and just my essential bills there’s nothing left for food so we’ve had to come to the food bank twice just to get by.

I shouldn’t have to do this but it’s about surviving, that’s what you’re doing, surviving.

I’ve done loads of different jobs, I’ve worked as a lorry driver and all sorts but it isn’t worth it a lot of the time because you can’t get a proper job with proper hours and rights.

I could get agency work tomorrow but why would I? By the time you’ve set up and finished your claim you could be out of work again.

You don’t get guaranteed hours so you can end up in a worse position that you started and as a dad I can’t take that risk.

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We are retracing the journey George Orwell made in his book, The Road to Wigan Pier , throughout 2018 to tell modern stories of working and unemployed poverty.

They'll appear in a regular series in the Daily Mirror newspaper and here, on our special anniversary website .