Last week I chose three constituencies to give out my “teacher’s plea” leaflet : Zac Goldsmith’s Richmond Park, Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge and Iain Duncan Smith’s disparate Chingford and Woodford Green. I have since been dragging myself out of bed at 5am on pitch-black, literally freezing cold mornings to catch the first wave of train commuters before our work days begin. Beneath bundles of gloves and woollens I beam out, “Morning! Teacher’s plea!” to the commuters and parents on the school run.

The leaflet explains, “I am witnessing our schools nosedive into serious crisis. Please, think carefully about your vote this election.” I go on to tell them, in 25 compact lines, how “utterly ruthlessly the Conservatives have slashed our budgets and starved our funding. It is relentless and we are kidding ourselves if we think the repercussions aren’t going to be felt in future generations through crime, mental health & unemployment.” The last lines get “political”. I highlight how we have to put personal politics aside, it is our duty to vote tactically to become non-Conservative.

Sometimes people refuse a leaflet and roll their eyes, but upon seeing every second commuter reading one on their platform, they often return keen to be privy to the mysterious note. A dad dropping off his child once sought me out: “They’re all talking about your leaflet you know. Even the Tory supporters. I’ll take a couple extra. Hard to ignore when it’s a real person.” Watching him and each potential Tory voter read the leaflet in huddled groups and in packed train carriages is worth every frozen finger and angry glare.

Ruthie Bubis handing out leaflets.

One evening, a woman – and she turned out not to be the last – returned to me with tears in her eyes. “I didn’t realise how bad it’s gotten,” she responded soberly, clutching her toddler tightly. She wanted reassurance it wasn’t “really like this”, but then offered a promise not to vote Tory when I assured her it actually was. This is when I in turn realised that we aren’t all reading the same tired tropes about Tory cuts. We may shop in the same supermarkets and send our kids to the same schools, but we aren’t all exposed to the same news.

I assumed we’d all read about outstanding and long-serving teachers breaking down and leaving (I can now include myself in this); about book budgets, school trips, teaching assistants and librarians becoming a thing of the past; about tens of thousands of students being in “supersized” classes of 31-plus. Teachers feel powerless and angry in the face of all the hard work we do within the walls of our under-funded unit.

I actually wrote my leaflet less than 48 hours ahead of the last election. I realised: I had to tell people about stories too serious to be lost within the Twittersphere or confined to staffroom walls. Voters, especially the undecided and unaware, needed to hear them.

I had handed out my haphazard pieces of A5 flimsy paper in my swing constituency, Twickenham, to any passer-by who would take them. It was a faff doing it around my working day. Two days later, Twickenham confidently re-elected its Lib Dem MP, Vince Cable. But I soon found out that across the river, the Conservative Goldsmith had won by a painfully narrow 45 votes in Richmond.

So, readers, here’s an extension to my plea.. We rightfully feel disempowered in this global power game. But what do you know: one voice and a commonplace experience can be heard over the retweets, the countless colour-coded leaflets and the news headlines. You could be the local voice, whether you are a teacher, nurse or just a frustrated human being, that seizes the next 24 or even 12 hours. Get out there, print and hand something out. Tell your real stories – people are surprisingly thirsty to hear them. And for every reluctant passer-by, so many return to hear more, congratulating your initiative and catching the infectious vitality about it all. It’s worth it, trust me. Be the grinning human that cracks their understandable apathy. I realised, not dressed in red, blue, yellow or green or armed with shiny printouts, that being a real person offering a story of mutual care for our community’s welfare, works. We’ve only got a couple of days left and preventing a Tory majority might actually be possible.

• Ruthie Bubis is a former English teacher at a pupil referral unit and mainstream schools in and around London