So, we've been recruiting volunteers
on a Wednesday morning.
That top team together,
everybody achieves more.
That's me.
I've been called worse things.
Today we made our final delivery.
Do you think there is like a spirit within Tredegar that is different to elsewhere?
Yes, I think so, he seems to.
This is a story about Tredegar.
How we pull together to help each other and what we can teach Britain as we face hard times again.
This is my hometown, in April.
This is Kevin.
Four seasons in one trip.
Yeah, welcome to Wales.
This is it.
Well done you guys, well done you guys.
He runs the film organisation I work for,
Cymru Creations.
We bring film and creativity to local people and our town.
Rolling.
Take 1, scene 1.
Action.
You take that to start with.
Alright.
But two years ago, we suddenly found ourselves doing much more than that.
Sweetcorn, sweetcorn, where am I?
You're there.
When everything else stopped in the pandemic,
we stepped up to run the community response to help those in need,
which was a lot of people.
It was led by volunteers,
about 40 of us.
Look at you spinning them round.
Huh?
Greasy bollocks been in them.
Oh, yeah?
I've been part of many teams,
but being part of this one was a little bit different,
you felt a part of something.
I dug this out this morning.
Obviously the bags that we used to use to deliver the school meals and stuff
and I became affectionately known as Mr Lunchman.
Lee was one of our main volunteers.
He's a self-employed sports coach.
Good lad, good.
But at the start of the pandemic his income suddenly dried up.
It went from everything to nothing, in four days.
I can remember sitting on the steps at Monmouth school,
and the sports master coming across and saying: 'Sorry, Lee, we're going to close the school.'
And then my phone goes, that's the Glamorgan Cricket,
'Sorry, Lee, we're closing down'.
And then the next call, you know, Blaenew Gwent and, you know, Ebbw Vale.
I felt we were left out on a limb for support, I think.
In 19 months I think we had two very small grants.
When you see it all your money being drained away
and all the contacts that you built up over all those years,
it could have took me to a dark place.
And then within two days I thought aah something's got to give
and thank goodness the taskforce came up, because that saved me mentally.
The first thing I don't mind admitting
it was quite selfish because I wanted to be busy,
but then we made a difference
and I want to make it clear that it's the we and not the me.
Honestly you wouldn't believe how much of a difference it will actually make to people like us
and the people that put their time into it, it's unbelievable
and I'm so thankful.
You know, what a time we had.
It was, in real hardship,
people from so many different walks of life just came together
and made it work.
Basically the people looked after the people.
It was a sink or swim thing.
We are off to Morrisons today to do a number of shops
for some people who still haven't been out since the start of the pandemic.
Leanne is still delivering.
She is also self-employed, running a cleaning business.
Personally sometimes I think the government are helping the wrong people,
they're not looking after the people who need it the most.
I think the government needs to come into the real world a bit
and spend a day with somebody like myself or somebody else who's self-employed.
We've just done shopping for two elderly gentlemen.
The ones that we're doing today I think they'll rely on us for a long time yet,
because of their health condition.
Part of my job is,
it's not only to shop for them,
but it's to have a chat to them, to see how they are,
because some of them don't even see anybody, you know?
They can go days without seeing anybody
which is quite lonely for them.
How you doing, you all right?
Yeah.
Because you were at home all day obviously you've got to have a warm home.
Yes.
So do you think that, do you think with the price increase that you will be affected by that?
Oh God willing I hope not.
Your office is in Tredegar?
Yes, we up in the,
up in the circle we are, yeah.
We're upstairs.
Oh where that was.
Yeah.
Right.
Do you know when I was a kid,
a very young kid,
David is referring to the Tredegar medical aid society
which was formed in 1890.
It was created by workers who came together, again as a team, to cover each other's medical expenses
through a cooperative membership scheme.
The local MP was Nye Bevan, who would use the inspiration as a model for the NHS.
The medical aid society was based right here, in the building where we now make our films.
It is cool to be in the same building,
because you know there's energies here that are sort of carrying on what they did.
It's carrying on the ideas.
'Tredegarising you' doesn't just mean
you know the NHS, the medical aid,
it's also the Tredegar.
Bevin's whole thing was like OK this is what the working man,
the boots on the ground are doing.
Where's parliament, what's the government doing about that?
And he went and did it.
That's sort of what Tredegar's message is, that well if there's no support from up there,
then we'll support ourselves.
That is sound from whilst the taskforce was delivering throughout the pandemic.
Every time we walk past in and out that plays whether we like it or not.
Yeah, every ...
There you go.
Sort of important to remember in a way.
Yeah it is important to remember and we'll never forget it with that playing,
but ...
But we feel like people are forgetting, especially those in power.
The government has finally announced some help for people on energy bills,
but these are sticking plaster solutions.
Nothing has been done to back up the people who help their communities all over Britain
and build on what they did in the pandemic.
... on what we face with the energy hike.
We've come back to one of the food projects that we worked with.
Are you here for the swinger convention?
Yes we are indeed.
Oh, wow.
Is this the place?
You've come to the right place.
Peanut butter?
Oh yeah.
Yeah?
Here you are.
Thank you very much.
I do think a lot of areas like this are hit hard,
because they're only just on the sort of like red line as it is.
It's scary you know, you don't know what's going to happen,
but they need to put everyone's wages up don't they?
Otherwise people aren't gonna be able to afford to eat or live are they?
So obviously Marcus Rashford did bring up, you know, children living in poverty
and parents not being able to feed the children.
I was hopeful that things were going to start changing,
but to me everything's starting to slip backwards again.
Now that the pandemic has sort of like, been pushed to the background,
I just feel as if now it's the case of right you're on your own again now,
get on with it.
Coming in?
Yeah.
Yeah, are you happy with us in?
Yeah.
We've come to see Kath,
one of the people we helped in the pandemic who we now feel worried about again.
... and we're making a film about Tredegar.
What life is like here, the good and the bad.
Yeah.
I got plenty of that for you.
The good for Kath is the legacy of what happened in the pandemic.
That means a lot, that really do mean a lot.
To me it was amazing, because they was here in my hour of need
and you know everybody was in need at that point.
They've done that off their own backs
and that goes to show what the community spirit is really like.
We're on the verge of going into another massive crisis,
does it feel like that?
It don't feel the same, it don't feel the same.
You would have thought this would have woke
the top people up, the politicians and things.
All this happening you would have thought, that they would have by now
had something in place for something like this,
but obviously not.
It's a raise of gas and electricity prices,
they're raising food.
My partner's back off again due to an injury,
So I'm feeling it with sick pay at the moment of £129,
barely enough to cover my rent.
I got rent of £125 a week.
I had to get the child benefit but that's their money,
they need clothes, they need food,
he needs milk.
We was alright when my husband was working,
but now we're back on our own again.
You can't prepare yourself for it, you really can't prepare yourself for it.
There's like a lead weight round your neck
and you know that lead weight is just getting heavier.
And that's it, that's what it is,
you just get heavy, you're getting pulled down and down and down.
Do you feel there is, I don't know, a reckoning
that you know, the government have got to do something about this?
Have got to pay?
surely, there's surely something, somewhere, that's got to be done.
Nothing's ever learnt from, it's always brushed under the carpet.
You just learn to help one another.
So if we don't help one another, we're not going to get nowhere.
Yeah.
I was gonna say that they're so lovely,
something like that happening to someone so lovely,
but it's happening to anyone in general, doesn't matter if you're lovely or not.
But yeah, see someone so welcoming, so like, you know, kind ...
I just thought one thing I want,
I really, really hope is that the work that we did doesn't get forgotten.
Hey, if Tredegar can be an example,
if Tredegar can be a learning curve, like what happened postwar.
The world had changed and there's something come out of it, the NHS.
We thought during the pandemic that something was going to change,
something was going to give
and we did our bit, we stepped in
and we did that thinking something would come behind us.
Something with a lot more support
and so far it just hasn't.
And it's something lasting built on those ideas, you know?
But it hasn't and I think that's what needs to happen now.
The platform that has been created by all these communities all over the country
needs to be built on.
And I think that's what the message here in Tredegar is,
build on this platform.
That's what Tredegar wants to teach.
Hey, stranger.
How are you, you alright?
How are you doing?
All good and you?
Still doing your bit for the ...
Still doing a Thursday, yeah.
Seems like a life time ago though, doesn't it?
I know, it's gone so quick but ...
Thank you so much for looking after me during the shutdown.
I wouldn't have coped without you, thank you all very much, very grateful,
Phyllis.
That's nice though when they make that.
I can't thank you all enough for what you have done for us.
Thank you for bringing lunch every day.
Cymru Creations has now been awarded the Queen's award for voluntary service.
Good on Cymru!
Come on.
Lots of groups around Britain did what we did
and lots of people and organisations in Tredegar pulled together for this.
Organisations like TK's with Jill.
I tried to keep away from the words 'food bank',
Assistance isn't it?
Yeah.
Community assistance, it's what you do.
I call it food share.
Zoe from Nancy Book.
You can't do it all.
I can't do it on my own ...
It makes you not want to do it,
it makes you want to give up,
but then I think, where else are they going to get it from?
Chloe's Cupboard.
I just want to do good for the people, be kind and I want to help other people.
It's time those people were recognised and their achievements built upon.