‘I had problems but other people had faith in me’: Charles Cracknell on why he’s determined to provide help to disadvantaged young people
‘A WORKING-CLASS LAD IN A MIDDLE-CLASS JOB’: Charles Cracknell
Chewing the Fat, out to lunch with Phil Ascough
This week’s guest: Charles Cracknell
Venue: Trinity Indoor Market
They say every picture tells a story, and there are a few in this shot.
On the face of it a bustling Trinity Indoor Market full of people tucking into a midweek lunchtime. But look again and you’ll see more drink than food on the tables, which equates to hard times for the array of food retailers in the building.
It isn’t always like that. Sometimes you get a lot in over the weekend and during school holidays. Even during term time the market attracts school trips, although on a recent one the group of 30-odd all brought their own food, denying dining space to the market customers.
Trinity Live pulls a good crowd, but again you’ll see more pint pots than plates and that’s a shame because Trinity Market offers the widest range of food options under one roof in the city centre. From traditional sandwiches, pork pies and other pastries to a variety of fantastic international food and all sorts of sweet treats to top it off.
Anna Beaumont said her business, Cone Queen, was buzzing until Covid struck.
She said: “I opened in 2017 and it went really well for the first two years. I started off selling four types of pizza cone and a side of chips alongside a hot drinks menu. Soon after Covid I started with the loaded chips and last year the pizza-loaded hot dogs and nachos. Everything I earned went straight back into the business.
“But now I’m on universal credit. I work seven days a week and can’t even pay myself. I am constantly thinking of different ideas, trying to put new things on the menu and get regular customers. I’m on Just Eat but that comes at a cost.
“On a daily basis people look at the stall and ask me when I opened. They don’t know we’re here.”
At the back of the picture is the Making Changes for Careers (MC4C) stall staffed by Becca McCoid. Becca and her Youth Enterprise team colleague Amanda Brockwell are there every Tuesday from 1.15pm until 3.15pm. Aged 16 to 29? Want to start a business? They can provide information about access to test market grants, one to one support, business skills training and more.
MC4C focuses particularly on people who are disengaged due to disadvantage – young people of colour, neurodiverse, from LGTBQ + communities, on universal credit and from working-class communities. It works closely with the John Cracknell Youth Enterprise Bank (JCYEB), which offers grants for individuals or groups of young people who need finance to develop an enterprising idea. Both organisations also have a strong track record of helping care leavers.
That includes Anna herself, and Charles Cracknell, who is pictured waiting for his chicken, cheese and chorizo cone to cool down enough to take a bite, and meanwhile opening up publicly for the first time on the horrors of his childhood.
“I come from a background of being abused by my step-father; physical, mental – and attempted sexual – for two years from the age of about nine,” he revealed.
“I was put into care on the basis that I confessed to police that I wanted to kill him and my real mother. I was looking for ways out.
“I was in care in a hospital and it was only then that I realised how hopeless things had become. I had electric shock treatment because that’s what they gave you in those days.
“You sit and talk to other people, your peers, and all of them had multiple issues. They were what society considered wrong-uns. Three of us would talk about trying to commit suicide and I did try it. All three of us were saved.
HELPING HAND: Becca McCoid at the MC4C stall in Trinity Market
“I escaped to a phone box and spoke to my grandmother and she contacted my dad. They and my uncle put in place a process to get me back but for a long time I didn’t understand what was going on.
“One of my vivid memories was coming back in a car and we had to pull over because of the driving rain. I don’t know why but I got really scared and then even more scared when a police car arrived because I thought they were going to take me back. The police wanted everybody to get out of the car because it was on the hard shoulder but I was just too petrified to get out.
“In general we are taught to keep people quiet. I was brought up in the days when if you did something wrong or if something happened to you, you kept quiet. My family members don’t know that I was as badly abused by my step-father as I was. He’s been dead for 30 years and it’s taken this long for me to open up about it. I wasn’t mentally disturbed, I was affected by circumstances.”
Anna was also in care and left at the age of 16. With a degree in musical theatre, she was well placed to pursue a career as a singer. She performed at weddings and other occasions and was earning decent money until a tonsillectomy went wrong.
“There was a problem with the operation,” she said.
“I almost died. Recovery should have taken a fortnight but took 14 weeks. I can’t sing any more, it’s just too painful. But I am one of those people who faces their fears. You can dwell on it if you want but is that going to get you to the next step in your life?”
Anna completed a business course through the Prince’s Trust, set up Cone Queen and did a roaring trade with servings of pizza cones and acclaimed chips from an exclusive supplier.
When problems arose with the cone manufacturer, Anna opened a bakery, making her own dough and then adding cakes as a sideline. Somehow she also managed to fit in being a foster carer – one of the first care leavers in the city to take on the role – and she juggles all of that with living as a single mum to one-year-old Harlem while she awaits a diagnosis for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
She said: “I’m open six days a week here and at the bakery, making brownies and sponges that we deliver every weekend. There’s not a lot of time for rest but I love this place. We are a close-knit community and we all have each other’s backs and we are in the process of setting up a Trinity Traders Facebook group which will hopefully help us attract more customers in.
“My biggest challenge is having to choose between being a mum and having a career.”
As Hull City Council’s Youth Enterprise and Microbusiness Manager, Charles met Anna in 2018 when they worked together to promote opportunities for care leavers. He sees her as an example to all.
“She’s got commitment and determination,” he said.
“A whirlwind, someone who is not prepared to give up. Being a parent and working is difficult enough in terms of all the calls on your time, but being a single parent and running two businesses is something else. It would be easy to shut down but her determination keeps driving her on to succeed.”
In recent months we’ve written online and in the print edition of The Hull Story about young people who have escaped from war zones, homelessness and generational unemployment in their families to make a living running their own businesses.
We didn’t set out to do a series of articles about disadvantaged people trying to make their way in business, but the challenges kept coming and are impossible to ignore. It seems we live in a country and an age where too many people are either oblivious to the needs of others or just don’t care.
Dogma has driven thousands of willing workers out of the country and is also blocking their replacement, exacerbating a skills shortage which was damaging business years before Brexit turned the screw.
‘AN EXAMPLE TO ALL’: Anna Beaumont and her son Harlem at Cone Queen in Trinity Market
Awareness of the potential of, for example, disabled people, is increasing but only to a point.
I was told recently of a school which denied a place to a student who uses a wheelchair on the basis that they would have to meet the cost of installing an accessible loo. Surely they should have one anyway?
I also heard about a new recruit to one organisation who had to work from home because there was too much glare from the lights in the office. Supposedly experienced colleagues who criticised their new workmate were obviously unaware of the benefits of supporting neurodivergence.
Things are improving. British Chambers of Commerce recognises and rewards policies to promote equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace with its Equality Trailblazer Awards.
During the last week, HEY Local Enterprise Partnership and the Humber branch of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development collaborated to bring together businesses and other organisations for a symposium with the title Growing Your Talent Pool: Recruiting to maximise creativity and productivity.
But society could do so much more to help those who are disadvantaged in one way or another. And we’re not talking about a hand-out, more a hand-up.
Charles said: “After leaving care I came back to Hull and had a reasonable upbringing in a proper family unit. My dad instilled into me the feeling that if you could help somebody you should do that.”
He went to university, worked at the Town Docks Museum, completed a course at Hull College and pursued a career in politics, serving as a member of Humberside County Council from 1989 to 1996 and learning from such leaders as Maggie Smith, Rita Pearlman and Mitch Upfold.
“I suddenly realised what I wanted to do,” Charles said.
“I knew if you had power you also had to have responsibility and influence.”
He worked with Partners for Jobs at Orchard Park and then joined the city council and met Mark Jones.
Charles said: “Mark asked what I wanted to do to make things different. I said I liked youth enterprise stuff and he said I should do that. Because of that MC4C was born. It came from my determination to put something back and ensure that young people with different challenges at different times got the support they deserved.
“Growing up, I knew I had problems with numbers and I was dyslexic and I have poor hand-eye co-ordination. But other people had faith in me.
“I am a working-class lad in a middle-class job and I want to improve things for us working-class people and that’s why I became a councillor and a trade unionist. I realised you could improve things for people through your work and you could have a laugh at the same time.
“Too many people have stopped remembering their DNA and their background and their need to help people of similar background to get that level playing field.
“It’s not about government. It’s about people taking things on themselves and that’s why I established JCYEB, which has issued over 1,000 grants to enterprising young people in its 21 years.”