John was made redundant from his job as a delivery driver. He says, “I’ve been working for 35 years. I want to work. I just can’t get a job. You try your best, and the minute you do something wrong, they’re on you like a ton of bricks.” John has been sanctioned three times. First, he was ill and missed a job centre appointment. Next, he was sanctioned for not applying for a specific job. He says, “I was sure I’d applied for it, but I couldn’t find evidence that I had. If you apply for job after job after job, and you get nowhere with it, you can lose track. It never seems to go away. Every day you’re thinking, ‘I haven’t got a letter today.’ Another day, there’s a brown envelope from the DWP and you think: ‘What’s this for?’ There’s always that cloud hanging over you.”