Tony Brown, personal assistant, Stockport, Cheshire
This time last year Tony Brown was an engineer in a firm making parts for JCB diggers. Now he is a personal assistant employed by three service users for up to 45 hours a week.
"I wasn't particularly happy in the engineering job and redundancy came along at the right time," says Brown, who lives in Stockport and started as a PA just over six months ago at the age of 46.
Brown's employers - two are recovering from a stroke and one has had a series of brain tumours - pay for his services out of their personal budgets. "My job is helping them get back into the community, taking them out shopping, to the local museum or the park, or to enjoy a day out somewhere," he says.
"Life can be depressing if you're stuck indoors in a wheelchair and you can't get out and about. I don't just want to feed, dress and wash people, then go home. It's a friendship as well."
He earns less than he did before, but the mortgage has been paid off and money isn't a problem. "You don't do this job for the money," he says. "When I first meet my clients, it's a mutual interview. If I feel he wouldn't benefit from me or I wouldn't benefit from him, I say so."
Brown says he has been on numerous courses to learn care skills. "The secret of this job is not to panic about anything. Nothing can happen that you can't sort out."
