A BURY couple are living in a hostel for the homeless and surviving on £50 a week after making a mercy dash from Australia to care for their badly injured son.

Each day, caring parents Gerry and Sylvia Howard say they must choose whether to eat or visit their 23-year-old son.

Jeremy has been in hospital for more than a year after being hit by a taxi in Lancaster where he was at university. He is seriously brain-damaged and may never lead a normal life.

Mr and Mrs Howard together paid tax and National Insurance for more than 80 years before leaving for a new life in Australia in 1994. Now they have been told they won't get any unemployment benefit and feel angry and bitter about it.

"My wife and I have paid a lifetime of National Insurance and we've never asked for anything. But on the one occasion I need some help it's not there," said Mr Howard (62).

"Our lives have been destroyed by Jeremy's accident. We had a good lifestyle in Australia but we have lost everything.

"We came back to Britain to look after our son but in our current desperate situation the priority has become ourselves. We literally have to choose whether to eat or visit the hospital. "The stress we have both suffered has been enormous. We have never wanted to be dependent on anyone but now we have no choice." The Howards nightmare started with a phone call to their home in Queensland last February telling them of Jeremy's accident. The couple had emigrated 21 months earlier, having lived in Bury for most of their lives.

Jeremy, a former Bury Church High School pupil, is now in the Floyd Unit at Birch Hill Hospital in Rochdale. Doctors say that if he survives it is unlikely he will ever lead a normal life.

Because Mr and Mrs Howard have not been able to return home, their house in Australia has been repossessed and they have been left with nothing. After living in hospital accommodation until January they have now been forced to move to a hostel for the homeless.

Mrs Howard (52) worked as a nurse for 32 years. "I have lost my son as I knew him and my home. I can't stand it in the hostel. I'm used to being in my own home with my own things. Now nothing belongs to me and I have to ask permission before doing anything," she said.

Mr Howard worked as a business administrator from 1948 until he left Britain. His wife has a small pension so they do not get any income support.

Any money they do have is being used to pay off the cost of their flight tickets.

Their case has been taken up by Bury North MP Alistair Burt.

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