Dot, my husband found himself in a similar situation a couple of years ago. He'd worked and paid his contributions for 34 years, but got made redundant when the company closed down. He tried to claim JSA but was told he could only claim it when his redundancy pay had been spent. They calculated his redundancy pay would last for two months.
When the two months passed, he put in his claim (think it was £57 at that time) and when he told the authorities he couldn't live on £57 a week, their reply was "You are not expected to be able to live on it - it's a payment which is kept deliberately low to encourage claimants not to be on this benefit for long. If the amount was enough to live on, many claimants wouldn't bother to try to find a job - they'd just stay on benefits".
He felt like you do - he'd had 34 years of work with no sickness, no claims whatsoever from the state, and he would never be the type to stay on benefits rather than work. Within two weeks he had taken on a driving job to tide us over while he looked for a job better suited to his abilities.
The Benefits Agency explanation sounded harsh, but I can sort of see where they were coming from.