Skint, On The Bones Of Your Arse....

[J R Hartley]

Fair enough, things got better for me in my teens, my parents got work, qualified etc. The biggest achievement in my life is that none of my kids have had to come home to a cold house with **** all in the fridge, if i was going to get one thing right then that was it. I can't understand those people who seem to think that just because they got out of poverty then so should others, i may not have had much but what i did have was loving parents and a support network around me, plenty of kids don't have that.

I never wanted for anything as a kid, from my parents or my grand parents, never known poverty. My old man was out of work for a few years when I was 9/10 but we never went hungry or cold. My mother would cook 4 meals at 4 different times for the 4 of us.

We moved out of the Gurnos but I still went to school there and grew up there because that’s where my mates lived.

I went to school with people who had absolutely **** all. It’s only now as an adult with more of a social conscience that I look back on some kids and realise how bad some had it.

I remember some kids in my class were only 5 or 6 and walking half a mile to school on their own. No breakfast inside them. Dinner ticket for free meal was probably the only meal they had all day. What chance have people like that got?