Re: Dispatches,Ch4 tonight ,Growing Up Poor
Zuleika, I am sure there are genuine people in need in parts of this country but it doesn't help that some parents simply don't know how to help themselves first!
How many of them I wonder, get their benefit money, pop to the supermarket and buy their weekly shop to feed their families and the first things that go into the trolleys are piles of the kids favourite ready meals?
There is no reason at all that they should be doing this. If they are on benefits and obviously home all day, there is no excuse whatsoever that they shouldn't be utilising every penny they receive for a food shop, on providing fresh, nourishing and healthy food for their kids, and that means cooking from scratch, not buying crappy ready meals.
Without meaning to sound cliche, most people here had parents with kids in the 40's and 50's. A lot of our Mum's had one or even two part-time jobs to supplement Dad's full-time job, Mum had a job as a cleaner at a local school as well as a cleaner's job at the local tyre depot. Only a couple of hours a day at each, but that money was precious and put to good use with every penny spent wisely. Dad gave Mum an amount for housekeeping every week and that had to last until the next one. She once told me that if she ran out perhaps the day before, tough! she would never ask for more, she just had to plan meals ahead for seven days so that if she had no money left, she knew that we would all still eat well. I'm pretty sure the only ready thing we ever had in the house was Birds Custard, but meals were always served up to us seven kids freshly made every day.
The only treat I can recall when we were in school, was when Mum went to the baker and bought '8 of yesterday's iced buns' which he sold to her on the quiet for a penny each rather than throwing them away as he was meant to. My mum even used to walk to the local butcher and pay pennies for the ''Bacon Bones'' that they had boned from the Pigs and normally thrown away,(nowadays sold as spare ribs!!!) She would boil them up with a head of cabbage and a swede and would put a huge tureen of them on the table with huge Desiree Red Potatoes that had been scrubbed and boiled in their jackets. Dad would have a cup of the 'Cabbage Soup' that the bacon bones had been cooked in. There were masses of meat left on the bones after the butcher had boned them, and we loved that meal.
The box in the old pantry that contained vegetables was always absolutely full. I doubt if it's the same nowadays for many of those claiming poverty?
So, it stands to reason that people are classed as destitute and dirt poor because many of them have never taken the time or had the inclination to learn how to cook fresh meals! The money saved would be half of what they must spend on ready-meals.
What do these Mum's do with themselves all day?