Photographs

I have joined a couple of ‘as it was in photographs’ on face book. It is astonishing how, despite the geographical distances apart, life in the 19th century or in the 1930s, or even post-war, looked pretty similar for working men & women whether close to wealthy suburbs or in the sight of heavy industries and the factory gate. 

Some areas have improved since the sepia-tinted images were first made. Other areas have never recovered from the lack of production and eventual unemployment in the 1980s. Thatcher’s Britain.

But it was in the 1970s that I first saw what poverty really looked like. My father was a grammar school Head and mum worked very part-time with special needs children. We had a comfortable life surrounded by woods and playing fields. Our neighbourhood was very safe: our childhood home was in a small cul-de-sac and there was very little traffic to risk our safety out-of-doors.

Books lined the shelves in every room. We were brought up in a state of security, informed discussion and happiness. I rarely heard my parents argue and I knew little of domestic tension nor a lack of cash. However we weren’t spoiled. A Head’s salary wasn’t huge but his quality of life in and out of school made dad a good chap to be around 

But it was at a school jumble sale that I saw a very poor man indeed. Every autumn the girls’ grammar school that I attended held a jumble sale in the wood-panelled school hall. All our mums were there, donating rather than buying, manning the stalls and making teas. The Headteacher was there in her batman cloak. There were few men.

Which is why it was so noticeable when a down-at-heel father-of-many with long black hair and an even longer beard arrived with a crowd of very young children wearing jumpers that had been washed far too often. He clearly hadn’t shaved in months. The Head smiled, uncertainly, at him when he entered. She was an unmarried MA in Maths from Oxbridge. 

He ruffled through a variety of jumble bundles. As he pushed his hand into his overcoat pocket I could see it was torn and buttons hung from his coat. His trousers were too long but it was the strain in his voice that told you all was not well. 

I’d have been about 13 and I could see he wasn’t like anyone I had ever met. When he handed a few coppers over for jumpers, slacks and skirts for his brood his hands were dirty and his finger nails were long.

I imagined that family lived in one of the council estates or in a privately-rented terraced house. Now I wonder whether they were in temporary accommodation. There certainly were poor areas in my town although there was full employment.

Looking back I guess his wife had died and he was bringing up the children alone. I do recall he held conversations with some of the mums and stopped for tea and biscuits. He wasn’t frightening just sad and weary. My friend’s mum gave the children unopened packets of biscuits. I saw the man smile. A few moments of tension left his face. He looked younger.

I imagine he got most of his children’s clothes at jumble sales. His children ran around the school hall like undomesticated kittens but went to him when he called them over. They were excitable but did as they were told.

Today there will be families in England who have no idea how they are going to cope with the prospect of rising domestic fuel prices and the lack of the £20 weekly uplift. 

Around five million may have to use the Trussell Trust or food banks just to get a meal. If a kettle breaks how does it get fixed? Let’s hope there are cheap, working models of microwave ovens available for folk who aren’t going to cope with even less per month as we enter the coldest months of the year. Heat or eat? 

Poverty is a failure of a wealthy society, like ours,  to provide for those when they need it. When they need a hand-up. Our welfare state is something we should have been proud of. But it’s slipped through our fingers like twenty-pound notes. There’s a lack of care.

The Victorians saw poverty as shameful, and the result of laziness or vice. But Dr Barnardo refused to discriminate between the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor. He accepted all children, regardless of race, disability or circumstance. That was London 1870. How have things changed? We have universal schooling and free school meals now but housing is poor in some areas and rents are shockingly high. And we have the food banks.

Should poverty exist in the world’s fifth richest nation?