1/x - I don't normally do threads, but after hearing today's decision by Parliament not to fund additional #freeschoolmeals I thought I'd do one.

Like @MarcusRashford, I do OK for myself now. I have a great job that I love which pays well - I'm blessed & grateful.

2/x - this wasn't always the case. I was raised on an inner city estate during the 70s & 80s. My mother is hard working, she has a cracking work ethic but she was in and out of low paid work. I had FSM throughout school. I loved school for lots of reasons.

3/x - sport mainly, but also the milk (taken away) & the guarantee of a 2 course school dinner. Sometimes, if you were really lucky, you'd get seconds - milk and dinner. This happened once & I thought my belly was going to burst. This wasn't the case at home.

4/x - food was hard to come by &, for a number of years, an Oxo cube & cheap white bread was what we ate. In what is now called Y7, I had a growth spurt & outgrew my school uniform. As you do, we sold it to someone one the estate for £5. We brought a pack of sausages.

5/x - I can still remember how lush these tasted to this day. We though we were royalty. It's not just food. We haf to pay the gas/lecky via a meter & I recall this taking up a lot of money. We borrowed money from loan sharks & I was often sent to answer the door.....

6/x - ....to tell them no adult was in the house. I had hand-me-down clothes which were ill-fitting at best & embarrassing at worse. I recall a pair of bright red trousers, elasticated waist, no buttons, pockets or zip. It was a happy day when I grew out of them.

7/x - to finish, every time I hear Ghost Town by the Specials it takes me back to this time. Hard working people with the right ethics just trying to get by but this is made hard by policy makers who think we're all lazy & get what we deserve.

Fin

Apols for the typos.