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I don’t often talk about my childhood but perhaps it can give some perspective on how a child feels when they are hungry.
I was 9 when I was forced to live with my mother and stepfather...prior to this I was with my Dad, properly fed etc. From the start it was different.
I was 9 when I was forced to live with my mother and stepfather...prior to this I was with my Dad, properly fed etc. From the start it was different.
I was put in a back room, no heating, minimal bedding, no sheets, just two blankets that were rarely washed and a bare pillow. (My sister also was with me but her story is hers). I don’t remember much from that first year, but I remember when my stepfather began abusing us.
My mother watching on. Part of that abuse was hunger. We were fed regularly, however. Breakfast was a single slice of dry toast. We were not able to get FSM as my mother wasn’t poor, just abusive. lunch consisted of another slice of bread, this time with either jam or lemon curd
Dinner was either a sausage or a fried egg with packet mash or sometimes a slice of toast. Drink was water. Christmas and Sunday’s we would eat with them, what they are. All other times we are alone in our room.
I cannot convey just how it feels to be hungry all the time, you develop a ‘space’ deep in your tummy, like something is chewing on your insides. You sleep a lot, you dream weirdly, night terrors, cramp. You drink a lot of water just to try and fill the hole. That makes it worse
By the time I was 13, my life was one of constant searching for food. I’d look in bins, search the streets for dropped money and half eaten food just to share with my sister. We survived like this for 5 years. I was bullied a lot for being thin, holes in shoes, poor clothes etc.
No adult questioned this, no teacher asked if we were ok. This became the normal for us. We never knew or remembered anything else. I recall one time taking maggots out of a old Christmas pudding we found just so my sister and I could eat it.
When I was 14, we were visited by my Uncle. There was a large row between him and my Mother and later that week, he returned with two other men, who were Soldiers like him and took us out of that house. I never saw my mother again.
It took a long time to be able to eat properly. Any kind of normal sized meal would invariably make me sick, a Doctor diagnosed malnutrition and a rehabilitation program. To this day (I’m 50) I still struggle with food, I either eat too much or too little, I still horde and binge
A child cannot help themselves. They need us to ensure they are safe and well cared for. Parental responsibility only goes so far, some parents care enormously but simply don’t have the means. They need our help...others, like my mother don’t care. They are abusive..
Their children need our help. Telling parents to buy a £2 chicken doesn’t help, those that care are already doing that, it’s not enough. Those that don’t care, well you’re shouting at the wall aren’t you. In both cases the Child still goes hungry.
@MarcusRashford knows this. They know that it’s the children that need the food, they need the ability to get a healthy meal independently...all the causes, such as poverty, abuse, drugs, you name it are still there, they need dealing with but you must #FeedtheChildren first.
So please all of us, do whatever we can. Write to your MP, donate money, or time if you don’t have money, if you see a child who needs help, help them. I wish a teacher or other adult had helped me, no matter how afraid or reticent I may have been. Hunger is torture, trust me.
These tweets really do not adequately describe what it was like. It was all pervasive, around 5 years of my life was consumed with this ever growing, gnawing feeling that would never go away. It was painful at times, sometimes it was just an ache deep inside.
It also creates a lifetime of issues, both physical but mostly psychological. It’s imperative that we all work to ensure no child is at such risk, whatever the politics or how you feel about their parents. Just #FeedTheKids. That’s it.
