to think that being poor is not what it used to be?

[oldenglishspangles]

When I was a child being poor meant
no electricity/gas/water - delete as applicable depending on whether money ran out.
We ate left overs.
No colour tv even though everyone else had it. We had a remote control though - us children!
We didnt have kettle a pan does the same job.
cardboard insoles, to cover holes in shoes holes in shoes
alimited number of non branded, hand me down clothes
Walking (not bus or cars)
No holidays
only a few toys - (a very limited budget which as children we understood and tried to get as mmuch as possible with)

Your title sounds as if you would wish for severe poverty to reappear, although I am doubtful that it has ever really gone away!

The ability to escape poverty through education has diminished due to the introduction of tution fees and the cutting of grants. These opportunities were afforded to you in the 1960's if you came from a poor background, this was the case for both my parents and a lot of their contemporaries.

Equally, the cost of housing has disproportionately risen in comparison to income so a lot of people are struggling to pay utility bills who wouldn't have been 40 years ago.

I grew up in the 50's. There was a coal fire in one room and that was the heating. No immersion(sp) heaters, no fridge, no tv, The bedrooms had wooden floors and a small rug only. Ice used to form on the windows in winter. Not a lot of food, certainly no cola or orange juice except when your mum got some from the clinic. The thing is we were all the same but I remember thinking people in my class at school were poor.

I dont wish for poverty to reappear, and nor am I saying that nobody lives in poverty anymore. The definition seems to have changed somewhat to include superficial items.

It always included superficial items. TVs are superficial, as are brand new branded clothes, taxis, holidays and most toys. You mentioned all those things in your op.

The only things people really need are suitable clothing of any brand or age, food, heat and shelter.

The only thing has changed is the sorts of superficial things people want.

Always included superficial items ime. They were just different.

Dh used to tell me that they were hard up in his childhood until I pointed out that his dad would regularly pop in for a pint of beer on his way home from work- a habit dh himself gave up years ago for reasons of economy. Doesn't worry dh at all- but reckon most men of his dad's generation would have felt seriously deprived if their evening/weekly pint had to go. But it would be hard to claim that beer was an absolute necessity in the 1940s. It was in many working circles a social necessity, and hence a mark of poverty if you were excluded from it. The same with social necessities today.

To my parents (and many of their generation) having to give up meat and eat lentils would spell absolute deprivation. Doesn't seem so bad to me. So again, not an absolute necessity, more to do with expectations.

You see, this is why you used to be able to leave your front door unlocked.

No-one had anything worth fucking stealing.

I work with women who are genuinely poor - I work for a charity that provides free literacy/numeracy classes for them.

Yesterday we spent the class time looking at budgets as they were all pretty worried following the budget. These are mainly single mums on benefits in pretty poor housing.

Most of them in the end worked out they are not going to be much worse off - in fact maybe even a little better off - even with the rise in VAT. Because they were struggling to think of much (loo paper, the occasional pack of fags but most of them don't smoke cos they just can't afford to) that they buy that has VAT on it - because they can't afford to buy things which are rated with any VAT.

One woman yesterday said it was 3 years since she had bought any clothes or shoes for herself. They cut one another's hair, share baby clothes, walk everywhere. One woman walks 5 miles to our project and then 5 home to do a 2 hour literacy class!! (we are digging in the budget we have for bus fares for her - she pushes a buggy with 2 children in it all the way!).

I regularly meet people for whom the only hot meal their kid gets each day is the free one at school - its sandwiches the rest of the time. If it wasn't for free breakfast clubs, lunches, fruit and milk in school the children would be malnourished. There are malnourished kids in Glasgow. I once taught in a school where a child didn't turn up on the first day of term. Why? The "catalogue" order hadn't come and he literally had NO SHOES to wear to school!

I'm glad poverty is not quite like when the OP was small. But the gap between rich and poor in this country is as large as it has ever been. And there are still people living in poverty worse than most of us could ever imagine.

The definition of poverty is basically:
" an inability to participate with social norms"

Poor is not an absolute state. If there is a rich/poor divide in the country then no matter how you dress up the situation of poor people by referring to Charles Dickens, it doesn't change the fact that they are poor.
So for example if everyone in the country owned a mobile phone, and you couldn't afford one, not because you prioritized other things, but because you actually didn't make as much money as everyone else to enable ot you participate in this particular cultural norm, that would make you poor. Or if you could never afford to eat out in a restaurant, when everyone else in the community could, then that would make you poor.

The rich-poor divide and unequal distribution of wealth is what defines poverty.

People in a rainforest tribe, for example, are not poor, even though nobody there has mobiles or TVs or fridges etc, because the distribution of wealth among the community is roughly equal. Everyone has access to more or less the same amount of resources, which means nobody feels poor and nobody "is" poor. Even though by comparison to a "poor" person in Britain the tribespeople would seem poor in fact they're not.

'There are malnourished kids in Glasgow.'

Definitely!

Males in certain parts of Glasgow have the lowest life expectancy in all Europe.

Yet never a day goes by when we don't see a thread on here or pass an article in the media that no one is poor in the UK.

I actually often feel embarrased when doing this kind of work with the women I work with .... I can do it because I have a highly paid DH and so can afford to do voluntary work (I don't get paid).

Yesterday I realised I don't know anything about CTC as we are not eligible and it really made me .

Oh no I am a patronising rich git aren't i?

This is an interesting thread. I grew up in the 70s/80s and we definitely weren't poor, lived in a nice detached house in a nice part of town. Dad was a railway inspector, Mum was SAHM.

However, the only difference I can really remember between me and most of my mates who lived on the local council estate was that we had a phone and went abroad once a year.

In fact they had colour telly long before me, and nicer clothes too.

None of us had central heating until well into the 80s then we all kind of got it a the same time.

Our childhoods seemed exactly the same to me and we played in and out of each others houses, got the same stuff for Christmas, same pocket money etc.

I can remember some extremely poor families on the estate, but that was usually due to the sheer size of the family. One family had 21 kids!

After school the main difference was people on my road went off to college/uni. Most of mmy mates on the council estate went out to work immediately.

But really we were all the same. 3 good meals and a warm house.

Of course not, weegie. Don't be silly. Your husband is in a caring profession, helping people every day.

We get CTC as are working poor.

Parents on full benefits, of course, are also in receipt of it in addition to whatever main benefit they are on (income-based JSA, income support or ESA (formerly Incapacity Benefit)). People on full benefit will also get LHA/Housing Benefit if needed and Council Tax Benefit (which means they will still need to pay a small amount, usually £20-£25/month, because in Scotland the water and sewage is not metered but rolled into the council tax bill).

In addition, some will be in receipt of DLA for themselves or on behalf of their children. This is a non means-tested benefit (for now).

Then there are the passport benefits: things like free school meals, grants for uniforms (if they are available, it varies by council), free dental care, etc.

I guess it is all relative. When I was growing up we weren't poor I guess but we didn't have a lot. My dad worked for peanuts and my mum was at home. As kids we never went without essentials at all. But as teenagers we were very aware we couldn't have the latest brands or go on the school sking trip. But we were lucky that 1 year we had a holiday abroad to Spain, as my dad got compensation for getting half his finger chopped off in work. Another year we were able to go abroad again because my nan paid for us. We would go on a lot of caravan holidays.

DH on the other hand lived in absolute poverty as a child. He would starve on a regular basis. Monday was the day MIL would get her benefits and she would blow it all on sweets and chocolate in 1 day and they would then starve for the rest of the week. All his clothes were from the salvation army, they lived in 1 room with heat. But that was mostly down to MIL's MH problems and DH and BIL were frequently in and out of care.

I wouldn't describe the way we live now as "poor". DH earns minimum wage and we get the rest topped up in tax credits. There are months when I struggle to pay the rent, and feed us. But we never go hungry as my lovely mum and dad ALWAYS help us. We have Sky and broadband, which are our 2 luxuries. We had to get rid of our (17 year old) car as we couldn't afford it. We don't have holidays at all. We do have a widescreen TV given to us by my mum. I have a laptop that my dad got for my birthday. The desktop was another birthday present from my dad a few years ago. We do have mobiles but they are PAYG, and cheap models. DSD has a blackberry that is on contract that she pays for herself out of her EMA. So I guess with out my parents help we would be poor, but because I get so much help I don't feel poor.

Don't be embarrassed Weegiemum - I used to do similar and its good for everyone. I want to do some voluntary work over here but because my language is not so good no organisation wants my help with anything (even mopping up or whatever!)

Voluntary work promotes social cohesion and it certainly beats sitting on your arse.

I think as a country we feel richer because the massive swathes in the middle are much better off than the swathes would have been say, thirty years ago.
My Mum for example, is having a very different retirement from my Nan.

But there are still pockets of terrible poverty and disadvantage. Thank God though, that there is still universal free education and healthcare.

Thank God for you and your ilk Weegiemum. You have no reason to feel embarassed at all.

Karma - your post made me laugh.
We got new beds when my Dad got some compo for having his thumb crushed LOL.

Thankyou

I can't work as I have MH problems but there aren't the pressures in voluntary work (and therefore I always make it - silly isn't it?)

I know I am helping but I get this giant disconnect in my head when I go off home to my warm, nice, well stocked house with my broad=band and Apple laptop and GP dh etc .....

But it needs to be done - and 2 of my ladies have just been sitting proper exams!! I'm so proud of them!

My mother worked part time and my father sorted sheepskins, working 12 hour days, they married at 17/18. We never lived in a council house and had a holiday every year. Did we have money? No, far less than most., All my parents siblings earnt more than my parents but they had much less than my parents. My mother was a genius with money. She didn't waste 1p, we never bought water/drinks/sandwiches when out, we only had cheap kids ice lollies.

Amazing to think of it really.

I have been 'poor' ,when i did my course i lived on alot less than 10k a year ,no benifits ,no housing benifit , i paid my rent/bills ,ran a car, clothed and fed my son. I went out 3 times in that 3 years , had no holidays . My son had a game boy that i bought from my brother and that was it as far as luxury items were concerned ,we did have a colour tv ,it was kindly given by a relative who was upgrading . Had a twin tub for washing ,and still miss it !!!! I live in an affluent area and did feel pangs of guilt when my son went to school after the summer hols to answer 'the park' to the question where did you go for your holiday ,not disneyland ,greece,south of france ,barbados like the other children.

We're doing a really bad job of not being well off atm. Spend money on crap, when I could easily save up for driving lessons, a shed, visits to relatives if we could be frugal.

I'm dead tight in some ways though. Resisting getting DS messy hair cut as I know we'll have to keep paying for it be done every 8 weeks.

weegiemum
" actually often feel embarrased when doing this kind of work with the women I work with .... I can do it because I have a highly paid DH and so can afford to do voluntary work (I don't get paid).
Oh no I am a patronising rich git aren't i?"

NO weegiemum, you're not patronizing at all. If women like you stopped doing what you were doing society would most probably grind to a halt.
You are doing the work that by rights the government should be allocating resources to, and helping people that the government should be helping, but it's easier for the gov to get altruistic women like you to do it unpaid than it is to pay someone a wage for doing what is, after all, essential work.

Weegiemum I think we must do the same job but I am not a volunteer. I do have a volunteer with me sometimes and I am really gratefull for the help.

I have to say, having met weegiemum IRL, she is anything but patronising. Quite the contrary. And someone I'm proud to call a friend.