Jason Manford opens up about childhood in poverty: 'My mum hid from loan sharks'

msn.com:

Jason Manford knows what children growing up in ­poverty go through - because he has been there himself. As one of five kids in a council house in South Manchester, he hid from bailiffs and loan sharks, his only holiday was charity-funded and he handed the cash from his paper rounds over to his mum.

His parents were caught in a spiral of debt and poverty for years. The 38-year-old comic and presenter says: “The bailiffs called all the time.

I remember coming home from school and the sofa had gone, another time the telly had gone and another when my mum’s s****y little yellow Triumph Dolomite was gone. “My dad said, ‘If you ever answer the door to a bailiff, don’t invite them in.