'Poverty is worse for children now because they know what they're missing out on'

mirror.co.uk:

Sixty years ago today, the Daily Mirror began a campaign against child poverty and ­cruelty. How the nation has changed since then – and how much it has stayed the same!

In 1960, the UK was still recovering from rationing and austerity in the wake of the Second World War. The NHS was just a dream coming true and the welfare state was in its infancy.

There was work but wages and living standards were low. My mother used to say if she had threepence in her purse at the end of the week, she was happy.

People had a mortal dread of debt and fought shy of buying anything on the “never-never”. I was growing up in a mining town nine miles south of Leeds.