Living by candlelight and queuing for leftovers ...Dickensian misery faced by thousands

SHOCKING NUMBERS ON DESTITUTION BREADLINE

- BETH ABBІТ

DESTITUTION - it's a word with a Dickensian ring to it. But it now applies to 3.8 million people, a million of them children, who are struggling to meet their most basic physical needs to stay warm, dry, clean and fed.

And it's an increasing reality for many in Manchester - a city with the second highest levels of destitution in the country, according to a new report.

Living in destitution doesn't just mean going hungry. We are now living in a country where people sit by candlelight at night, too afraid to turn on the lights. Where mums face a choice between babies' nappies and sanitary products. And where children take toothbrushes to bed clinging to the precious necessity like a teddy bear or doll.

Experts say the myriad of reasons behind this plunge into mass poverty means a Victorian problem has been reinvented for the 21st century.

The fourth emergency service

In Oldham, which has one of the highest levels of destitution in the country, pupils queue for leftover sandwiches from the school canteen to have as an evening meal. They hang about after hours to stay warm and turn up to lessons in dirty uniforms - if they can afford to turn up at all.

More and more are now asking to skip out of PE lessons early so they can use the showers, which cost too much to run at home. It means school staff are increasingly having to step in to provide help and support for pupils and their families. Or as Newman RC College headteacher Glyn Potts puts it: "We are the fourth emergency service."

He says some of the children at his school are already facing destitution. But it's what he calls the 'JAM' kids those whose families are 'just about managing' - that also worry him.