I SEE the f-word (foodbanks) has raised its ugly head again. I see in the national media that the Trussell Trust has admitted they over estimated the amount of people that use foodbanks in this country is not a million but less than half of that.

They fail to mention how many of those that use the foodbanks are asylum seekers and immigrants from Eastern Europe. The Trussell Trust ask for donations of £1,500 from volunteers to hand out free food from churches and community groups, this hefty bill has come under scrutiny

Let’s go back to the beginning of the 1940s, there was a war going on, many thousands of wives and mothers lost their breadwinners killed in action, many thousand lost their homes (bombed out), like my mother, my Dad was killed in Dunkirk and she was left with me and my sister to bring up the best she could.

There was food rationing, no family allowance only means testing if money was needed, my mother worked all hours to keep us in clothes, food and a roof over our heads but we coped. We were fed on stodge and scraps she could afford and perhaps there was enough left at the end of the week for a packet of Woodbines.

There were no foodbanks only soup kitchens and there were no mobile phones, play stations, 42 inch TV designer trainers/designer clothes. I wore short trousers till I was 14 and many times I have had to put cardboard in my shoes to cover holes.

It is a known fact that the foodbank system is wide open to fraud and abuse, I don’t know how many food parcels a person is allowed a year, I believe it’s three, unscrupulous people travel from town to town even selling off some of the parcels, one of them reportedly removed the labels off the tins to fox them.

I know there are some deserving cases that are genuine but as you will be aware I am a pensioner as my wife is and we know of no pensioners who use food banks.

We have shops like Lidl, Aldi and the pound shops that sell cheap food, there are too many convenient takeaways, in my day the only takeaway was the chippie.

We didn’t need any of the amusements mentioned above on weekends and holidays, we were out being Robin Hood in Porthkerry woods, Bluebell woods the half mile wood and the Arga woods making bows and arrows, then over the Plaza (Regal) on Saturday morning matinee watching Jonny Mcbrown, Roy Rogers, Gene Autrey, the Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello and the serials of Flash Gordon and the mark of Zorro that cost us threepence to go in.

Those were the days I don’t know how we managed without foodbanks

Brian Kirke

Via email