Reading Katriona O’Sullivan’s article (Can anyone be too poor to buy a toothbrush? Yes – I know, because that was me, 19 August) reminded me of when I was a community worker at the Park Hill estate in Sheffield in the 1970s.
When I (young and naive) asked the mums why they bought chips for their toddlers for lunch rather than spending the money on fresh fruit (I cringe now in embarrassment), they pointed out that a bag of chips was the price of a couple of apples and one of them filled the kids up. I began to understand, and to also see why they spent money on cigarettes. As O’Sullivan says, “a few bottles [of alcohol] can feel like an escape”.
