‘Nothing to do, it’s grim, do crime or get wasted or both’

A shocking report last week exposed Dickensian levels of hardship in the UK. Chloe Combi talks to children for whom the summer holiday is a time of fear and poverty, not fun

- Chloe Combi

What do you think of when you hear the words school summer holidays? If your answer is long rolling weeks of freedom and fun, garden paddling pools and family camping holidays and hot sandy beaches, congratulations. You are describing the kind of happy childhood experience that is far from the reality of the 4.5 million children who are living in poverty in the UK.

In a report published last week, the children's commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, revealed that children described living with rats, eating out-of-date food, and not having a clean place to wash.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast last Tuesday, De Souza admitted she was shocked at how bad things had got: "It really is Dickensian and there are a huge number of children now who have dropped below what any of us would think is reasonable. The children who have got no food to eat, the children who can't wash their clothes, so they are going to school dirty and if they're lucky, the school are washing their clothes for them. I had one child tell me about his shame because he couldn't have his friends round because in the night rats came and bit his face."

Across the UK, 31 per cent of children are now living in poverty, and their experiences mean the looming six weeks of summer holidays are packed with misery, not fun activities and sunny holidays in foreign countries.

In Oldham, Joe, 18, has just done his A-levels. I met Joe when I interviewed him for my podcast, You Don't Know Me, and I was astonished to learn his school was so impoverished it had just shut on Fridays, and it had been that way for months - not enough teachers and too little money to keep the lights on. It hadn't even made the news.