Former teacher Hugh Jenkins on how his childhood in Lancashire shaped his spending habits
Poverty, in my opinion, can sometimes be a question of expectation. I realise my generation was lucky in many respects with free college education, more affordable housing and a decent pension, but we were used to much more basic living standards and knew how to make a little go a long way.
I grew up in a Lancashire mining village in a small cottage with no bathroom. One of my jobs was to cut up the News Chronicle for loo paper in our outside closet, which ceased to function in the cold winter months. I don’t remember owning a pair of shoes – I walked to school in wooden clogs – and my family would receive handouts from the parish church at harvest festival. I left school aged 13 with no qualifications and worked in a furniture shop. But I started going to free night classes and completed my school certificate. I had wanted to be a priest but I didn’t want to live a lie because of my homosexuality so I trained to be a teacher when I was 25. I went from leaving school with no qualifications to being a headteacher in London and in the Bahamas, where I lived for eight years.
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