Briony Shennan has learned, over the years, to make herself look busy at dinnertime. The 33-year-old, who has three young children and another due any day, settles her youngsters down at the table, serves up their food and then occupies herself with whatever chore she can find – tidying the kitchen, hanging the laundry, reloading the washing machine – so they don’t realise she isn’t eating dinner herself. Sometimes, she simply can’t afford to.
I meet Shennan a few weeks before Christmas at Ely Baby Bank in Fordham, a small village in rural east Cambridgeshire. She is just days away from giving birth to her fourth daughter and, with money tight, has been visiting the bank over the course of her pregnancy to stock up on formula and nappies. It’s one way in which, in challenging times, she is able to prepare for motherhood again.
