An eight-month-old baby girl snoozes in her pram while her mother, in those precious moments of quiet, counts the cost of feeding her four young children. A 16p increase in the price of chicken drumsticks has put them beyond her reach.
“What my children eat – it’s too expensive. The cost of living has changed,” she said, in interview room four of Bolton’s Citizens Advice bureau. “Chicken drumsticks, they used to sell them for £1.49 – it’s now £1.65. And the bus pass as well. From my house it used to be £2. It’s now £3 … A £1 [increase] – that’s a lot.”
