Second hand is grand (most of the time)

As the youngest of 10 children I know what it is to wear secondhand clothes. I and all my siblings have always been accustomed to passing things between us to get the best wear out of them, and if I am honest I've always quite liked it.

Nothing makes me happier when someone compliments me on an item than to crow 'hand-me-down! My sister/ mum has such good taste'. I wear clothes that belonged to family members when I feel nervous or upset because I find it comforting that someone I love has already worn them. My grandad died when I was a teenager and when my mum asked if there was anything of his I wanted I asked for his gardening shirts. I still wear them regularly.

Of course it wasn't just clothes that were hand me downs. If you wanted to take up hobby or play an instrument and you were in the younger half of the family you'd better hope an older sibling had had the same idea first. My tennis racket- Julya's before mine. The rollerskates - everyones before mine (this didn't worry me much as I was terrified of them). The dolls - well some of those were mine first, but you could tell the ones that had passed through Vanessa's hands because their noses or fingers would be bitten off (she works in a primary school now - which I bet is comforting to all you parents).

And bra's, well bra's are an expensive item - so your first 'passage to womanhood' training bra was bought new from Marks and Spencer, and after that you worked out who in the house was the closest fit to you and got the ones they were done with (Clean is as good as new remember). This wasn't as bad as it sounds - some of my sisters were a fair bit older than me so had jobs and nice stuff so the hand-me -downs were usually good quality. And I was particularly lucky as I was closest to mums size so got her spares, which as I got older moved from the bras that didn't quite work for mums work (where she did a lot of lifting) to, when I left home the underwear dad bought her that there was no way she was wearing. This meant I had nicer (& fruitier) underwear than most girls my age, and didn't buy myself my own bra until I was 22 and had to finally accept that I am bigger than my mum. So I did the logical thing and went up a back size and that is the size I've worn ever since. It's convenient as it's the same size as Julya so if we buy something and don't like it we can swap. No problems.

But what I am coming to is this. I have never been measured for a bra in my adult life. I've read all the articles, and had friends wax lyrical about the wonders of properly fitting underwear and thought, yes, sure - but what kind of idiot doesn't know what size of bra fits.

It turns out an idiot like me. Last week I went shopping for underwear to see me through the challenge.  A certain high street store offers £5 off a bra if you get measured first, so I did. I went down 2 back sizes and up 3 cupsizes! And I've been wearing the wrong size all this time because of hand-me-downs!

Now I find this story funny, I think it reflects how close and ok with each other my family is. But I hesitated putting it up because I also knew that some people don't believe that clean is as good as new, and would just find the whole thing a bit grim. And if that's you then I'm sorry - because here's the thing. My family were broke but we were not living in real actual poverty - it was tight because there were a lot of us but we always went to bed with full stomachs (though I know on occasion my parents didn't). 

Real poverty is worse and 1 in 4 disabled children are living in it, 33% of families with disabled children regularly miss meals. And it's getting worse - Contact a Family's campaigns manager Una Summerson reacted to welfare proposals by saying:


"While benefits relating to the additional costs of disability will be protected, the overall freeze on working-age benefits and tax credits means that families with disabled children will be worse off under proposals set out today in the Welfare Benefits Bill.

"A two year freeze in these benefits means families with disabled children will face a cut in their incomes in real terms.

"This will be worrying news as many families with disabled children have been hit time and again by cuts in recent years. A third have already been affected by social security changes and many are experiencing delays in vital support services for their child. They are not in a position to shoulder anymore."

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