If you think adult carers have it bad, think again
I’m not a sentimental person, and quite a lot leaves me disconcertingly dry-eyed, but reading about this year’s Sunday Times Christmas Appeal – which I only did, belatedly, this morning – means I am typing this with my eyelashes all clumped together with tears. The appeal this year is on behalf of young carers – children who do work no child should ever have to do, looking after their ill or disabled parents and/or siblings. Some of these children are tiny. None of them have what you or I would understand as a childhood. All of them really, really need help. They are pathetically young, from poor or deprived backgrounds, completely vulnerable, and often hug their grief and loneliness to themselves. Please read Caroline Scott’s absolutely fantastic article, which you can find in full by following the link below, but this is how it starts:
Four o'clock on a Monday evening, and a straggle of small children are trooping into the Carers Cottage, a restored council building on the edge of Howard Park, Kilmarnock. They've come for their weekly activity session, and for a couple of hours they'll play, do arts and crafts, and be given a hot meal, complete with tatties and vegetables something most will not be getting at home. Some are absolutely tiny. Their hands disappear into their coat sleeves, and when they sit down on vinyl-covered benches, their feet barely scrape the floor. Despite the cheery yellow-and-blue decor and the comforting smell of cooking, this place feels starkly municipal. As if they might need reminding, a brightly painted mural above them shrieks: "Young carers just wanna have fun!" They look anxious and unsure of themselves until Jason, the centre's family support worker, wedges himself between two brothers, Sam and Luke. "So what yous all been doing over half term?" he asks. They shuffle about and say nothing. "That bad? No!" But it's a hard question because the answer for many is not much. All of these children have caring responsibilities at home way beyond their years. Their parents are ill or disabled or they've got a sibling with special needs who requires so much care that it impacts on the whole family. Sam and Luke's mum suffers from depression and their dad has multiple health problems, including chronic arthritis. He recently had a stroke, which means the boys and their two older brothers and sister take on a lot of responsibility. The centre managed to send them away for a week's break in a holiday cottage, donated by a local supporter. It was only four miles away, but there was a huge kitchen and chickens to feed, and it was a change for everybody from the chaotic conditions at home. "So, boys, what was the best bit?" Jason asks. Sam, 8, thinks about it. "There were beds with real lights you could turn on and off," he says, looking bemused.
Tonight, PC Fergie Grant has popped in to talk about graffiti and Asbos.
"Och no, they're never too young to start talking about crime," he says. But later concedes that perhaps they are. This group are all 8 to 10, and some of them are living in situations that make them very vulnerable. But when they stare at him with their round, baby faces, I don't think he has the heart to give them his drugs spiel. "What would you do if you saw someone doing something wrong?" he asks instead. "That's right! Tell your mummy." As he talks, Erin, 8, dressed in pink, with the sweetest face, traces a pattern with a finger on her skirt. Her brother, Finn, 10, stares at the floor.
After being cared for at home for months, their mummy died of breast cancer two weeks ago. PC Grant isn't to know, but I know, and my heart breaks for them.
Jane Smith, the centre manager of The Princess Royal Trust East Ayrshire Carers' Centre, began the young carers' group nine years ago with Laura Bennie. Then there were six children. Now four full-time and 10 part-time workers care for 400 children, aged from 5 to 21, at two centres, one here in Kilmarnock and one in Cumnock, 15 miles away, covering an area of 490 square miles. There are activities evenings every night for each age group, a total of 10 groups. Every time I see Jane, Jason, Lorna, who runs Kilmarnock, or Derek, who looks after Cumnock, they're carrying food. All the meals are cooked on the spot soup, mince and potatoes and they always overbuy, so the children who they know won't have much at home can take what's left away with them. Food is a big priority here, for everything it signifies: warmth, nurture, care. After Lorna got married in August, Jane laid on a mock wedding for all the children. Formal invitations were sent out, and Lorna, wearing an Oxfam dress, "married" wee William a 10-year-old who looks after his disabled father in the back garden with tables laid out, so everyone felt part of it. Jane cooked steak pie and mash and made sticky-toffee pudding and a cake. One of her absolute rules is that carers deserve the best. It's her way of caring for them. The children are never out of her mind. It's a standing joke that Jane cannot pass M&S without going in and buying pants. The office has enough pants, socks, T-shirts and jeans to clothe a primary school. And if she sees toothpaste reduced in Sainsbury's, she'll buy a basketful for distribution on respite breaks when children turn up with just the clothes they stand up in.
At Christmas there are parties for each age group, a huge dinner, and all the children and their brothers and sisters get a sack of presents. Parents who are ill often buy something from a catalogue a pair of boots or a toy but end up handing it over beforehand, so a child has nothing to open on the day. Many won't be getting Christmas dinner at home either; there'll be nothing to differentiate it from any other day. Jane tells a story about an eight-year-old girl, Kerry, who, when her mum was ill, regularly heaved her baby sisters up to the Foregate shopping centre in Kilmarnock in a double buggy. Kerry came to the young carers' Christmas party wearing a pair of thin leggings and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt she was very concerned about. It turned out it was her only Christmas present, and when she got home she had to wrap it up again for opening on Christmas Day. One of the few remaining pieces of furniture in the house was a highchair. Half the floorboards had been ripped up and burnt because there was no money for heating. Someone once criticised Jane for giving some children more than others. "Yes I do," she retorts. "I don't apologise for it either."
You'll no doubts have your own thoughts after reading that, but here are two of mine: 1) it is simply extraordinary that saintly and spirited people like Jane Smith and Laura Bernie should do this wonderful and important work and not have enough money to fund it properly; and 2) this is happening up the road, not in some Third World country where you sometimes feel that all the money in the world isn't going to help the problem, because the problem is of such epidemic proportions (which isn't to say you shouldn't donate money to Darfur as well, obviously). These are, in a real sense, our children, and it is our collective responsibility to help them. You can do so here, and read Caroline Scott's brilliant article in full too. I know newspapers stress everyone out around Christmas time by constantly demanding they put their hand in their pocket, and I know how easy it is to think 'Oh dear, how sad' and turn the page. But really, I defy anyone to read the Sunday Times article and not set up a standing order. If you need to be persuaded further, you can read 11-year-old Lauren Mallins talking about what happened when the Sunday Times magazine ran her Life In The Day story earlier this year, which resulted in a flood of donations from our kind readers, here. Lauren is just one child. There are thousands of others, going about their broken lives unheard, and uncomplaining.
You can watch videos of Christian Lunn (pictured with his mum above, left) and Lauren Mallins (pictured, right) talking about their lives by clicking on this link.
Once you've made your donation, you can read about how your money will be spent here. Thank you.
The Princess Royal Trust for Carers www.carers.org - and young carers, www.youngcarers.net
So, this is pretty cool. I'm a trustee of 
Someone I know from 
is a wonderful charity, of which I am a Trustee. The little boy in the picture is Harrison Tull, in whose memory his parents, Richard and Helen, started the foundation. Helen's written a little bit about it below. 
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