The caller told James O’Brien about getting out of poverty – and listeners said it was a must-listen for political parties.<\/p>\n
John called in to talk about his experience of growing up in poverty.<\/p>\n
He said that he grew up with stepfather figures who were heroin “addicts” and “dealers” and you could not imagine a “more impoverished estate”.<\/p>\n
He said: “I am one of seven. The other six are all adults now. In and out of prison, drug addicts, alcoholics. Every single person, more or less.”<\/p>\n
He added: “The reality is that we talk about the kind of life expectancies going down, things were that bad then now and they’re only getting worse now.”<\/p>\n
When he was a kid, he said, \u00a330 a week meant that he could afford to eat and go to college.<\/p>\n
He explained: “The means that were available to assist me in climbing out of the hole I was born into have been stripped away systematically and continuing to be stripped away systematically.”<\/p>\n