Make poverty history

SIR – Your report (April 3) highlights the problem of child poverty, as observed in schools.

In the Seventies I taught in a school in Nottinghamshire where the children in a family could attend only when it was their turn for the one set of clothes. Shoe-less children were common, and it was not unusual for children to faint during morning assembly for lack of food. I frequently took in food and clothing.

It was heartbreaking. What have we learnt in the past 50 years? Elaine Brown

Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire