Poor children were treated like slaves

SO schools are being urged to teach the horrors of slavery which comes as a surprise to me since I was taught all about the horrific conditions Africans endured when I went to school back in the 1950s.

But we were also taught about the way poor people were treated in this country in the same period.

Small boys and sometimes girls were sold by impoverished parents to chimney sweeps to climb chimneys and suffered all the illhealth caused by carcinogenic soot.

Other very small children were employed in mines to operate the ventilation system, spending long hours in the dark.

In mills, children would crawl under moving machinery to collect cotton waste, while their mothers worked such long hours they would sometimes fall asleep on their feet with disastrous consequences falling onto the machines.

My own grandfather, who went to work after a perfunctory education, told me about how badly he was treated not 200 years ago but in the 20th century and my own mother was told by her teachers she should go on to further education, an impossible dream for a working class girl.

People of my age will remember when they were small seeing elderly people with bent legs who had suffered from rickets as malnourished children.

So when people want compensation for the great-greatgreat grandchildren of slaves, should I claim compensation for the way my ancestors were treated or simply be grateful that I live in an age when decent housing, good health and a full belly are taken for granted.

Euel Lane Bath