Hi, I'm Sarah.  This is where I live.

We sleep, eat and play in this room that we rent.

I sleep in this bed with all my brothers and sisters.  Mum and Dad sleep in the other bed,

with the babies nearby.

Mum cooks our food on the range.  For breakfast we have porridge, bread and milk.  For dinner we have potatoes, baconand vegetables.  On Sundays we have bread and cheese.

Sometimes there is no money to feed our big family so we beg for scraps.  Mum mends

clothes to make some extra money.

My family is poor so I don't go to school.  My brother Tom is a mudlark.  He looks in the mud for things to sell like pieces of coal.

We share the outside toilet and water pump with 25 families. There is always a long queue. 

The water is often dirty, and in the Summer sometimes there is no water at all.

I like to play.  I skip with my friends in our street.  Tom plays with a hoop and a stick or he

uses stones to play marbles with his friends.