Sue Stevens, of Lower Contour Road, Kingswear, writes:

I refer to your front-page article, Chronicle, November 25.

I shall be contributing to the food bank as usual, as I ­recognise that there are those in the community less fortunate than myself.

However, to say that there is a financial threshold below which children are living in ‘poverty’ and ‘deprivation’ seems a rather sweeping ­statement, as in common with Cllr Gilbert, I do not associate these words with the children I see when I walk the streets of Dartmouth or Kingswear.

I grew up after the war. My parents were not well off and we lived with various hardships. For example, I am sure I am not alone in saying that I frequently woke up on winter mornings with thick ice on the inside of my bedroom window. There was no central heating and the coal fire in the front room would not be lit until the evening.

Clothes had to last many years and were therefore always bought a number of sizes too large. I could go on.

Yet my parents would have been perplexed to be told that I was being brought up in ‘poverty’ or ‘deprivation’. To us, these terms would have meant such things as not ­having a secure roof over our heads, or running water, ­sufficient food, shoes or access to education.

While I am in no way denigrating those who are trying to make ends meet in difficult financial circumstances, I find the use of words such as ‘poverty’ and ‘deprivation’ emotive in describing the living standards of people in this country at this time.

Perhaps you could help the older generation by providing a description of what these terms are designed to mean in real terms.