I find boasting about how poor you were as distasteful as boasting about how rich you are. Unless, of course, you'd achieved poverty by your own unaided efforts. We were never poor, and I'm glad of that. Though never rich either, my parents didn't have a car or a fridge, and holidays away were few. Like a lot of people back then. But I know that my father as a child used to be sent to the Manchester meat market late on Saturday evening for a penn'orth of blue bits- offcuts of meat already on the turn, that wouldn't last till Monday- to be curried for Sunday dinner. Because my grandfather was out of regular work for 8 years. He was blacklisted as a trades unionist, and when he finally retired in the 50s he was proud that HIS gold watch and chain came not from the bosses, but from the union.