IN 1957, the year when the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, told people in the UK that they had “never had it so good”, 14 children were born whose lives would be examined periodically in Michael Apted’s landmark documentaries, a series beginning in 1964 with 7 Up. Danny Dorling’s extraordinary book Seven Children follows seven children born in 2018, when too many people in the UK have never had it so bad.

Dorling’s seven children are constructs, created from the millions of statistics collected about the lives of children and families in the UK. These statistics cross my desk every week: as the leader of one of the UK’s largest children’s charities, I know how hard life is for children. More than four million children live in poverty, one million in poor housing, and one million in food poverty. We know that we are failing a generation of children.

In 2018, inequality in the UK was at its highest point since the 1930s — higher than anywhere else in Europe. These children turned four when Liz Truss was Prime Minister, and they started school in September 2023. These years have been the toughest for children since the Second World War.

Dorling divides the UK’s 14 million children into seven groups. Each child about whom he writes represents the middle of a parental-income bracket. The reality of our deeply unequal society is laid bare when Dorling tells us that, among the best-off one per cent, a typical family will have a disposable income 100 times that of families in the bottom seventh.

Statistics and data matter, but it is stories that move the heart. The genius of Dorling’s book is that he uses stark and devastating data to paint a compelling and shocking picture of the reality that children face. Anna is Monday’s child. Her mother has an income after rent of £118, which equates to £16.86 a day, leaving her with £3.37 each day to spend on Anna’s clothes, food, and other needs — less than the price of a posh coffee. I read Anna’s story in a coffee shop, sipping a posh coffee, and tears fill my eyes.

I know these data, and they shock me every time I think about them; but when Dorling tells us that Anna loves to colour and draw, but her felt-tip pen runs dry, and her mum has to tell her that she can’t afford a new one, my heart breaks with hers.

Dorling’s book is sharp and expertly written, with a thread that runs through it which is a cry for justice. As we go through the author’s week, we see, even by day five, that families are struggling to keep their heads above water.

This deeply moving book has given me a renewed sense of anger and determination that the Children’s Society will fight for a better future, so that every child has the best start in life. These seven children will stay with me for a very long time.

Mark Russell is the CEO of the Children’s Society.

Seven Children: Inequality and Britain’s next generation
Danny Dorling
Hurst £14.99
(978-1-911723-50-9)
Church Times Bookshop £13.49