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There was an undercurrent of poverty throughout my childhood. We lived with my grandmother in her two-bedroom flat, and I slept with my parents. We had cheap holidays, I had to save for my bike and get a paper round as soon as I was old enough.

You know, when you're poor and you have a bunch of kids in your family, you don't know that everybody's not poor.

We do nothing for children between the ages of zero and five. And we seem to be quite happy to have children growing up in not just poverty, which wouldn't be so bad, but isolation, lack of people around them, lack of support, lack of ability to go out and play in the dirt.

The worst thing people ever say is that 'I can't afford to have kids!' It's selfish, and what infuriates me is when people say they can't do stuff they like go on holidays and buy cars when they have kids. You can - you find the money, you've just got to work harder for it.

Did you know that nearly one in three children live apart from their biological dads? Those kids are two to three times more likely to grow up in poverty, to suffer in school, and to have health and behavioral problems.

In my late teens and early twenties, I thought having children was possibly the most irresponsible thing you could do because I thought that the world was a dreadful place; I thought the sooner we all got off the planet, the better.

I've got four kids to feed and a wife to provide for. It's a worry but a great responsibility as well and one I relish.