As part of a project I did with Save the Children on the effects of austerity on some of the poorest communities in the UK I met up with Claire and her newborn daughter Ellie-May in 2013. Claire had had a very tough life dealing with drug addiction and her and her partner were both desperate to break the cycle and finally have a family. Ellie-May was Claire's 7th child. Five of her previous children had been taken away by social services, the other child being still born.

I struck up a close relationship with Claire and her long-term partner, Sean, and visited them in Keighley several times. Things were going well until Sean had a problem keeping off the drugs. Social Services found out and told Claire that unless she left Sean, they would once again take her child from her. This meant Claire had to go into hiding in a woman shelter leaving Sean alone. Three months later Sean committed suicide. Claire went on to start a new life with Ellie-May in Blackpool, and this is her story.

For Claire things have got worse as she now has Osteoporosis, where the spine is starting to collapse in on itself. It causes her to suffer severe almost permanent pain. She had two rounds of surgery, and she may need more to fuse sections of her spine together. Claire and Ellie-May are dependent Universal Credit and disability benefit. They are barely surviving from one day to the next in a landscape devastated by austerity.

The one thing they do have is each other and they have a very close and loving relationship.