Banana sandwiches at gran's

Why poor means poorly and wealth buys health

David Proctor, 13, Cleveden Secondary School

"I live in Easterhouse (a peripheral estate on the east side of Glasgow) now, but I lived in Maryhill up to about two years ago, which is on the other side of the city. My parents send me to Cleveden (in a fairly well-off part of Glasgow) because it's a good school.

I'm up at about 7am, and I have breakfast - cereal or toast.

At lunchtime some people go to the school dinner hall (for lunch), but I stopped going because there isn't a good variety of food. It's the same stuff everyday, hamburgers, sausage, pizzas, just the usual things. I go to my gran's, just down the road, for lunch. Yesterday, I had gammon and mayonnaise, but sometimes I make up my own stuff like banana sandwiches and jam! Sometimes I have bananas or apples at my gran's, and my mum's always got fruit in the house - oranges, tangerines.

Some days there's a club I go to (after school) called Cyberzone 15, which is in Easterhouse. It's got computers with big eyebrows. They're just getting the internet installed. Sometimes I play with the computers, but sometimes I do my homework so that when I go home I've got the evening to myself and I can do whatever I want. My favourite computer game is Formula One, it's a motor-racing game, but I don't spend a lot of time playing computer games.

Then I might go for a game of football, I play for the school. In Easterhouse, we organise a game of football on a Sunday night down at the pitches. Then I go home at about 6.30pm and have my dinner. I like steak and chips with vegetables, we often have that. Then I listen to the radio or watch TV.

I go to the snooker sometimes, especially on a Sunday, I've got membership to a good snooker hall. As long as I've done my homework, I've got the rest of the time for myself to watch television or listen to the radio.

I'm not sure what I'll do when I leave school. I'll stay on in the sixth year unless I've got a good job I can go to. My mum and dad don't work - my mum's got a bad back and my dad's got ME. My brother, who's 19, works in the post office in Springburn.

I try to keep busy all the time - my mum and dad are always saying I'm awful restless, I can't stay doing one thing at a time. I help around the house and try to make things easier for my mum."