A child is born

Some call it sacrifice. She calls it what it is: work.

The cleaning company, that pays her under the counter, has given her a week's unpaid maternity leave. The government announced that her housing and heating benfits will be cut, as will the single mother's allowance.

She knows that Britain is not a country where birth or rearing children is usually celebrated.

The poorest section of society in Britain are the 1.9 million single parents and their three million children.

The statistics are damming with 46 per cent existing below the poverty line.

The mother nows that just 3 percent of single mothers are teenagers, 55 percent had children within marriage and 57 percent work.

When she was recuperating in the public ward she heard that the Duchess of Cambridge had given birth. Her son was born the same day.

She wished the future king well.