‘The bottom fell out of our world’ – coping with childhood cancer in a cost of living crisis
When Emma’s three-year-old son was diagnosed with a brain tumour, money was the last thing on her mind.
With the tumour wrapped around his optic nerve – meaning it can never be removed – the kind and sociable toddler will need treatment on and off for the next 18 years of his life.
“The bottom just fell out of our world, we thought we were never going to be happy again,” she told Sky News.
After 18 months of gruelling chemotherapy, the family now face the stark reality of coping with Seb’s cancer amid a rising cost of living and an ever-diminishing household income.
“Initially you think the diagnosis is horrendous emotionally but then it hits you, financially how do we make this work?” Emma Grimwood-Bird said.
Seb, with mum Emma
The cost of cancer in children
Charity Young Lives Vs Cancer estimates cancer in children and young people costs families an extra £730 a month.
Seb is fed using a feeding tube but is allergic to the hospital’s feed solution, so the family have to buy him high-calorie food that is easily blendable.
“I noticed the other day that something that used to cost me £8 – a cream and salmon thing – has gone up to £9.95,” Emma said.
“We probably spend an extra £30 or £40 a week on what he needs.
“For the first time, I am having to take things out of the basket and accommodate the rest of us around his nutritional needs.
“Which we are happy to do but it’s not something we have ever had to do before.”
‘How are we going to manage?’
The family also face a £300-a-month increase on their mortgage come January, as well as an electricity bill that has almost doubled, rising from £120 to £217.
“We know our mortgage is going up, but when we get to January we are not sure how it’s going to play out. I think we’re just putting our heads in the sand and saying, ‘We’ll manage, we’ll manage’.
“But now it’s getting to the point where we are thinking, how are we going to manage?”
While Seb is stable at the moment, she said the “fear is always there” that he may get sicker, and either she or her husband will have to leave their job to care for him.
Emma has already used up her allotted sick pay, meaning any additional time off is unpaid.
Seb, with his family – including his younger brother Will
“I thought there would be some sort of support if you can no longer work if your child is sick. But there is no protection at all.
“We have really tried to keep our employers on side, but there is only so far they will go. “
They get £300-a-month disability living allowance, which just about covers the cost of the additional car they need to take Seb to his appointments – at a hospital an hour away.
“I never have I thought about I would be someone that would receive benefits ever,” she said.
“But we didn’t ask that for our son to get a brain tumour and as much as you are dealing with the emotional side of it, you have to have the financial conversations as well.”
Rachel Kirby-Rider, chief executive of Young Lives vs Cancer, said: “We are witnessing the worst cost of living crisis we have seen in recent memory, and the young cancer patients and families we support are having to deal with the uncontrollable costs of cancer alongside the fear a cancer diagnosis brings.
“They are left having to make impossible choices, deciding between putting the heating on to keep their child warm or paying for petrol to get to hospital for treatment; getting the food their child desperately craves while on chemotherapy or buying a warm coat.”
The charity has introduced a crisis fund, offering grants to families and young people in greatest need this winter, alongside offering emotional support.
Seb, with mum Emma, in hospital
Less than 100 cases a year
For Katherine Lichten, from Suffolk, it’s a familiar story.
Their “whole world was turned upside down” when three-year-old Teddy, feared initially to need surgery for appendicitis, was found to have a cancerous mass which had metastasised on his hips, spine and bone marrow.
Teddy’s cancer is rare – there are less than 100 cases a year in the UK and only 40% of those diagnosed survive five years.
The train-obsessed little boy – whose favourite thing to do is go to the local station and spot the engines – has now been isolated from his friends due to infection concerns.
Katherine said: “He’s very curious, he likes to know what’s going on, and he likes to ask the nurses what medication it is – you can’t get anything by him.”
Teddy, post diagnosis
Unable to return to work
Katherine was due to return to work in January at the end of her maternity leave for Teddy’s eight-month-old brother Rupert.
But because of Teddy’s cancer, she won’t be able to go back until this time next year.
“My only income is £140-a-month child benefit,” she said.
As their income goes down, their costs have gone up – including their mortgage, which is now up £200 a month.
“Our budget for food has stayed the same but every week we are getting less and less for our money,” she said.
Teddy, three, at the start of treatment
“It’s very difficult to do food shopping when you have got a child who is seriously ill.”
Teddy also requires multiple hospital visits, which costs the family £12 a day on public transport, or £30 per journey if they need to take a more urgent taxi.
The family is fundraising for medical treatment abroad, hoping to get him specialised treatment in the US.
But the weakening of the pound against the dollar means they need to raise even more to be successful.
Teddy with mum Katherine, and younger brother Rupert
It’s Never You
The lack of support for parents of children with cancer is what spurred Ceri Menai-Davis to set up his charity, It’s Never You.
His six-year-old son, Hugh, died from a rare form of cancer in September last year.
He said parents are forced to rely heavily on charities – including his own, which has an app to provide advice for those “at the coalface”.
Currently, parents can claim universal credit (if they don’t have above a certain amount in savings or a job), disability living allowance, carers allowance and 18 weeks unpaid leave taken in four-week chunks across the year.
Hugh inspired his parents to set up a charity to give support to parents
“You are constantly fighting against this waterfall,” he said.
“I’m now the other side of it – the sad side of it – but the stress of it, and then having no money on top.
“Having been there, I know the cost of everything and what you want to do for your child.
“The three things we have to do to look after our child is to feed them, heat them and take them to hospital. And those three key elements have gone up in price by at least 20%. And for some parents, there is no support, so it’s adding an extra burden to an already awful time.”
UK
Woman’s body found in car boot in east London – as murder investigation launched by two police forces
UK
Police investigating criminal offence after Daily Telegraph columnist ‘dumbfounded’ by social media post probe
Essex Police say they are investigating an alleged criminal offence of inciting racial hatred, after Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson said she was “dumbfounded and upset” when officers knocked on her door last Sunday.
Ms Pearson revealed she was told she was being investigated over a year-old deleted post online.
She said she wasn’t informed which post had been reported, but suggested it could have been related to the 7 October attacks in Israel or pro-Palestine marches.
She claimed the officers told her she was being investigated for a NCHI (a none crime hate incident) an incident involving an act which is perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards persons with a particular characteristic, but is not illegal.
NCHI reports have long been controversial, with many citing free speech concerns, and Ms Pearson’s account of the police visit has led to widespread support from Conservatives and online commentators, including Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.
But an Essex Police spokesperson has told Sky News its investigation was never for an NCHI, and that the matter was always being treated as an investigation into an alleged criminal offence of inciting racial hatred.
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Speaking on her Planet Normal podcast on Wednesday, Ms Pearson said she found the visit “chilling”.
“I was dumbfounded, upset, it’s not very nice,” she said. “I was in my dressing gown on the step of the house, these two coppers were there just outside the door.
“There were people gathering for the Remembrance Day parade so there were people watching from the other side of the road.
“Whatever I did or didn’t tweet, if somebody found it offensive, that to me is still not a reason for two policemen to come to my house on a Sunday morning.
“You know, they don’t do that for burglars, do they? We know policing is under-resourced and they are unable to attend often quite serious crimes.
“This was the most extraordinary overreach and state intrusion into my private life and I don’t think I did anything wrong and I think their response was outrageous.”
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In a statement, Essex Police said: “Officers attended an address in Essex and invited a woman to come to a voluntary interview.
“They said it related to an investigation into an alleged offence of inciting racial hatred, linked to a post on social media.
“For clarity: a complaint of a possible criminal offence was made to the police and this is why we called; to arrange an interview.
“Everyone was polite and professional throughout the brief conversation.”
They said an officer told Ms Pearson: “It’s gone down as an incident or offence of potentially inciting racial hatred online. That would be the offence.”
Essex Police say they have complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) over what they call “false reporting” regarding the ongoing investigation.
In an interview with The Telegraph published yesterday, Kemi Badenoch said police visiting a journalist over a social media post was “absolutely wrong” and that “we need to look at the laws around non-crime hate incidents”.
“There has been a long-running problem with people not taking free speech seriously,” she said.
She challenged the prime minister to review the laws, saying: “Keir Starmer says he is someone who believes in these things. Now he needs to actually show that he does believe it. All we’ve seen from him is the opposite.”
Ms Badenoch added: “We need to stop this behaviour of people wasting police time on trivial incidents because they don’t like something, as if they’re in a nursery.
“It’s like children reporting each other. And I think that in certain cases, the police do it because they’re afraid that if they don’t do it, they will also be accused of not taking these issues seriously.”
Essex Police said the officers went to the address to invite Ms Pearson to attend a voluntary interview as part of their investigation, which was passed to them by another force.
“The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed,” the statement read.
“An investigation is now being carried out under Section 17 of the Public Order Act.”
Essex Police also said they made attempts to contact Ms Pearson before the visit.
Other prominent Conservative voices such as Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Chris Philp have also leapt to Ms Pearson’s defence online, as has X owner Elon Musk, who quoted a post about the incident and said: “This needs to stop.”
Police commentator Graham Wettone told Sky News the police are “duty bound to investigate allegations of crime”.
“They’ve had an allegation of crime made there,” he said. “They will investigate it. If at the end of this they decide that no criminal offence has been committed – and we’re not at that stage yet – then it can still be recorded as a none crime hate incident.”
The police, he said, are duty bound to keep a record of none crime hate incidents.
“Parliament said they want the police to do this, to investigate and record incidents like this. So they are doing exactly what parliament and society asked them to do, and they are getting criticism for doing what people want.”
UK
Sir Keir Starmer vows to defend budget decisions ‘all day long’ as farmers slam ‘disrespectful’ PM
Sir Keir Starmer has said he will defend the decisions made in the budget “all day long” amid anger from farmers over inheritance tax changes.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced last month in her key speech that from April 2026, farms worth more than £1m will face an inheritance tax rate of 20%, rather than the standard 40% applied to other land and property.
The announcement has sparked anger among farmers who argue this will mean higher food prices, lower food production and having to sell off land to pay for the tax.
Sir Keir defended the budget as he gave his first speech as prime minister at the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, North Wales, where farmers have been holding a tractor protest outside.
Sir Keir admitted: “We’ve taken some extremely tough decisions on tax.”
He said: “I will defend facing up to the harsh light of fiscal reality. I will defend the tough decisions that were necessary to stabilise our economy.
“And I will defend protecting the payslips of working people, fixing the foundations of our economy, and investing in the future of Britain and the future of Wales. Finally, turning the page on austerity once and for all.”
He also said the budget allocation for Wales was a “record figure” – some £21bn for next year – an extra £1.7bn through the Barnett Formula, as he hailed a “path of change” with Labour governments in Wales and Westminster.
And he confirmed a £160m investment zone in Wrexham and Flintshire will be going live in 2025.
‘PM should have addressed the protesters’
Among the hundreds of farmers demonstrating was Gareth Wyn Jones, who told Sky News it was “disrespectful” that the prime minister did not mention farmers in his speech.
He said “so many people have come here to air their frustrations. He (Starmer) had an opportunity to address the crowd. Even if he was booed he should have been man enough to come out and talk to the people”.
He said farmers planned to deliver Sir Keir a letter which begins with “don’t bite the hand that feeds you”.
Farmers’ tractor protest outside the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, North Wales
Mr Wyn Jones told Sky News the government was “destroying” an industry that was already struggling.
“They’re destroying an industry that’s already on its knees and struggling, absolutely struggling, mentally, emotionally and physically. We need government support not more hindrance so we can produce food to feed the nation.”
He said inheritance tax changes will result in farmers increasing the price of food: “The poorer people in society aren’t going to be able to afford good, healthy, nutritious British food, so we have to push this to government for them to understand that enough is enough, the farmers can’t take any more of what they’re throwing at us.”
Mr Wyn Jones disputed the government’s estimation that only 500 farming estates in the UK will be affected by the inheritance tax changes.
“Look, a lot of farmers in this country are in their 70s and 80s, they haven’t handed their farms down because that’s the way it’s always been, they’ve always known there was never going to be inheritance tax.”
On Friday, Sir Keir addressed farmers’ concerns, saying: “I know some farmers are anxious about the inheritance tax rules that we brought in two weeks ago.
“What I would say about that is, once you add the £1m for the farmland to the £1m that is exempt for your spouse, for most couples with a farm wanting to hand on to their children, it’s £3m before anybody pays a penny in inheritance tax.”
Read more:
Ex-Labour adviser suggests doing to farms ‘what Thatcher did to coal mines’
Farmers ‘could block ports and disrupt food supply’
Welsh farmer Gareth Wyn Jones
Ministers said the move will not affect small farms and is aimed at targeting wealthy landowners who buy up farmland to avoid paying inheritance tax.
But analysis this week said a typical family farm would have to put 159% of annual profits into paying the new inheritance tax every year for a decade and could have to sell 20% of their land.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The Country and Land Business Association (CLA), which represents owners of rural land, property and businesses in England and Wales, found a typical 200-acre farm owned by one person with an expected profit of £27,300 would face a £435,000 inheritance tax bill.
The plan says families can spread the inheritance tax payments over 10 years, but the CLA found this would require an average farm to allocate 159% of its profits each year for a decade.
To pay that, successors could be forced to sell 20% of their land, the analysis found.
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