IT’S a cold and wet Tuesday afternoon at the Colchester Foodbank, and Ann-Marie McEvoy has taken the bus from the city centre with her two nine-year-old twins by her side to talk to me about the struggles she – and thousands of others – are facing heading into the winter.

It’s the day before her sons’ tenth birthday, and one present is all she can afford for her twins, whose eyes light up when Mike Beckett, the chief executive officer of Colchester Foodbank, offers them a cup of Coca-Cola.

Ms McEvoy isn’t too keen on the twins having fizzy drinks although they are visibly excited by the prospect of a rare treat.

“It’s their birthday tomorrow, so I’ll let them off this one time,” she said.

Birthdays are not always the easiest of celebrations for Ms McEvoy’s children; she has fought desperately to provide for them over the years since she was on the wrong end of a benefits sanction – a financial penalty imposed on a jobless claimant – which forced her into poverty.

It sent the 39-year-old’s life into what seemed like a terminal spiral, and when she talks about her sons’ birthdays the next day, she tells me about everything she can’t give them, rather than everything she can.

Her situation means her nine-year-olds won’t be spending their tenth birthday how most ten-year-olds do.

“It means no party, no cake, no spending their birthday with their friends.

“It means one present – it’s the children who are missing out on everything.”

A natural instinct of any parent, Ms McEvoy doesn’t worry about herself – if her circumstances mean she has to go without food so she can feed her twins, she sees it less as a sacrifice and more as a necessity.

It’s almost four years to the day since Ms McEvoy started using the Colchester Foodbank, but walking in to receive a crate of essentials hasn’t become any easier.

“Every time I come here, I feel the same. Should I be here? Am I taking advantage of the system? What if someone else needed that to survive?

“It makes you feel like you're taking from people that need it; subconsciously, after having worked for so long, you think you aren’t one of those people who need the foodbank.

“It makes you feel guilty for asking for help – even when I was two days from eviction, I watched a baby sitting on a chair here, and I thought, ‘Am I taking food from that baby?’”

Ms McEvoy had previously worked in advertising, but her time is now spent home schooling her twins, who have started playing with a toy kaleidoscope as she talks about how much harder the fight has become to provide for them.

Staples on most consumers’ shopping lists are now going for prices which shoppers wouldn’t even have considered paying this time a year ago.

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According to the shop price index compiled by the British Retail Consortium, the average price of fresh food is up 13.3 per cent – and other statistics don’t make for great reading either.

The cost of tinned goods is up 9.4 per cent, and ONS figures show the price of tea is up 12.1 per cent.

Ms McEvoy had been struggling even before the rapid surge in the prices of basics, but with inflation recently soaring to a 40 year high, thousands of people like Ms McEvoy are becoming the dependants they thought they would never be.

The mother-of-two is open when she says she wants to be the person giving to the Foodbank, not taking from it.

“I walked past [the donation points] and put food in the basket ten years ago, but suddenly we’ve become the poor people.

“We pray for a day [when we don’t need to use the foodbank]; we can’t envisage a day like that, but we pray for it – everyone who uses the foodbank does.

“None of us want to do this – we want to be those people who are putting the food in the basket.”

Among the feelings of guilt and desperation, Ms McEvoy has nothing but unconfined praise for the efforts of the volunteers at the Colchester Foodbank, which is the busiest in the East of England.

“If it wasn’t for this foodbank our lives would be completely destroyed.

“The people here are heroes – it’s just kindness and loveliness the second you walk in through the door.

“Every stigma you feel outside is erased the second you walk in.”

A data table, stuck onto a whiteboard in the foodbank, lays bare just how many people are walking in.

Year-on-year, the number of adults and children which the Colchester Foodbank and its satellites have fed is rising, and so too is the number of food parcels.

In 2019, Colchester Foodbank and its satellites fed 3,673 children, a number which went up to 6,014 in 2020 and 6,623 in 2021.

From January to September this year, the Foodbank has fed 5,743 children, and with the predicted uptick of families needing food at Christmas, the total number of children fed this year is likely to far exceed its 2021 total.

When asked about how the cost of living crisis is going to affect her and her twins, the bluntness of Ms McEvoy’s answers makes the situation hit home.

“It’s harder.

“It’s harder to pay for everything – it’s the books, it’s the stationery; anything you need for home education.

“Prices just went crazy, but I have to deal with it – I have no choice.

“I go without because I’m a parent and that’s just what you do – it’s my job.”

As we get our coats on to head back out into the grey afternoon, Ms McEvoy’s twins enjoy the last couple of sips of their Coca-Cola, and I wish them an early happy birthday.

Her parting words as she takes her boys to the bus stop: “As long as we’re together, it will be special.”