Your generosity has given children a Christmas to remember

Editorial: Just two weeks ago we appealed to you, our readers, to help us provide 500 new beds and mattresses. You answered our call – and then some – helping to raise £145,000

A child wakes up to find presents on a new bed at Christmas, delivered by Zarach (William Lailey SWNS)

Among some rather more notable and ancient traditions, Christmas has become a moment for our political leaders to stand in front of a twinkly tree and deliver some words of stunning, interchangeable, if well-meaning, banality.

Who could easily say, for example, which of Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer or Ed Davey informed us that: “Christmas is a time of peace, joy, compassion, a time of hope and promise of a better world”? Or that “for me, the message of Christmas is for us to treat others as we would wish to be treated, and the symbol of Christmas is light – the light of hope, in the darkest week of the year. Hope that we all desperately need for these most challenging of times”? Or chose to praise the “generosity of churches and charities, providing a safe haven and support for those less fortunate, and for those for whom Christmas is a difficult time”?

The answer, in this impromptu Christmas quiz, is Sunak, Davey and Starmer respectively. Only Humza Yousaf, first minister of Scotland, in his piece to camera, could not resist injecting a little controversy into a generally unexceptional address: “My prayer this Christmas is for peace and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.”

But, despite some mild exasperation at this fashion for the politicians exploiting and intruding into what should be a joyful occasion – and they’ll be doing the same again for new year – the generous sentiments based on religious teachings are well meant. Christmas is indeed a time for charity, for celebrating and acting upon the basic human instinct to think of and to help others less fortunate.

The role of the media in such times is to highlight the plight of those in need, and in particular of the more overlooked and neglected causes. One social ill that relatively few are aware of, and which receives zero official attention, is bed poverty – children with no functioning bed to call their own.

It is surprisingly widespread – some 900,000 children are spending Christmas night sharing a bed or making do with a mattress or floor. As a result, their health and education obviously suffer, exacerbating the devastating impact child poverty has on life chances.

Leeds-based charity Zarach, with which The Independent has partnered in our Christmas charity appeal, looks to change this. The group delivers beds to some of the most disadvantaged children in Britain, working with hundreds of primary and secondary schools.

More than 100 people volunteer on logistics at Zarach to help out the modest staffing of 14, giving a new bed or mattress, as well as bedding, pyjamas and toothbrushes, to pupils who have been referred by their teachers. Those involved report that they are constantly surprised by both the poverty people in Britain are enduring – and the resilience of those very same people.

Just two weeks ago we appealed to you, our readers, to help us support their work and provide 500 new beds and mattresses. You answered our call – and then some – helping us to raise £145,000.

There is, of course, much more to do. As the former prime minister Gordon Brown remarks in today’s Independent, backing our campaign: “It is a state of affairs I never thought I would see again in my lifetime – and the blunt truth is that 2024 is likely to be worse, not better.”

But today, children in 850 families were finally able to wake up in their own bed on this special morning, giving them a Christmas to remember – all thanks to your generosity.