I KNEW poverty as a child long before I would ever want a child to know they were poor. I knew what it was like to be ridiculed for my poverty and for all my classmates to know that my precious bike that Santa had gifted me was actually the old, busted bike of a friend and classmate of mine, a bike that my father had brought welding rods home from his job on the Clyde to repair before Santa left it for me in the morning of Christmas when I was in primary four.

Primary four is too young for a classmate to present you with the evidence that Santa didn’t exist, when he asked me to come and play with him on his shiny new bike as he knew Santa had given me his old, broken one.

Another year Santa got me a huge double-sided jigsaw of the Celtic team from the season before. It had a piece missing, though coming from a family of 10 kids I will concede that there was a reasonable chance that one of my siblings had spirited the would-be, final piece away... we were never the Waltons.

I was a good boy, I did what I was told, when I was told, I was respectful to my parents and never complained when I was asked to temporarily stop obsessing about football and run to the shops for my mum.

She was a very special woman, our mum. She ran a house of two bedrooms and two living rooms on my dad’s welders wage and made a home for her husband and her children. I still miss her and that home she made. She made a little money go an awfully long way, while instilling in us the tools to make sure her children’s children would only ever hear distant stories of poverty.

We all lived in hand-me-downs until we were up and raised and working. We were raised to be proud of who we were, to be unbowed, and never ashamed, but I remember one feeling of shame and regret that filled my child’s mind when I returned from school with my big toe poking out from my right shoe, having kicked that school ball just once more than the shoes could stand.My mother just sighed to herself, but her face could not hide the unspoken emotion behind it.

There wasn’t money to buy me good shoes and there was even less money to buy me cheap shoes every couple of months. I carry that look on her face yet.

So when I woke on Christmas mornings I had learned what I needed to do. I learned from a young age to act surprised, excited and happy, no matter what Santa had deemed I was worthy of.

While I was still young enough to believe in him I had grown to hate Santa. He gave me the presents that naughty children were “supposed” to get and made me question the point in being good.

Santa made me a socialist more than any other single event or act I can think of.

We are increasingly returning to a Victorian age. There are more desperate souls spending their winter nights in the doorways of Glasgow’s grand city centre shops.

The banks in our working-class communities are closing and being replaced by food banks. Dark days are upon us.

My parents and many like them had hoped that the welfare state, free education and the National Health Sevice would ensure that they would be the last generation to raise children in such poverty, but the bad days are back, with interest.

Some of you have done well for yourselves. You have grasped the chances presented to you. You studied hard and worked harder to provide for your children.

I hope you have the most magical Christmas with them, but please let me make a request.

Please take the credit for your hard work and the gifts you lovingly give to your children. Let them know that you bought them for them. Don’t ruin the magic of Santa but let him provide the cheaper gifts.

You deserve the credit for buying the more expensive ones ... and the growing ranks of less well-off kids don’t deserve to feel that their poverty makes them naughty.