We’re Going on a Bear Hunt author Michael Rosen: ‘Life is harder for kids now than it was in 1989’

Life has gotten “tougher” for British children since We’re Going on a Bear Hunt came out, author Michael Rosen has declared – as parents suffer through “some other kind of austerity”.

The kids who enjoyed the classic picture book – released in 1989 by Rosen and illustrator Helen Oxenbury – didn’t necessarily have an easy go of it.

Prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s programme of deindustrialisation and reduced government spending had pushed child poverty rates to 31%, up from 14% a decade earlier.

But things are even more difficult for modern children, Rosen has told Big Issue.

“I think to a certain extent, the standard of living has gone down for many people since 1989,” the beloved author and former Children’s Laureate said.

“We had 10 years or more of austerity. That’s had its effect, and it looks like we’re in some other kind of austerity. I mean, it’s not a word that’s being used again, but I mean, you can measure these things by the take up of food banks and that sort of thing, and you can also measure it with the kinds of illnesses that people are getting. So, yeah, these are tough times for many people.”

Read more:

• Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury reunite to create exclusive festive tale for the Big Issue
• ‘I’m praying’: From hope to fear, here’s how parents feel about the new child poverty strategy
• After growing up in poverty, I know the anger 4.5 million children must feel

Some 31% of kids still live in poverty, the same proportion who did so in 1989. Trussell Trust distributed 2.9 million emergency food parcels in 2024/25, a dramatic increase from the 60,000 parcels distributed in 2010/11. And cases of illnesses like rickets and scurvy – both proxies for malnutrition – have increased in recent years.

It is in this context that Rosen and Oxenbury have united to create Pax: A Festive Tale, published exclusively in the pages of this week’s Big Issue.

The story – the duo’s third ever collaboration – features a family living on the breadline whose cat Pax ventures out into the cold after they’re unable to afford food for him.

“I think if you write about the world as it is, as opposed to the world that you hope it to be, then one of the things about the world as it is some people are finding it very, very difficult to get from day to day and have enough money and enough food,” Rosen said.

“And in this story, well, the cat is less important than the child, so there’s beans for the child, but not enough food for the cat. And those are the kinds of decisions that people are making, and they’re very sad to make them.”

According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, rates of destitution in the UK have more than doubled since 2017. They predict more than one million children will be experiencing destitution this Christmas.

Oxenbury, twice-winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration, echoed Rosen’s frustration at these figures.

“One feels extremely frustrated that you can’t you know what to do,” she said. “And I do feel so sorry for these people that are homeless. I don’t think they would survive even a night in those conditions, with on a hard, cold pavement and quite dangerous too.”

The story of the pair’s Big Issue exclusive story was celebrated in more than 100 national and regional papers, as well as on various TV channels. Rosen said he was very pleased with the reception: “I mean, if you’re a writer, then you know you’d like people to read what you write,” he said. “You can’t always guarantee it. So it’s lovely, and if people are responding to it and the story works, then that’s very exciting.”

You can read Pax: A Festive Tale by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury exclusively in this week’s Big Issue, out now. Oh Dear, Look What I’ve Got! by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury is on sale now, Walker Books £12.99 hardback.

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