The parents of Britain’s biggest family have revealed the eye-watering cost of their yearly school uniform bill in a new Channel 5 documentary.
Bakery owner Noel Radford, 50, and his wife Sue, 45, have 22 children, with 19 still living at home in Morecambe, Lancashire.
Nine of their children are of school age with Noel homeschooling them during the first lockdown last year.
When the schools reopened in Septmeber, the family forked out more than £400 on their uniforms with mother Sue revealing she doesn’t give her children their older siblings hand-me-downs.
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Bakery owner Noel Radford, 50, and his wife Sue, 45, have 22 children, with 19 still living at home in Morecambe, Lancashire.
‘We’ve got the uniforms to sort out, the dreaded shoes which we get once a year, the shoe bill is horrendous,’ Noel tells the cameras.
‘The blazers, the shirts, the ties, stationery, bags, school kits,’ he continues.
‘Sometimes you can reuse a PE kit because it still fits them from the year before, but definitely not the uniforms, we like to get new ones,’ Sue adds.
Dad Noel adds they choose to buy new as the school uniforms always looks ‘a bit shabby’ after a year.
‘Sue is conscious that we have lots of kids, and I don’t want them to feel – because they come from a big family – that they should be handed down clothes,’ he explains.
Every September for the last 20 years a new Radford has started at Primary school, this year it’s the turn of Phoebe, four, while 11-year-old Max starting secondary school.
In the episode, Noel and Sue take the children to buy their new clothes for the school year, initially paying £277.
‘This is my favourite bit, I love paying for school uniform,’ Noel jokes, ‘The cashier said, “that’s £277”, and I though “oh, that’s alright” then he says we’ve got your other stuff on order,’ he added.
‘That will be about another £140,’ Sue said, ‘just don’t look at you bank balance at it will be fine’.
Sue, Noel and children Chloe, 25, Jack, 23, Daniel, 21, Luke, 20, Millie, 19, Katie, 18, James, 17, Ellie, 15, Aimee, 14, Josh, 13, Max, 12, Tillie, 10, Oscar, nine, Casper, eight, Hallie, five, Phoebe, four, Archie, three, Bonnie, two, and 10-month-old Heidie all living under one roof. Oldest children Chris, 31, and Sophie, 27, have moved out.
Chris has a daughter and son of his own and Sophie is also a mother-of-three, while Millie’s daughter, five months, also lives in the family home.
Elsewhere in the episode, Daniel – the fifth oldest overall and third oldest at home undergoes training to joint he RAF and leave home.
It comes after viewers were left shocked in the first episode of the new series, after Sue revealed she spend £400 a week on her food shop for her brood.
Viewers were shocked by the amount of money Sue and Noel admitted to spending on just food for their children, which amounted to £400. Sue explained her children go through six pints of milk a day and as many as four loaves of bread.
Sue explained lockdown was responsible for the astronomical food bill because she was feeding a total of 24 people every day. ‘It’s just been massive, it’s never ending,’ she said.
Sue said her brood, pictured with husband Noel, 50, left went through 16 pints of milk a day, three to four loaves of bread and could eat up to 80 yoghurts a week
The family also can often serve up 56 sausages for BBQs, while a Mexican will set them back 5kg of chicken, 1kg of cheese and four packets of tortilla wraps.
The family also eats 80 yoghurts a week, and goes through three tubes of toothpaste and 24 toilet rolls.
While Sue and Noel joked they had to be creative with food in order to feed their hungry brood, viewers were left gobsmacked by the amount the family spent on food weekly.
‘£400 on a weekly shop!!! Are you mad,’ one said.
Viewers were shocked after mother-of-22 Sue Radford, 45, from Morecambr, Lancashire, revealed she spent £400 on weekly food shopping for her brood on 22 Kids and Counting on Channel 5
‘£400 a week on the food shop, OH MY CHRIST,’ said another.
‘Having been on the Radford Pie Company site before, just how many pies are they selling to afford up to £400 a week just on the food shop,’ one wrote.
The couple fund their family thanks to Noel’s pie shop and do not rely on benefits.
They estimate they had spent £1 million on their brood before the birth of their 22nd child Heidi, whom they said could be their last.
‘I try not to think too much about what it costs. What could I have had instead,’ Noel joked.
‘A nice flash car. A Porsche on the driveway.’ Sue joked: ‘We could have been living in a mansion!’
While the new show documents their time in lockdown and the chaos of homeschooling, Sue also regularly shares updates on family life via their YouTube channel and Instagram.
Last month Sue admitted that the usual chaos in her home ‘couldn’t get any worse’ as she attempted to teach her youngest children during the pandemic.
An example of Sue’s food shop for her family, which takes several shopping trolley filled to the brink
She said she struggles to make sure all her children are on track with their schoolwork while keeping the household going.
In a recent Youtube vlog, Sue provided an insight into the family’s current morning routine as she battled to ‘prise’ all her children out of bed and get them fed before a day of virtual learning on Zoom.
In the video, as Sue attempted to prepare breakfast for every child and sort out technical difficulties for one of her children, another asked her questions about their work while another began to cry.
James, 16, Ellie, 14, Aimee, 13, Josh, 12, Max, 11, Tillie, nine, Oscar, eight, Casper, seven and Hallie, four, were all distance learning from the Radford family home but returned to school in Septmeber.
- 22 Kids and Counting airs on Monday on Channel 5.