Coursework

This is an extract from a book I'm writing for my coursework. It's for some exam type thing next year and I'd like it if people could give me their honest opinions on it.

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Growing up was tough when you had four sisters and three brothers in a two roomed house. Mam and dad in one room, and all of us kids in the other, cramped and angry at the fact that we were expected to live in this squalor. The roof leaked constantly when it rained and every time mum went to the landowner she was told that he would certainly find someone to fix it but she would have to pay in these hard, troubled times. I think Mr. Buntey was forgetting that these hard times affected everyone including us who had no room for all ten of us. But he said it was all he could give us with what we were willing to pay. Even at that young age of seven I knew that Mr. Buntey didn't want to help but Mam was adamant that he was doing what he could by giving her rare little jobs to do around his own little house in the better side of town. She went to his house three times a week to sweep, scrub and polish the floors of his expensive home and was often late for us coming home from the very little education we had or should I say afford. While Mam scrubbed floors for a living. Dad collected metal and sold it to the blacksmiths who needed new pieces of metal to mould and sculpt. Despite Dad bringing home a few extra pennies at the weekend after doing hard laboring jobs the whole week, we were still no better off than we had at the start of the week. The rent had to be paid, Mam had to go to the green grocers and get half rotting vegetables and try and make something out of it. On rare occasions like Christmas Mam would bring home a sheep’s neck or an ox’s tongue and try and stew it for hours so it tasted better. She meant well even though the cheap cuts of meat were so horribly stringy with veins and tendons. But we knew Mam had scrimped and saved a few pennies every now and again and tried to treat us the best way she knew how. Giving us a substantial meal.
We sat around the table, elbows touching elbows and eating what Dad likes to call everything soup. It had everything in it and you didn’t need to know what was in it because it was more like rainwater with a few leaves of cabbage and very finely sliced potatoes mixed through. We sat in silence slurping our dinner when there was suddenly loud banging on the front door. Alarmed Mam shooed us into her own bedroom and closed the door firmly before going back to the table and clearing away the empty bowls. Margaret fourteen, Jimmy twelve, Edna ten, Francis nine, Elizabeth eight, Bert four and I only seven stayed in silence. They all sat on the bed and whispered quietly to one another as I stayed by the door, my eat pressed to the keyhole so I could hear what was going on but the voices were too quiet to make them out. So I looked through the keyhole and I would never forget what I saw, Dad being dragged away by the local authorities and Mam crying in the corner. We opened the bedroom door and rushed into the little living space that was used for eating meals in, playing games when it rained, getting your weekly turn in the tin bath and revising school studies.
“Mam, where’s Dad? Where have they taken Dad?” I asked, the panic in my voice was noticeable to my Mam who only took me in her arms and whispered gently into my ear.
“We’re going to be alright us, we’re going to see it through”