Fatou’s daughters are growing up on the 409 and 81. No wonder they have headaches

Fatou Tall’s teenage daughters are growing up on the 409 and 81 buses.

Up at 5am, they spend hours on two services for the school run. Bousso and Nabou face a tough grind: Leaving home in Royton just after 6am, ‘grabbing what they can’ for breakfast, doing a full day of class for their GCSEs, then another arduous journey to get home around 6:30pm, a quick half-hour break, and time for homework.

No wonder the ‘oldest always comes back with a headache’.

The girls, in year 11 and 9, have such a trek because they go to school in Harpurhey, more than seven miles from home. Mum-of-four Fatou, 43, never planned for this.

When her eldest daughter and son started secondary school, Manchester Communication Academy in Harpurhey made sense. The family were renting privately nearby until October 2023, when their landlord handed them a section 21 eviction notice.

With help from ‘friends’ scant, healthcare assistant Fatou presented as homeless to Manchester council, which housed them in temporary accommodation in Royton, more than seven miles from school. They’ve been there ever since.

It means her youngest daughters now face a commute on the 409 and 81 buses, at best. The ordeal ‘always worries’ Fatou.

Pictured above: Fatou Tall is uncomfortable with her daughters' long commute.

She said: “I’m not comfortable with this. It’s a long way. When I am at work, I cannot put my head down because there’s insecurity when they spend one hour coming home. I’m always worried.”

The girls’ only respite comes the bus home, when they might snatch a nap. It’s always clear how tired they are. Fatou went on: “They sleep all the time when they come back.

“Bousso always comes back with a headache. She’s doing her GCSEs, and she goes in early and comes back at 6pm or 6:30 pm.

“She’s out of the house for more than 12 hours and she has to have a 30 minute rest before doing any of her homework. She and Nabou are exhausted.”

Sometimes, it can be even more stressful. If the 409 is late, they take the 59 to Middleton, and 18 to school. Other times, they get to a tram stop and ride until Queens Road. When this delicate balancing act of multiple buses or trams falls apart, the teens ring mum for a taxi.

Forking out for a taxi puts a strain on the family finances, with autumn’s three-day Bee Network bus strike resulting in ‘a quarter’ of the mum’s salary going on cabs. The situation would be worse still if Fatou needed to pay £80 every month for two bus passes, but Manchester Communication Academy has stepped in to cover the cost.

The reason why homeless families usually have to pay for school travel is because government rules on home-to-school transport say children are only eligible for free travel if they live more than two miles from class, and there is no ‘suitable school’ nearer.

But it’s almost-impossible to be further than three miles from a school in the city. In Greater Manchester, there are 8,000 children in temporary accommodation.

Andy Burnham is currently mulling proposals backed by MPs and charities to introduce a free bus pass for homeless children in temporary accommodation.

On December 3, the mayor said he was ‘sympathetic’ to homeless families’ plight: “What might open the door is we are moving to a more interventionist space as a combined authority when we signed off using 400 empty properties to reduce the bill in temporary accommodation.

“As part of the support packages there’s an opportunity to link the two. I cannot say more than that because we are in discussions over the budget which come to a head in January… we have a lot of things to consider. We are looking at all of it. I am sympathetic.”