It continued: “And the pads - they smelt weird, and the smell of blood rose up from them. They’d sweat and crinkle and stick. They’d chafe your legs and you’d be left with skin rubbed raw and split open, on top of your period, on top of your pain and your shame. I still feel the trauma today.

“I have no idea why on earth middle class people are so mortally offended by the idea of giving CHILDREN and TEENAGERS free sanitary products is so awful or why they think period poverty is some sort of weird conspiracy scam but I can only assume it comes from privilege.

“I’ve known homeless women too who had to just free bleed, ruining the few items of clothing they had, ending up with sores and matting and pain from the dried blood with no facilities to wash or clean themselves. There is no way in which providing this products for free is bad.

“And if you think it is, I would like to challenge you to go for a whole period without using sanitary products. And making sure you’re living the life of a school aged person - active, walking all the time, not being allowed to go to change whenever you want, doing sports.”

People are claiming that period poverty “isn’t real” – and we’re having none of it