Ten of the best

'I don't want you to waste your time love," said Steve Perry as we tried to arrange a convenient time for an interview. "I know you wanted to talk about raising a big family, but we've only got seven kids living with us." Only seven. Two words that don't sit entirely comfortably alongside each other when referring to children.

For most people, seven would be more than enough. But when you have ten children, seven probably feels like something of a holiday.

Steve, 31, and his wife Sarah, 32, of Coxwold, near Easingwold, have ten children between them.

Steve has two sons, Conrad, 12, and Brandon, eight, from a previous marriage. They live with their mum in Stoke.

Sarah has four children from a previous marriage, the eldest of whom, Richard, 14, lives with his dad in Stoke.

So - bear with me, it will all fall into place eventually - the couple now care for Sarah's three, Claire, 12, David, ten, and James, seven, plus four they have had together, Mitchell, four, Robson, three, Taren, two, and Shannon Louise, who was born in the back of an ambulance on the way to York District Hospital last month.

The Perrys moved to North Yorkshire from Stoke in September last year. They knew little about Coxwold before their housing transfer, other than what they could pull off the Internet, but they were keen to make a move.

"We never really got the help from the council we needed in Stoke," said Steve. "The houses we were given were always too small and usually in dodgy areas. We came here because we wanted somewhere nice to raise our kids."

The house has four good-sized bedrooms and, most important of all, a large family room downstairs where everyone can sit comfortably without feeling like they are in the kop at an England game.

"All our other sitting rooms were tiny," said Sarah. "We had to sit in them in shifts."

The family has adapted to village life quite quickly. Although the lack of public transport has made it tough for Steve to find work.

"It's difficult to get to work for 7am if the first bus doesn't leave your village until three hours later," he explained.

He is now hopeful however that Wheels to Work, a scheme providing transport for the unemployed, will change his prospects.

Steve and Sarah already had six children between them when they met five years ago, but they decided they would like one more baby together.

"Once you get to half a dozen, one more doesn't really make that much difference," said Sarah.

One baby fast became four. The last two a little too fast for comfort. Taren arrived in a friend's car going round a roundabout, and Shannon made her entrance in dramatic fashion as her mum was being whisked to hospital.

"I told the ambulance driver to put his foot down," said Steve. "But Shannon just couldn't wait."

Sarah was booked in to be sterilised at the same time as her youngest daughter's birth by caesarean section. But Shannon's early arrival meant the operation had to be postponed.

"I'm determined the sterilisation will go ahead," said Sarah. "Shannon will definitely be the last. But I have said that before."

Twelve-year-old Claire was particularly pleased by her sister's arrival as she was getting fed up being outnumbered by boys 8:1.

"It was her birthday so I phoned and asked what was the top of her wish list," said Sarah. "She said a sister, so I said congratulations, your wish has come true. It was the best birthday present she could have had."

Claire is very motherly towards all her siblings, but is particularly keen to get involved in Shannon's hectic day-to-day routine.

"We have to stop her doing too much," said her mum. "She's still a kid herself and we want her to enjoy it. Anyway, changing nappies and wiping noses is our responsibility, not hers."

Steve and Sarah take their responsibilities very seriously. They can't remember the last time they had a night out together, and they have not had a full night's sleep for more than four years."We didn't have all these kids for someone else to look after them," said Steve. "We don't have childminders or babysitters or anything like that. We look after our own."

They wouldn't be human though if they didn't occasionally yearn for a break from the kids.

"That doesn't mean a night out though," said Sarah. "It means five minutes alone in the bath. Five minutes is about as long as we can go without one of them wanting something."

The key to raising a large family - or any family come to that - is to establish a daily routine.

The Perrys day often starts as early as 5am, although they sometimes get a "lie-in" until 6.30am. "The morning is the worst time," said Sarah. "Trying to get them all ready for school and getting them all fed is a mammoth task.

"Then once the older ones have gone, I settle the little ones down to play and start with the chores.

"It is never ending; it's like having a full-time job."

There are usually as many as five washes a day to be done. Then there is the ironing, the cleaning, the tidying, the cooking, the washing-up and all the other little household jobs that add up to a full day's work.

The family goes shopping once a fortnight. They get two trolleys stacked to eye level and never spend less than £200, and sometimes as much as £270.

And that's just groceries.

Nappies and clothes are a whole different ball game.

"I don't think hand-me-downs are fair on the younger kids," said Sarah. "It just wouldn't feel right for David and Claire to get all the new stuff while the others had to make do with cast-offs. We just buy what we can when we can."

You might imagine that a house containing a family of nine would be chaotic at best and something akin to all-out war at worst. But the Perry household is relatively calm.

"Luckily the kids get on very well," said Sarah.

"That doesn't mean that there aren't moments when I just want to run away. But nine times out of ten I am pretty patient and calm. I think the kids are laid back because I'm laid back."

So what is their secret? How have Sarah and Steve managed to raise such good kids?

"A strict bedtime routine and good manners at all times," said Sarah.

"We may not have much money but we do have healthy, happy, polite kids."

Updated: 09:50 Tuesday, October 29, 2002