Shaunagh Brown: ‘It would have been the greatest win in rugby history’

I f the ball had rolled a little differently during England’s heartbreaking Women’s Rugby World Cup final defeat by New Zealand in November, Shaunagh Brown might now be pumping iron ready for a fresh Six Nations campaign. Instead, on a bracing morning in a food bank in Lewisham, the 33-year-old is packing tins into bags while powerfully putting the world to rights.

“So often I am so ashamed to be British when I hear what our leaders are saying out loud,” says the former prop, who is even more determined to speak out about social issues now that her distinguished career, which included four Women’s Six Nations championships, has ended. “We’re the sixth-richest country in the world. And yet we have some MPs saying that people can feed themselves for 33p a day. No. It’s not OK to just exist. It’s not OK to have so many people relying on food banks.”

She is here as an ambassador for the charity Wooden Spoon, whose Pass the Plate campaign is raising funds for food banks in 25 regions across the UK and Ireland. But for Brown this is deeply personal too. “I come from a single-parent family; mum and her three kids growing up in council housing,” she says. “I remember going to the post office to pick up her benefits. Sometimes they would give it to me. Sometimes they wouldn’t. And if my mum couldn’t get home from work in time before the post office closed, we’d go without until the next day. So these are my people.”

Brown shakes her head as she takes aim at the tabloids and politicians who demonise the poor, as well as the richest in society who show little concern for those lower down the food chain. Her message to them is simple. “Be nice. Be compassionate. And realise that you are gifted with not just a silver spoon but a