A FAMILY of 12, who moved to Cornwall for a better life, have shared their story with the nation on Channel 5.

Jason Webster, his wife Melanie, both 44, and their 10 children — Rebecca, 24, Jacob, 21, Elizabeth, 20, Samantha, 19, Joel, 17, Jude, 15, Jarom, 12, Job, 10, Meredith, eight and Tabatha, who is six — appeared in an episode of Big Family Values: More Kids Than Cash last week.

However, despite the programme’s title, Mr Webster said he wanted to get across that people do ‘live outside the norm’, and that it can be positive.

Mr Webster said he and his family, who live just outside Bude, heard of the programme through a friend involved in all kinds of TV productions. He added that through their friend, they heard ITN was making a programme about large families.

He said: “They wanted to understand running a family of average size, then a much larger size — how much it costs, how you go about providing practical basics.

“I think the subtext of it is larger families are not always a drain. Larger families can work and provide for their own children. It seems to be quite an upbeat programme.

“It looked at how we kind of run our life. My wife is recently disabled so it’s looking at the challenges we face.”

After baby number seven, Melanie gave up work as a health care assistant, meaning the family have to rely on what Jason earns. He is a sales manager and also has a digital marketing company.

Unfortunately, after having her youngest child, Melanie suffered severe blood clots, which led to her having to have her leg amputated. She said: “I find mobility really difficult.”

The programme saw Melanie being fitted for a new prosthetic leg, which she said should make life easier.

As well as working full time, Jason has to do much of the housework and cooking, with help from the children. All muck in to help at mealtimes and the dishwasher is nearly in constant use.

“Almost every dinner’s Christmas dinner,” Jason said. “It’s quite a lot of cooking!” He added up how much they have spent over the last 23 years on milk and cereal — around £25,000.

Their six-bedroom house costs around £1,800 a month with land and a private lake.

Melanie said: “It’s great to see them have that much space to run and play. Every day is unique. You don’t live the same day twice.”

The family find ways of economising, and having not taken a family holiday abroad for 15 years, viewers saw the family camping in their garden by the lake.

“It’s far enough away from the house they feel like they are having an adventure,” Jason said. They also find ways of doing activities for free, such as fishing in their own lake.

Mr and Mrs Webster are not from large families. Mr Webster’s grandparents had four children and Mrs Webster’s grandparents had five children.

Mr Webster said: “We try and be good contributing members of a society. I’m a human, part of the real world now where there are other humans and I’m hoping we can all get along.”

He said he feels a key part to that is ‘getting involved in the community’ — his children take part in extra curricular activities and one plays for Bude Rugby Club.

With the average spend on a child’s birthday party in Britain over £200, the family held one big birthday bash for all the children last summer, as shown on the programme.

Jason said this was a good opportunity for them to meet people, adding: “I think what we need to do now is integrate ourselves into the community much more.”

Jason told the Post: “I don’t think [this programme will] encourage people to rush out and have more children as there’s a lot of work involved. We are not a normal family, we are viewed with a lot of skepticism.

“Some people think we must be getting something to have such a large family. I’m hoping people will realise people do live outside the normal way of living and it’s not always a negative thing — it can be a positive.

“There will be a stage where my 10 children will be tax payers contributing to a much older generation.”

The ‘More Kids Than Cash’ episode featuring the Webster family aired on Channel 5 on Thursday, January 4 at 8pm and is available to watch on My5, the on demand video service.