Skint Estate: A memoir of poverty, motherhood and survival

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This book is just something else. It is a book that should be read by everyone. Most importantly by the people who wouldn’t read it. It can not be described as enjoyable. It is a difficult subject matter that is told with gritty truth, anger and a splash of the narrator’s dry humour. But it is powerful. It is a call to arms. Though their voices are very different, in some ways each woman’s journey to writing her book – their hoped-for route out of the situations they describe – is comparable. Both had challenging teenage years; both went to university; both took too many drugs and had disastrous relationships; both imagined they lived in a country with adequate safety nets for those prepared to work, and discovered in the decade of austerity and the benefits cap that they did not. One crucial fact, in the context of each, is precisely the same, however. In the 20-odd years since they came of age, average house prices in Britain have risen seven times faster than average wages. Along with millions of others, they are the casualties of that economic fact. Davies creates a life in which she “still feels skint but no longer poor” We're a reader-owned co-operative, which means you can become part of the paper too by buying shares in the People’s Press Printing Society. Most are given jobs on the minimum wage which offers no add on top ups, rent goes up, utility bills increase and the public spendature is cut. Despite being beaten down from all angles, Cash clings to the important things - love for her daughter, community and friendships - and has woven together a highly charged, hilarious and guttural cry for change.

Cash is *determined* to tell her woeful story of poverty and deprivation even if the facts don’t seem to tally with it. Why let such boring details get in the way of a ripping yarn? And she’s determined to make it the government’s fault, and to blame All Men (except scruffy ones who don’t wear suits and make art, those men are allowed a small pass). Plus, she thinks no one can possibly have problems or sadness if they’re not on the breadline. How boring, how cliched, how...utterly infuriating. I’m just finishing reading J. Bowyer Bell’s The Secret Army, a history of the IRA 1916 – 1979. What is staggering is how factionalised, incompetent or corrupt, in the “shadow of the gangster gunman” or with the “taint of Communism”, it has been for much of its existence. Cash Carraway is a single mum living in temporary accommodation. She’s been moved around the system since she left home at sixteen. She’s also been called a stain on society. And she’s caught in a poverty trap.

Although, saying all that, the author has an incredible gift with words. She’s very talented but maybe instead of streaming words together that make no sense, maybe she could right in a way that does. I did find myself laughing at some parts; Cash has great humour and I did sympathise with her and her daughter. Her past that syncs into her present is an extraordinary story to tell, I’m not denying that. She’s fought against a system that seems to despise the poor and the disabled and for that I can only praise her for. She can be an inspiration to many people. This is the memoir of a woman who is not a stain on society. She’s not a shameful secret, stealing money from the government. She’s not lazy, or greedy. She’s a single mother, raising a child in a city she loves, with no support network and a history of domestic abuse. Cash Carraway is just one voice in millions that we never hear. Forgotten and ignored. This is her story, her life - but unfortunately it’s far from unique. I am a working class single mother myself - one of the reasons I was drawn to this book. But Cash’s life is not mine. Cash Carraway tells you her story. The story of a single mother doing everything she can to survive. To

Owned by Our Readers We're a reader-owned co-operative, which means you can become part of the paper too by buying shares in the People’s Press Printing Society. Some people may think that living in Britain has a safety net for ones that find themselves at a disadvantage to others. Cash Carraway puts me in mind of Nelson Algren or Hubert Selby with their stories of degraded urban life, in this case with the vowels of Penge rather than New York. She is more overtly political than either of them, however, with an incisive invective. Visceral and powerful ... The writing is stark, jagged and at times unexpectedly hilarious. Brett AndersonThe only only reason I gave it four stars was because the structure of the book was at times, just really confusing. The timeline jumps around quite a lot and it gets confusing at what stage in her life Cash is. After the birth of her daughter, she has a landline fitted so that “in lieu of maternity leave” she can work as a telephone clairvoyant. She also earns extra income as, in turn, a mystery shopper, a low-level drug dealer, a cleaner and by selling her human-interest stories to the Daily Mail. “Poor women can’t afford morals,” she comments. The reason I can’t rate this higher is really down to the structure of the writing, which gets a bit messy towards the end of the book. A few chapters seem to loose steam, or have a strange writing style to them, and the chronology goes a bit haywire. Sometimes I also found the writing a bit too ‘out there’. I didn’t mind the swearing (although after a while it felt a bit gratuitous) but I’d have preferred some context with the strange porn style scene I got near the end - which goes made me feel uncomfortable and felt entirely out of place. It lessened her important message. We shouldn’t just need to be on the brink of something to just survive. We should be enjoying life. A raw, candid and darkly funny memoir from a stunning new voice on Britain’s poverty line, for fans of Poverty Safari, Prozac Nation, I Daniel Blake and Chavs.