Skint Estate: A memoir of poverty, motherhood and survival

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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. 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. Give[s] powerful voice to the often silent story that explains so much of Britain's current fracturing' OBSERVER

Wow. All I can say to this book is Wow. It was a real eye-opener; in my job i'm no stranger to working with people who are in the depths of poverty but actually reading this deep and real experience of someone living below the poverty line was quite harrowing. I cannot imagine how Cash had such power to get up every day and carry on living. She was let down by almost everyone in her life; family, friends, loved ones, and professionals who are meant to be there to support you in the worst of times.

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At times, these two first-time memoirists seem almost too self-consciously eloquent about their struggles to be thought of as representative. But their books nonetheless give powerful voice to the often silent story that explains so much of Britain’s current fracturing: the fact that half a generation can afford no settled place from which they can start to build a life. Thank you very much to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for allowing me to read an eARC copy of Skint Estate.

As this writer puts it “they lose their minds on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Christmas, all the days supposed to be spent with family” Beneath the barrage of gutsy, in-your-face swagger, there is a vulnerability. Cash Carraway’s memoir of her life as a single mother on the margins of austerity Britain is touching and, surprisingly, given its subject matter, very funny too. 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. 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. Rain Dogs, the BBC’s new comedy drama from Skint Estate author Cash Carraway is many things: dark, hilarious, crushing, filthy, engrossing, powerful. But it is not, categorically, poverty porn. It would be an easy trap for the series, which follows Costello and Iris from house to house as they try to make each a home, to fall into. But Carraway’s own experience of living on the breadline, and a steadfast avoidance of romanticising the actualities of homelessness, keep the series firmly in reality.Cash Carraway said: “The show is about a brash yet intelligent working-class single mum who not only lives in extreme inner-city poverty but a state of ridicule and humiliation as she attempts to improve her life. This is a raw, painful, funny book. And it rings true. Cash Carraway is a real writer, who shares her extraordinary story with a developing sense of politics. Her writing bursts with energy, wit and anger - it might be too strong for the Radio4 Book of the Week, but it is essential reading. Ken Loach 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” Cash Carraway blir som 16 åring utkastad av sin gränslösa och destruktiva mamma. Pappan försvann strax före och skaffar snabbt en ny familj, utan att ta ansvar för dottern. Cash hamnar i destruktiva relationer och när hon är runt 29 blir hon gravid, till sin glädje. Äntligen kan hon få den familjen hon saknar. Den blivande pappa slår sönder ansiktet på henne när han får veta och hotar att se till att hon får ett missfall, om hon inte ordnar en abort själv.

Alone, pregnant and living in a women's refuge, Cash Carraway couldn't vote in the 2010 general election that ushered austerity into Britain. Her voice had been silenced. Years later, she watched Grenfell burn from a women's refuge around the corner. What had changed? The vulnerable were still at the bottom of the heap, unheard. Without a stable home, without a steady income, without family support - how do you survive? Cash is the definition of edgy, a truly distinctive voice' - Lionel Shriver, bestselling author of We Need to Talk about Kevin Read more Details Visst kan man diskutera lämpligheten i att bo kvar i en stad London eller skaffa barn när man lever på marginalerna, men det är att flytta fokus från problemet.

Cash reminds herself of the important things; love for her daughter; community and friendship; and through this, Britain (government) need to change to protect those vulnerable in society and give them a “leg up”. The 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. This book should be compulsive reading for all Daily Mail journalists and readers, who think that somehow people living on benefits in the UK all live in palaces with more income than "decent, honest working folk" etc etc ad nauseum. Carraway shine a bright unflinching light on modern-day poverty in the UK - zero working hour contracts, social housing, benefits eligibility, food banks - all of it a far cry from the images regularly portrayed in the media.

She discusses areas of sex work that don’t usually get a lot of press: stripping, peep shows, telephone chat lines and a naked video app. She shares a detailed knowledge of household cleaners: semen stains on a dress must be attended to with a spray of Astonish Window and Glass. The smell of urine can be removed from the skin with vinegar. As a television project, it is heartening. The monologues are written and directed by people with direct personal experience of poverty. (For example, the novelist Kerry Hudson, the author of Lowborn, a clear-eyed memoir of her deprived childhood, is the writer of Hannah’s tale of homelessness.) The series’ rubric was to cast and commission as many new faces as possible, creating those all-important first footholds and credits. People who are able bodied or well enough to work. Those that work but get top ups from Universal credit. The main positive I took is the absolute love Cash so clearly has for her daughter. Together they are a formidable team and have bonded in a way that only their shared life experiences could bring. Also, the chapter surrounding the dilapidated women’s refuge and subsequent (if brief) unification of the women, and their solidarity to bring about change showed a small glimmer of hope on an otherwise desolate landscape. These women need a voice, they need an opportunity to voice it, and I applaud Penguin for giving Cash the stage to do it on. Det är en högst politisk text: hur dyrt det är att vara fattig, att ses som en belastning för samhället, hur det konservativa partiet (tory) drar in på sociala skyddsnät för ensamstående mammor (”de får skylla sig själva”, ”skaffa inte barn om du inte har råd”), när skyddshemmet för utsatta kvinnor kollapsar (taket ramlar in) och det tar 8 timmar för någon slags personal att komma, problemet när hyresrätter (som uppfördes för socialt utsatta personer) privatiseras och får marknadshyror. Hur omöjligt det är att hosta upp 6 månaders förskottshyra i deposition, att jobba för 1 pund i timmen, att bara kunna jobba när barnet är i skolan (eftersom barnomsorg är så dyrt att bara medelklassen har råd) och vilka slags jobb som finns kvar. Hur nästan omöjligt det är att ta sig ur situationen. Hur kvinnor alltid är offren.She sees almost too clearly to bear how circumscribed her life is, just as her father’s was before her. She says his first question to the doctor, after being diagnosed with cancer, was: “How long will I be able to work?” “I don’t think that’s a question you should have to ask,” says Tara, furiously, opening up the world of generational poverty with a line of dialogue. 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. She is also very funny. “Lots of things about living in a woman’s refuge make me laugh,” she says, which is not the most common response. She isn’t above selling stories about her wretched daily grind of budgeting to a trashy supermarket magazine. Even they found her piece about period poverty to be too strong to print, though at least they paid her for it.