Poor: Grit, courage, and the life-changing value of self-belief

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For the people who can’t recover from that, it is no surprise that patterns repeat themselves. Even for O’Sullivan, who by any measure is a huge success – happily married with three children, an impressive research career, an expert on access to education, and one of the most remarkable people you will ever meet – that voice is still there, but quieter now. “There will always be a small part of me that just wants to be loved by my parents,” she says, and she apologises for the tears that spring to her eyes. “I think we carry our childhood with us. That’s the long-lasting residue from mine.” It’s like I lived two lives,” she says. “A life up to the point where my mind was opened by education. Prior to that, I had no idea that you could be anything different.” She is furious at the rhetoric around poverty – during the past decade especially – that if someone is poor, it is their own moral failing, and if only they worked harder, they could drag themselves out of it. “What I’ve done is miraculous, and rare, because we don’t have investment. If I was in that situation now, I wouldn’t be here.” Because I’ve been empowered, I have been able to change my life, my children’s lives. I’m not costly any more to the state

Having somebody like me in there was just pivotal”, she explains. “If you don’t see people like you, you’re never going to aspire to it”. Clearly, O’Sullivan didn’t want a world where she would be the only one that found solid ground. We see this in her efforts to place her experience within her parents’ experiences and her parents’ experiences within their histories. O’Sullivan expertly gives us an insight into the genuine harm of her parents’ addictions but by no means defines them by it. She beautifully and lovingly tells the story of two whole people. Two people who struggled and fought, who lived a life shrouded in pain and poverty, but also in song, loyalty and books. Quotes like "Poor cuts through lots of jargon, words like disadvantaged, underprivileged, deprived or under class. Words that have their place but don't capture the visceral truth of what it is to grow up the way I did. The way thousands of children are growing up right now. Twelve years later, I get to sit here and write a book review for one of the most important books I have ever read. I don’t say that because O’Sullivan is my friend – though she is – but because she has written a memoir that brings the reader to the edges of their tolerance and empathy and profoundly challenges the judgment that readers may harbour towards families like O’Sullivan’s.

Although she wouldn’t necessarily have classed herself as an addict – “I sometimes think: ‘Was it bad enough for me to own the same space that my parents did?’” – she could see the way she was going, and she wanted to stop. “I didn’t want that for my son, and that was horrific. I remember waking up to the fact, living in Birmingham in this council house, no carpet on the floor. I used to buy electric and gas keys on a Monday, and by Friday, it was gone, so it was cold. I remember thinking: ‘I am her, I’m my mam, and this beautiful boy deserves better.” Katriona speaks about the people in education and social care setting who helped her, and those who failed her. I cried when reading about her early childhood and the abuse she suffered. I cried when I read about her older brother coming home from work to find her and her siblings, hungry, with not a parent to be seen. Some chapters are truly harrowing. I found myself with a pain in my chest and thinking of that little seven year old and her brothers and sister long after I'd finished reading. In her newly published memoir ‘Poor’ she explains how along the way some teachers tried to help the bright student. However by 15 O’Sullivan was pregnant and homeless. The young mother struggled with substance abuse, repeating the debilitating patterns of her own childhood. She moved to Dublin aged 20 after her parents left England.

Now an award-winning lecturer whose work challenges barriers to education, Poor stands as a stirring argument for the importance of looking out for our kids' futures. Of giving them hope, practical support and meaningful opportunities. Possibly biased as I'm one of Katriona's ex-students circa 2012. I always remember how honest she was with us all about her experience of the Trinity Access Program etc., and I was always in awe of her. An absolute powerhouse of a woman. I never knew just how much she had been through until I read this book - and now my respect for her has just soared to levels I didn't even think possible. Katriona really built herself from the ground up. It’s Not Where You Live; It’s How You Live: Class and Gender Struggles in a Dublin Estate by John Bissett. Bissett’s book is a mix of theory and storytelling, taking us deep into the lives within a public housing estate in Dublin. There's a very striking, moving scene early on in the book and it was a real take-home point from the book for me. A kindly teacher, Mrs Arkinson, took an interest in Katriona from a very young age and recognised the fact that Katriona came from a home where she was utterly neglected. Mrs Arkinson gave Katriona clean underwear and clothes, and a towel, and showed the young girl how to wash herself.

This is the extraordinary story - moving, funny, brave, and sometimes startling - of how Katriona turned her life around. How the seeds of self-belief planted by teachers in childhood stayed with her. How she found mentors whose encouragement revived those seeds in adulthood. This book is a real hard-hitter as learning about the poverty Katriona and her siblings grew up is honestly just hard to stomach as she lists the drugs and dirt she lived in, the times the house was raided by police (and how these police treated the children in a brutal way) and just every way her parents failed their kids in every way imaginable including her mother turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse of her daughter.

One of the best [books] I have read about the complexities of poverty . . . one of the most remarkable people you will ever meet' Guardian Throughout her life she encountered people who gave her hope by showing her she was worth more, that she deserved more and therefore raising her self-belief. Once such teacher Mrs Atkinson had a fresh towel, facecloth and clean underwear ready for her every morning before school to wash and change. It was this kindness and support from that teacher and many more that got her where she is today. The book helped. She likes herself now. “I think I’ve always liked myself, though. What’s really sad about growing up is that I can clearly remember being a young girl, alive to the world, inquisitive and bright, like all kids are but, unfortunately, I was born in this community where I wasn’t given an opportunity to flourish.” She feels now, nearly four decades on, closer to that girl, before the weight of neglect, predatory men, fear and low expectations crushed her. “Like, I’m alive again.” Growing up in a working class community in Coventry to Irish parents, Katriona O'Sullivan dealt with far more trauma and poverty than any child should ever know. In her book Poor, Katriona speaks about her hardship growing up as a child of parents who were drug addicts, and how ofttimes it was school and kind teachers that first taught her that she deserved more than what she had, and instilled a love of learning and education within her.I so wanted her to be one of us, the working class, and I felt it in my gut that she was. I deeply longed to see myself in the structures surrounding me and felt she was a bit of me. I loved meeting smart, successful women who were very grounded in working-class culture and identity, and I knew I was in the presence of someone I could learn from. Poor is the moving, inspirational and brave story of a seven year old girl who needed love and care and found it with her teachers. Of a teenager whose English teacher believed she was fantastic. Of a young mother who had a caring nurse who encouraged and supported her. Of a woman who becomes a doctor of psychology and works to increase diversity in education. It is society that loses, she points out. “We’re missing talent, vibrancy and creativity. Because I’ve been empowered, I have been able to change my life, my children’s lives. I’m not costly any more to the state. I’m not doing all of the things that happen when you live in poverty. The people who are making decisions are clearly very educated and yet they don’t seem to have the long-term lens on what investing in reducing poverty can do.” At it’s core this is a cautionary tale about the effects of austerity, the class system in the UK and the horrifying generational impact of addiction.

O’Sullivan was cleaning toilets in the train station when a chance encounter with an old friend on O’Connell Street changed the course of her life. The friend, also a young single mother, told O’Sullivan how she was studying law in Trinity College. Being able to hear Katriona tell her story in her audiobook, in her own voice brought me to tears several times.Katriona O’Sullivan: ‘I sat drinking in the knowledge, and for the first time in my life I felt alive’ ] Being a child in poverty is the greatest indicator you will suffer from asthma, cancer, heart disease or mental illness, that you will go to prison, be addicted to drugs , get divorced, die young or commit suicide. Despite this understanding we allow children to go to school hungry and live in danger where drugs and alcohol are used. Despite what we know we still pretend that all it takes to succeed is hard work when the truth is only the privileged can. What I found most refreshing was that Katriona didn’t claw her way out of her council estate with the aim of becoming a middle class suburban housewife.