Skint Estate by Cash Carraway
Published by Ebury Publishing
Publication date 11th July 2019
Genre: True Life Memoir/Social Biography
368 pages
"THE WORDS WRITTEN ON THESE PAGES WERE NOT INTENDED TO BE READ IN SILENCE. SO PLEASESAY THEM OUT LOUD WHEREVER YOU CAN- PREFERABLY TO SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T WANT TO HEAR THEM"
"THE WORDS WRITTEN ON THESE PAGES WERE NOT INTENDED TO BE READ IN SILENCE. SO PLEASESAY THEM OUT LOUD WHEREVER YOU CAN- PREFERABLY TO SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T WANT TO HEAR THEM"
Book Description:
“Everyone has their price. It’s just not always monetary. Mine is though. 20 quid.”
Single mum. ‘Stain on society’. Caught in a poverty trap.
It’s a luxury to afford morals and if you’re Cash Carraway, you do what you can to survive.
Skint Estate is the hard-hitting, blunt, dignified and brutally revealing debut memoir about impoverishment, loneliness and violence in austerity Britain – set against a grim landscape of sink estates, police cells, refuges and peepshows – skilfully woven into a manifesto for change.
It’s a luxury to afford morals and if you’re Cash Carraway, you do what you can to survive.
Skint Estate is the hard-hitting, blunt, dignified and brutally revealing debut memoir about impoverishment, loneliness and violence in austerity Britain – set against a grim landscape of sink estates, police cells, refuges and peepshows – skilfully woven into a manifesto for change.
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?
In Skint Estate, Cash has found her voice – loud, raw and cutting. This is a book born straight from life lived in Britain below the poverty line – a brutal landscape savaged by universal credit, zero-hours contracts, rising rents and public service funding cuts. Told with a dark lick of humour and two-fingers up to the establishment, Cash takes us on her isolated journey from council house childhood to single motherhood, working multiple jobs yet relying on food banks and temporary accommodation, all while skewering stereotypes of what it means to be working class.
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.
My Review:
My Review:
I saw this book previewed by a lady on Twitter, and just knew I had to read it. So rarely do we get to hear from the oppressed, poverty stricken side of society, this is a chance to hear Cash's story. A very real, tell it how it is, blunt, no holds barred memoir of what it's like to be one of the forgotten people in 21st century England. The ones who fall through the cracks in the so-called benefits system, who "don't fit the criteria" for social housing despite having absolutely nothing or nobody they can call on in times of desperate need. And I don't use the word desperate lightly. This tough, determined lady has experienced some of the most desperate circumstances possible. Evicted by her abusive mother on her 16th birthday and with no other family or support network to defer to Cash tells us the brutal ways she had to resort to just to survive.
Then the man who fathered her child let her down so badly, leaving her to battle alone. But penniless and homeless and now with a baby to support, the system denies her the basic foundation on which she could have had such a different life. Because she has always been prepared to work, she is denied housing benefit which forces her into the private rental market - which in London and on sporadic wages is a minefield in itself.
The things this lady has put herself through in order to bring up her child had me choked, not just with sympathy for the fact that she was forced to do them but with pride for her, that she would not sit down and become one of the stereotypes that the government and media portrays single mothers to be. She has not sat and felt sorry for herself, though God knows she has every reason to; she has spoken out, she has voiced her opinions and done her utmost to raise the profile of every other person who has found themselves in the same position.
I have more respect for this lady than any of the politicians out there who spout their bullshit about caring and providing resources for those in dire need. She is telling it as it is. She is flying the flag for all the women out there desperate to provide for their kids without having to go cap in hand to councils across the land. These women don't want an easy life. They don't have it easy. They are struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their head. All that they need is a level playing field - help when the chips are down so that people stand a chance of keeping their heads above the poverty line. With a sound foundation they can move on to provide for their families with less assistance and not be the burden on society that certain people see them as. Tt's not a lot to ask for yet in reality it is everything. I hate to say that I don't think it's going to happen in my lifetime, but if we keep chipping away, working for change - giving the people who know what's really happening a voice, then we might just eventually get there.
I am, by my own admission, guilty of judging certain sectors of society - have even used the dreaded phrase which accuses young girls of deliberately getting pregnant in order to get social housing, but in my defence when said young girl's pregnancy announcement on social media amounts to (and I quote) "I am now top of the housing list" I feel I was justified in that individual case. I do however do my best not to tar every person in that situation with the same brush. Circumstances are different in every case however it seems to be that the more genuine you are, the harder you try to provide for yourself without falling on the system for help, the less you are seemingly entitled to - although I hate to use the word entitled as it seems so massively inappropriate.
I would like every member of parliament to read this book and imagine it to be a member of their family - or even themselves - in that position. Anyone who has any iota of influence of housing, benefits or any decision making process - PLEASE READ THIS BOOK and then tell me it hasn't changed the way you look at your fellow human beings.
The things this lady has put herself through in order to bring up her child had me choked, not just with sympathy for the fact that she was forced to do them but with pride for her, that she would not sit down and become one of the stereotypes that the government and media portrays single mothers to be. She has not sat and felt sorry for herself, though God knows she has every reason to; she has spoken out, she has voiced her opinions and done her utmost to raise the profile of every other person who has found themselves in the same position.
I have more respect for this lady than any of the politicians out there who spout their bullshit about caring and providing resources for those in dire need. She is telling it as it is. She is flying the flag for all the women out there desperate to provide for their kids without having to go cap in hand to councils across the land. These women don't want an easy life. They don't have it easy. They are struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their head. All that they need is a level playing field - help when the chips are down so that people stand a chance of keeping their heads above the poverty line. With a sound foundation they can move on to provide for their families with less assistance and not be the burden on society that certain people see them as. Tt's not a lot to ask for yet in reality it is everything. I hate to say that I don't think it's going to happen in my lifetime, but if we keep chipping away, working for change - giving the people who know what's really happening a voice, then we might just eventually get there.
I am, by my own admission, guilty of judging certain sectors of society - have even used the dreaded phrase which accuses young girls of deliberately getting pregnant in order to get social housing, but in my defence when said young girl's pregnancy announcement on social media amounts to (and I quote) "I am now top of the housing list" I feel I was justified in that individual case. I do however do my best not to tar every person in that situation with the same brush. Circumstances are different in every case however it seems to be that the more genuine you are, the harder you try to provide for yourself without falling on the system for help, the less you are seemingly entitled to - although I hate to use the word entitled as it seems so massively inappropriate.
I would like every member of parliament to read this book and imagine it to be a member of their family - or even themselves - in that position. Anyone who has any iota of influence of housing, benefits or any decision making process - PLEASE READ THIS BOOK and then tell me it hasn't changed the way you look at your fellow human beings.
About the Author:
Cash Carraway is a playwright, author and spoken word artist from Penge, south-east London.
Her sell-out one-woman spoken word show REFUGE WOMAN, about government cuts to domestic violence services, won 'Editorial Innovation of the Year' at the Drum Online Media Awards in 2019, was shortlisted for 'Innovation of the Year' at the 2018 British Journalism Awards and toured the UK in collaboration with The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Battersea Arts Centre.
SKINT ESTATE, her memoir about life in the gutter, is her first book.
Her sell-out one-woman spoken word show REFUGE WOMAN, about government cuts to domestic violence services, won 'Editorial Innovation of the Year' at the Drum Online Media Awards in 2019, was shortlisted for 'Innovation of the Year' at the 2018 British Journalism Awards and toured the UK in collaboration with The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Battersea Arts Centre.
SKINT ESTATE, her memoir about life in the gutter, is her first book.
Social Media Link:
Twitter: @CashCarraway
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