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I am white, British, 49 years old and of Irish descent.  My great-grandfather travelled to Scotland from County Clare in Ireland during the Potato Famine, and then he moved his family to South West London, where my grandfather was born.  My grandparents lived in the poverty slums of South West London long before social housing, the NHS or welfare.  Only the strong survive that.  I come from a very long line of people who survived and just kept on surviving.  It’s the code written into my DNA. 

I was born in London in 1975 and lived in South West London for 42 years.  I have been married twice.  I have six children, currently aged between 11 and 23 years.  I had my first child at age 26, so I was not an exceptionally young mother.  My four older children are from my first marriage of ten years.  They are mixed race; their father is black British and was born to Jamaican parents who became British citizens during the 50s and 60s.  I have two boys and two girls from that marriage. 

My youngest two children are white boys from my second marriage, which I am still in.  I have been with my second husband for 16 years; he is also white Irish, and we have two children.  My husband, unlike me, is an Irish citizen, and he has dual citizenship, being born in the UK to two Irish parents born in Eire. 

I have disabilities myself, and all six of my children have special educational needs and disabilities as well.  In August 2018, I relocated from South West London to the local authority where I now live, which is in the South West of England.  My older three children moved out of the family home in 2021 and 2022, and they now live independently in the community with support from my husband and me.  I still have the three younger children living at home with us. 

My husband is 43 and has 25 years of experience as a joiner/carpenter.  We have a shop in Devon that sells flooring and a construction company that mainly focuses on carpentry-related work such as cabinet making, fitted kitchens, bathrooms, floors, and doors.  My husband has ten GCSEs and studied for three A-Levels in Government & Politics, History, and Maths.  He also has an NVQ in Carpentry & Joinery.  People are often surprised to learn that my husband chose to be a carpenter despite having qualifications that would allow him to progress to non-manual fields of employment – he is a highly skilled craftsman.  He has been very successful in this trade.