Kerry Hudson had an awful childhood - a truly awful childhood. Brought up by an alcoholic single mother with her own mental health problems, she suffered not only from the effects of poverty, but from the effects of a lack of parental care. By the age of 18 she had had two stays in foster care, and been the subject of a sexual abuse child protection enquiry. She had moved from school to school, eventually attending 9 primary schools and 5 high schools in some of the poorest (and roughest) parts of England and Scotland, moving frequently at a moment’s notice. As a teenager she was sexually assaulted twice, raped once and had two abortions. But, as she says at the start of the book, she escaped:

‘Shall we start with a happy ending? I made it. I rose. I escaped poverty. I escaped bad food because that’s all you can afford. I escaped threadbare clothes and too-tight shoes. I escaped drinking or drugging myself into oblivion because … because. I probably escaped the early mortality rates and preventable diseases – we’ll see. I escaped obesity. I escaped the higher rate of domestic abuse. I escaped sink estates, burnt-out houses and ice-cream vans selling drugs at the school gates. I escaped Jeremy Kyle in a shiny suit telling me my sort was scum. I escaped casual, grim violence fuelled by frustration and Special Brew. I escaped benefits queues and means assessments and shitty zero-hour contracts. I escaped hopelessness.’

In Lowborn Kerry Hudson revisits her childhood, alternating the chapters of her childhood recollections with chapters where she revisits the places that she lived as a child, in an effort to see whether things had got better for the people who hadn’t been as lucky as herself.

I’ve seen a review of Lowborn which says it “invites us to understand the complexities of being born working-class in Britain”, and that is very much what it seems to try to do. Unfortunately, I’m not convinced that it’s terribly successful in this. In particular, the chapters set in 2018 where Hudson revisits the places she lived as a child frequently consist of little more than a quick visit to stare at her old home and a perfunctory conversation with whoever she happens to come across in the vicinity. And with Hudson’s individual situation being so tied up with her mother’s problems, I didn’t feel that I was left with a better understanding of the bigger picture at all. I should point out that this is a minority view, and it has been very well reviewed, but it didn’t completely work for me. ( )

If you were to hear Kerry Hudson speak now, you would hear her soft Scottish lilt. She would be telling you about her prize-winning books that have enabled her to travel all over the world. She is in a strong relationship and has plenty of opportunities and has access to many wonderful things.

It could have been so different.

Her score for the childhood trauma on the Adverse Childhood Experiences was eight out of ten. Her mother and step-father had a tumultuous relationship. She moved constantly as a child with her single mother between sordid flats and crumby B&Bs supported by social services. She attended fourteen different schools by the time she was sixteen. It was a tough upbringing, no money for the basics let alone luxuries and that poverty was grinding and dehumanising. She almost ended up with a drinking problem, like her mother had and dropped out of school. Was fortunate that a teacher saw her potential and as she put it saved her life.

She is proud to be working class. She was never proud of her poor background.

Hudson was one of the lucky ones, she managed to escape from the vicious cycle of poverty, but the spectre of the past continues to haunt her. This book is a brutally honest account of her upbringing and the cathartic effect on revisiting those demons from her past lives. But more than that this is a process of revisiting those place that she grew up, reconnecting with some of the people that she knew in from that past.

It is also a health check on the state of our country too. Pervasive poverty spares no one and austerity for the past decade has made the people who were in just about managing, now much worse off. She was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time with her opportunities, but the majority will not have this. It should have been a depressing book, but Hudson writes with deft authority and in amongst the gloom shows that it is possible to be happy. I think this should be required reading for all tory ministers, but as they are almost all heartless, so I doubt that they will be moved by this at all. ( )

This is a slow burn book that just builds and builds.

It begins as a fairly standard, "I was born in poverty", offering and, it would be easy to think that it will have nothing to offer. This is a mistake. Make light of the sometimes clumsy literary style, the gaps where the reader wants to know more but, it is obviously too painful for Kerry Hudson to press further, and thank your God if you need this book to tell you what it is like to grow up on the bottom edges of society.

The early years are daunting but, just when you think that things might start to improve as Kerry hits her teens, suddenly things get far worse. The unrelenting grind of her early life has clearly had an effect upon her but, our author manages to steer clear of an appeal for sympathy: this is an incredibly brave, warts and all telling of her youth. The moves from place to place running from family debt, including a spell just down the road from me, in Great Yarmouth (fortunately, for me, slightly more than ten miles down the road).

This book offers so much more than the pathetic political pamphlets produced by, sometimes well meaning, middle class do-gooder socialists. Kerry, if you ever decide to stand for parliament, you'd get my vote. ( )