Our house was repossessed and we lived in a B&B until we got a council house. It was a struggle, but Mum just got her head down, found cleaning jobs and never complained. I owe her a lot, so I now do everything she says.
There was a council house waiting for me when I had Ryan, there was a welfare state. I never put into the system before I took out, I was on income support before I'd even paid a penny of tax.
I grew up in a council house in a poor Scottish town. I came of age during the recession of the mid-1980s when unemployment in my area reached 40 per cent.
Mum was always hard-working. She came over from Spain and bought her own council house.
My story is the story of many postwar British families. Upward mobility. A council house and then new affluence.
Any success I have had is thanks to Labour governments that provided the council house, minimum wage, tax credits and Sure Start children's centre that enabled me to achieve it.
I spent the first three years of my life with my parents, grandmother and two aunties in a tiny council house in Glasgow.
I'm not part of a middle-class establishment. I'm working class, and I grew up in a council house.
I get a lot of single mum roles - 'It's a Free World' turned out well, so people thought, 'She can be a single mum, Kierston can do that. Or live in a council house - she can do that.'
