It’s been a mad few weeks here, getting ready for the book to come out. (Don’t pull that confused face, I know I told you I wrote a book!)

The books arrived from the publishers! I made an arse of myself on Instagram, getting all giddy about my flaps! (Seriously, get your mind out of the gutter.) How pretty are these?

Somethings have been difficult and sad, others have been so utterly bat-shit exciting that I spent an entire afternoon marching around the house cackling, ‘Shut up! Seriously, shut up.’  ‘Oh my friggin’ god, shut up!’

The dog and the Mister both avoided eye contact while I cackled myself into an early bed with a book, the Mister complaining that he could still hear me chortling from downstairs.

The exciting news (which I’m not sure if I am allowed to share yet – think Glastonbury for books! Shhhsssss, tell no one!)  The exciting news saw me, just for a moment, return to that old familiar imposter syndrome.

 ‘They’ve only invited me out of pity…’

 ‘They’re bound to change their mind once they… ’

This nonsense surfaced almost like breath on a cold winter morning, steaming up my glasses, clouding my vision before, with a stamp of my foot, I stopped it in its tracks, ‘fuck that shit.’

I will say it again. Fuck! That! Shit!

Coming from a culture where, as women, as a working-class woman, we’re not meant to show off, not meant to make a show of ourselves, not meant to sing our own praises, I am challenging all comers to dare to say that I am anything less than magnificent.

Including myself!

I am blowing my own trumpet for all to hear.  

Which is a good job, – did I mention I have a book about to be released in four weeks?

With that in mind, do you wanna read a sneak peek of the book?

NO?

Ok, well bugger off, then.

But if you are still here, then here it is.  Staking my claim for my right to be heard. (if only as, sometimes, a reminder to myself.)

‘Working-class lives, our lives, my life, are not seen as worthy of being art – unless it’s for our grittiness, our squalor. And anyway, we’re all meant to be middle class now. Living in a meritocracy, those who are ‘good’, and ‘deserving’, the hard workers, will naturally rise to the top.

Being working class, we’re told, is about laziness and fecklessness, expecting handouts and living off the state. We’re the undeserving, the scallies and scroungers. This is the story we are told.

But working class isn’t a dirty word. We’re not a culture that needs to be bettered. Nor are we a homogenous group, with or without whippets, flat caps and too many kids. Some stories argue we’ve been left behind – certainly, we’ve been deprived and ignored – but some of us choose to stay here. Proud of where we come from, proud to call ourselves home.

Here there are stories hidden as lies, and lives dismissed as stories.

Our stories move beyond tales of rags to riches and streets paved with gold. Our fortunes are found here on our streets. The heroic deeds round my way are not battling dragons or rescuing princesses but can be seen in the daily act of resistance that is simply living a life that others seek to demean. Working-class life is not squalid and grubby, with woodchip wallpaper and curtains falling from the rails. It’s not all screaming rows in the streets and gardens full of rotting cars. At least, not round here, anyway.

 And here’s the thing – if we don’t tell our own stories, then they tell them about us, and they always get it wrong.

These are my stories. Of a working-class woman. Mother of six. Living in a council house. On benefits. This is not how I see myself, but it’s the way in which I’m defined.’

xxxx

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