The And the I grew up on a council estate in the northeast of England during the late 70s and early 80s. It consists of three tower blocks surrounded

by bungalows for the local pensioners, and although I didn't realize it until I started

secondary school, the estate had a very rough reputation.

Having grown up there, I thought it was perfectly normal for someone to bring an actual

monkey home from the pub.

Then when it escaped, helping hunt it down with dog biscuits and bin bags became

this big game of hide and seek. I thought every other kid used to wake up in the middle of the

night to hear shouting and screaming coming from outside and yet another intramidal

braw spilled out into the street. I knew that I'd just have to wait until I could

see the flashing lights of the cough cars,

and then it'd be quiet enough for me to go back to sleep.

I also thought every other family struggled to put food on the table,

and sometimes it was perfectly normal

for the electricity to go off for a day or two at a time in the middle of the winter.

It wasn't my parents fault. They tried as best they could, but my dad's disability payments barely lasted a week, let alone a month, and my mom left school with no qualifications, so her options were always going to be limited.

I love them both, I still do, but I made my own personal mission to never live like them.

I work my butt off in school, settled on dentistry as a way of making great money while maintaining

a good work-life balance, and ended with a very middle-class

lifestyle with the friend group to match.

As you can imagine, whenever I tell my friends or neighbors any stories about my childhood it provokes a variety of

different reactions. Some stories make them cry with laughter and others just make them

cry, but all agree that I should be very proud of myself for lifting my family out of poverty and I do mean poverty, while making a better life for myself.

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