Emma Grede

She left the house early in the morning.

She came back late at night.

She would clean.

She would, you know, I remember her like making calls.

She would like, you know, trade off with the milkman so that she could like pay a couple of weeks later.

She was always in like order.

working mode all the time and kind of relentless with it.

But she didn't hide from anything.

You know, I knew a lot of people that would like hide their bills in the sofa and like kind of ignore them.

My mum would like, you know, I remember going to like the Abbey National, which was the bank when I was a kid.

And she would like have a meeting with someone to explain why she would be in, you know, like in debt arrears, what do you call it, in your overdraft and why they couldn't charge her because that was only going to send her into a spiral.

And I just remember her being really like, like just like full on with everything, like just facing everything.

And so I never felt like that hiding from problems was the way forward because I literally had this woman that just like met everything head on all the time.

And I think it was so difficult for her because she had no support.

There was no dad.

There was no one around.

She just had these kids and all of this responsibility.

And she's so little and tiny, my mum.

And she just was, like, fearless with everything.

And so I think that she just taught me to, like, not be scared and to meet all of your problems, like, face on, in the face.