ABSTRACT
Becoming a social worker was an unlikely choice for me, given my childhood. I was born in London, the year that the NHS was created and brought up on ‘the buildings’, an estate that had been erected in 1910 as charitable dwellings for the poor. ‘The buildings’ housed hard-working, respectable, white working-class families. Contact with ‘the welfare’ was a public mark of failure in this community, so I was taught early by those around me to avoid at all costs contact with middleclass ‘do-gooders’ who talked posh, invaded your privacy and robbed you of your sense of worth. If you had troubles, it was much better if you tried to sort them out yourself, with, if you really needed it, help from family, friends and neighbours.
