Cornwall in many areas is a very deprived county. This can be clearly seen through the condition of the housing around where my mum lives. My mum cannot work because of her mental health and a recent diagnosis of fibromyalgia. Consequently, she relies on housing benefits and universal credit to keep the family afloat. The wealth of a family can easily be determined by clothes, by both the type and condition they’re in. In school I was scared that people would find out I was poor; I would never invite friends around, nor would I take them near my home. This is the case for a lot of children living in poverty and deprived locations.
Any real resolution of issues of social and economic deprivation are almost impossible to imagine. Photographs can certainly never offer any solutions, but at least they acknowledge the problems, which seems important. However, and beyond these concerns, while making this work I have rekindled a relationship with my family which had been broken for a long time and the question that I started with, ‘is this home?’ has been answered along the way; ‘yes, this is home’.