Class, Social Mobility and Sensationalist Media
Episode 64
For our last episode of the year, Frankie speaks to stand-up comedian and corporate speaker Toni Kent. Having grown up on a council estate, and spent her early teenage years in circumstances described by social services as “chaotic”, Toni set out on a path to create a life different to what had been predicted for her. This involved leaving home and the town Toni grew up in and led to a career in the tech industry and 10 years at Microsoft.
Toni is focused on humanising discussions around class structures and social mobility. In this episode, Toni generously shares her personal experience of growing up in a low socioeconomic household with five siblings, and the challenges she faced when leaving her home and social circle to build a rewarding career and financial stability.
Toni and Frankie discuss the UK’s current social system and how the Covid pandemic has highlighted the true levels of disparity in our communities, as people require help and support from local services which are already stretched to their limits.
And finally, the conversation explores the media discourse surrounding class, and the blame culture, sensationalism and stigma that comes with it, and how Toni is working to dismantle this with open conversation and humour.
This conversation was recorded on 14th December 2020. I hope you enjoy listening, and I also wish you a really restful Christmas break. Take care of yourselves and we’ll be back on the 11th Jan 2021.
This episode is brought to you by Ohne. Find out more - https://www.thewotpod.com/ohne
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Episode Chapters
05:02 Chapter 1: Toni’s story
12:05 Chapter 2: The social mobility narrative
15:23 Chapter 3: Financial stability and money mindset
17:59 Chapter 4: Damned if you do, damned if you don’t
21:39 Chapter 5: Progress in the social system?
23:04 Chapter 6: Blame culture & sensationalism – the media’s discourse on class
27:04 Chapter 7: Humanising the conversation with comedy and stand-up
30:04 Chapter 8: Navigating the past with your children
33:40 Chapter 9: Toni’s Advice
Connect with Toni Kent:
Connect with Frankie Cotton
Team
Guests - Toni Kent
Host - Frankie Cotton
Production Support - Georgia Buchanan
Sound Editor - Beth Davison
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EPISODE 64 TRANSCRIPT
Frankie Cotton Toni, welcome to Women on Top.
Toni Kent Thank you, Frankie. I'm excited to be here.
Frankie Cotton I'm excited to chat to you. I wonder, Toni, before we start, how are you? How are things?
Toni Kent They're good. They're good. We are on countdown to Christmas. Four more days of work for me. Four and a half days of school for the kids. Everybody is excited about that, we're just gunna lie on the floor eating chocolates for two weeks.
Frankie Cotton And just try and relax and process this year, I think, it's going to be a wild one.
Toni Kent Yeah, I think so.
Frankie Cotton So, Toni, you reached out to me because you wanted to tell your story about social mobility. And that's something that we've not specifically covered that much on this podcast. We've spoken a fair bit about privilege, especially in relation to racism and gender. But class is something that I just don't think we've spoken about nearly enough. And before we dive into your story, I'd love to ask you, why do you think we do find it so hard to talk about social mobility and class?
Toni Kent Well, partly there's a few different aspects. I think it challenges some really ingrained viewpoints, beliefs and behaviours that we have just as a nation, because the whole British class system is world famous. So it's part of who we are. I also think that it can make us feel guilty and it can make us feel ashamed, depending on where you sit. And it highlights an aspect of inequality which can be really uncomfortable to discuss.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, and with that in mind, can you start by telling us a bit about your own life experience growing up?
Toni Kent Yeah, so I had very typical working class background. So my mum and dad had four kids. We lived on a big council estate in Basingstoke. Both my parents worked, but they both had low income jobs. So my mum did shifts in the evening and my dad did semi-skilled manual work. And then when my dad died when I was 14, so I was 14. And then I had three younger brothers, the youngest, which was three at the time. And we went from having kind of a dual income to being solely reliant on benefits and help from friends and family. And that was a real kind of wake up call to me on how profound the impact of losing an income can be to a family in that position. So my mum, single parent, there were four of us children and then she had two more children and remained a single parent. And my half brother has complex disabilities. We had a lot of help from social services. And my mum also had a lot of kind of undiagnosed mental health problems. So I kind of because it happened when I was a teenager, I think you're very alert and aware as to what's going on in the world at that age. And I kind of came to a conclusion that I did not want my life as an adult to be as difficult. So I left home when I was 17, 18, managed to get a job at an employment agency. I guess we'll come on this, but through hard work, luck, happenstance, I ended up in IT worked for a number of tech firms and made enough money to become financially stable. And that absolutely transformed my life and cannot underestimate the power of that. So I think it's it's something that I've always been very aware of how hard it is to break out of a cycle of benefits and inequality and lack of access to opportunity. And I'm grateful that I was able to do it. And that's why I'm very keen to kind of share my experiences.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, absolutely. And when you when you speak their Toni about sort of breaking this cycle, what did you think when you were sort of a teenager and not long perhaps after your dad had passed, did you have a sense of what was possible for you or perhaps what that sort of prediction or expectation or that cycle looked like and were you, sort of how did that change in your mind? Was there something that happened that made you go, OK, I do want this to be different or what is possible for me that perhaps wasn't expected or wasn't the path that was sort of predicted for you?
Toni Kent Um, yeah, it's a really good question, I guess. So there are a number of my peers who became pregnant at school or on leaving school. And again, I think I saw how hard that was for them and not having money and when I went to college, so I did my GCSE's I didn't do particularly well, I got a job in a fruit and veg shop and I was earning about sixty pound a week cash and I thought that was money. And then I realised that that doesn't get you very far at all. So I went to college and at college I met young people who, we were in the same class studying the same topics, and they had better lives than I did. And their families had good incomes. And it made me kind of see that I had just as much right to be there, and I was just as intellectually bright as those young people. So how could I get what they had? You know, they had cars and their parents had nice houses and I thought, well, I want some of that. So if I can be in the same classroom as them, how can I get the same lifestyle that they have and that, after I sat my A-levels, the teacher said I could go to uni because of my grades, but I couldn't afford to because I had no financial safety net and they put me on a course to learn business administration skills and in learning those skills that are valuable in the workplace I got my first job at REED Employment, and there I met women who owned their own cars, owned their own houses, earned a decent income, and I wanted to be like them. So that kind of set me on a path to, I guess, really go for it.
Frankie Cotton And do you think that that was something that was instinctive in you or do you think, you know, how much was outside influence and role models throughout those that sort of I don't know how many years it was, but from a teenager and through college or how much was it sort of a burning fire within you? What do you think were the influences and circumstances that really led you to to go down a different path?
Toni Kent I think it was, cause the role models at the time when I was growing up were page three women, Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister, so you're like, well, where do I fit on this scale of page three at one end.
Frankie Cotton That's quite a scale!
Toni Kent It is! And the women around me were mainly housewives. And I remember that, like the, some of the men in my family would be like uncles would say, you know, you need to get a good job and you need to pay into a pension and you need to do all these things. And the women in my family never spoke about that stuff. It was about having pin money or doing a part time job. And I thought, well, that's not what I want. So I think there is definitely that burning like burning desire to go out there and achieve something more for myself on my own terms. I mean, we were there were lots of examples of young people going to the city to work for the stockbrokers. So I think there was an element of that, seeing that people who did not go through university education could go and make money. But yeah, and actually one of my aunties, she worked and she drove and that that was inspiring to me to see her making her own way, which previously I hadn't really seen.
Frankie Cotton And something that you said to me, Toni, that I found really fascinating last time we spoke was that people think social mobility is about education and opportunity and that those two things can help solve some of the real challenges that young people have. But you told me that it's far more nuanced than that. And it's really about the stories we have about who we are. And I wonder how you overcame that narrative, what sort of you know, from a mindset perspective, what was it that you because I imagine that's quite challenging, especially if you sort of stand slightly separately to your family and to your peers and and perhaps, you know, creating some distance or some sort of you know, there's a real difference there, right?
Toni Kent Yeah, it is really hard. And I did, I was talking to one of my friends and I said I'm sure I was a bit of a cuckoo when I was younger. So I went and actively sought out role models who were my friend's parents, for example. And I would talk to them about their lives and how they'd made things happen, because think you're kind of sold this concept that social mobility kind of transforms everything. But my experience is that actually it can break families up. It removes people from where they grew up. You sometimes have to walk away. And I, I do remember people saying to me, oh, oh, well, you know, 'don't know who you think you are' or with, 'oh, it's all right for you. It's right for you now because you have money' and any kind of hard work that you've put in or decisions that you've had to make that have been really, really difficult might get underplayed because it can make people feel that in striving for something else, you are rejecting them. And that's quite a complicated, hard thing to unpick, discuss, work through.
Frankie Cotton And yeah, that's that's so fascinating. And I guess that's the core of the conflict.
Toni Kent Yeah, it is. And I did speak to I spoke to one of my uncles actually, and I remember him and he said, 'there is nothing wrong with wanting to better yourself' and you have to kind of remind yourself of that. And so the steps that I took and the reasons that I wanted to do the things that I wanted to do, so to create a financially secure, stable life for myself was that actually when I did have children and for a very long time, I said I would never have children. I could give them the things that I didn't have because I think growing up in a household that is risky, unstable, is not, it's not the best start, so I thought I was so afraid that I would repeat that, but it's in having children, I've kind of come to realise that was actually a big part of what I was about. So when I came to have a family, I would be able to give my children things that I didn't have.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, absolutely. And on that, you know, talking about financial stability and sort of money mindset, you know, most of us inherit a lot of our behaviours with money from our parents or certainly our immediate family and the people close to us. Was there was there some sort of conscious change in money mindset that you had to go through? Is that was that a part of your journey, sort of looking at the behaviours from your immediate family and thinking, OK, I need to do something different. I need to look at pensions, you know, investment, stability, all those kinds of things. What did that journey look like?
Toni Kent Yeah, there wasn't there was a degree of that. So I was very much, when I was, I aspired to have a pension. So as soon as I was old enough I was like, I'm gunna have a pension. So I joined the very first company pension scheme that's made available to me. When I was later making a lot of money at Microsoft, I put my bonuses into our mortgage. I, you know, there is a part of me that, I love to splash a bit of money now and then. And I like to have you know, God my mum was always buying furniture, the amount of furniture that came through our house, we'd be like where's the sofa? She's like aw got different one. And there's part of me where, when you have a life where you don't have control over your income or what's going to happen or who's looking after your children or what social services are going to say about you, there are things that I found in my family that you would do to feel like you had some control. So it might be like I'm going to get a different sofa this week. So there's a part of that in me, where I think, aw I just, you know, make things be exciting buy something new, but I try really, really hard to again have that safety net. So putting money into the house or I did get shares. A couple of companies I worked at was giving shares. I have no idea what to do with them, but I'm a very risk averse in that. So when they say, how do you want to invest this? Well, conservatively, please. And it is a conscious decision. I spoke to somebody the other day who had a similar challenge with their parent having undiagnosed mental health problems. And we were saying that every day you have to make these conscious little decisions to do things differently, because when you're brought up in that way, it's there. It's almost like a knee jerk reaction. It's a constant keeping that, keeping a lid on it, which is a bit tiring.
Frankie Cotton And, Toni, as your life changed and as you sort of started creating wealth for yourself and and a great career path, how did that then affect your relationship with with your brothers, with your mum and and with your peers?
Toni Kent It's really hard. And I do remember there was one instance where, so I felt, and this is something that I've learnt that I could really help my family if I had money and I gave that money to them, that would help make a difference and change things. But and this is what I think some of that social mobility conversation is hard is it doesn't it doesn't change the fact that, let's say they had to go to a food bank if I gave him 50 pounds every week. That doesn't it doesn't change that because the structures and the system that's in place and how their lives have worked out makes it almost impossible to get out of if you're already 20, 30 years down the line and I had this what was going to get to so there was one time when one of my brothers said to me, oh, it's all right for you, you just come here and wave your magic wand. And I was so upset because it was almost like a, everything you've done is just worthless for nothing unappreciated or someone else had said to me, oh, you've always been lucky. I thought, you know, this is not lucky. This is hard work. But at the same time, I think some people do have that burning desire that, you know, that grit or could be because I was that little bit older, you know, it gave me just a few more years of growing up with both parents to feel more resilient. But it definitely made things very, very hard. So the one hand, I could do lovely things for them and I could help them and be there. But on the other hand, there are times when it perpetuated a cycle of something's wrong we'll call her or I fancy a new, I fancy new fridge freezer I'll give her a call.
Frankie Cotton Yeah. And it kind of feels a bit like you sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't sort of situation. Right? Where I guess where you feel that your hands are tied either way, and like you say, you know, 50 pounds here, 50 pounds there or something like that doesn't actually solve the real issue. Or does it really make, you know, that sort of impactful change? It's just sort of a lot of sticking plasters. That must be a tricky one. It must be tricky.
Toni Kent It is. And there were some things that I had access to in a professional context. So working for a corporate we got taught about mindfulness. We had a session called Personal Excellence, which talks about things like how you manage your finances, how you deal with stress, how you interact with others and all of those kind of things like, what constitutes a healthy relationship, stuff like that. You know, in moving away, moving into the workplace, changing my social circle, there were so many things that I learnt that helped me just, you know, deal with some of the challenges that I had faced that I think it's some of those little things there that will be really, really valuable to be made available in schools, that kind of thing.
Frankie Cotton Yeah. And I wonder, you know, as you mention it there, Toni, do you think the social system, as you understand it now, is better than how it was when you were young or potentially worse or hasn't changed or what's what's your view?
Toni Kent So I do think in some ways. So I'd had a conversation with my mom a few years ago and she was saying it used to be so easy to get help and that had changed. It feels to me and based on what I've seen, and my experience is that you have to be in dire, dire need of help. I mean, you've got to be at breaking point to access the kind of level of help that many, many people need. But but there's just not the resources and services there. From what I understand of people that I know that worked in social services the caseloads have just got bigger and bigger and bigger. So my belief is that services are more stretched and there's far less funding to provide them. We've seen things like youth clubs disappear. We've seen libraries shut, all of those kind of things that are fundamental to helping young people seem to be disappearing. So I don't think it's better. And I imagine it's probably harder to get harder to access.
Frankie Cotton And I think an important part of this conversation as well is, is sort of the media discourse about people who are living on benefits, who are accessing universal credit and social support. And I wonder from from your perspective, how can we evolve that media discourse and make sure you know that ultimately we're looking at systems and and not sort of you know, I think sometimes we can get into a sort of blame culture or, you know, it can be quite divisive. And I wonder how we can really start to change that and actually just make the conversation more productive and more human, and more empathetic but also really sort of focussed on on on change in a different way perhaps that we've not done before.
Toni Kent Yeah, I know that one thing it would be lovely to see is that there's a lot of poverty tourism like sensationalising, that's TV programmes that are oh, look at these people on benefits, look at how they behave. And I think there is something really wrong about that. It's because these are people's real lives that we're dealing with. And I saw like the problem, the Jeremy Kyle show, that kind of thing. And and you're quite right. There is a lot of making people 'other' and saying, well, if if you're like this, then that must be your fault. And I had spoken to a friend actually, and she works in the community with young families. And she said, oh, I went to this house and there was like poo on the wall. And I said, well, that was what my house was likem actually, growing up. It is normal. Some people live in really, really difficult circumstances and that doesn't make them any less human. And I when you talked about media, actually so, my daughter is doing media studies and the part of the homework had included this table of socioeconomic status. And at the bottom it said lowest level of subsistence and it had single parents in there. I was like, I'm sorry, what is this? So I thought, I'm going to have a look at this research it, figure out what the deal is here. And it turns out, it was really old table from the 50s that it's just been picked up. And, you know, it is news people who stopped reading it, they just think that's a resource. I'll include that. And it was designed to look at how the media segments people. And firstly, I know that media media organisations don't use a table that that blunt anymore. And so I had a chat to the teacher about where it came from and why it was in use and actually said, oh, you know what, I'm not going to use anymore. I can see it's really out of date, I can see it's wrong and it would cause problems. And they've committed not to use that anymore. And I've seen a version on the BBC Bitesize website and I've asked them to take it down. So they're having a look at that. And where we've come to is I'm going to go and perform, stand up for some sixth form media studies students on social mobility as a means to kind of diffuse that conversation a bit, humanise it and open up a conversation about what can we do to increase access to opportunity and know what are some of the things that need to change.
Toni Kent Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up, Toni, because I was going to ask you about that. You know, there's this real beauty of comedy where people really let their guard down and you can really access some hard hitting topics and and really contribute, like you say, to that discourse in a positive way when people are disarmed and perhaps relaxed and and feeling comfortable. And I wonder if you could tell us a bit about the work that you do now as a comedian and and some of the training and stand-up that you do.
Toni Kent Yeah. So I do performances for organisations that want to talk about social mobility because it's forming a larger part of the diversity and inclusion agenda. And something that you mentioned to me was about that Marcus Rashford's work has highlighted how with Covid many more families are going to be experiencing food poverty. And so it's becoming more important because actually there have been studies that have shown that people who have come from a low socioeconomic background take longer to progress within organisations and have less access to like progression and pay rises. And some of that comes down to some of those softer skills. Or things that they may be dealing with outside of work, so just because you have come from a low socioeconomic background doesn't mean that you may not be still helping your family. You may not be carrying some of those experiences with you and using comedy to share some of the things that I did that just because I wasn't sure of how I fitted in. Yeah, allows people to just relax a bit and and then maybe take a moment and acknowledge that, you know, when we're at work, we might put on a bit of armour, but we are all still just people and we need to be aware of, as we found with Covid, everybody is impacted in some way, and my hope is that it has made us all a bit more open to understanding everybody's challenges. And then I do workshops on making change during risky times. So I left home early, some people would see it as a risky move. I left my friends and my family the support network that I had. And then when I worked for a corporate, I left at a point where I had two kids mortgage. I was earning twice what my husband earned a lot people say it's a very risky thing to do. And then I and then I've taken a step into doing comedy, which again, people say, well, that's a bit risky. But I think a big part of change is to face your fears. And and try and rationalise what it is you're really frightened about. And so in doing so, that's helping people to think about any changes they might like to make now when it feels like it's a risky time to you know, we've become paralysed, don't we? We're scared. So my aim is to kind of really help people open up, be less afraid to have conversations or to make changes that they might want to make.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, amazing. And I wonder, Toni, and this this may be a personal question, and if you don't want to answer, that's absolutely fine. But I wonder sort of how you've had these conversations with your children about your own sort of upbringing and about, you know, perhaps the drive and resilience that that that has given you. And, of course, you know, you wanted to break that cycle with your own children. And yet I wonder what those conversations have have been like. Have they been tricky? Are they how how are your own children in terms of their understanding?
Toni Kent Some of it has been really funny because they they would say, 'oh, did you used to be a chav when you were growing up?' I'm like, 'oh thanks!'.
Frankie Cotton Sure.
Toni Kent But yeah. Well, yeah, I suppose you could have called it that. I don't know. And it is I mean, there are those moments that we you know, we went to my to visit my mum and one of my kids said, 'oh where's the cutlery' and my family were like 'what do you mean cutlery what's wrong with saying knife and fork.' So we do talk about it a lot. And actually what's been really, I think, healthy and positive for them is, you know, I have had members of my family that have been to prison and we've talked about that and said, you know, sometimes it's like, you know, there might be a fight and somebody gets hurt and someone has a knife and everyone has to go to prison. And so we've been able to have some really quite serious conversations with them. And when we talk about, yeah, money and what it's like to not have enough to pay the energy bill and having the phone cut off and there was something that came up with my son, there was a programme about people that use a pawnshop and this person had, it was an American one. Again, it was sensationalising people who had drug addiction problems. You know, they're trying to get money any way they can. And this person was urinating in the car park. And I said something to my son about it and he said, 'well, she, she's just a human being, isn't she, Mum?' And she's got some problems along. And I was like, I did think then that, you know, in being open with them and saying that all of these things are just part of life, and it could happen to any of us, hopefully will make them better rounded, more understanding and helps them see because, you know, I live in a rural location. It is very much a bubble. We've got some economic diversity, but that's about it. And so I think it helps them to see that beyond what we have here, there is a whole different world out there and hopefully they're not afraid to bring up topics that the other people might not want to discuss with their children.
Frankie Cotton Amazing. So, Toni, I'd love to ask, looking back at sort of everything that you've achieved and and your own personal journey for someone who is perhaps listening to this podcast and, you know, they may well be a bit like you were when you were 18 years old. And maybe there's a lot of fear, maybe, you know, that they really want to to to change their life in a positive way and maybe don't necessarily have that support network. What would you say to somebody in that position?
Toni Kent I think maybe that there's a couple of different places that you can look. And so one is to kind of look at what it is that you actually want and to just hold on to that. And if you're not getting the support for that dream from the people that say you grew up with or are around you, then look outwards to find those people that will give you that support because they are there. And that was something that was massively helpful to me. So thinking about those early role models I met. When I look to them and said, oh, I'd love to achieve this, they're like, well, let's help you do it. It's totally possible if I took that desire in that dream to my family, they couldn't help me with that. And they might not have wanted me to achieve some of the things I wanted to achieve because they might see it to undermine or threaten how they lived. So, yeah, I say look inwards to what it is you actually want and then look outwards to find the people that can give you that support because it's totally, totally possible.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, that's such brilliant advice. And, Toni, I mean, first of all, I just want to say thank you for everything that you've shared really, really generously with us, with me. I think, you know, this is a conversation that is is fundamental and is really, really important. But I also understand that it is a challenging conversation to have. But I'm just so grateful that you've that you've shared with us. And I wonder, is there anything that perhaps we've not mentioned or touched upon in this conversation that you want to leave us with?
Toni Kent That's a hard one.
Frankie Cotton Just just a small question at the end.
Toni Kent Yeah, I suppose, actually, one thing I'll show this to you, but it may be something that you can include a picture of something later. But I've got so I've got this little Lego figure, which is of a Stormtrooper and she's got pink hair and for me, this is about it's OK to be yourself so the big challenge that I had, and one thing that's taken me a long time to kind of come back round to is I felt maybe I had to be somebody else – so in joining a corporate organisation, I had to fit that mould. And I kind of put on this suit of armour and I thought, if I am like that person, then I will always be successful. And and maybe I've forgotten a little bit about who I was on the inside. So I think one thing that sort of changing my career direction and taking on comedy and getting out there and speaking about social mobility has been a way for me to kind of hang onto and embrace the, all the great stuff about where I grew up and how I grew up and what makes me who I am. So I would definitely, you know, I would encourage people to kind of hang on to that, to find a way to really, don't feel you have to kind of stifle who you are in order to get where you want to be.
Frankie Cotton That's great. I absolutely love that. Thank you so much, Tony.
Toni Kent Thank you.
Frankie Cotton Toni, welcome to Women on Top.
Toni Kent Thank you, Frankie. I'm excited to be here.
Frankie Cotton I'm excited to chat to you. I wonder, Toni, before we start, how are you? How are things?
Toni Kent They're good. They're good. We are on countdown to Christmas. Four more days of work for me. Four and a half days of school for the kids. Everybody is excited about that, we're just gunna lie on the floor eating chocolates for two weeks.
Frankie Cotton And just try and relax and process this year, I think, it's going to be a wild one.
Toni Kent Yeah, I think so.
Frankie Cotton So, Toni, you reached out to me because you wanted to tell your story about social mobility. And that's something that we've not specifically covered that much on this podcast. We've spoken a fair bit about privilege, especially in relation to racism and gender. But class is something that I just don't think we've spoken about nearly enough. And before we dive into your story, I'd love to ask you, why do you think we do find it so hard to talk about social mobility and class?
Toni Kent Well, partly there's a few different aspects. I think it challenges some really ingrained viewpoints, beliefs and behaviours that we have just as a nation, because the whole British class system is world famous. So it's part of who we are. I also think that it can make us feel guilty and it can make us feel ashamed, depending on where you sit. And it highlights an aspect of inequality which can be really uncomfortable to discuss.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, and with that in mind, can you start by telling us a bit about your own life experience growing up?
Toni Kent Yeah, so I had very typical working class background. So my mum and dad had four kids. We lived on a big council estate in Basingstoke. Both my parents worked, but they both had low income jobs. So my mum did shifts in the evening and my dad did semi-skilled manual work. And then when my dad died when I was 14, so I was 14. And then I had three younger brothers, the youngest, which was three at the time. And we went from having kind of a dual income to being solely reliant on benefits and help from friends and family. And that was a real kind of wake up call to me on how profound the impact of losing an income can be to a family in that position. So my mum, single parent, there were four of us children and then she had two more children and remained a single parent. And my half brother has complex disabilities. We had a lot of help from social services. And my mum also had a lot of kind of undiagnosed mental health problems. So I kind of because it happened when I was a teenager, I think you're very alert and aware as to what's going on in the world at that age. And I kind of came to a conclusion that I did not want my life as an adult to be as difficult. So I left home when I was 17, 18, managed to get a job at an employment agency. I guess we'll come on this, but through hard work, luck, happenstance, I ended up in IT worked for a number of tech firms and made enough money to become financially stable. And that absolutely transformed my life and cannot underestimate the power of that. So I think it's it's something that I've always been very aware of how hard it is to break out of a cycle of benefits and inequality and lack of access to opportunity. And I'm grateful that I was able to do it. And that's why I'm very keen to kind of share my experiences.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, absolutely. And when you when you speak their Toni about sort of breaking this cycle, what did you think when you were sort of a teenager and not long perhaps after your dad had passed, did you have a sense of what was possible for you or perhaps what that sort of prediction or expectation or that cycle looked like and were you, sort of how did that change in your mind? Was there something that happened that made you go, OK, I do want this to be different or what is possible for me that perhaps wasn't expected or wasn't the path that was sort of predicted for you?
Toni Kent Um, yeah, it's a really good question, I guess. So there are a number of my peers who became pregnant at school or on leaving school. And again, I think I saw how hard that was for them and not having money and when I went to college, so I did my GCSE's I didn't do particularly well, I got a job in a fruit and veg shop and I was earning about sixty pound a week cash and I thought that was money. And then I realised that that doesn't get you very far at all. So I went to college and at college I met young people who, we were in the same class studying the same topics, and they had better lives than I did. And their families had good incomes. And it made me kind of see that I had just as much right to be there, and I was just as intellectually bright as those young people. So how could I get what they had? You know, they had cars and their parents had nice houses and I thought, well, I want some of that. So if I can be in the same classroom as them, how can I get the same lifestyle that they have and that, after I sat my A-levels, the teacher said I could go to uni because of my grades, but I couldn't afford to because I had no financial safety net and they put me on a course to learn business administration skills and in learning those skills that are valuable in the workplace I got my first job at REED Employment, and there I met women who owned their own cars, owned their own houses, earned a decent income, and I wanted to be like them. So that kind of set me on a path to, I guess, really go for it.
Frankie Cotton And do you think that that was something that was instinctive in you or do you think, you know, how much was outside influence and role models throughout those that sort of I don't know how many years it was, but from a teenager and through college or how much was it sort of a burning fire within you? What do you think were the influences and circumstances that really led you to to go down a different path?
Toni Kent I think it was, cause the role models at the time when I was growing up were page three women, Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister, so you're like, well, where do I fit on this scale of page three at one end.
Frankie Cotton That's quite a scale!
Toni Kent It is! And the women around me were mainly housewives. And I remember that, like the, some of the men in my family would be like uncles would say, you know, you need to get a good job and you need to pay into a pension and you need to do all these things. And the women in my family never spoke about that stuff. It was about having pin money or doing a part time job. And I thought, well, that's not what I want. So I think there is definitely that burning like burning desire to go out there and achieve something more for myself on my own terms. I mean, we were there were lots of examples of young people going to the city to work for the stockbrokers. So I think there was an element of that, seeing that people who did not go through university education could go and make money. But yeah, and actually one of my aunties, she worked and she drove and that that was inspiring to me to see her making her own way, which previously I hadn't really seen.
Frankie Cotton And something that you said to me, Toni, that I found really fascinating last time we spoke was that people think social mobility is about education and opportunity and that those two things can help solve some of the real challenges that young people have. But you told me that it's far more nuanced than that. And it's really about the stories we have about who we are. And I wonder how you overcame that narrative, what sort of you know, from a mindset perspective, what was it that you because I imagine that's quite challenging, especially if you sort of stand slightly separately to your family and to your peers and and perhaps, you know, creating some distance or some sort of you know, there's a real difference there, right?
Toni Kent Yeah, it is really hard. And I did, I was talking to one of my friends and I said I'm sure I was a bit of a cuckoo when I was younger. So I went and actively sought out role models who were my friend's parents, for example. And I would talk to them about their lives and how they'd made things happen, because think you're kind of sold this concept that social mobility kind of transforms everything. But my experience is that actually it can break families up. It removes people from where they grew up. You sometimes have to walk away. And I, I do remember people saying to me, oh, oh, well, you know, 'don't know who you think you are' or with, 'oh, it's all right for you. It's right for you now because you have money' and any kind of hard work that you've put in or decisions that you've had to make that have been really, really difficult might get underplayed because it can make people feel that in striving for something else, you are rejecting them. And that's quite a complicated, hard thing to unpick, discuss, work through.
Frankie Cotton And yeah, that's that's so fascinating. And I guess that's the core of the conflict.
Toni Kent Yeah, it is. And I did speak to I spoke to one of my uncles actually, and I remember him and he said, 'there is nothing wrong with wanting to better yourself' and you have to kind of remind yourself of that. And so the steps that I took and the reasons that I wanted to do the things that I wanted to do, so to create a financially secure, stable life for myself was that actually when I did have children and for a very long time, I said I would never have children. I could give them the things that I didn't have because I think growing up in a household that is risky, unstable, is not, it's not the best start, so I thought I was so afraid that I would repeat that, but it's in having children, I've kind of come to realise that was actually a big part of what I was about. So when I came to have a family, I would be able to give my children things that I didn't have.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, absolutely. And on that, you know, talking about financial stability and sort of money mindset, you know, most of us inherit a lot of our behaviours with money from our parents or certainly our immediate family and the people close to us. Was there was there some sort of conscious change in money mindset that you had to go through? Is that was that a part of your journey, sort of looking at the behaviours from your immediate family and thinking, OK, I need to do something different. I need to look at pensions, you know, investment, stability, all those kinds of things. What did that journey look like?
Toni Kent Yeah, there wasn't there was a degree of that. So I was very much, when I was, I aspired to have a pension. So as soon as I was old enough I was like, I'm gunna have a pension. So I joined the very first company pension scheme that's made available to me. When I was later making a lot of money at Microsoft, I put my bonuses into our mortgage. I, you know, there is a part of me that, I love to splash a bit of money now and then. And I like to have you know, God my mum was always buying furniture, the amount of furniture that came through our house, we'd be like where's the sofa? She's like aw got different one. And there's part of me where, when you have a life where you don't have control over your income or what's going to happen or who's looking after your children or what social services are going to say about you, there are things that I found in my family that you would do to feel like you had some control. So it might be like I'm going to get a different sofa this week. So there's a part of that in me, where I think, aw I just, you know, make things be exciting buy something new, but I try really, really hard to again have that safety net. So putting money into the house or I did get shares. A couple of companies I worked at was giving shares. I have no idea what to do with them, but I'm a very risk averse in that. So when they say, how do you want to invest this? Well, conservatively, please. And it is a conscious decision. I spoke to somebody the other day who had a similar challenge with their parent having undiagnosed mental health problems. And we were saying that every day you have to make these conscious little decisions to do things differently, because when you're brought up in that way, it's there. It's almost like a knee jerk reaction. It's a constant keeping that, keeping a lid on it, which is a bit tiring.
Frankie Cotton And, Toni, as your life changed and as you sort of started creating wealth for yourself and and a great career path, how did that then affect your relationship with with your brothers, with your mum and and with your peers?
Toni Kent It's really hard. And I do remember there was one instance where, so I felt, and this is something that I've learnt that I could really help my family if I had money and I gave that money to them, that would help make a difference and change things. But and this is what I think some of that social mobility conversation is hard is it doesn't it doesn't change the fact that, let's say they had to go to a food bank if I gave him 50 pounds every week. That doesn't it doesn't change that because the structures and the system that's in place and how their lives have worked out makes it almost impossible to get out of if you're already 20, 30 years down the line and I had this what was going to get to so there was one time when one of my brothers said to me, oh, it's all right for you, you just come here and wave your magic wand. And I was so upset because it was almost like a, everything you've done is just worthless for nothing unappreciated or someone else had said to me, oh, you've always been lucky. I thought, you know, this is not lucky. This is hard work. But at the same time, I think some people do have that burning desire that, you know, that grit or could be because I was that little bit older, you know, it gave me just a few more years of growing up with both parents to feel more resilient. But it definitely made things very, very hard. So the one hand, I could do lovely things for them and I could help them and be there. But on the other hand, there are times when it perpetuated a cycle of something's wrong we'll call her or I fancy a new, I fancy new fridge freezer I'll give her a call.
Frankie Cotton Yeah. And it kind of feels a bit like you sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't sort of situation. Right? Where I guess where you feel that your hands are tied either way, and like you say, you know, 50 pounds here, 50 pounds there or something like that doesn't actually solve the real issue. Or does it really make, you know, that sort of impactful change? It's just sort of a lot of sticking plasters. That must be a tricky one. It must be tricky.
Toni Kent It is. And there were some things that I had access to in a professional context. So working for a corporate we got taught about mindfulness. We had a session called Personal Excellence, which talks about things like how you manage your finances, how you deal with stress, how you interact with others and all of those kind of things like, what constitutes a healthy relationship, stuff like that. You know, in moving away, moving into the workplace, changing my social circle, there were so many things that I learnt that helped me just, you know, deal with some of the challenges that I had faced that I think it's some of those little things there that will be really, really valuable to be made available in schools, that kind of thing.
Frankie Cotton Yeah. And I wonder, you know, as you mention it there, Toni, do you think the social system, as you understand it now, is better than how it was when you were young or potentially worse or hasn't changed or what's what's your view?
Toni Kent So I do think in some ways. So I'd had a conversation with my mom a few years ago and she was saying it used to be so easy to get help and that had changed. It feels to me and based on what I've seen, and my experience is that you have to be in dire, dire need of help. I mean, you've got to be at breaking point to access the kind of level of help that many, many people need. But but there's just not the resources and services there. From what I understand of people that I know that worked in social services the caseloads have just got bigger and bigger and bigger. So my belief is that services are more stretched and there's far less funding to provide them. We've seen things like youth clubs disappear. We've seen libraries shut, all of those kind of things that are fundamental to helping young people seem to be disappearing. So I don't think it's better. And I imagine it's probably harder to get harder to access.
Frankie Cotton And I think an important part of this conversation as well is, is sort of the media discourse about people who are living on benefits, who are accessing universal credit and social support. And I wonder from from your perspective, how can we evolve that media discourse and make sure you know that ultimately we're looking at systems and and not sort of you know, I think sometimes we can get into a sort of blame culture or, you know, it can be quite divisive. And I wonder how we can really start to change that and actually just make the conversation more productive and more human, and more empathetic but also really sort of focussed on on on change in a different way perhaps that we've not done before.
Toni Kent Yeah, I know that one thing it would be lovely to see is that there's a lot of poverty tourism like sensationalising, that's TV programmes that are oh, look at these people on benefits, look at how they behave. And I think there is something really wrong about that. It's because these are people's real lives that we're dealing with. And I saw like the problem, the Jeremy Kyle show, that kind of thing. And and you're quite right. There is a lot of making people 'other' and saying, well, if if you're like this, then that must be your fault. And I had spoken to a friend actually, and she works in the community with young families. And she said, oh, I went to this house and there was like poo on the wall. And I said, well, that was what my house was likem actually, growing up. It is normal. Some people live in really, really difficult circumstances and that doesn't make them any less human. And I when you talked about media, actually so, my daughter is doing media studies and the part of the homework had included this table of socioeconomic status. And at the bottom it said lowest level of subsistence and it had single parents in there. I was like, I'm sorry, what is this? So I thought, I'm going to have a look at this research it, figure out what the deal is here. And it turns out, it was really old table from the 50s that it's just been picked up. And, you know, it is news people who stopped reading it, they just think that's a resource. I'll include that. And it was designed to look at how the media segments people. And firstly, I know that media media organisations don't use a table that that blunt anymore. And so I had a chat to the teacher about where it came from and why it was in use and actually said, oh, you know what, I'm not going to use anymore. I can see it's really out of date, I can see it's wrong and it would cause problems. And they've committed not to use that anymore. And I've seen a version on the BBC Bitesize website and I've asked them to take it down. So they're having a look at that. And where we've come to is I'm going to go and perform, stand up for some sixth form media studies students on social mobility as a means to kind of diffuse that conversation a bit, humanise it and open up a conversation about what can we do to increase access to opportunity and know what are some of the things that need to change.
Toni Kent Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up, Toni, because I was going to ask you about that. You know, there's this real beauty of comedy where people really let their guard down and you can really access some hard hitting topics and and really contribute, like you say, to that discourse in a positive way when people are disarmed and perhaps relaxed and and feeling comfortable. And I wonder if you could tell us a bit about the work that you do now as a comedian and and some of the training and stand-up that you do.
Toni Kent Yeah. So I do performances for organisations that want to talk about social mobility because it's forming a larger part of the diversity and inclusion agenda. And something that you mentioned to me was about that Marcus Rashford's work has highlighted how with Covid many more families are going to be experiencing food poverty. And so it's becoming more important because actually there have been studies that have shown that people who have come from a low socioeconomic background take longer to progress within organisations and have less access to like progression and pay rises. And some of that comes down to some of those softer skills. Or things that they may be dealing with outside of work, so just because you have come from a low socioeconomic background doesn't mean that you may not be still helping your family. You may not be carrying some of those experiences with you and using comedy to share some of the things that I did that just because I wasn't sure of how I fitted in. Yeah, allows people to just relax a bit and and then maybe take a moment and acknowledge that, you know, when we're at work, we might put on a bit of armour, but we are all still just people and we need to be aware of, as we found with Covid, everybody is impacted in some way, and my hope is that it has made us all a bit more open to understanding everybody's challenges. And then I do workshops on making change during risky times. So I left home early, some people would see it as a risky move. I left my friends and my family the support network that I had. And then when I worked for a corporate, I left at a point where I had two kids mortgage. I was earning twice what my husband earned a lot people say it's a very risky thing to do. And then I and then I've taken a step into doing comedy, which again, people say, well, that's a bit risky. But I think a big part of change is to face your fears. And and try and rationalise what it is you're really frightened about. And so in doing so, that's helping people to think about any changes they might like to make now when it feels like it's a risky time to you know, we've become paralysed, don't we? We're scared. So my aim is to kind of really help people open up, be less afraid to have conversations or to make changes that they might want to make.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, amazing. And I wonder, Toni, and this this may be a personal question, and if you don't want to answer, that's absolutely fine. But I wonder sort of how you've had these conversations with your children about your own sort of upbringing and about, you know, perhaps the drive and resilience that that that has given you. And, of course, you know, you wanted to break that cycle with your own children. And yet I wonder what those conversations have have been like. Have they been tricky? Are they how how are your own children in terms of their understanding?
Toni Kent Some of it has been really funny because they they would say, 'oh, did you used to be a chav when you were growing up?' I'm like, 'oh thanks!'.
Frankie Cotton Sure.
Toni Kent But yeah. Well, yeah, I suppose you could have called it that. I don't know. And it is I mean, there are those moments that we you know, we went to my to visit my mum and one of my kids said, 'oh where's the cutlery' and my family were like 'what do you mean cutlery what's wrong with saying knife and fork.' So we do talk about it a lot. And actually what's been really, I think, healthy and positive for them is, you know, I have had members of my family that have been to prison and we've talked about that and said, you know, sometimes it's like, you know, there might be a fight and somebody gets hurt and someone has a knife and everyone has to go to prison. And so we've been able to have some really quite serious conversations with them. And when we talk about, yeah, money and what it's like to not have enough to pay the energy bill and having the phone cut off and there was something that came up with my son, there was a programme about people that use a pawnshop and this person had, it was an American one. Again, it was sensationalising people who had drug addiction problems. You know, they're trying to get money any way they can. And this person was urinating in the car park. And I said something to my son about it and he said, 'well, she, she's just a human being, isn't she, Mum?' And she's got some problems along. And I was like, I did think then that, you know, in being open with them and saying that all of these things are just part of life, and it could happen to any of us, hopefully will make them better rounded, more understanding and helps them see because, you know, I live in a rural location. It is very much a bubble. We've got some economic diversity, but that's about it. And so I think it helps them to see that beyond what we have here, there is a whole different world out there and hopefully they're not afraid to bring up topics that the other people might not want to discuss with their children.
Frankie Cotton Amazing. So, Toni, I'd love to ask, looking back at sort of everything that you've achieved and and your own personal journey for someone who is perhaps listening to this podcast and, you know, they may well be a bit like you were when you were 18 years old. And maybe there's a lot of fear, maybe, you know, that they really want to to to change their life in a positive way and maybe don't necessarily have that support network. What would you say to somebody in that position?
Toni Kent I think maybe that there's a couple of different places that you can look. And so one is to kind of look at what it is that you actually want and to just hold on to that. And if you're not getting the support for that dream from the people that say you grew up with or are around you, then look outwards to find those people that will give you that support because they are there. And that was something that was massively helpful to me. So thinking about those early role models I met. When I look to them and said, oh, I'd love to achieve this, they're like, well, let's help you do it. It's totally possible if I took that desire in that dream to my family, they couldn't help me with that. And they might not have wanted me to achieve some of the things I wanted to achieve because they might see it to undermine or threaten how they lived. So, yeah, I say look inwards to what it is you actually want and then look outwards to find the people that can give you that support because it's totally, totally possible.
Frankie Cotton Yeah, that's such brilliant advice. And, Toni, I mean, first of all, I just want to say thank you for everything that you've shared really, really generously with us, with me. I think, you know, this is a conversation that is is fundamental and is really, really important. But I also understand that it is a challenging conversation to have. But I'm just so grateful that you've that you've shared with us. And I wonder, is there anything that perhaps we've not mentioned or touched upon in this conversation that you want to leave us with?
Toni Kent That's a hard one.
Frankie Cotton Just just a small question at the end.
Toni Kent Yeah, I suppose, actually, one thing I'll show this to you, but it may be something that you can include a picture of something later. But I've got so I've got this little Lego figure, which is of a Stormtrooper and she's got pink hair and for me, this is about it's OK to be yourself so the big challenge that I had, and one thing that's taken me a long time to kind of come back round to is I felt maybe I had to be somebody else – so in joining a corporate organisation, I had to fit that mould. And I kind of put on this suit of armour and I thought, if I am like that person, then I will always be successful. And and maybe I've forgotten a little bit about who I was on the inside. So I think one thing that sort of changing my career direction and taking on comedy and getting out there and speaking about social mobility has been a way for me to kind of hang onto and embrace the, all the great stuff about where I grew up and how I grew up and what makes me who I am. So I would definitely, you know, I would encourage people to kind of hang on to that, to find a way to really, don't feel you have to kind of stifle who you are in order to get where you want to be.
Frankie Cotton That's great. I absolutely love that. Thank you so much, Tony.
Toni Kent Thank you.
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