I grew up in a ‘scummy’ council house & did homework by candlelight – now I’ve got a £165k bungalow, anyone can make it
FROM doing her homework by candlelight to layering up at home because her parents couldn’t afford to put the heating on – Carrie Ann Booth knows what it’s like to be on the breadline.
But a keen school student with big dreams, she never gave up on herself and now runs her own business and bought her first home just three years ago.
The 41-year-old plans to never stop dreaming and wants to turn her science entertainment business, The Science Booth, into a national franchise.
As a child, Carrie Ann lived in council houses and jumped between homes after her parents split when she was aged seven.
“I felt like I lived in a scummy little house and all my friends were better than me with their nice clothes and parents that were still together,” she tells Fabulous. “Everyone else’s life seemed so much better than mine.”
Carrie Ann savoured her free school meals because couldn’t guarantee there’d be food at home and remembers regularly being cold due to lack of funds for bills.
She told how she was on free school meals, got her uniform with vouchers and the gas and electricity regularly ran out, forcing her to study by candlelight.
Breaking the cycle of poverty, the mum-of-one went to Royal Holloway University, London in 2001 and did a degree in Biochemistry and Science Communication.
Over 20 years later, she has become a business owner and bought her own house just three years ago after renting for her entire adult life.
And science buff believes if she can do it, anyone can.
She met her husband Gary Booth, 41, fourteen years ago and the pair have been married for ten years and share a daughter, Roxy, seven.
Carrie Ann is a secondary school teacher part-time alongside her business, while Gary is an artist and dog walker.
The pair, who lived in a van to save up for their wedding, were determined to buy a home so their daughter had a stable place to live, as well as give her something to aspire to.
They saved up the minimum deposit for a £165k dormer bungalow in Carlisle, Cumbria.
“Five years ago, I thought I’d be renting forever,” Carrie Ann says. “We’re not in a big fancy house, it’s just a little three-bed. But for me, it’s a dream house.
“If you put it on a magazine cover, people would call it ‘so standard’, but just getting something that was enough for us was everything.”
Despite the achievement, Carrie Ann said buying their home was a scary time because she has “always felt like a poor person” and was expecting something to go wrong when getting her mortgage.
Her business The Science Booth has gone from strength to strength since she set it up six years ago.
It started off as a birthday party entertainment business where she would show colourful and exciting chemical reactions to children.
Now she has different packages, with ‘Crazy Kitchen Chemistry’ being her best-selling show “full of whizzes, pops and bangs with things you can find in your kitchen” that parents seem to love even more than their kids.
After the show, young party goers are able to get hands on and make anything from slime to “edible poo”.
Carrie Ann wants to “be a beacon” for children suffering a similar childhood to hers.
“I want to show them it doesn’t have to be like that,” she says. “Even if you are from a poor family, or you haven’t got any support from your parents, there’s still a way out.
“That way out could be education. I’ve taught far too many children from similar backgrounds to me who just carried on in a cycle of poverty, crime or drugs.
“I want kids to see there’s a better way. It makes me really, really sad.
“Just being an inspiring adult for one kid would make me happy.”