When photographer Polly Braden became a single mother, she set out to capture the unique joys and frustrations faced by other lone parents in the UK
On 14 February 2012, Fran took her two children, both aged under five, and left her partner of 10 years. Their relationship had broken down. “He went to work. By the time he came back, we’d gone. We took no clothes, nothing. We just walked. I went into a photo booth and took a photograph of the three of us: I call it my liberation photo. I never looked back.”
She had to give up a job she loved to look after the children. “I worked for the ambulance service and there was no one to look after the children when I was on nights,” she says. Like many single parents, she then struggled to find a place to live, because those on housing benefits are affected by discriminatory, blanket “no benefits” bans. “I couldn’t tell the landlord I was on benefits. He lived next door, and kept asking, ‘Are you working?’ I had to hold it together for six months before my new job started. I’d take a packed lunch and go out all day, to make him think I was going to work.”
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