KATH (32) Loves working with children. She cares about people and believes there is good in everyone. Kath was brought up in Tottenham and currently lives on an estate in Peckham, she always wanted to be a primary teacher and loved her life with her family before the fire which burnt down their house and took her husband and child away from her. Now she lives alone in a big block of flats.
She is very close to her mum and dad who have a small cottage in Eastbourne but hasn’t been able to visit them for a while due to the lockdown. She has felt very lonely and is looking forward to going back to work properly but also worries constantly about all her kids. She can’t wait to see her mum and dad again after the crisis has passed and she dreams of one day trying to have a family herself again when she is ready. She fears she might not ever be ready to risk the pain again.
Kath is persistent though and will try everything she knows in order to help someone, she’s got gumption and determination and she knows who she is, or she used to. She finds this new world confusing and is trying to stay calm and carry on but because she cares about people, she cares about their point of view.
Learning that her expectations of people need to be managed, people would be considerate and helpful but just get lost in their own opinions. She starts positive, trying to help and gets drowned by it. She wants to keep the unconscious child alive and tries everything in her power to do that, but she needs support and understanding from others and is surprised not to get it.
Teachers are undervalued members of our society and good ones are hard to come by, I wanted to show them in a good light. It was important for the audience to see that she is not well off but that she continuously struggles to make life better for herself and her students.
