JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, yesterday donated £500,000 to the cause of one-parent families and launched a fierce attack on the widespread assumption that most single mothers are "feckless teenagers trying to get council flats".
Ms Rowling, 34, has been a lone parent since her marriage broke up seven years ago. She began her literary career while drawing benefit, writing in Edinburgh cafes as her daughter Jessica slept beside her. Last year she was Britain's highest-paid woman, earning £20.5m from her novels.
In her first appearance as "ambassador" for the National Council for One Parent Families, she described "feelings of worthlessness during interviews with the Child Support Agency and the Benefit Office" as she tried to escape the benefits trap and train as a teacher.
"I had a degree, a profession and friends who were willing to lend me money when I badly needed it. So if I met obstacles pulling myself out of the benefit system, how much more difficult must it be for people who don't have the same advantages?" she said.
Ms Rowling's £500,000 donation will almost double the council's charitable income this year. She is to lead a fundraising drive to find a further £500,000 from other sources to give on-line advice to lone parents on a website, launched yesterday.
The author said her daughter was a source of pride, joy and motivation. "I don't want her to grow up in a society where children just like her are trapped in poverty because they have had the misfortune to see their parents split up.
"It is convenient to look right over these children's heads at the parent left raising them and place blame, rather than seeing the reality: somebody striving, in the face of great odds, to give their children every opportunity they can."
Only 3% of Britain's 1.7m lone parents were teenagers, while 60% had been married and separated, divorced or bereaved.
"Seven years after becoming a lone parent, I feel qualified to look anyone in the eye and say that people bringing up children single-handedly deserve, not condemnation, but congratulation," she said.
The author said she was pleased with the help for lone parents under the government's New Deal. "But there are still about a million children living in poverty so obviously a great deal more needs to be done."
Kate Green, the council's director, said a quarter of British families were headed by a lone parent. "Most didn't choose to be alone and are doing their best in a tough situation."
Lone parents had overtaken pensioners as the poorest group, with more than three in five living in poverty. Ms Green said she was disappointed that Conservative plans to give more support for mothers to stay at home were to be only for married couples. Similar help was required by lone parents whose children were often distressed and most needed the remaining parent to be at home for a while.
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