Description
Book SynopsisThe second volume of Helen Forrester's powerful, painful and ultimately uplifting four-volume autobiography of her poverty-stricken childhood in Liverpool during the Depression.The Forrester family are slowly winning their fight for survival. But life remains extremely tough for fourteen-year-old Helen. Along with caring for her younger siblings and suffering terrible hardships she is also battling with her parents to persuade them to allow her to earn her own living. Helen is desperate to lead her own life after the years of neglect and inadequate schooling.Written with an unflinching eye, Helen's account of her continuing struggles against severe malnutrition and dirt (she has her first bath in four years) and, above all, the selfish demands of her parents, is deeply shocking. But Helen's fortitude and her ability to find humour in the most harrowing of situations make this make this a story of amazing courage and perseverance.
Trade Review‘Remarkable that from so bleak and unloving a background came a writer of such affectionate understanding and unsettling honesty’
Sunday Telegraph
‘It was the biography that I would have written if my parents had not been given benefits, if they’d had to rely on parish hand outs … [I] want to press this book into your hands and go, “You must read this”.’ Caitlin Moran
‘What makes this writer’s self-told tale so memorable?… An absolute recall, a genius for the unforgettable detail, the rare chance of subject’
The Good Book Guide
