Evelyn Doyle Knihy

Skutečný příběh dívky, o niž musel vlastní otec bojovat se státní byrokracií Autorka strhujícím způsobem vypráví o svém dětství, které prožívala na počátku 50. let v chudém dublinském sídlišti. Když jí bylo sedm, opustila maminka ji i jejích pět bratříčků. Zoufalý otec požádal o pomoc úřad sociální péče. Evelyn se ocitla v klášteře. Když se tatínek Desmond oženil, požádal o převzetí dětí do péče, ale dostal od úřadů zápornou odpověď. Očima Eve-lyn pak sledujeme jeho zoufalý boj o vrácení dětí z náhradních domovů.

After the heady days of the trial which released her from the care of the State Industrial schools and succeeded in changing the law, Evelyn returns to the same grinding poverty. And when Desmond is once again forced to return to England to find work, 'new mammy' Jessie increasingly takes out her frustration on the twelve-year-old Evelyn. After a gruelling winter, the family eventually leaves for England in search of a better life. But matters quickly deteriorate. Jessie's relationship with Desmond becomes strained and Evelyn increasingly finds herself getting the brunt of their criticism and dissatisfaction. Part memoir, part social history, Evelyn's remarkable journey takes us through her adolescence as an assistant in Woolworth's in the swinging sixties, as a weaver in a mill in Yorkshire, and her repeated attempts to run away. Throughout everything Evelyn's inexplicably troubled relationship with Jessie looms large, casting a shadow over her life, until the story's brilliant and emotional denouement.

Told through the perspective of his daughter Evelyn, this true story recounts a father's struggle to regain custody of his children from the Irish government in the 1950s.