Spoilt: Surviving a Childhood in Care: The abandoned child who had nowhere to turn - an astonishing survival story

by TerryDenby (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $7.63

  Who cared? I was confused about why I had been taken from my mother. I felt lost, abandoned, dejected, unloved, unimportant, unwanted and I wondered where they would finally dump me. This is the incredible true story of Terry Denby, fatherless and put into care by his own mother at the tender age of six. With nothing to call his own and no one to support him, Terry slowly begins to accept the bitter truth that he is totally alone. This startlingly honest and heart-rending account follows Terry through his early recollections of a lonely, misunderstood childhood spent in the cold surroundings of the East London 'Buildings', through to his tumultuous and confusing early adolescence in an uncaring children's home. Denied all the opportunities children so desperately need, Terry's account builds a picture of a bewildered and deeply troubled boy who was let down time and time again by the very people he needed the most. Brutal, and often shocking in places, this powerful book evokes fifties Britain in astonishing detail. The author's ability to relate his harsh treatment at the hands of not only his mother, but also the authorities responsible for looking after him, brings this social period into stark reality.

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $3.46

  In the coming weeks and months I was further humiliated by Auntie Blodwen. The beatings were usually around the head or on the back of the legs, the arms or bare bottom. Auntie Agnes would hold me down in the office, the cloakroom, or in the cellar, while Auntie Blodwen laid into me.
  
  I was now totally exposed to the wilfulness and madness of these adults . . .
  
  I was in care.

  Terry begins life on an estate in East London known as 'The Buildings'. Rarely attending school, he wanders the streets for hours, collecting cigarette butts while his mother entertains men and sings in local pubs. But when he returns to find the 'welfare' on his door, he realises his troubles have only just begun . . .

  His mother gives him up without a fight and Terry finds himself in a care home run by the tyrannical Auntie Blodwen. Terry is brutally beaten on a regular basis and shut for hours in the coal cellar. His only strength gleaned from the children who share this nightmare, and his friendship with his guardian's dog, Jenny.

  Denied all the opportunities children so desperately need, Terry's story builds a picture of a bewildered and deeply troubled child who is let down time and time again by the very people he needs the most.

  But this powerful memoir shows how even the most deprived child can make their own luck and eventually find happiness.