Hackney Child
hen I met Hope Daniels through her work at the Tunbridge Wells Winter Shelter, I was immediately struck by her warmth, her ceaseless enthusiasm and selflessness. "THIS is what defines heroism for me," I thought to myself. All the more remarkable when it later transpired that Hope had a shockingly - and words fail me here, so I've got to resort to swearing - shitty start to life.
I found her memoir, "Hackney Child", so absorbing (I shan't use the word "enjoyable"), that it took me just two car journeys to read. Even before its official release, it was swiftly gathering plaudits, and it was clear that there was an awful lot more to this than just another misery memoir. It's already a must-read book amongst social workers, and the Sun named it their memoir of the year (no, no, don't stop reading! I've got a lot of respect for the Sun's reviews, which I've always found unbiased, fair and more-often-than-not completely truthful) - and now there are whispers of dramatisations.
Hope's home life was so wretched that at the age of just nine she knew that things were very, very wrong, and she was compelled to take her younger brothers to a police station and ask to be taken into care, where she spent the rest of her childhood. Hope had to battle a flawed care system, not to mention her own demons, and came out of the other side as the frankly fabbo chick she is today.
There are many things which I got from this book. It's ghost-written by Morag Livingstone, primarily a film-maker; all I can say is, she must be a hell of a film-maker if this is the second string to her bow. She completely nails that crippling shame and self-blame that any child of abusive, alcoholic parents endures, and often never comes to terms with. And I was left utterly shocked by how awful our care system is. Like many of our systems - the NHS springs immediately to mind - it strikes me as a mismanaged mess, and only the altruism and warmth of the put-upon "foot soldiers" makes the system work at all. And also, that no person is beyond help - we are all capable of redemption and deserving of love.
Hope says that all children brought up in the care system have a story in them they want to tell, but few actually get to tell it. Good on her for her perseverance. And having lived here for the last five years, she's got a good claim to being Mrs Anke's Greatest Living Person of Tunbridge Wells. Read it read it read it, folks.
Hope giving a speech at the Hackney Child launch at Trinity; thank goodness Dior invented Diorshow Iconic Waterproof mascara.
Morag reads an extract from the book, putting the Iconic Waterproof through its paces again.
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