Catch Me Before I Fall

Description

The True Story of A Childhood Shattered - one little girl's story of how her skin colour made her different Because she was black, Clare Malone was the talk of her Liverpool council estate. Her mother and her mother's husband were both white and from birth she was stigmatised for this proof of her mother's infidelity. Clare was left in a bare, filthy council house to fend for herself and her siblings until, aged nine, she was placed in the care of an order of strict and often cruel nuns. She finally embarked on a settled life as a nanny and pre-school teacher, but she couldn't escape from herself and the black cloud of her childhood. After suffering a breakdown, Clare was placed in a series of dehumanising psychiatric hospitals for many years until she was helped to remember the horrifying secret of the childhood she thought she had buried forever. Now, with support, she has rebuilt her life as Rosie Childs and has moved on. She is truly happy at last.

Rosie Childs was born in the Page Moss area of Liverpool in the 1950s and spent time in a children's home, with foster parents and in a series of psychiatric institutions after a breakdown. Today, she has come to terms with her childhood and is confident, positive and truly happy.

"A harrowing read" Glamour "Will shock you to the core" B magazine "Heartbreaking and inspiring" Belfast Telegraph "That some children survive childhood is a miracle; Rosie Childs's autobiography is testament to that" Mail on Sunday