Street Kid: One Child's Desperate Fight for Survival - Softcover
John Peel's programme "Home Truths" first brought Judy's moving childhood story to light - abducted by her psychotic spiritualist father and kept like a dog in the backyard, brutalised at the hands of nuns in a Manchester orphanage, and left to live wild on the streets. But Judy survived and today has founded 7 children's centres in South Africa. After a childhood lived in terror, in 1994 Judy was presented with an Unsung Heroes Award for her charity work with street kids in South Africa. Her moving story came to light after Judy was interviewed by John Peel on BBC's "Home Truths". "Street Kid" is the inspirational and heart wrenching story of her early years. At age two, in postwar Manchester, Judy was kept by her psychotic father - a spiritualist preacher - in a backyard where she had to scavenge from bins. At four, she was sent to a catholic orphanage, where she was brutalised by nuns, before being put back in her father's care. For the next three years she was treated as a virtual slave. After being taken by her father to South Africa, Judy runs away to join the circus where she finds her first taste of freedom and friendship. But her dad soon tracks her down. And it is only a couple of months later that she finds herself alone. For 9 months, 12 year old Judy made her home in a shed behind a bottle store before collapsing in a shop doorway from near-starvation. Finally, aged 17, she manages to pay her way back to England to find her mother and sisters. But when she returns to Manchester, Judy finds her dreams cruelly shattered. Determined that her childhood experiences should in some way give meaning to her life, Judy has worked tirelessly to help children in need back in South Africa in the very place she had been treated to such abuse herself. She has opened 7 centres to date.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
'If Judy's story doesn't become a book and a film, I'll be amazed.' John Peel
About the Author:
After a tormented childhood, much of which she lived as a feral child, Judy Westwater was determined to make her life meaningful. After setting up two drama schools in Surrey and later in Inverness, she went on to work with street kids for seven years in Mexico. For the past ten years her incredible efforts to help children in the violent townships of South Africa has been inspirational to many, earning her an Unsung Heroes Award in 2004. Over the past ten years, Judy has set up seven day centres for children in South Africa and lectured to many thousands across the UK to raise funds for her work.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherHarper Element
- Publication date2006
- ISBN 10 0007233353
- ISBN 13 9780007233359
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages288
- Rating
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