id="u4c56205c-7604-59a5-b657-0742ec60652b">
HarperElement
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
This edition published by HarperElement 2018
FIRST EDITION
© Petrina Banfield 2018
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover image © Jeff Cottenden (posed by model); Hawkins/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images (street scene); Shutterstock.com (all other images)
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Petrina Banfield asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at
Source ISBN: 9780008264703
Ebook Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008264734
Version: 2018-06-21
Happy memories
SYLVIA ELLEN LOCKYER
Firstly I would like to thank my wonderful agent, Laetitia Rutherford, for championing me and getting me to dig deeper every time I send a draft her way. I am so grateful for all the help, support and encouragement she’s given me over the years, as well as her gentle humour in steering me away from some of my wackier ideas and onto sensible projects instead.
Huge thanks also to the lovely Vicky Eribo for the opportunities she’s given me as well as her warmth and support, and to the rest of the team at HarperCollins.
I am obliged to David Chave for being an enthusiastic and helpful sounding board, to Liz Foster, Derek Sims and Hannah Brown for giving feedback on the manuscript, and to my late aunt, Sylvie, for her insight into nursing and hospital procedures in years gone by.
Lastly, thanks to my amazing family for their unwavering love: Irene, Philip, Paul, Pete, Jean, Toria and Alex, and to my three children, Hannah, Daniel and Lexi.
Contents
I was thirteen years old when I first discovered that my father spent his childhood in care. Until then he had never spoken to me about his past and, as children are so adept at doing, I somehow picked up that it was a subject to be tiptoed around, without ever having been told. The truth came out one Sunday afternoon after I plucked up the courage to ask for the names of my paternal grandparents, so that I could complete a genealogy project for school.
Perhaps he felt I’d reached an age of understanding because after a moment’s hesitation he told me that he knew very little about his parents, who had died long before I was born. Even this snippet of information was fascinating to me and I listened eagerly as he told me about the grandmother I’d never met – a petite Irish woman who had experienced too much pain and not enough love. By the age of twenty-five she had given birth to five children.
The
