Street Kid
One Child’s Desperate Fight for Survival
JUDY WESTWATER
With Wanda Carter
FOR MY TREASURED FAMILY
My beloved children Jude, David, Carrie and Erin
and all my beautiful grandchildren
Contents
The Little Prisoner by Jane Elliott
Hannah’s Gift by Maria Housden
The Choice by Bernadette Bohan
Was two when Mum and Dad deserted us, leaving Mary, Dora, and me alone in the house for seven weeks without food, light or coal for the fire.
I was born in Cheshire in 1945 and although the war had ended that year, it had been a battleground in our house whenever my parents were together. When my dad wasn’t working in a factory he was dressed up in a herringbone tweed suit preaching at local spiritualist church gatherings. It was only when my mother married him that she realised what a nasty piece of work he really was but she still managed to have three kids with Dad before she decided she’d be better off with her Irish boyfriend, Paddy.
When Mum ran off she took with her our identity cards and allowance books. She must have thought that my father would see to it that Mary, Dora and I were fed and clothed but all he did when he realised he was saddled with us was ask our next door neighbour, Mrs Herring, to look in on us every so often and check we were okay. He said he’d be back the next weekend but he didn’t keep his promise.
So that was how the three of us came to be left in the house alone.
Mary was seven, and the oldest. I reckon that as soon as I was born, I knew better than to cry for my mother: it was always Mary who’d looked after me and Dora. Mrs Herring looked in on us now and then, letting us have whatever scraps she could spare; but it was Mary that kept us going. She must have longed for a mother’s care herself, especially when she had to go to school in such a terrible state. All the teachers were appalled that she was so dirty, and they’d often have her up in front of all the class to tell her off.
One day it got so bad for Mary that she dragged our tin bath into the living room, put it in front of the fireplace, and started filling it with cold water. She pulled me up from the hearth, where I was eating ashes, and said, ‘Come on, we’ve got to get you dressed. We’ve got to go and look for Mummy.’
We went out and made our way to the market, which wasn’t far from our house. It was cold; my feet were bare; and all the clothes hanging from the stalls were flapping in my face. I kept looking