Helen Forrester (1919–2011)
Auteur van Twopence to Cross the Mersey
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Algemene kennis
- Gangbare naam
- Forrester, Helen
- Officiële naam
- Bhatia, June
- Geboortedatum
- 1919-06-06
- Overlijdensdatum
- 2011-11-29
- Geslacht
- female
- Nationaliteit
- UK
Canada - Geboorteplaats
- Hoylake, Merseyside, England, UK
- Plaats van overlijden
- Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
- Woonplaatsen
- Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Gujarat, India - Beroepen
- writer
autobiographer
novelist - Relaties
- Bhatia, Robert (son)
- Korte biografie
- Helen Forrester was the pen name of June Bhatia, née Huband, born in Hoylake, Cheshire (now in Merseyside), England. She was the eldest of seven children in a middle-class family. Her father went bankrupt during the Great Depression and the family was thrown into poverty. They moved to Liverpool, where they lived in a single room. For the next few years, the family relied on handouts from the parish and the kindness of strangers. Helen did not attend school, but was kept home to help look after her six younger siblings. At age 14, she rebelled and her parents allowed her to attend evening school to make up for her missed years of education. She also went to work for a small local charity, which later provided the background for her novels Liverpool Daisy (1979), Three Women of Liverpool (1984) and A Cuppa Tea and an Aspirin (2003). In 1950, she married Avadh Bhatia, a doctoral student in physics, and moved with him to India. Her experiences there were the basis for her books Thursday's Child (1959) and The Moneylenders of Shahpur (1987). The couple travelled widely, eventually settling in Edmonton, Canada, in 1955, where her husband became director of the Theoretical Physics Institute at the University of Alberta. Her bestselling book was her memoir of her childhood, Twopence to Cross the Mersey (1974), which was adapted into a successful musical. It was followed by three more volumes of autobiography, Liverpool Miss (1979), By the Waters of Liverpool (1981), and Lime Street at Two (1985).
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- Populariteit
- #21,976
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Oh, how frustrating were those parents, especially Helen’s mother! How irresponsible of them! They were renting pretty furniture for the living room, while their kids (and themselves) didn’t have enough to eat. And they didn’t have proper beds, clothes, or blankets, either. Helen, though, seemed to be the worst off for food. Even her mother got more (though not always) because she needed to be presentable for work; this is also why the others got more – they needed to be presentable (as much as possible, anyway) for school.
When Helen was finally able to get a job (though that took a lot of fighting on her part, as her parents (particularly her mother) still wanted her to stay home with the younger kids), and she eventually managed to hold on to a little bit of money to buy herself some new clothes (well, new to her), her mother would often either “borrow” them and wear them out herself, or she would just pawn them, often to pay the people coming to collect on what they were owed.
I’ll add that this actually included a second part to the memoir called “Liverpool Miss”. It did end a bit abruptly, though with an epilogue by Helen’s son to explain where Helen eventually ended up (in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) and how she got there. But with regard to the abrupt ending to Helen’s part of the story, it does seem there is a continuation. I will be putting it on my tbr.… (meer)