Twopence to Cross the Mersey by Helen Forrester

It tugs at the heartstrings and fills you with admiration for Helen. This book opens up a world that no one would want to visit and a life that to most of us would be worse than a horror story. Helen is kept at home and not permitted to attend school as her mother is unable to cope, the weight of the total desperation and hopelessness which falls upon the shoulders of this child is overwhelming and the bravery and intelligence of such a brave little girl shines through. With Mr Forrester unable to find work, Mrs Forrester, mother of a newborn baby, unable to cope with the new life and constantly on the edge of a breakdown, poor Helen is left to try and care for her siblings as best she can. When Helen Forrester's father goes bankrupt during the depression, his formerly well off and indulged wife and seven children are thrown into a world far away from their comfortable life in southern England and into the most abject poverty in the slums of Liverpool.

Set in the 1930's it is I think one of the first in the now booming genre of 'mis lit' but that is not to say that it is in the least mawkish or self-pitying. This is one of the books that I come back to and read again every now and then, it is the first part of a quartet in the biography of Helen Forrester and is one of the most touching and honest stories you could read. I have already ordered the sequel 'Liverpool Miss'. She has a fierce spirit and an intelligence that is apart despite her young age. Helen tells her story with dry wit and sarcasm, and I really think this helps her to make sense of what is going on. Helen is not allowed to go to school, but instead has to look after her siblings who are too young to, and her mother who has recently had an operation cannot do anything for herself and lies about all day on the mouldy bed, expecting Helen to feed and bathe her children. Although they can sometimes go days without food, soap or general basic products needed to keep them alive. As a result, all they can manage to find is a dirty, cold room in a boarding house which they make their home. Here, in the first volume of her autobiography she and her various siblings are left homeless after their father loses his job in the recession. Helen Forrester has a gripping and wonderful way of entrancing the reader. but I decided on my latest trip to the charity shop this weekend that it was such a short book that I might as well give it a go. I think I wrongly assumed that Forrester's books were sweeping romantic war sagas which is certainly not my thing. For some reason I keep seeing this book in charity shops and have never been tempted to pick it up.

Twopence to Cross the Mersey by Helen Forrester