Helen Forrester

A powerful new novel, heart-breaking but ultimately uplifting, from the author of the classic Twopence to Cross The Mersey.Life in a Liverpool tenement block during the Great Depression is a grim struggle for Martha Connelly and her poverty-stricken family, as every day renews the threat of homelessness, hunger and disease.Family warmth remains constant however, despite the misery and disquiet of the slum surroundings, and the indomitible neighbourhood puts up a relentless fight for...

From Liverpool’s best-loved author comes a superb novel of loss and grief, love and hope, set on Merseyside in 1920.When her husband dies suddenly, Louise Gilmore and her daughters Edna and Celia are left with nothing but debts.Forced to move from their fine Liverpool house with servants to a run-down cottage in Hoylake, the three women must learn to make their way in an entirely new world.Although they live with fear, uncertainty and even despair, the women find there are also unexpected...

From the author of four bestselling autobiographies and a number of equally successful novels, comes another moving tale.A triumph of innocence over hypocrisy…Alicia Woodman was born into a home that should have been filled with comfort and joy. Her mother Elizabeth was bright and vivacious, Humphrey Woodman was a prosperous businessman. But Alicia was not Humphrey’s child and he would have nothing to do with her, and before long Elizabeth, too, turned her back on her daughter.It was left to...

The fourth and final part of Helen Forrester’s bestselling autobiography concludes the moving story of her early poverty-stricken life Liverpool.In 1940 Helen, now twenty, is working long hours at a welfare centre in Bootle, five miles from home. Her wages are pitifully low and her mother claims the whole of them for housekeeping but she is still thrilled to be working and gaining some independence. The Second World War is affecting every part of the country and Hitler’s Luftwaffe nightly seek...

A classic tale from Helen Forrester set in the heart of India.A heartwarming story of India, newly free – a moment when the old and new clashed.Lovely Anasuyabehn had been brought up to obey her loving father in all things. But as soon as she set eyes on Tilak, the brilliant new professor at Shahpur University, she knew she could not marry Mahadev, the wealthy moneylender selected to be her husband. The trouble was that Tilak was not of her caste or religion, and shocked her community with his...

This major best-selling memoir of a poverty-stricken childhood in Liverpool is one of the most harrowing but uplifting books you will ever read.When Helen Forrester’s father went bankrupt in 1930 she and her six siblings were forced into utmost poverty and slum surroundings in Depression-ridden Liverpool. The running of the household and the care of the younger children all fell on twelve-year-old Helen. With very little food or help from her feckless parents, Helen led a life of unrelenting...

A wonderful new novel from Liverpool’s best-loved author. A tale of loss and love set in post-Second World War England and France.This is the story of a young Liverpool woman widowed in the Second World War before she can know the happiness of having a family. With the blessing of her mother, with whom she runs a B&B, she goes to Normandy to see where her husband was killed in the D-Day landings. Once she is there, she meets an impoverished French poultry farmer, now reduced to driving a beaten...

The second volume of Helen Forrester’s powerful, painful and ultimately uplifting four-volume autobiography of her poverty-stricken childhood in Liverpool during the 1930s.The Forrester family are slowly winning their fight for survival. But life remains extremely tough for fourteen-year-old Helen. Along with caring for her younger siblings and suffering terrible hardships she is also battling with her parents to persuade them to allow her to earn her own living. Helen is desperate to lead her...

A compelling novel of Liverpool and Canada, from the bestselling author of Liverpool Daisy, Three Women of Liverpool and Thursday’s Child.For Helena Al-Khoury, life as an immigrant has been full of loneliness and despair. On the long road that has taken her from her family home in the Lebanon to the bustling port of Liverpool, the slums of Chicago, and finally to the Canadian wilderness, the struggle to overcome heartbreak, loss and cruel hardship has taken a heavy toll. Now, at last, with the...

Helen Forrester’s moving story of an English girl and her love affair with an Indian man.Peggy Delaney was a Lancashire girl born and bred, beginning to live again after the heartache of the war.Ajit Singh was a charming young Indian student, shortly to return to his homeland and an arranged marriage.When Peggy and Ajit fell in love, each one knew the future would not be easy. But as they began their new life, far from their homes and their families, they found that love could bring two worlds...

The third best-selling volume in the powerful story of Helen Forrester’s childhood and adolescence in poverty-stricken Liverpool during the 1930s.Helen has managed to achieve a small measure of independence. At seventeen, she has fought and won two bitter battles with her parents, the first for the right to educate herself at evening classes, the second for the right to go out to work.Though her parents are still as financially irresponsible as ever, wasting money while their children lack...

Another moving and heart-warming tale set in Merseyside from the author of Twopence to Cross the Mersey.In the early years of this century, many Basques left their homeland in the Pyrenees, between France and Spain, to seek a better life in the New World. Most passed through the great port of Liverpool on their way. The family of little Manuel Echaniz stayed.The Liverpool Basque is the story of Manuel’s childhood and coming of age in the teeming streets of the Mersey docklands. It is a story of...

The complete four-volume collection of classic memoir recounting a poverty-stricken childhood in 1930s Liverpool that started with Twopence To Cross the Mersey.Twopence To Cross The Mersey – When Helen Forrester’s father went bankrupt in 1930 she and her six siblings were forced into dreadful poverty in Depression-ridden Liverpool. Managing the household and caring for the younger children all fell on twelve-year-old Helen. Written without self-pity, Forrester’s memoir of these grim days is as...