LoveReading Says
As you'd expect from a memoir, this a moving story of overcoming the odds. Unexpectedly, it will make you laugh too. Championed by John Peel, Judy Westwater is a remarkable woman and her story is an inspiration to all.
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Street Kid Synopsis
After a childhood lived in terror, in 1994 Judy was presented with an Unsung Heroes Award for her charity work with street kids in South Africa. Her moving story came to light after Judy was interviewed by John Peel on BBCs Home Truths. Street Kid is the inspirational and heart wrenching story of her early years.
At age two, in postwar Manchester, Judy was kept by her psychotic father a spiritualist preacher in a backyard where she had to scavenge from bins to survive. At four, she was sent to an extremely strict catholic orphanage, before being put back in her fathers care. For the next three years she was treated as a virtual slave.
After being taken by her father to South Africa, Judy ran away to join the circus where she found her first taste of freedom and friendship. But her dad soon tracked her down and dragged her away. Only weeks later she found herself living on the streets and struggling to survive. For nine months 12-year-old Judy made her home in a shed behind a bottle shop before collapsing in a shop doorway from near-starvation.
Finally, aged 17, she managed to pay her way back to England to find her mother and sisters. But her return to Manchester cruelly shattered her dreams of a happy reunion.
Determined that her childhood experiences should in some way give meaning to her life, Judy has worked tirelessly to help homeless children in South Africa in the very places she herself suffered. She has opened seven centres to date.
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About Judy Westwater
After a tormented childhood, much of which she lived as a feral child, Judy Westwater was determined to make her life meaningful. After setting up two drama schools in Surrey and later in Inverness, she went on to work with street kids for seven years in Mexico. For the past ten years her unstinting efforts to help children in the violent townships of South Africa has been inspirational to many, earning her an Unsung Heroes Award in 2004. Over the past ten years, Judy has set up seven day centres for children in South Africa and lectured to many thousands across the UK to raise funds for her work. Her childhood story, was the subject of one of John Peel’s most moving interviews on BBC Radio 4’s Home Truths.
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