Evelyn Doyle, geboren 1946, ist das älteste der sechs Kinder von Desmond Doyle und seiner ersten Frau. Nach dem Urteil im Sorgerechtsprozess um seine Kinder zog der Vater mit seiner neuen Frau Jessie nach Manchester in England. Evelyn Doyle arbeitete dort als Verkäuferin, Busschaffnerin, Weberin, Krankenschwester und später als Polizistin. Sie hat einen Sohn. Ihr Vater starb 1986. Katja Henkel, geboren 1967, ist als freie Autorin und Übersetzerin tätig.
After the heady days of the trial which released her from the care of the State Industrial schools and succeeded in changing the law, Evelyn returns to the same grinding poverty. And when Desmond is once again forced to return to England to find work, 'new mammy' Jessie increasingly takes out her frustration on the twelve-year-old Evelyn. After a gruelling winter, the family eventually leaves for England in search of a better life. But matters quickly deteriorate. Jessie's relationship with Desmond becomes strained and Evelyn increasingly finds herself getting the brunt of their criticism and dissatisfaction. Part memoir, part social history, Evelyn's remarkable journey takes us through her adolescence as an assistant in Woolworth's in the swinging sixties, as a weaver in a mill in Yorkshire, and her repeated attempts to run away. Throughout everything Evelyn's inexplicably troubled relationship with Jessie looms large, casting a shadow over her life, until the story's brilliant and emotional denouement.
Told through the perspective of his daughter Evelyn, this true story recounts a father's struggle to regain custody of his children from the Irish government in the 1950s.