Catch Me Before I Fall

Because she was black, Clare Malone was the talk of her Liverpool council estate when she was born. Her Mother and her Mother's husband were both white and from birth she was stigmatised for this proof of her Mother's infidelity. Suffering neglect from her Mother, a prostitute and alcholic, Clare was left in a bare, filthy council house to fend for herself and her siblings until, aged nine, she was placed in the care of an order of upright and often cruel nuns. She finally embarked on a settled life as a nanny and pre-school teacher, but she couldn't escape from herself and the black cloud of her childhood. After suffering a breakdown, Clare was placed in a series of dehumanising psychiatric hospitals for years until she was helped to remember the horrifying secret of the childhood she thought she had buried forever. Now, with support, as Rosie Childs, she has moved on, and is truly happy at last.