Description

About the author

At the age of four, because of the Easter bombings in May 1941, my family was bombed out of our beautiful home and evacuated to a farm thirty miles north of Belfast, Northern Ireland. A year or so later, we returned and lived in a very deprived area in the city. My father, an old soldier, was an alcoholic and a heavy smoker, who smoked in the region of a thousand cigarettes a week; the cupboards were bare and family life broke down. My mother had little or no money for food, or even necessary items. I became something of a problem child and at around the age of ten, was convicted of theft for stealing food. I was put in the care of an extremely tough children’s home until the age of sixteen. Because of the problems in my early life, I never did smoke or drink, and at the age of twenty-six, I married, and subsequently, my wife and I went into fostering which we did for many years, along with our six children. We finally retired over forty-five years later. My time in care, gave me a lot of insight and I felt that I had a story that needed to be told, that’s why I wrote my book; ‘So, You Think You Want to Foster?’

About the book

My story takes place in the United Kingdom, the main characters are, my wife Jeannine, myself and not forgetting our six children. We all had to deal with the daily events and, or traumas that sometimes arose. The central topic of course is Fostering and the problems that may arise for you, or your family while doing this sort of work. It highlights the need to recognise that when you become Foster Carers, you, and your children, can be exposed to whatever comes along; they are a also a large part of the Fostering.