The author

Frederick Patten left Nottingham University to join Darlington Teacher Training College as a member of a team implementing a unique course for Durham University. It was designed to provide post-graduate students with experience of the wretched backgrounds that hampered the progress of some young people. His responsibility was to create a Social Centre within an impoverished area, where the students could work with young people in recreational activities, thereby increasing their understanding of the out-of-school influences.

He later joined the London County Council as a Child Care Officer. In his spare time, he re-launched one of the original Dockland Settlements and gained sponsorships for many young people to go to Outward Bound Training. He won a major grant for improved facilities for the Settlement before leaving to become the Education Officer for a London Borough responsible for the Youth Services, Further, and Higher Education. Meanwhile he continued to write a weekly column on youth in the community for the local newspaper under a pseudonym.

The 1950’s was an enlightened time, which saw the end of the harsh Poor Law treatment of under-privileged young people, orphaned, abandoned, or abused. A few of them appear in this book. Their stories are based on real life and they beg to be told. This novel is a tribute to their courage and a compliment to the many amazing characters who were prepared to risk opening their arms to them.

Frederick Patten©2006-2009 - All rights reserved