Fiona's Story: A Tragedy of Our Times

(Paperback)

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As Irene Ivison read this in a newspaper at home in Sheffield she instinctively knew it was her child Fiona. Despite her desperate and insistent attempts to bring her daughter home - calling in social workers and police to help - the young teenager slipped through the net that her safe middle-class upbringing offered her, and ended up in the hands of pimps and drug-dealers. Her daughter's brutal death was the pitiful end of the promising life of an impressionable but high-spirited teenager who was determined to live her own life. But it was a beginning of sorts too. Just as Cathy Comes Home prompted a public reaction in the sixties, here a mother tells Fiona's Story in the hope that others will hear and respond to the urgent issues her death highlights: how, in allowing children their rights we also compromise parents' power to protect and, the urgent need for society to take responsiblity for young prostitutes.

Reviews

'What dominates FIONA'S STORY is the author's raw grief, ironically the most persuasive weapon, perhaps to further her cause. Parts of the book are intensely moving... Irene Ivison is humble enough to admite her shortcomings, brave enough to detail her pain.' THE TIMES