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Closer than Blood - Part 3 of 3: Friendship Helps You Survive
Previously published as My Mam Shirley.
Closer than Blood can either be read as a full-length eBook or in 3 serialised eBook-only parts.
This is PART 3 of 3.
You can read Part 3 one week ahead of the full-length eBook and paperback.
Behind the notorious Hudson men who dominated the Canterbury Estate for over 30 years were the girls, and my mam Shirley. The third instalment of this gritty series recounts the incredible stories of the unflinching women behind the legendary Hudson family.
The Canterbury Estate in Bradford during the ’50s and ’60s was a tight-knit community reared on poverty, crime and violence, and at the top of the heap were the infamous Hudson family. But it wasn’t just the boys who had a story to from matriarch Annie, who gave birth to 13 children, to daughters Margaret and Eunice, who married up and out, each had a personality as indomitable as the last.
Then came Shirley Read, who was just 17 when she fell in love with Keith, one of the Hudson lads. To Shirley, the only child of affluent parents, the poverty of the unruly estate was as exciting as it was mysterious; newspapers for tablecloths, jam jars for cups, and, even by that time, no electricity. But it was a friendship forged with Annie and June, the younger Hudson sisters, that would teach Shirley not only to how to survive, Canterbury-style, but would also give her the strength to overcome an unexpected personal tragedy that would soon become a nightmare for women across the world…
Eye-opening and warm, this is the vivid account of the ‘Tucker’ girls; the resourceful women at the helm of a notorious Bradford family who will never be forgotten.
Closer than Blood can either be read as a full-length eBook or in 3 serialised eBook-only parts.
This is PART 3 of 3.
You can read Part 3 one week ahead of the full-length eBook and paperback.
Behind the notorious Hudson men who dominated the Canterbury Estate for over 30 years were the girls, and my mam Shirley. The third instalment of this gritty series recounts the incredible stories of the unflinching women behind the legendary Hudson family.
The Canterbury Estate in Bradford during the ’50s and ’60s was a tight-knit community reared on poverty, crime and violence, and at the top of the heap were the infamous Hudson family. But it wasn’t just the boys who had a story to from matriarch Annie, who gave birth to 13 children, to daughters Margaret and Eunice, who married up and out, each had a personality as indomitable as the last.
Then came Shirley Read, who was just 17 when she fell in love with Keith, one of the Hudson lads. To Shirley, the only child of affluent parents, the poverty of the unruly estate was as exciting as it was mysterious; newspapers for tablecloths, jam jars for cups, and, even by that time, no electricity. But it was a friendship forged with Annie and June, the younger Hudson sisters, that would teach Shirley not only to how to survive, Canterbury-style, but would also give her the strength to overcome an unexpected personal tragedy that would soon become a nightmare for women across the world…
Eye-opening and warm, this is the vivid account of the ‘Tucker’ girls; the resourceful women at the helm of a notorious Bradford family who will never be forgotten.
118 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 27, 2014
5 people are currently reading
4 people want to read
About the author
Julie Shaw
61 books23 followersPen name for author Lynne Barrett-Lee:
Born in London and now based in Wales, Ghostwriter Lynne Barrett-Lee has been a full time author since the mid nineties. Having enjoyed several years of success as a short story writer, with her fiction appearing in almost all of the UK’s leading women’s magazines, she had her first novel, the acclaimed Julia Gets a Life, published by Bantam in 2000. She has since written seven further novels, including her 2006 work, Barefoot in the Dark, which was shortlisted for the inaugural Melissa Nathan Award. Lynne was also approached to write one of the first titles in the Quick Reads series for emergent readers, and went on to ghost a further title for TV presenter Fiona Phillips.
Lynne began ghostwriting full length non-fiction in 2007, when approached to co-author paraplegic Melanie Davies' incredible story, Never Say Die, and since that successful collaboration has been ghostwriting full time. Her 2010 title, for Faith Scott, I Won’t Forgive What You Did, enjoyed seven weeks in the UK Sunday Times Bestseller list, as did the 2012 memoir The Baby Laundry. She also ghosted the acclaimed memoir Giant George: life with the World’s Tallest Dog a bestselling title in both the UK and US.
More recently, Lynne ghosted two bestselling titles which were published in the spring of this year. The first, Mum’s Way, is the story of mum of eight, Angie Millthorpe, who died of breast cancer, aged 48, in 2010. The second, The Girl With No Name, was published in May 13, and relates the story of a young girl abandoned in the jungles of Colombia, and has already been sold in eighteen countries, with film rights being negotiated and a National Geographic documentary being shown in December 13.
Lynne also co-writes a major non-fiction series for one of the world's leading publishers, under a pseudonym. The first seven titles have also all been Sunday Times bestsellers, with three more being published in 2013/14. The series was launched in the USA in 2013, and the first ebook in the series was a NY Times bestseller.
Lynne also writes about writing, as she teaches the craft weekly, at Cardiff University - her ebook NOVEL being the written distillation of her popular novel writing course.
Born in London and now based in Wales, Ghostwriter Lynne Barrett-Lee has been a full time author since the mid nineties. Having enjoyed several years of success as a short story writer, with her fiction appearing in almost all of the UK’s leading women’s magazines, she had her first novel, the acclaimed Julia Gets a Life, published by Bantam in 2000. She has since written seven further novels, including her 2006 work, Barefoot in the Dark, which was shortlisted for the inaugural Melissa Nathan Award. Lynne was also approached to write one of the first titles in the Quick Reads series for emergent readers, and went on to ghost a further title for TV presenter Fiona Phillips.
Lynne began ghostwriting full length non-fiction in 2007, when approached to co-author paraplegic Melanie Davies' incredible story, Never Say Die, and since that successful collaboration has been ghostwriting full time. Her 2010 title, for Faith Scott, I Won’t Forgive What You Did, enjoyed seven weeks in the UK Sunday Times Bestseller list, as did the 2012 memoir The Baby Laundry. She also ghosted the acclaimed memoir Giant George: life with the World’s Tallest Dog a bestselling title in both the UK and US.
More recently, Lynne ghosted two bestselling titles which were published in the spring of this year. The first, Mum’s Way, is the story of mum of eight, Angie Millthorpe, who died of breast cancer, aged 48, in 2010. The second, The Girl With No Name, was published in May 13, and relates the story of a young girl abandoned in the jungles of Colombia, and has already been sold in eighteen countries, with film rights being negotiated and a National Geographic documentary being shown in December 13.
Lynne also co-writes a major non-fiction series for one of the world's leading publishers, under a pseudonym. The first seven titles have also all been Sunday Times bestsellers, with three more being published in 2013/14. The series was launched in the USA in 2013, and the first ebook in the series was a NY Times bestseller.
Lynne also writes about writing, as she teaches the craft weekly, at Cardiff University - her ebook NOVEL being the written distillation of her popular novel writing course.
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