Boy: One Child's Fight to Survive in the Brutal British Care System

by Nigel Cooper

“My parents had to try for eighteen months to conceive me, but my father was adamant he wanted one last child. After eighteen months of trying, my mother eventually conceived and nine months later I was born. My birth was a difficult one. It was like I was never meant to be in this world.”

Boy is Nigel Cooper’s memoir from the age of five to sixteen. It tells the shocking, brutal, disturbing, emotional story of his childhood spent in and out of various care homes and institutions during the 1970s and 1980s.

When Nigel was just seven years old, after the untimely death of his sister and father, his mother asked social services to take him away – and then his nightmare began. For the next nine years of his life, Nigel was repeatedly rejected by his mother and spent his childhood among bullies, abusers, psychopaths and criminals. He spent time in a children’s psychiatric hospital, where they carried out unimaginable tests, pumped him full of drugs and physically abused him; care homes, where he would come face to face with rough estate kids who would beat him up, force him to steal for them and threaten his life; and barbaric assessment centres for disturbed and delinquent children, where the staff were, at times, sicker than the children.

The system tried to break Nigel and it was a miracle that he survived. The British care system robbed him of his childhood. His story is truly extraordinary and will do a lot more than shed light on what it was like growing up during the Jimmy Savile years.

Boy is powerfully written, edgy, gripping and beautifully crafted.

Genres: Memoir

336 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 27, 2015

About the author

Official website: www.nigelcooper.uk

Nigel Cooper is a British author of fiction. He writes across a diverse range of genres including: contemporary, psychological thrillers, suspense, crime and supernatural. He found his ‘voice’ as the editor of his own magazine, which he ran for eight years before becoming a full time author of fiction in 2011. He studied screenwriting in London and ran a video production company before becoming a freelance journalist writing articles, reviews and stories for various newspapers and magazines. Nigel also studied to be a private investigator and spent a year working as a PI, the knowledge of which comes in handy with his crime writing today. Having attained a degree in classical piano performance Nigel loves nothing more than to sit and play Beethoven when he isn't writing. Also, being a Hi-Fi nut and a vinyl connoisseur he can often be found in Market Hill in Cambridge browsing through the used vinyl stalls in the hope of picking up a mint condition first pressing of ‘Selling England by the Pound’. Nigel also loves a good game of badminton. He lives and writes in Cambridgeshire, UK.

Reviews

[ejones · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book details a cruel and abusive experience of the British care system in the 70s/80s. I thought it was insightful and important, and provided a lot of commentary on how people are lost/forgotten in the system.

I felt the narrator/author was wholly unsympathetic to the other care children throughout the book. I thought maybe there might be a comment that retrospectively he can see they also came from hard backgrounds but dealt with it differently, but he seemed to write them off as all intrinsically evil which seems a little myopic

[Knox Juo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible, heart wrenching book that kept me flipping pages till literally 5.00 a.m. After finishing the book you'll start to really appreciate everything you have, and symphatize those endured countless pain and sorrow like Nigel. The book grabbed my heart and I could relate to what the persona's undergoing. Again, 10/10 would recommend this book.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

An awful but important and immersive memoir about growing up in care in the 70s/80s. Brought me to tears several times reading about the horrific conditions little Nigel (and others like him) faced and the lack of love and compassion in his life, at a time when - more or less abandoned by his birth family- he needed them most.

Desperation is tangible on every page, and I longed for Nigel to escape and find a place that felt like home. Sadly, that doesn’t transpire in his 16 years in the system. The author’s survival and later success is testament to the ‘inner nugget of hope’, which he refused to let be destroyed. Nigel is an intuitive and engaging writer, and I felt as if I was there with him, as he retells the difficult stories of his boyhood.

While children’s services have evolved in the UK, we can not be complacent. Accounts such as Nigel’s are powerful reminders of the firsthand experience of the children who are both victims and products of the system. The apathetic shoulder-shrugging, and at times active involvement of “responsible adults” who were supposed to be acting in loco parentis but instead perpetuated structural framework of awful abuse is a glimpse into the very depths of evil of which humans are capable. We mustn’t ever stand by and tolerate such injustice served on the most vulnerable in our society. Childhood should be a time of nurture, growth and hope. Children should feel loved and safe. I am angry about what happened to Nigel and very much moved by his account of a childhood in care - I’m sure it will stay with me.

[LAURA JONES · Rating 4 out of 5]

a book that details the disgusting brutal treatment nigel received at the hands of fellow pupils and also the people who were supposed to be caring for the children unwanted by his mother he was passed from one place to another begging to go home but when he did his mother made it clear he was not wanted unlike his brother and half brother it is a book that will make you cry and feel angry in alternative emotions it is a shame we cannot change the past but we can ensure that no one suffers this way again

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

A horrific story but really well written

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very sad

[Patricia Finlay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good book would recommend you read it as it is still happening to this day.

[Louise Wessman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boy is a shocking, compelling, harrowing read. Although a true memoir, it is beautifully crafted like a novel. I shed many tears reading about Nigel’s sad and brutal childhood, incredulous at the attitudes and behaviours of the adult staff in so-called ‘care’ homes. Desperate to be loved, Nigel was abused in every possible way by those around him. It’s a heart-rending story that had to be told – a boy robbed of his childhood in an era when children weren’t valued like they are today.

[Ruby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel weird reviewing such a harrowing read. Five stars for the amazing writing and courage in telling such a painful story. Nigel's story is horrible, and it disgusts me to think that humans are capable of such cruelty. I would like to send prayers and a big hug to the people of this world who have lived like Nigel. Nobody deserves it. I hope he has been able to find some healing and peace as he has left his past behind. Big respect.

[Louise Wessman · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Boy’ is a shocking, compelling, harrowing read. Although a true memoir, it is beautifully crafted like a novel. I shed many tears reading about Nigel’s sad and brutal childhood, incredulous at the attitudes and behaviours of the adult staff in so-called ‘care’ homes. Desperate to be loved, Nigel was abused in every possible way by those around him. It’s a heart-rending story that had to be told – a boy robbed of his childhood in an era when children weren’t valued like they are today.

[Penny Laurenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in two days. It is an interesting, but sad, view into a world of a child neglected by his mother and churned through the system.

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a memoir about a child’s fight to survive the British care system in the late 70’s/early 80’s. It’s shocking to see how utterly appalling the ‘adults’ behaved back then as well as reading about the endless violence and cruelty that took place in the several institutions he was needlessly sent to.