Borstal Girl

Product Description

Born into a fog-ridden south London slum in 1931, Eileen Killick quickly learned to look after herself. Her brothers were wayward, her mum had TB & her dad was working all hours on the railways. By the time she was fourteen she had survived the Blitz, a spell in a care home & her mother's death, but she craved excitement, embarking on shoplifting sprees, liberating fur coats & rolling toffs up west with notorious 'queen of thieves' Shirley Pitts. Eileen soon found herself in borstal, put to work building roads like a navvy. Known as ' Kill', she had a reputation as one of the hardest woman behind bars. Then, in the 1950s she met & married career criminal Harry ' Big H' Mac Kenney, & she was soon fraternising with the toughest, most colourful characters in the London underworld. She went on to have four children, whom she loved & protected, but life was extremely tough & Eileen fell back into her old ways, thieving & fighting to make ends meet. The 1970s brought police corruption & brutality to Eileen's doorstep. When Harry was banged up, Eileen carried on the 'family business' alone & found herself on the wrong side of the law
- again. Yet throughout a catalogue of trouble this defiant London bad girl of the old school always kept her defiant sense of humour. Borstal Girl is a true story of shocking violence & survival that pulls no punches, but it is also a secret criminal history of a London long past. There is no other female memoir like it.