Hackney Child – review
Author Hope Daniels remembers a turbulent upbringing in her memoir Hackney Child
On 18 August 1983, nine-year-old Hope Daniels led her two younger brothers to Stoke Newington Police Station – ‘Stokie Nick’ as she knew it – and asked to see her social worker. It was no longer safe for them to live at home.
This is the first moment she recalls in Hackney Child, a gritty and harrowing account of a childhood defined by poverty and neglect.
Written in collaboration with documentarian Morag Livingstone, Hope’s memoir draws on a string of appalling memories interspersed with notes taken from her social services files. As disturbing a read as it is, there are sporadic moments of tenderness and joy that help dilute the horror.
Hope’s mum is a prostitute and Dad’s a thief. Both were failed miserably by their own families and have no idea of what it is to be a parent. They raise their children in squalor, feeding them barely enough to survive and teaching them little more than how to steal.
Despite all this, there is love. Hope adores her sorry, hapless father and takes much of the responsibility for the well being of her siblings, before they enter the care system. It is here they find comfort and stability, but of course there is still much to contend with.
The first half of the text offers a glimpse at the richly diverse and complicated Hackney of 30 years ago. Hope, almost feral with hunger for warmth, food and friendship, thrives on the kindness of a cross-cultural community; Mum’s seething racism leaves her perplexed.
We hear of the lady next door who cooked chicken, rice and peas one summer afternoon while Hope played with the neighbours; the kebab-shop workers who gave extra salad, “even though we never asked”; and a friend’s father who made her feel like part of the family.
“Everything I do is met with a warm smile, and when we sit down to dinner, they just assume I will eat with them. An open palm, covered in henna, gently sweeps – directing me from the gas stove to sit on the floor, to my place, which is already set,” she writes.
But happy times are few and far between, and hints of childhood adventure are cut through with the harsh reality of life way below the poverty line. While foraging for rhubarb in a Hackney graveyard might sound like fun, when it’s a common necessity the game soon wears thin.
On occasion, the prose takes on a flowery manner too ambitious for the writers to pull off. But this is a minor criticism of what is, for the most part, a bracing and unpretentious non-fiction. It digs deep into a shocking world of destitution and depravity that I, for one, knew nearly nothing about.
Hackney Child is published by Simon & Schuster UK. RRP: £6.99. ISBN: 9781471129834