Blue Plaque honour for Twopence author Helen Forrester
A new Blue Plaque has been unveiled at the childhood home of Twopence to Cross the Mersey author Helen Forrester.
The late writer’s son Robert Bhatia travelled from Canada to see actors Mark Moraghan and Sian Reeves officially unveil the plaque in Warren Road, Hoylake.
The pair are set to play Helen’s parents in a forthcoming UK tour of By the Waters of Liverpool – a follow up to the much-loved Twopence – which opens at the Floral Pavilion next month.
Forrester, who was born June Huband at the terraced house in Hoylake in 1919, spent the first six months of her life living at her grandmother’s Wirral home while her father was fighting in Russia with the King’s Liverpool Regiment.
And from the age of 11 she spent her school holidays at the house in what she later described as “the happiest days of my childhood”.
She was the eldest of seven children of middle-class parents who were bankrupted in the Great Depression, and who moved back from the south of England to Liverpool where Helen was left to care for her younger siblings by her parents who found it a struggle to cope with their new, reduced, circumstances.
Actors Mark Moraghan and Sian Reeves unveil the plaque in Hoylake
The blue plaque is the latest to be unveiled in Wirral and will join a Blue Plaque Trail which also celebrates former residents including footballer Dixie Dean, sugar magnate Henry Tate, war poet Wilfred Owen and Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
Kate Bradley, senior commissioning editor at HarperFiction said: “I’m delighted Helen’s contribution to Liverpool’s rich cultural history is being honoured.
“Helen’s books were gut-wrenchingly honest about her experience growing up in Liverpool, but it’s her humanity and passion for life that always shines through, and it’s this tenderness and understanding that have made the books enduringly popular with readers.”
By the Waters of Liverpool runs at the Floral Pavilion from March 3-8. Tickets HERE