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Product Description
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 and 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 and her mother's death, but she craved excitement, embarking on shoplifting sprees, liberating fur coats and 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 and married career criminal Harry 'Big H' MacKenney, and she was soon fraternising with the toughest, most colourful characters in the London underworld. She went on to have four children, whom she loved and protected, but life was extremely tough and Eileen fell back into her old ways, thieving and fighting to make ends meet. The 1970s brought police corruption and brutality to Eileen's doorstep. When Harry was banged up, Eileen carried on the 'family business' alone and 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 and 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.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Eileen MacKenny's life story is authentic, awful, funny, outrageous and a bloody good read. An account of London criminal subculture across 80 years, much of the book seems like an account of the nineteenth not twentieth century. A slight book really but a page-turner nevertheless., written against the odds. Her dedication is "to all those people who didn't believe I could do it or was talking rubbish - I told you so!" She certainly did. I finished BORSTAL GIRL in one sitting, even if at times I found myself a bit aghast at the descriptions of violence and brutality Eileen lived through in South London, and worse delivered to other women.
BORSTAL GIRL describes Eileen's life as a street fighter, shoplifter, fraudster, thief, causal worker, scam artist, jump up accomplice, fence, and above all Mother of four, and grandmother who did it all (in her mind at least) to survive with her family the best way she " knew, fucking, how". Life with Eileen's violent brothers, before and after she lost her mum during the last year of the war, meant she never stopped fighting. She says, it was fighting her corner that helped her survive through harsh and at times cruel treatment dished out to the poor during the war, evacuation, the land army, borstal, and South London criminal sub culture where she lived for a bit with Big H MacKenny, the love of her life. He was wrongly convicted of murder in 1980, having earlier abandoned her and their kids. Yet she takes responsibility for the failure of that relationship, and when the shit hits the fan, is there standing by her man during his worse hour. There is no easy stereotypical script here either, as his rejection of her remains constant , and her account of her obsessive loyalty to him, she acknowledges, brings further trouble to their doors.
Yet Eileen doesn't engage in self pity and often her account is funny perhaps because her story exhibits the sort of gallows humour familiar in the biographies of many life long criminals. Having taken down and published the life story of Shirley Pitts, "Queen of Thieves", I recognize the power and authenticity of the speaking voice and unique descriptions of a real life lived. Eileen , was a woman from a well known family, who made her living from crime, and paid the price for being labeled "deviant" and who I had not heard much about, even from Shirley. who knew her, until I read this book.
At 80, looking back on her London Life Eileen confesses few regrets. She says even today she "still can't be told what to do, or more than I ever could, and I don't take kindly to piss taking". Me too! Her stories reveal true spirit and also the fine line between frustration, non-conformity and potential mental illness. Just pray the next generation of MacKenny women find feminism and different and more creative ways to express such fighting spirit . There is female force here to be reckoned with and admired - if not emulated ...
LORRAINE GAMMAN
BORSTAL GIRL describes Eileen's life as a street fighter, shoplifter, fraudster, thief, causal worker, scam artist, jump up accomplice, fence, and above all Mother of four, and grandmother who did it all (in her mind at least) to survive with her family the best way she " knew, fucking, how". Life with Eileen's violent brothers, before and after she lost her mum during the last year of the war, meant she never stopped fighting. She says, it was fighting her corner that helped her survive through harsh and at times cruel treatment dished out to the poor during the war, evacuation, the land army, borstal, and South London criminal sub culture where she lived for a bit with Big H MacKenny, the love of her life. He was wrongly convicted of murder in 1980, having earlier abandoned her and their kids. Yet she takes responsibility for the failure of that relationship, and when the shit hits the fan, is there standing by her man during his worse hour. There is no easy stereotypical script here either, as his rejection of her remains constant , and her account of her obsessive loyalty to him, she acknowledges, brings further trouble to their doors.
Yet Eileen doesn't engage in self pity and often her account is funny perhaps because her story exhibits the sort of gallows humour familiar in the biographies of many life long criminals. Having taken down and published the life story of Shirley Pitts, "Queen of Thieves", I recognize the power and authenticity of the speaking voice and unique descriptions of a real life lived. Eileen , was a woman from a well known family, who made her living from crime, and paid the price for being labeled "deviant" and who I had not heard much about, even from Shirley. who knew her, until I read this book.
At 80, looking back on her London Life Eileen confesses few regrets. She says even today she "still can't be told what to do, or more than I ever could, and I don't take kindly to piss taking". Me too! Her stories reveal true spirit and also the fine line between frustration, non-conformity and potential mental illness. Just pray the next generation of MacKenny women find feminism and different and more creative ways to express such fighting spirit . There is female force here to be reckoned with and admired - if not emulated ...
LORRAINE GAMMAN
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is raw, visceral and shocking and I was gripped from the very first page to the last. Eileen has had a tough life, but the choices she made were often the wrong ones, opting for a life of crime punctuated by violence rather than the straight and narrow. She is a stark contrast to her virtuous sister, Gracie, who chose a different path even though she came from the same background. I felt great pity for Eileen losing her mother and always fighting to survive, but I couldn't like her, everyone who tried to help her she pushed away or belittled. She is too brutal with a warped justification for stealing and thieving. Her personality is borderline psychotic highlighted by her rampant jealousy of any other woman who came into contact with her husband, Big H. She is a woman of extremes, her one redeeming feature, her stoic loyalty to those she loves, showing a caring side that she stupidly subdues. I do admire her though for writing this book, its style is conversational, swear words are common place, so much so that you stop noticing them after a while. Just like her violent life, you end up numb to it.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was born and brought up in South East London and could relate a lot to this book. The very tough upbringing, surviving and bringing up her own family is so true of many other families in the area at that time. Very true to life
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Must Read
Excellent gripping touching story of Eileens fight for survival in life, She is an inspiration to her family, A born fighter with passion for life x
Published 28 days ago by Julie G
Disappointing
Pushed myself to finish this book once I had started, bit disappointing, the story did not pan out how I expected it to.
Published 1 month ago by Maisie
dreadful book
this book was one of the worst books i have had the misfortune to pick up as the language was just awful by no means am i a prude as i have read many books of this ilk in my time... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mrs. K. Pendrey
Foul Mouthed
I swear myself when angry and annoyed but her language and use of the F word every second sentence became wearing and immature. Read more
Published 1 month ago by C. Martin
Borstal Girl
Not too bad a read if you can take the bad language, interesting true story .. how the other half lives! .. Read more
Published 2 months ago by A. E. Wilkinson
The same story throughout
There can be no question that the life lead by the author was at its least appalling and her family's persecution by authorities unforgivable however I did find the story became a... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mrs. L. C. Campbell
Borstal Girl
Not what I thought, bad lanuage too much no proper story .Just a boring life story and very far fetched. Not for me
Published 2 months ago by brenda b
ITS GHOST WRITER MUST HAVE BEEN HARD PRESSED
This volume is just about worthwhile in the sense that Elieen MacKenney was in the vortext of a lot of goings on so to speak and this volume is her version of events made just... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Disappointed Pensioner
this book is fantastic
i have been looking for this book a little while now. i know the woman that has wrote this book. this book is contained with a story from the past. Read more
Published 4 months ago by linda
loved this book
Excellent book `I loved how this awful true tragedy has been finial told by Eileen also how this book exposed unbelievable but true corruption within the London police force where... Read more
Published 7 months ago by MELVYN COOK
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