Ebook: The Girl With The Cardboard Port

Judith McNeil's story begins at a railway station one cold morning in 1957. She is about to embark on a 1000-mile train journey with her mother, her younger siblings and a black coffin that contains the body of her father. Their destination is Brisbane and the home of Judith's domineering aunt. She is only fourteen.

For Judith this episode marks the beginning of ten years of deprivation, extreme poverty and abuse. Her mother re-marries a mean-spirited alcoholic. She spends time in a Catholic correction facility for wayward girls – her only crime it seems is making friends with a local Jewish boy. She is forced to flee when she almost kills her stepfather after finding him trying to drown her mother in an alcohol-fueled rage. With a girlfriend she hitchhikes to Sydney, her few belongings packed in a cardboard port, or suitcase. They are given a lift by two drivers. Payment, Judith discovers upon arrival in Sydney is sex – she is raped...