Burnside Children’s Home

N 201
The Long Way Home is the first instalment of Kate’s life story. Kate grew up a “homes kid” in the 1950s and 60s, institutionalised into the Burnside Children’s Home as a young child after the death of her mother. Kate and her two siblings were placed by their father into the Pennant Hills Burnside. Kate quickly learns to live by the rules of the home and endure the loneliness, cruelty, loss of self and sense of betrayal that came from her life in the homes and her monthly visits to her abusive father.

N 142C
Kate wrote A Tuesday Thing to explain what happened next.  It is described as a courageously honest book. It starts with a young adult Kate striving to be accepted as ‘normal’ among her peers. Lacking the confidence, her dreams and expectations of ‘ever becoming a member of a real family’ seem to evaporate. She starts an early childhood course at university but just as her teaching career brings her joy and new challenges, the dark secrets from her past resurface and Kate must face her demons – particularly the father who robbed her of a childhood but at the same time never stopped loving her…

N 156

N 185