Lizzie's Tale
Page 3
Authors Preface
This novel continues the Old Balmain House Series. It is begins in the same house as the first book. It tells of a poor family who live here at a time when Australia was moving into the 1960s; a highly conservative society, but on the brink of major change.
It centres around the life of a girl who makes a very painful journey from childhood to adulthood, at a time when teenage pregnancy almost invariably meant forced adoption and when the social stigma for unwed mothers made their lives unbelievably difficult.
While the characters are not based on real people, the treatment of pregnant women in this society and, in particular, the consequences for teenage girls who became pregnant, were real features of Australian life in the 1960s. Therefore this story is something that could have happened to a person like my imagined character, Lizzie; so it becomes her tale.