Books

My recently published, and potentially controversial novel, 'The Child Madonna', is a fictional account of the childhood of the Virgin Mary.
Yes, it's not an expected story from a person who was Chief Operating Manager of the London Midland Region of British Rail based at Crewe in the 1980s; and who subsequently became Head of Safety Policy of British Rail after the Clapham Junction train accident in 1988.  

I came to Crewe as Chief Operating Manager in 1982 and have lived at Nantwich since then, although my subsequent career took me all over the UK and even the world, offering safety consultancy to many railway systems.

However, I wrote this novel over six months, during train journeys from Crewe to Euston in 1989, when I was daily attending the  Clapham Junction Accident Judicial Inquiry. 

Click here to hear author David Maidment talk to BBC Radio Stoke's Lamont Howie about 'The Child Madonna':-

Inspiration

Every day on my journey I passed a Roman Catholic girls' school en route from Euston Station to my office to pick up papers for the Inquiry. 
Seeing a typical statue of the Virgin outside, I compared it in my mind with recent experiences I'd had as a new member of Amnesty International's Children's Human Rights Network - campaigning on horrifying cases of girls and young women from countries in the Middle East accused of shaming their families by sex outside marriage or even admitting violation and rape - leading to their killing or mutilation, often by their uncles, brothers or even fathers.  

It occurred to me that Mary - who would have probably been a young teenager of 13 or 14 (girls got married at puberty in 1st century BC Judea) - would have experienced similar threats and accusations from her family and the local religious authorities when she was found to be bearing a child out of wedlock; so I began to research the subject in the British Library. 

Pressure

As a result, my vision of the girl, Mary, her character and the experiences she might have endured, are only based loosely on the traditional biblical story - not so much in denying that account, but filling it out with the authentic political and social background of that time.
I was also exploring just what guts and faith a young girl must have had to stand up to all the opposition and dire threats of retribution she'd likely have received.

After completion of the handwritten novel (I had no train laptop in those days) I put it on the backburner, as I was so busy with my railway safety role at the conclusion of the Inquiry - although I did show it to my local Methodist Minister in Nantwich who urged me to get it published. 

He never gave up; and eventually, around three years ago, I typed it, revised it a little and started submitting it to literary agents and publishers. It was selected by a publisher in Ely, Cambridgeshire, who had specialised in biographies, but had just started publishing literary fiction, and they offered me an immediate contract.

Street Children

It was during a visit to Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1989 that I was confronted by the tragic case of a six year old street girl whipping herself to raise sympathy for her begging, and the exploitation I observed broke me up - and was a direct cause of me joining Amnesty International. 

This led in due course to me becoming the Co-Chair of the Consortium for Street Children (I retired from this last year) and founding, with railway industry colleagues, 'The Railway Children', a charity for street children living on and around railway stations in India, East Africa and for runaways in the UK. (We are closely linked with the film 'Slumdog Millionaire' as we work with children on the Mumbai station where key parts of the film were shot.) 
The Railway Children headquarters office is now in south Cheshire at Sandbach - it was in Crewe, until we outgrew those premises.

So, 'The Child Madonna' is dedicated to the anonymous little beggar girl who was the catalyst for my involvement in Amnesty and the other two charities, and all royalties from the novel are to be donated to the Consortium for Street Children (www.streetchildren.org.uk) and the Railway Children (www.railwaychildren.org.uk).

The hardback novel is available directly from the publisher, Melrose Books (www.melrosebooks.com) or can be ordered from any bookshop or Amazon.

David Maidment