‘I cried like a baby writing my life story’

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But when the 75-year-old sat down in his Worcestershire home to get started, he found he was unable to put pen to paper.

First he had to confront the difficulties of his childhood – from his earliest years living in an attic, before moving into a notorious care home where it was later uncovered boys had suffered years of sexual abuse.

But being able to share his experiences, he says, has helped him feel a weight has been lifted, and he now hopes it will help others with similar experiences.

"I cried like a baby," he said. "I had to take myself right back…and I hated it…because I'd put all that behind me and I had to relive it.

"When I had finished, I felt so different, I've never had a feeling like it," he added.

"It really did help me, and I'm so glad I wrote the book now, and I'm so glad the way people have taken it, its been humbling how many people have liked it."

Fox was born in Marston Green Hospital in Birmingham in 1950.

He had been conceived during an affair, and spent the first three years of his life hidden in an attic by his aunt.

Fox was then moved into the notorious Father Hudson Society's home in Coleshill in Warwickshire.

"My first memory was walking through a big wooden door, by a nun…this woman dressed in weird clothes, and I was taken into a room and the very first thing she said to me was 'You'd better be good and behave yourself'," he said.

While he was never sexually abused himself, Fox said he was aware of abuse carried out against young boys by a priest at the home.

In 1998, Father Taylor, who was then 78, was jailed for sexually abusing boys at the orphanage between 1957 and 1965. He died in prison in 2001.

"When he got arrested, I always said 'what goes around comes around'," Fox said.

"You're an old man and they've got you, and your life is finished."

While the homes have been closed for decades, the Father Hudson's Caritas charity, in Coleshill, provides a service for people who were previously in Catholic children's homes with which the charity has a connection.

In a statement, it said: "We acknowledge and deplore the crimes for which Eric Taylor was convicted."

On leaving the home at 15, Fox moved to a Working Man's Home in Birmingham but describes himself as being an "angry young man" and was eventually kicked out.

He spent two years on the streets before finding a reason to turn his life around.

"I was sitting in King's Heath Park one day and I was watching the kids playing with their mums and dads," he said.

"I thought, 'one day I'm going to have that family'."

He eventually became an engineer, started his own business, met his wife Erica, and now has four children and six grandchildren.

"I've been very, very lucky in life," he said.

"When he started to write the book…he was so emotional," Erica said.

"Then suddenly he just lifted and it was like something was gone from him […] like all those emotions had gone out.

The book, Six Hail Marys and a Bag of Chips, has now been published.

His publisher, Marcia Spence, of Marcia M Publishing House, added: "I found it so inspirational, because it really is a story that gives people hope."

If you have been affected by the issues in this story, help and support is available via BBC Action Line.

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