Orphans of an Angel

When Evelyn Dalton, aged thirty-six, discovers she is expecting her fourth child, she hopes, at last it will be a baby girl. Her elation plummets to anguish when husband Eddie reveals his involvement in a relationship with another woman, fifteen years younger. From this pivotal moment onwards in 1962, Evelyn's life spirals out of control. Her fate is sealed by cataclysmic consequences.

An explosion at the Yorkshire colliery causes life changing injuries to coal-miner Eddie. As he leaves hospital months later, disabilities prevent him from returning to work and has no alternative but to leave his job. As a consequence, the Coal Board evicts Evelyn from the home she rents.

Eddie abandons the family for his mistress, and plunges Evelyn into a catastrophic and chaotic life of despair, destitution and homelessness. With heart-wrenching effect, her four boys are forced to live away from her. She feels as though a jagged knife had thrust into her heart. For the pain and cruelty he has created, Evelyn knows Eddie's conscience would haunt him to the grave.

With deteriorating health, Evelyn's tortured existence plummets to one of survival, engulfed by anguish and misery. With three boys and a new baby to bring up alone, her life is in turmoil. Social Services raise concerns about her ability to care for her family, implying their imminent involvement. Poverty-stricken, she struggles to cope, and vows that Social Services will never wrench her boys from her. Their destiny will not be in a children' home of dubious repute. Evelyn relies heavily on her seventy-six-year-old mother, and when her mother's health deteriorates, she runs out of options.

Evelyn, already impoverished and burdened by undiagnosed severe stomach problems, becomes critically ill. Amidst excruciating pains, the hospital admits her for emergency surgery and falls into an unexpected coma. A life-support machine is Evelyn's only hope of survival, but she is unable to regain consciousness. Internal haemorrhaging goes undetected as doctors cannot stem the blood loss. She now loses more blood than she receives through constant transfusion. Her eighteen-year-old son suspects negligence and incompetence, creating acrimonious conflicts with hospital consultants.

Though connected to a life-support machine, her body continues to weaken by the hour. Her son's suspicions of incompetence appear justified. His mum's survival becomes a stark choice; allow his mother to die with dignity or condemn her to life in oblivion aided by life-support. Wrestling with his conscience, he sanctions switching off the machine. Evelyn loses her fight for life within hours.

Acrimony erupts at Evelyn's funeral as Eddie and his mistress pay their last respects. Each of Evelyn's sons lay a single red carnation on her coffin....