Finding Tipperary Mary, a book inspired by search for long-lost mum

Barbara Fisher and Phyllis Whitsell

Finding Tipperary Mary is the title of our next ‘meet the author’ evening at Molesey Library on Tuesday 28th February. It is also the title of a book, which is now a bestseller here and in Canada, and was featured in the Times bestseller list for several weeks.

It is a remarkable true story about a nurse from Birmingham called Phyllis Whitsell who tracked down the alcoholic mother he gave her up for adoption as a baby and the moving account of what happened next. Phyllis was encouraged to tell her story by her good friend Barbara Fisher, who ghost wrote the book. They planned to self-publish but Mirror Books stepped in and snapped it up, resulting in nationwide publicity and TV appearances for Phyllis, as well as interviews on radio. The film rights have also been sold.

Barbara lives in West London for many years with her husband Mike. They have a daughter, son-in-law, and a grandcat! She was a teacher for 15 years and entered full-time journalism at the suggestion of an editor who liked the weekly schools’ page she wrote for the Uxbridge Gazette. She spent 20 years working for the paper and is now freelance, but still writes a weekly column. Barbara was made an honorary fellow of Brunel University in 2005 for her community reporting.

She is also writing her own book, Tales from an Old Hack: memoir of a local reporter. Tickets to the Finding Tipperary Mary talk (28th Feb, 7.15pm) are available from the library priced £5.