MUM, CAN YOU LEND ME ...
Mum, Can You Lend Me Twenty Quid?
Elizabeth Burton-Phillips
UK & Commonwealth rights: Piatkus
UK TV dramatic rights: Mammoth Screen
Czech rights: Nakladatelství JOTA
Danish rights: Lindhart & Ringhof
Dutch rights: The House of Books
'Heartbreaking … A story that encapsulates every mother's nightmare'
- Mail on Sunday
Elizabeth Burton-Phillips comes from a professional family and has had a 33 year career as a teacher. She always wanted the best for her three children, sending them to good schools, providing a loving family home and encouraging them academically. Her identical twin sons, Nick and Simon, were adorable boys with everything going for them and extremely close to each other in the mysterious way only known to identical twins.
The boys were doing well at school both socially and academically. Elizabeth was therefore surprised and mystifed when she had a call from their teacher. As a teacher herself, she was aware of drug addiction as an issue amongst young people, but she never, ever imagined that this could apply to her own children. She had made a lot of sacrifices to provide a nurturing environment for her sons and daughter and, despite working with other people's children herself day in day out, simply would not have let the possibility enter her head.
It emerged that both Nick and Simon had become addicted to heroin. Because they were so close, they entered a downward spiral together, becoming all the more inseparable. They began to steal from Elizabeth and her husband Tony, their stepfather, to finance their habit. When the stealing got out of control, Tony had to insist that the boys were banned from the house and they ended up living in a series of hostels punctuated by spells living rough on the street. Elizabeth and Tony put the boys through rehab and there was a period when it looked as if they were recovering, but they soon descended into addiction again and Elizabeth was again faced with seeing them begging on the streets, almost unrecognisable through the effects of the drugs.
Matters came to a head with a knock a the door from a policeman in the early hours one morning. Unable to cope with what he was doing to himself and his family, Nick had hanged himself.
Mum, Can You Lend Me Twenty Quid? was featured on publication in national newspapers from pre-publication serial in The Sunday Times News Review to the Daily Mail and Guardian. It tells the story of every parent's worst nightmare, despite their best efforts, and resonates with parents from all backgrounds the world over. A two part TV dramatisation is currently under way.
