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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
In 1970, a pretty young woman called Helen Cummings married a handsome doctor called Stuart Wynter. But instead of being a marriage made in heaven, it was the beginning of a hellish existence of spiralling abuse that ended six years later when she escaped with her two young children. Except it was not the end at all because Dr Wynter remarried – and this woman and her child weren’t able to escape, and Helen wasn’t able to help.
In this brave memoir, Helen Cummings relates an idyllic childhood growing up in 1960s Australia and looks back on a marriage that nearly killed her and her children. Nowadays Helen is ‘the mother of a famous daughter and the daughter of a famous mother’, but she also had to come to terms with being the former wife of a murderer, and who was powerless to help his victims (Publisher website).
Notes
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Dedication: Dedicated to Rakentati and Binatia, who didn't live to tell their own stories, and to Sarah, Brendan and Rainie, who have given me reason to live and love again.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Surviving the Spouse of Horrors
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 9 -10 April 2011; (p. 20-21)
— Review of Blood Vows : A Haunting Memoir of Marriage and Murder 2011 single work autobiography
-
Surviving the Spouse of Horrors
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 9 -10 April 2011; (p. 20-21)
— Review of Blood Vows : A Haunting Memoir of Marriage and Murder 2011 single work autobiography
Awards
- 2012 shortlisted Davitt Award — Best True Crime Book
Last amended 26 May 2014 23:10:12
Settings:
- Gloucester, Gloucester area, Upper Hunter - Dungog - Gloucester area, Newcastle - Hunter Valley area, New South Wales,
- Newcastle, Newcastle - Hunter Valley area, New South Wales,
- ca. 1960-2010
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