A NORTH Yorkshire author will reveal her painful journey into her family’s past when she launches her book Guard A Silver Sixpence later this month.

Felicity Davis, who suffered daily childhood beatings by her grandmother and witnessed her mother being beaten before running away from home at 15, investigated her roots in a bid to heal her own scars.

She discovered her great-grandmother was a brutalised wife who killed her husband, starting a cycle that led to three generations of women of the family repeating the mistakes of the past.

She herself had a difficult adulthood that culminated in her being a single mother of three sons at 36. But she turned her life around and was a finalist in the 2009 Barbara Taylor Bradford Woman of Substance Awards to honour women who have become high achievers against the odds.

Now a teacher and a member of the leadership team of George Pindar Community Sports College in Scarborough, she has written a book about her family’s past, starting with the murder in South Yorkshire that led to her great-grandmother’s execution and split the family apart.

Her book, published by Pan Macmillan, will be launched at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, on June 24.