Annie: Out of the Ashes

Annie has grown up believing that her severe facial scarring is the result of her Irish Traveller mother trying to kill her by setting fire to the caravan in which Annie was sleeping. Could she have been driven by a fear of being ostracised by the community, having had an affair and given birth to a mixed-race baby?

Annie was adopted, and 30 years later, she wants to investigate her past. Armed with just a few names and dates from the original social services documents concerning her adoption, Annie is determined to find people who know the truth of what happened that night in 1986.

Annie was adopted by a white family. Her adoptive mother taught her there was nothing she couldn't do. But she felt her identity was a 'blur' - part Afro-Caribbean, part Traveller, part white. Annie has had no contact with the Gypsy community and is desperate to understand what it was within the culture that might have caused her birth mother to take such extreme measures. Was it the colour of Annie's skin? That she was the product of an affair? Or both?

In a meeting with representatives from the Gypsy Council to find out about Gypsy culture, a shocking revelation causes Annie's investigation to change direction. Did her mother really do it? Or was she simply blamed for an accidental caravan fire by her outraged community? Supported by her fiance and her adopted family, Annie won't give up until she tracks down the people who can give her the truth.