Dear Charlie

‘The writing is incredibly raw and…pulls no punches…What it does do is remind us that life is brief and to be valued, which is no small thing.’ - The Observer

‘Extra-ordinarily beautiful book on love and loss.’ - The Bookseller

‘…utterly compelling in its intimacy and honesty.’ - Daily Mail

On 3rd December 2005, 13 year old Charlotte Thompson and her school friend were killed by a train at Elsenham station in Essex.  They were crossing the tracks to catch a train to Cambridge to go Christmas shopping.  There was no footbridge at the station.

Following her death, Charlie’s father began writing a series of remarkable letters to his lost daughter.  The letters were his way of continuing to talk to Charlie, of keeping her close to him after death.  Honest and heartbreaking, they tell of his terrible grief, and of family life in the wake of disaster.  His letters create a powerful portrait of his beautiful, vivid and unpredictable daughter.  They describe a family struggling to survive tragedy, and the challenges and triumphs of daily domestic life in a world that will never be the same again.

Dear Charlie is a moving family memoir, an account of mourning, and a biography of a lost girl  Above all it is a powerful love letter from a father to his daughter.

This updated edition includes a new foreword, which brings the story up-to-date since Network Rail pleaded guilty to charges of negligence and gross incompetence.  It also includes a beautiful new letter to Charlie from her father eight years on.