Once I Was a Princess

[Author], [Publisher]. NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand books is not always available. Please contact us if you have a question about this title. Author: Jacqueline Gillespie Format: Hardback Number of Pages: 448 At thirty, Jacqueline has written her autobiography; if this seems ludicrous, she says, it was because she had no other choice but to do so for her children. In July 1992, Jacqueline Gillespie's two children were kidnapped by her ex-husband, a Malaysian-born prince called Bahrin, and taken to Malaysia. Jacqueline Gillespie has neither seen nor spoken to Iddin and Shahirah since. After the kidnap, Jacqueline Gillespie, well known behind the camera for her journalism, suddenly turned the tables and became the source of news. It was a side of the camera she did not relish but she threw herself into the media barrage with a vengeance: at that stage, prior to the children's arrival in Malaysia being confirmed, the daily media provided her only source of hope; the Australian Federal Police had proved incompetent and the Government, labelling the matter a personal dispute, were unwilling to help. The case attracted a huge amount of publicity; the children's faces - and Jacqueline's - were plastered over newspapers and television. Jacqueline even appeared on the cover of "The Australian Women's Weekly". She was the first non-celebrity to claim such a place. Coming hot on the heels of another notorious Malaysian controversy, the drug trial of Barlow and Chambers, the Gillespie case seemed to inflame passions. Jacqueline herself attracted sharply divided opinions. Some of this was racially inspired. Jacqueline Gillespie does not look like an "Australian". The way Jacqueline was "packaged" has caused anguish for her since birth. She was born in Melbourne in 1963 to a blonde blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon mother whose ancestors had arrived in Australia in 1801. Her Malaysian father had married her mother while he was still a student. Finding married life claustrophobic and expensive, he hung around long enough to meet Jacqueline but that was all. Five days after her birth he returned to Malaysia for good. When Jacqueline was two, her mother was pronounced clinically dead after suffering an embolism. At subsequent psychological counselling sessions she met and set up house with a fellow patient. After wrenching Jacqueline away from her beloved Nanna, her mother then turned an uncomprehending eye to the subsequent physical abuse suffered by her daughter at the hands of her de facto. Growing up in the suburbs of Melbourne in the sixties was not much fun if you didn't fit into the typical Anglo-Saxon mould and Jacqueline was subjected to taunting by her neighbours and schoolmates. In the age of the Vietnam War and the domino theory, her Asian appearance reflected the threat of the "yellow peril". Friendless, Jacqueline found solace in books and in dance. Having finally escaped from her tormented childhood, at seventeen Jacqueline found herself wooed and wed by an exotic Prince.…