A novelist has set her emotional story about a baby dumped in a park, in Croydon.

Mary Perriam’s 22nd novel Broken Places is about Eric who is abandoned as a baby in Park Hill.

He is rushed to Mayday Hospital by a park warden and brought up in foster care moving from one home to another.

He takes refuge in the Croydon library and is saved by a kindly Children’s librarian who gives him hope for the future.

Mrs Perriam, who is speaking about her book at Croydon Library on October 23, said: “Although the book is set in the present, after he's moved from Croydon and is living in Vauxhall, he and his new girlfriend return to Croydon, to find out more about his origins, and there's an emotive scene when he stands in front of the very place his unknown mother abandoned him.

“The novel involved me in a lot of Croydon research and I was helped by some wonderful local people - the archivist at the library; the people who administer Croydon parks; the data protection manager at Mayday; even my own physiotherapist, who just happens to live in Croydon.”

The novelist said writing the story helped her deal with her own family tragedy.

She said: ““My daughter had recently died of tongue-cancer, leaving two small sons, whose father had already died. To cope with my grief, I plunged myself into work, feeling I was writing the book for her.”

Broken Places was published on August 31 and costs £18.99.