Skye Sinclair's childhood was marred by violence. To block the pain from the beatings doled out by her mother and her boyfriend, she would mentally transport herself to the idyll of the New Forest, near her Southampton home on England's south coast.
But imagination became reality as the violence escalated, and at nine she took to running away in earnest.
The move sparked an itinerant urge in Sinclair. After being dragged through a host of children's homes - from most of which she escaped - she eventually fled England for France on a fake passport at 14.
Her incurable itch to be on the move has given her a broad spectrum of experiences. She has lived with Romany gypsies, been a diamond smuggler in Europe, kissed the cheeks of the darlings of Paris' fashion scene and as a stuntwoman rubbed shoulder pads with Hollywood's coke-snorting actors.
The last profession took her to Thailand in the 1980s, where she settled in Phuket and adopted children. Today, at 48, she has found her calling, fighting for abandoned children in Cambodia. She discusses her recent memoir Runaway, saying that no matter how dark the story, life is still full of beautiful things.
'I'm a fighter, a warrior for children. It's really my goal to fight for abandoned, abused children,' she says. 'When I go to Cambodia I'm involved with Action Pour Les Enfants, a French organisation that confronts paedophiles.