Hiding from the mob: Memoir of childhood on the run launches new season of Atlantic Voice

While Pauline Dakin's name and voice will be familiar to many CBC listeners, the story of how she grew up is not because it was a closely guarded secret.

Pauline hosted Atlantic Voice and frequently contributed to the CBC as a health reporter and senior producer. She was a very public figure in Halifax. But all that while, she guarded the secret of how her family was on the run from the mafia.

Twice during her school years, Pauline's mother spirited the family away to new provinces and uncertain futures with little or no warning. Sometimes, she didn't get to say goodbye to friends or family.

Into adulthood, Pauline followed her mother's advice to never tell anyone about their plight. She was warned that the secrecy was necessary as her own and other people's lives were in danger.

Pauline paid a high price for keeping that secret; her marriage, mental health and many of her relationships were affected. She was constantly looking in the rearview mirror, convinced she was being followed and unable to be herself with co-workers and friends.

It's all laid bare in the book Run Hide and Repeat: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood.

Listen to the Atlantic Voice feature interview with Pauline Dakin

With insight and empathy, Pauline chronicles her father's alcoholism, her mother's depression and the fear that enveloped the whole family as they went on the run.

When it all unraveled, she writes about how devastated and hurt she was — angry at her mother and questioning many relationships and events in her past.

Eventually Pauline applied her journalistic skills to make sense of why her mother and the man she considered a father, could've lied to her in such great detail and for so many years. The story also maps Pauline's path to forgiveness and acceptance. 

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