Two years ago Thomas Turgoose rarely went to school and was living with his mother in a run-down part of Grimsby on a diet of Coca-Cola and chips.

By next week he will be famous: his screen debut in This is England is being compared to some of the most iconic child performances in British cinema.

A promising acting career stretches in front of him: the only person not around to see it is his mother. Two months after Thomas, now 15, finished shooting the film she died.

Mark Herbert, producer of This Is England, told The Times: “No one knew she had lung cancer. We could see she wasn’t well but she wouldn’t see a doctor. Then in December we got the tragic news.”

In late August, Herbert had stood on her doorstep and asked if she would allow her son to play the lead role in a film about skinheads in 1980s Britain. All summer they had been looking for a lead for what was to be the latest film by the acclaimed director Shane Meadows. “We had been through so many casting workshops and drama schools and seen about 400 children,” Herbert said.

The film is a personal one for Meadows and though it tackles difficult themes, it is also aimed at Thomas’s age group. The director was surprised when the British Board of Film Classification awarded it an 18 certificate. Bristol City Council branded the decision “idiotic” and reclassified the film as a 15 within its jurisdiction. Other councils, including Grimsby, are expected to follow suit.

Meadows told Radio 4 that he had expected to find his child star in an inner-city workshop. “But even those children . . . had already gone on some kind of journey of discovery to get themselves there. Even they weren’t raw enough.” They hired Des Hamilton, a “street” casting director with a reputation for finding talented unknowns. “He started going into amusement arcades and walking round shopping centres when kids were supposed to be in school,” Meadows said.

At a casting session at a youth club in Grimsby, Mr Hamilton saw a picture on the wall of a boy, standing among a group of children out on a club activity day. “He had a good face,” Mr Hamilton said.

He found Thomas Turgoose, then 13, on a nearby street riding his bicycle. Thomas said that he would audition for £5. “I knew I wouldn’t get through so I was just trying to make some money,” he said later.

Meadows thought that they had found their star. “He charged us £20 for the second audition, then he wanted a Play-Station game and a mobile phone and the demands kept growing,” Meadows said.

Their star, who had attention deficit disorder, had been spending one hour a week in school and was surviving on chips and Coca-Cola. “He would have these ridiculous highs and then plummeting lows,” Meadows said. “I had been the same myself as a kid.”

After a difficult first week of shooting, and with Thomas threatening to quit, Meadows persuaded him to eat some protein. “He completely changed. I was getting him on goji berries by the end.”

His mother came to live with him during filming. She never saw the finished film, nor the standing ovation her son received at the first screening in Rome. Nor would she watch him receive the prize for Most Promising Newcomer at the British Independent Film Awards, which he dedicated to her memory. She did, however, see early rushes of This Is England before she died. “She cried her eyes out,” Meadows said.

“She could see the signs that he was really something special.” The film opened across Britain last night. Thomas now lives with his father and stepmother, and goes to school every day.

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