Things I Couldn't Tell My Mother: My Autobiography - Hardcover

Johnston, Sue

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0091938899 ISBN 13: 9780091938895

Publisher: Ebury Press, 2011

Synopsis

'There was a lot that we kept from my mother. My dad would say to me as a teenager "Don't tell your mother." We couldn't face the disapproval.'

Sue Johnston always seemed to be disappointing her mother. As a girl she never stayed clean and tidy like her cousins. As she grew older, she spent all her piano lesson money on drinks for her mates down the pub, and when she discovered the Cavern she was never at home. The final straw was when Sue left her steady job at a St Helens factory to try her hand at that unsteadiest of jobs: acting.

Yet when Sue was bringing up her own child alone, her mother was always there to help. And playing her much-loved characters Sheila Grant and Barbara Royle - although her mum wouldn't say she was proud as such, she certainly seemed to approve. And in her mother's final months, it was Sue she needed by her side.

The relationship with your mother is perhaps the most precious and fraught of any woman's life. When she began writing, Sue set out to record 'all the big things, and all the small things. Everything I wanted to tell my mother but felt I never could'. The result is a warm, poignant and often very funny memoir by one of Britain's favourite actresses.

About this title

Review:

"Warm, fascinating but brutally honest memoir."--The Mirror

"Candid, affectionate memoir."--Mail on Sunday

"Johnston's unadorned prose style, blending tender personal recollection with just enough showbiz gossip to season the narrative, is like listening to her chatting to you over a cup of tea. Which I suspect is just how the author would wish it."--Mail on Sunday

Book Description:

A warm, poignant and often very funny memoir by one of Britain's favourite actresses

About this edition

• Publisher: Ebury Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0091938899
• ISBN 13: 9780091938895
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352