A Yorkshire Boyhood - Softcover

Hattersley, Roy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349116555 ISBN 13: 9780349116556

Publisher: Abacus, 2012

Synopsis

It was not until he was dead and I was forty that I realised my father was once in Holy Orders,' Roy Hattersley tells us in the opening pages of A YORKSHIRE BOYHOOD; so setting the tone for an elegant, continually surprising book.

A somewhat precocious only child, Roy grew up surrounded by protective, ever-anxious adults, equally determined to expose him to books and to shield him from germs -- second-hand books were decontaminated by a sharp session in the oven. Uncle Ernest, a timber merchant's clerk celebrated for his skill at 'fretwork and the manipulation of Indian clubs'; a ten-year feud with the next-door neighbours; unwavering devotion to Sheffield Wednesday - all the pleasures and pangs of northern working-class childhood are magnificently evoked as Roy Hattersley takes us through the hardships of the Thirties and the Blitz; and into the 1940s, the 11-plus examination and Grammar School.
Completely updated, A YORKSHIRE BOYHOOD is an autobiographical essay of unusual wit, eloquence and candour.

About this title

Review:

Roy Hattersley's warm, entertaining account of his early years as a happy, much cherished child is a pleasure to read... An engaging, yet also persuasive read. (YOUNG MINDS MAGAZINE)

A narrator who has the common touch . . . This gift for re-creating his childhood makes Mr Hattersley the Beryl Bainbridge of English politics (OBSERVER)

A lovely and well-written read. (NOTTINGHAM EVENING POST)

His moving memoir...explains the idealism that makes him tick. (THE TIMES)

Book Description:

Roy Hattersley's classic childhood memoir, with a new Introduction and Epilogue. Roy discovers that his parents weren't married and re-visits the scene of his childhood.

About this edition

• Publisher: Abacus
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0349116555
• ISBN 13: 9780349116556
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 302