Back in the Day: Melvyn Bragg's deeply affecting, first ever memoir

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This is a really good book and especially good that the author is narrating himself, there are times when he is clearly very emotional and this adds very much to the impact of the story. His respect for the community is palpable, the respect for those around his deeply respectful and the respect for his parents is truly borne out of deep love for two people who sacrificed themselves for him.

When my brother and I went to stay with my mother's parents, there was an outside lavatory and the toilet paper was newspaper cut into squares.In this elegiac and heartfelt memoir, Melvyn Bragg recreates his youth in the Cumbrian market town of Wigton: a working-class boy who expected to leave school at fifteen yet who gained a scholarship to Oxford University; who happily roamed the streets and raided orchards with his gang of friends until a breakdown in adolescence drove him to find refuge in books. uk will use the information you provide on this form to be in touch with you and to provide updates and marketing. Setting the speed to 80% and listening to sections several times does make it possible to hear the lines.

I have always been aware of his fame and popularity in our little town but not untill I read / listened to this do I feel I really know him as a man . Most people are too weary, and too broke, to be happy in an unbridled way: every home has at least one lodger; every house has a thousand jobs that need doing. I loved the story about falling in love with Sarah and their sexual explorations, fear of pregnancy which is so familiar to people of that generation. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.This memoir leaves us just as the author has been accepted into Oxford University, so I imagine there will be another couple of volumes and I look forward to reading them. Derailed by a severe breakdown when he was thirteen, he developed a passion for reading and study -- though that didn't stop him playing in a skiffle band or falling in love. And then there is the beloved town itself: Melvyn’s safe and dangerous cradle, a whole world in itself for those that looked for it. I am biased: I have lived in Wigton since 1992 and taught for 26 years at the very school that Melvyn attended.

Will usually dispatch within same working day if paid before 14:00 GMT (excludes weekends and holidays). Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer View image in fullscreen ‘Pulling pints is a little knack’: Melvyn Bragg photographed in London, February 2023.

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