| Edition |
Corgi edition |
| Descript |
296 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some colour), portraits ; 20 cm |
| Note |
Originally published: London : Bantam Press, 2013 |
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Includes index |
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Alan Johnson's childhood was not so much difficult as unusual, particularly for a man who was destined to become Home Secretary. Not in respect of the poverty, which was shared with many of those living in the slums of post-war Britain, but in its transition from two-parent family to single mother and then to no parents at all. This is essentially the story of two incredible women: Alan's mother, Lily, who battled against poor health, poverty, domestic violence and loneliness to try to ensure a better life for her children; and his sister, Linda, who had to assume an enormous amount of responsibility at a very young age and who fought to keep the family together and out of care when she herself was still only a child. Played out against the background of a vanishing community living in condemned housing, the story moves from post-war austerity in pre-gentrified Notting Hill, through the race riots, school on the Kings Road, Chelsea in the Swinging 60s, to the rock-and-roll years, making a record in Denmark Street and becoming a husband and father whilst still in his teens. This Boy is one man's story, but it is also a story of England and the West London slums which are so hard to imagine in the capital today. No matter how harsh the details, Alan Johnson writes with a spirit of generous acceptance, of humour and openness which makes his book anything but a grim catalogue of miseries |
| Subject |
Johnson, Alan, 1950 May 17- -- Childhood and youth
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Storbritannien
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Politiker
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Biografi
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Johnson, Lilian
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Johnson, Linda
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Politicians -- Great Britain -- Biography
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Politicians.
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Great Britain
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Biography.
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| Classmark |
941.085092
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| ISBN/ISSN |
9780552167017 (paperback) |
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0552167010 (paperback) |
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