Publisher's Synopsis
Alan Bennett recalls his childhood in this sequence of tales that are both funny and touching. Hampered, as he sees it, by a family that never manages to be quite like other families, he recounts his early years in Leeds - a place where early in life one learned the useful lesson that "life is generally something that happens elsewhere". Hiking every Sunday, trips into town and teas in cafes, it's an ordinary childhood - his father a butcher, his mother a reader of women's magazines who dreams of coffee mornings, cocktail parties and a life "down south". Bennett relives family crises, early pieties and the lost tradition of musical evenings around the piano, with the wry observation and ironic understatement that has earned him a place in the forefront of contemporary writing. "one of Britain's most versatile and gifted writers." - Michiko Katutani, NEW YORK TIMES
