Publisher's Synopsis
"Poignant detail dancing between tragedy and comedy is Bennett's art." Rachel Redford, OBSERVER Alan Bennett, with his unique style, 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 others, he recounts his early years in Leeds. Hiking every Sunday, trips into town and teas in cafes, it's just 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.
