The Naples of England

A memoir of family, truth and secrets and what it was like to grow up in small-town Britain in the years following the Second World War.

"A wonderful book ... anyone yet to read it has a real treat in store ..." - John Lindley, Cheshire Poet Laureate & Manchester Cathedral Poet of the Year.

The War is over and a generation returns home to build peace, determined to create a new society, protected from cradle to grave. On the beautiful Dorset coast, baby boomer, Andy Miller, grows up surrounded by the security and nurture of the 1950s welfare state that will propel him from council estate to university. In a series of vignettes and stories, some humorous and some poignant, the author describes growing up in this vanished post-War world.

But, what happens when one day, decades later, he discovers that everything he thought was true is not?

Reviews

Chris Thompson, writer for radio and TV (including The Archers, Heartbeat, Emmerdale and stand-alone radio plays), described the book as "highly recommended" saying that it is "as relevant to a child of the grimy north as to one brought up in coastal Dorset. Time and again I found myself recognising myself in the author's attempts to negotiate family, friendships, romantic stirrings and the occasional, casual cruelties of children. The writing is lovely; lyrical, subtle, original and surprising".

Tony Jones, 2016 winner of the Writers Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Radio Drama, described the book as "excellent" and "... much more than regional nostalgia. The writing can shift from lovingly recalled detail to moments of powerful experience, and everything is jolted into another perspective by the last two sections, giving the whole piece a new significance and weight".

Dorset-based writer, Judi Moore, says "... Miller is not afraid to dig deeply into his memories. He finds some which are poignant, others which show him in a less favourable light. He is an honest author with a broad palette with which to colour his childhood".

And Nottingham author, Frances Thimann, has called the book "... (a) vivid and touching account of a time of hope and innocence (with) darker currents hinted at many times throughout".