A memoir of a book-loving boy growing up in England back in the 1950s & 1960s, when putting salt on your crisps passed for entertainment. The food, the pastimes, the family dysfunctions, the being gay, the mivvis, the toys and games. It brought back memories, made me smile and it made my heart bleed."I was not allowed to mix with the kids from the next street because they lived above shops and were therefore 'common'. My mother had a peculiar sense of what constituted commonness. Heinz Baked Beans, football, margarine, Spam, the Daily Mirror, council flats, motorbikes, public displays of emotion, playing in the street, television, tattoos, dyed hair, shouting, swearing, braces, the Labour Party, plimsolls worn with trousers, over-familiarity, and failure to hold a knife and fork properly were unconscionable..."
