Derailed by a severe breakdown when he was 13, he developed a passion for reading and study - though that didn't stop him playing in a skiffle band or falling in love. It is not included in promotions available to our main range products, as stated in our terms of service.

A book you dislike at the start can turn around and give you something very special and meaningful, something that speaks to you, something that you will be glad not to have missed! a balanced, honest picture’ Richard Benson, Mail on SundayIn this elegiac and heartfelt memoir, Melvyn Bragg recreates his youth in the Cumbrian market town of Wigton: a working-class boy who expected to leave school at fifteen yet who gained a scholarship to Oxford University; who happily roamed the streets and raided orchards with his gang of friends until a breakdown in adolescence drove him to find refuge in books.Safe because it was his playground, and dangerous because its streets and pubs contained a threat of direct violence; the pressure created on the growing child by constant fear of brawls downstairs in the pub where his parents were landlords played a role in the mental disturbances in his teenage years that Melvyn revealingly documents here.

I will be forever grateful for his program “In Our Time” on BBC Radio 4 and for his books on Tyndale and King James Bible. Melvyn Bragg's first memoir is outstanding - beautifully written -a book that reflects the importance of family life, education, the importance of inspiring teachers, the growth of relationships and the importance of belonging to a sense of place. I was on the bus when it happened: racked by an unexpected sob, as if some invisible hand had reached inside me and flicked the switch marked tears. I didn’t want the story to end and felt the emotion as the narrator said a farewell (but not a final goodbye) to Wigton.Bragg says “This is about my life from the age of six to 18 in the middle of the last century at a time which now seems like another country. But his huge commitment to study with the support of some excellent teachers brings huge success in his "A Levels". It covers Melvyn Bragg’s early years alone with his mother while his father fought in the war, the chronic breakdown he experienced when he was 13 and the love of books that saved him, the joys of first romance, and his journey to winning a scholarship at Oxford to study Modern History.