I quote from P175: ‘around the nation, one of the famous winds of change was in the air. Did we begin to notice the horrors, the bullying, the misery around us as the country did in the run-up to 1979?’ Well, I was there in the 70s, living 40 miles north of Justin’s school, and it wasn’t like that for me. Reading this autobiography was like taking a brisk walk in a favourite cardigan. So interesting to reflect on the attitudes towards and about mental illness in the 60s and 70s, which in conjunction with post war cultural values, created the fabric that clothed my childhood and adolescence too. It's incredible how Justin Webb managed to create a childhood memoir out of this uber-weirdness that is generally light and compelling. Justin Webb's memoir is unique: for its style, acute observation, and the combination of being unflinching and written with love. Mishal Husain There are no family photos in the book, the only one is on the front cover, a shot of Webb as a young boy looking slightly confused. He explains in the book that this expression is because he wasn’t used to having his photo taken and was wondering why it was happening.

If you were brought up without your real father, but knew his name and that he was alive, would you seek him out? Except it’s not as straightforward as that. He was an only child, brought up by his mum Gloria, an insufferable snob, and his stepdad Charles, who was mentally ill. One day when BBC newsreader Peter Woods was on the television Webb’s mum told him he was his biological father. She’d had an affair with him while he was married and he wasn’t a part of Webb’s life. The content is interesting, and it is very readable. However, I was surprised at the ragged quality of the narration, and the generally mediocre quality of the writing. I had assumed that an experienced journalist would be good at these things. There's one point (for example) where he is relating the story of how he entered a writing competition at school. It then jumps to prize ceremony and the audience reaction, without actually telling us that he won! It's surprising that the editor didn't spot this.I had him boxed off as posh and privileged because he has what was once the only kind of accent we heard on the BBC. (Nowadays, thankfully, they let in people with regional accents, although they’re still in the minority). Webb grew up in Bath, went to boarding school, and his maternal grandad was Leonard Crocombe, a distinguished journalist chosen by Lord Reith to be the first editor of the Radio Times. So far, so upper middle class. I was gripped. This perfectly captures the unique in-betweenness of the 1970s. Justin Webb is both generous and critical, measured yet fierce in this account of an extraordinary childhood.

This is not a misery memoir, but some painful introspection feeds [Justin Webb's] frank and lightly handled accounts of damage. It makes for engrossing reading. Norma Clarke, TLS Webb was aware growing up that he didn’t have a male role model he could look up to, turning instead to watching the Bath rugby team to try to discover what it was to be a man. Webb has three children of his own but doesn’t tell us about his relationship with them. Does he think he’s a good father himself? Perhaps he feels unable to judge and doesn’t like to presume. “Plenty of dry humour”Gloria waited until her son was eight to point out, casually, that the man on TV was his father. After that, the subject was not discussed. The man who now asks questions for a living understood as a boy that his job was to repress them. “I repressed everything,” he says. Webb admits that as a young child he wished Charles dead because he was aware that life without him would be so much easier. Yet when Charles does eventually die years later, Webb records it matter-of-factly and gives nothing away about how he felt. Was it a relief after all of those years, did he grieve for him at all? He doesn’t tell us. Justin is a great broadcaster because he sounds like a real human being. This hugely entertaining book helps explain why'. John Humphrys Later in the chapter, he tells how the teachers and governors knew about the physical beatings going on, “but didn’t care.....there was no authority that could protect younger or vulnerable boys.” This is not the first account of the regime in private school and it won’t be the last. I’m pleased to read his view now about private education, which is identical to my own –“to send a child to live away from home at the age of eleven may be forgivable in some circumstances, but not in most.”