This book gives the truth to many myths that were in the papers. The drama and craziness he got up to is mental to read about. It was great to be able to hear his take on those situations and how he got out of them by the skin of his teeth! I am so glad he has finally got clean and seems happy at last! With his wildest days behind him, Doherty candidly explores – with sober and sometimes painful insight – some of his greatest and darkest moments, taking us inside the creative process, decadent parties, substance-fuelled nights, his time in prison and tendency for self-destruction. With his trademark wit and humour, Doherty also details his childhood years, key influences, pre-fame London shenanigans, and reflects on his era-defining relationship with Libertines co-founder Carl Barât and other significant people in his life. There is humour, warmth, insight, baleful reflection and a defiant sense of triumph. Since The Libertines rose to international fame, Doherty has proved endlessly fascinating. A whirlwind of controversy and scandal has tailed him ever since the early 2000s, so much so that all too often his talents as a songwriter and performer have been overlooked; for every award and accolade, there is a scathing review. Hard drugs, tiny gigs on the hoof, huge stadium shows, collaborations, obliterations, gangsters and groupies - Doherty has led a life of huge highs and incredible lows.

According to Bewes - who is the only one of the two to have discussed the matter publicly at any great length - the actors (who appeared together in not one but two hugely popular BBC sitcoms, the first running from 1964 to 1966, and its sequel from 1973 to 1974, as well as an above-average cinema spin-off two years later) were firm friends until one fateful press interview in 1977. Only ten episodes survive (as film telerecordings) in the BBC's archives, as a result of its wiping policy of the time. However, the BBC Archive Treasure Hunt, a public campaign, continues to search for missing episodes. Of the ten remaining lost episodes, only 'The Razor's Edge' was not recorded as part of the radio adaptation series. It will remain a matter for conjecture how much he really believed, or managed to convince himself, that he was now mourning the loss of a genuine friendship, but certain elements in the narrative that he would recite always sounded somewhat contrived. He made a number of conflicting and confusing claims, for instance, that Bolam, riding high in a succession of other series while his erstwhile co-star was now struggling to revive his flagging career, had selfishly refused to sanction repeats of The Likely Lads on network British television. Bolam, on the other hand, just wanted to go in, do his work and go away again, hopefully without enduring as much of the irritation that had irked him the previous time around. He returned, therefore, with a blank-faced wariness that suggested the kind of problems that were set to come. The dark-haired, hamster-cheeked and boyish-looking Bewes, in contrast, was quite a loud, garrulous and very gregarious figure, already notorious in theatrical circles for twisting small bits and pieces of truth into toweringly tall tales, who remained indefatigably 'actorly' even when he was not acting.

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It was immediately clear, however, that the prolonged absence, far from making the co-stars' hearts grow fonder, had only actually hardened the habits that had divided them long before. The initial negotiations, as a consequence, proved complicated - on one side more than the other. The original show followed the friendship of two young working class men, Terry Collier ( James Bolam) and Bob Ferris ( Rodney Bewes), in the mid-1960s. Bob and Terry are assumed to be in their early 20s (when their ages are revealed in the later film, this puts both characters at around 20 when the series started). As actors, the distance between the two men had grown even wider and more obvious over time, with Bolam the more protean in his approach, looking to lose himself in a character, and Bewes the more personality-based, preferring to find himself in each figure. There was nothing wrong in either style, and nothing wrong with how well each of them executed it, but it would do nothing to ameliorate their working relationship when the show eventually resumed. Since The Libertines rose to international fame, Doherty has proved endlessly fascinating. A whirlwind of controversy and scandal has tailed him ever since the early 2000s, so much so that all too often his talents as a songwriter and performer have been overlooked; for every award and accolade, there is a scathing review. Hard drugs, tiny gigs on the hoof, huge stadium shows, collaborations, obliterations, gangsters and groupies – Doherty has led a life of huge highs and incredible lows. Bolam, while he was working on The Likely Lads, shared a flat in Barnes, South West London, with a diminutive young up-and-coming singer named Mark Feld, who later (according to many accounts) 'adapted' his flat mate's surname to re-emerge as Marc Bolan. It would, for many actors, have served as a sound source for countless anecdotes, each successive one slightly more embellished for full and fresh chat show effect, but James Bolam, as usual, never discussed the matter in public.

Proselytised as being a literary man and the unofficial poet laureate of the streets, it is rather disappointing that the author couldn't be bothered to write his own life story but rather chunter and boast of his past misdeeds, and have Steve Spence scrape together his hazed recollections. When I got to the Meadows, they found all the bits in my baggage, plus what I’d hidden inside the lining of my jeans – they really knew their stuff. It was a different vibe than UK rehab – a mix of absolutely loaded trust-fund kids and people trying to avoid federal convictions by doing rehab. After two weeks, Kate was supposed to come and visit me and take me to the Grand Canyon in a helicopter, and I got the right hump when she didn’t show up. In the end I did a runner. Bob and Terry are two average working class lads growing up in the industrial North East, whose hobbies are beer, football and girls. They are street-wise, yet they stumble into one scrape after another as they struggle to enjoy the Swinging Sixties on their meagre incomes.The Bewes-Bolam relationship is indeed a case in point, because - rather than in spite - of the fact that it is actually rather more complex than either actor has ever admitted. Bob is caught in the middle when Terry's granddad starts a feud with Bob's next-door neighbours, whose daughter is Bob's new girlfriend.