In the original dustsheet. White binding with gilt title on the spine.

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John Simpson’s best-selling memoir of his childhood, through which he also paints a vivid picture of Britain in the 1940s.

Review: Having read a number of John Simpson’s other books which mainly detail his experiences in covering the two recent conflicts in Iraq, I found this book to be a wonderful account of his early childhood years. He had a very difficult upbringing living in rented rooms with parents who separated when John was only six years old, and his account of having to choose whether he lived with his father or mother is very moving. He closes the book with an equally sensitive chapter about his late aunt, and how he spends time talking to her when she is near to death. The whole book describes living in Britain in the 40’s and 50’s in vivid detail, and is as accurate as David Kynaston’s excellent “Austerity Britain”. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in that period.

John Cody Fidler-Simpson CBE (born 9 August 1944) is an English foreign correspondent and world affairs editor of BBC News.  He has spent all his working life with the BBC, and has reported from more than 120 countries, including thirty war zones, and interviewed many world leaders. He was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read English and was editor of Granta magazine.