Odd Boy Out by Gyles Brandreth

 

As a close contemporary of Gyles Brandreth, I was looking forward to reading about his life as a schoolboy in London in the 1950's. I was not disappointed. Although he is just over three years younger than me, I agreed when he says about his older readers "some of my memories might chime with theirs". They certainly did.

We might even have crossed paths, living as we did in West London. When he tells us that he was a choirboy at St Mary Abbots (the church on Kensington High Street), he may remember those monthly Sunday church parades for scouts and cubs. That was me carrying a flag. Although it has to be said. we were not nearly so affluent as Gyles. And although we both loved the theatre from an early age, for me it was only down to some great aunts for a Christmas treat.

Gyles also mentions holidays in Broadstairs in Kent. Again we might have passed each other on the beach. So I found the whole of the first two thirds of this memoir completely fascinating as it took me down memory lane. We were so different in many ways, I loved all sport which Gyles does not. And although I found the last part of the book to be of little interest, I was still overawed by the experience of reading a parallel life.