Description

‘Searingly honest… gripping… fascinating and hugely entertaining.’- Sunday Times

‘Moving and frank … A story of a childhood defined by loneliness, the absence of a father and the grim experience of a Quaker boarding school. It is also one of the most perceptive accounts of Britain in the 1970s.’- Misha Glenny

‘A crisp, unself-pitying memoir of a ‘trainwreck’ youth … I’ve always likes Webb on the radio. But I like him much more after reading this book. He offers precisely the kind of brisk honesty and considered analysis he expects from his interviewees. Our politicians should all read it, and step up their game.’ -Telegraph
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Justin Webb’s childhood in the 1970s was far from ordinary.

Between his mother’s un-diagnosed psychological problems, and his step-father’s untreated ones, life at home was dysfunctional at best. But with gun-wielding school masters and sub-standard living conditions, Quaker boarding school wasn’t much better.

Candid, unsparing and darkly funny, Justin Webb’s memoir is as much a portrait of a troubled era as it is the story of a dysfunctional childhood, shaping the urbane and successful radio presenter we know and love now.
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‘I thoroughly enjoyed Justin Webb’s bonkers childhood. He captures the middle class of the age with a tenacity only possible in one of its victims.’ -Jeremy Paxman

Publisher Review

One of my books of the year: beautifully written. -- Alan Johnson * New Statesman * A gripping memoir ... fascinating and hugely entertaining. It's extremely thoughtful and shockingly honest. -- Christina Patterson * Sunday Times * A crisp, unself-pitying memoir of a 'trainwreck' youth ... I've always likes Webb on the radio. But I like him much more after reading this book. He offers precisely the kind of brisk honesty and considered analysis he expects from his interviewees. Our politicians should all read it, and step up their game. -- Helen Brown * The Telegraph * [Justin Webb's] affability and easy manner seems even more remarkable after reading [his] memoir, The Gift Of A Radio. The subtitle is My Childhood And Other Train Wrecks, which is apt: the experiences of his formative years would have driven most children completely off the rails * Daily Mail * Moving, darkly hilarious ... In his mother, Gloria Crocombe, Webb records a great tragicomic character. -- Melanie Reid * The Times *