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Back in the Day

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Back in the Day

By: Melvyn Bragg
Narrated by: Melvyn Bragg
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About this listen

An Observer and Daily Mail "Books of 2022" Pick

Melvyn Bragg's first ever memoir - an elegiac, intimate account of growing up in post-war Cumbria, which lyrically evokes a vanished world.

In this captivating memoir, Melvyn Bragg recalls growing up in the Cumbrian market town of Wigton, from his early childhood during the war to the moment he had to decide between staying on or spreading his wings.

This is the tale of a boy who lived in a pub and expected to leave school at 15 yet won a scholarship to Oxford. Derailed by a severe breakdown when he was 13, he developed a passion for reading and study - though that didn't stop him playing in a skiffle band or falling in love.

It is equally the tale of the people and place that formed him. Bragg indelibly portrays his parents and local characters from pub regulars to vicars, teachers and hardmen, and vividly captures the community-spirited northern town - steeped in the old ways but on the cusp of post-war change. A poignant elegy to a vanished era as well as the glories of the Lake District, it illuminates what made him the writer, broadcaster and champion of the arts he is today.

©2022 Melvyn Bragg Limited (P)2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited Authors Entertainment & Celebrities Celebrity War

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A lost world

Bragg recreates the world of his youth, possibly viewed through rose-coloured glasses. However, it is impossible not to be drawn in to the unlovely Wigton and its working class characters. This is undoubtedly his world and the world that formed him. He modestly tells us how he worked so hard to be what? (a success? famous? a credit to his family and teachers? who knows?). He should be proud of what he achieved and to have produced a historic document which neither patronizes nor eulogizes his fellow countrymen. The book is certainly aided by being narrated by the author. Be warned, however, that you might need sharp ears to catch everything he says. I was dubious at the start, but either his diction improved as he got into the book or maybe I just got used to his affecting lilt.

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