Based – very loosely – on the truth, this uproarious first volume of Mike Harding’s projected autobiographical trilogy covers his earliest years. He claims he passed them in the company of a grandmother who spent much of her time lying under trolley buses or accusing piano tuners of being Adolf Hitler, and of a grandfather who beleived that the world is shaped like a banana!

The story opens in 1944, in the picturesque fishing village of Crumpsall-on-Irk, Manchester. The Second World War is nearing its final stages, peace and a brave new world are said to be just over the horizon – but the denizens of the Harding household know better than to listen to rumour, and live on in their air raid shelter. Eventually our authour emerges, to be attacked by a plasticine snake at primary school; to join the Wolf Cubs – only to be drummed out after his unsucessful coup against Akela, and at last, to reach puberty. (Here he discovers that the stork doesbring babies – but only if…)

1985