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quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
In this first volume of his multi-million-selling autobiography, Paul O’Grady tells the story of his early life in Birkenhead that started him on the long and winding road from mischievous altar boy to national treasure. It is a brilliantly evoked, hilarious and often moving tale of gossip in the back yard, bragging in the corner shop and slanging matches on the front doorstep, populated by larger-than-life characters with hearts of gold and tongues as sharp as razors.
At My Mother’s Knee features an unforgettable cast of rogues, rascals, lovers, fighters, saints and sinners - and one iconic bus conductress. It’s a book which really does have something for everyone and which reminds us that, when all’s said and done, there’s a bit of savage in all of us …
Paul O’Grady was a comedian, actor, TV presenter, chat show host and British national treasure. Warm, hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking this is the first in his autobiography quartet, charting his life in Birkenhead from birth to his late teens and his relationship with his working class, Catholic parents and aunts. This 2018 reprint featured a new introduction by O’Grady where he says he’s softened some of the depictions of his family.
I picked this up because I was a big admirer of O’Grady’s work - he always came across as authentic and as someone with integrity. I knew a bit about his background and life in Birkenhead from what he’d said in interviews and I also knew that his autobiographies had been well received both critically and commercially.
This book looks at O’Grady’s childhood and ends on a bit of a cliffhanger when he’s in his late teens/early 20s. The writing voice is un-mistakingly his - he talks in the foreword about how writing this got him into writing and there’s no doubt at all that he did write this rather than use a ghost writer. He has also included some family photos and I really enjoyed looking at the ones of him as a young boy.
My parents grew up in Liverpool in the post-war period and my grandfather worked on Liverpool docks, so a lot of what Paul talks about in terms of attitudes and locations and the ability to get work on the docks chimed with what I had heard from my parents and grandparents. His family were more working class than mine was though, and his depictions of his catholic parents and his aunts (Chrissy in particular - a bus conductress with a glamorous air about her) is vivid and warm but never sentimental. He talks about his arguments with his parents and his relationship with his father, who he felt he had let down and was a trouble to (not least because that’s what his mum told him). His mum was desperate for him to get on and make something of himself, saving up to put him to fee-paying school only to be gutted when he failed to pass the 11+. His mum is a dominant character in the book - a very smart woman who was denied the education she should have had and ended up in service, which explains why she wanted more for Paul.
He talks about his school experiences and his struggles to get on with maths - something that I could well relate to as I also struggled with maths as a kid so could empathise with his phobia. What comes through is his struggle to stick with anything for any length of time - he depicts himself as someone always looking for the next experience, gad-flying between groups such as the reserve corps and amateur dramatics.
I very much admired his honesty in this book - he’s open about the burglaries that he and some friends committed as kids and how later he was convicted of theft by an exploitative hotel manager after he took a bottle of booze from the bar to a party. This honesty extends to his sexuality as he talks about experiences with both males and females. If I’m being incredibly picky, then I did want maybe a bit more self-reflection on his feelings about being gay or bisexual - he does talk about it a bit because he mentions a casual conversation he had with his mum about how she would react if he was gay, but he doesn’t look into himself to explain how he felt. More it comes across as something he was experimenting with but seemed unable to settle on - indeed, a lot of his early flirtations with the Liverpool gay scene are about the thrill of doing something illicit. However I equally accept that this is his book and his story and it is entirely possible that he simply wasn’t thinking about it at the time or did not see it as an issue.
There are a lot of laughs in the book - some from O’Grady’s gift for description or from the sharp lines from members of his family. However there’s sadness as well, some of it in retrospect (there’s a bit where O’Grady talks about how he doesn’t want to linger before dying and would rather just go suddenly, which is poignant given how he did die).
O’Grady ends this book with the death of his father and the receipt of some shocking news, which has essentially guaranteed that I will read the sequel.
The Verdict:
Paul O’Grady was a comedian, actor, TV presenter, chat show host and British national treasure. Warm, hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking this is the first in his autobiography quartet, charting his life in Birkenhead from birth to his late teens and his relationship with his working class, Catholic parents and aunts. This 2018 reprint featured a new introduction by O’Grady where he says he’s softened some of the depictions of his family.
In this first volume of his multi-million-selling autobiography, Paul O’Grady tells the story of his early life in Birkenhead that started him on the long and winding road from mischievous altar boy to national treasure. It is a brilliantly evoked, hilarious and often moving tale of gossip in the back yard, bragging in the corner shop and slanging matches on the front doorstep, populated by larger-than-life characters with hearts of gold and tongues as sharp as razors.
At My Mother’s Knee features an unforgettable cast of rogues, rascals, lovers, fighters, saints and sinners - and one iconic bus conductress. It’s a book which really does have something for everyone and which reminds us that, when all’s said and done, there’s a bit of savage in all of us …
Paul O’Grady was a comedian, actor, TV presenter, chat show host and British national treasure. Warm, hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking this is the first in his autobiography quartet, charting his life in Birkenhead from birth to his late teens and his relationship with his working class, Catholic parents and aunts. This 2018 reprint featured a new introduction by O’Grady where he says he’s softened some of the depictions of his family.
I picked this up because I was a big admirer of O’Grady’s work - he always came across as authentic and as someone with integrity. I knew a bit about his background and life in Birkenhead from what he’d said in interviews and I also knew that his autobiographies had been well received both critically and commercially.
This book looks at O’Grady’s childhood and ends on a bit of a cliffhanger when he’s in his late teens/early 20s. The writing voice is un-mistakingly his - he talks in the foreword about how writing this got him into writing and there’s no doubt at all that he did write this rather than use a ghost writer. He has also included some family photos and I really enjoyed looking at the ones of him as a young boy.
My parents grew up in Liverpool in the post-war period and my grandfather worked on Liverpool docks, so a lot of what Paul talks about in terms of attitudes and locations and the ability to get work on the docks chimed with what I had heard from my parents and grandparents. His family were more working class than mine was though, and his depictions of his catholic parents and his aunts (Chrissy in particular - a bus conductress with a glamorous air about her) is vivid and warm but never sentimental. He talks about his arguments with his parents and his relationship with his father, who he felt he had let down and was a trouble to (not least because that’s what his mum told him). His mum was desperate for him to get on and make something of himself, saving up to put him to fee-paying school only to be gutted when he failed to pass the 11+. His mum is a dominant character in the book - a very smart woman who was denied the education she should have had and ended up in service, which explains why she wanted more for Paul.
He talks about his school experiences and his struggles to get on with maths - something that I could well relate to as I also struggled with maths as a kid so could empathise with his phobia. What comes through is his struggle to stick with anything for any length of time - he depicts himself as someone always looking for the next experience, gad-flying between groups such as the reserve corps and amateur dramatics.
I very much admired his honesty in this book - he’s open about the burglaries that he and some friends committed as kids and how later he was convicted of theft by an exploitative hotel manager after he took a bottle of booze from the bar to a party. This honesty extends to his sexuality as he talks about experiences with both males and females. If I’m being incredibly picky, then I did want maybe a bit more self-reflection on his feelings about being gay or bisexual - he does talk about it a bit because he mentions a casual conversation he had with his mum about how she would react if he was gay, but he doesn’t look into himself to explain how he felt. More it comes across as something he was experimenting with but seemed unable to settle on - indeed, a lot of his early flirtations with the Liverpool gay scene are about the thrill of doing something illicit. However I equally accept that this is his book and his story and it is entirely possible that he simply wasn’t thinking about it at the time or did not see it as an issue.
There are a lot of laughs in the book - some from O’Grady’s gift for description or from the sharp lines from members of his family. However there’s sadness as well, some of it in retrospect (there’s a bit where O’Grady talks about how he doesn’t want to linger before dying and would rather just go suddenly, which is poignant given how he did die).
O’Grady ends this book with the death of his father and the receipt of some shocking news, which has essentially guaranteed that I will read the sequel.
The Verdict:
Paul O’Grady was a comedian, actor, TV presenter, chat show host and British national treasure. Warm, hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking this is the first in his autobiography quartet, charting his life in Birkenhead from birth to his late teens and his relationship with his working class, Catholic parents and aunts. This 2018 reprint featured a new introduction by O’Grady where he says he’s softened some of the depictions of his family.
