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This Boy: A Memoir of a Childhood
Alan Johnson's childhood was not so much difficult as unusual, particularly for a man who was destined to become Home Secretary. Not in respect of the poverty, which was shared with many of those living in the slums of post-war Britain, but in its transition from two-parent family to single mother and then to no parents at all...
This is essentially the story of two incredible women: Alan's mother, Lily, who battled against poor health, poverty, domestic violence and loneliness to try to ensure a better life for her children; and his sister, Linda, who had to assume an enormous amount of responsibility at a very young age and who fought to keep the family together and out of care when she herself was still only a child.
Played out against the background of a vanishing community living in condemned housing, the story moves from post-war austerity in pre-gentrified Notting Hill, through the race riots, school on the Kings Road, Chelsea in the Swinging 60s, to the rock-and-roll years, making a record in Denmark Street and becoming a husband and father whilst still in his teens.
This Boy is one man’s story, but it is also a story of England and the West London slums which are so hard to imagine in the capital today. No matter how harsh the details, Alan Johnson writes with a spirit of generous acceptance, of humour and openness which makes his book anything but a grim catalogue of miseries.
This is essentially the story of two incredible women: Alan's mother, Lily, who battled against poor health, poverty, domestic violence and loneliness to try to ensure a better life for her children; and his sister, Linda, who had to assume an enormous amount of responsibility at a very young age and who fought to keep the family together and out of care when she herself was still only a child.
Played out against the background of a vanishing community living in condemned housing, the story moves from post-war austerity in pre-gentrified Notting Hill, through the race riots, school on the Kings Road, Chelsea in the Swinging 60s, to the rock-and-roll years, making a record in Denmark Street and becoming a husband and father whilst still in his teens.
This Boy is one man’s story, but it is also a story of England and the West London slums which are so hard to imagine in the capital today. No matter how harsh the details, Alan Johnson writes with a spirit of generous acceptance, of humour and openness which makes his book anything but a grim catalogue of miseries.
320 pages, Paperback
First published May 9, 2013
172 people are currently reading
1803 people want to read
About the author
Alan Johnson
15 books57 followersAlan Arthur Johnson (born 17 May 1950) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for the Home Department from 2009 to 2010 and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2011. A member of the Labour Party, Johnson served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hull West and Hessle from 1997 to 2017.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 382 reviews
June 16, 2015
This was an interesting book about the childhood of Alan Johnson. He has held senior positions in the Labour governments of Blair and Brown - that of Home secretary, Health Secretary and Education Secretary. He was also Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He has travelled a very long road indeed to reach the the airy heights of political success. He started out life in the slums of Ladbroke Grove and North Kensington in London, in the 1950s and 60s. He and his family lived in appalling conditions, and in an often violent society. There was violence inside as well as outside his home, and after a few years his father finally deserted the family, leaving Alan's mother to earn her living as a cleaner, working for the middle classes living nearby in Notting Hill Gate. She also used to paint toys to supplement her income.
In 1963 my family also lived in Ladbroke Grove. We had just emigrated from South Africa. My sister and I shared a double bed, and my baby brother lived in the same room - a room which also doubled up as the family living room. My parents later told me the flat above us was a brothel. I have always thought of us as being very poor at this time. "Ah" I thought to myself "I have experienced lack...."
Well, what a joke! I read this book and found out what real lack was all about. I found it shocking to think that I was living just a few roads away from Alan as he was growing up - and I yet I was totally and utterly unaware of the levels of deprivation that existed at this time. Not only ignorant then - but ignorant right up until now. I had no idea that such poverty existed in London in the late 50s and early 60s.
There is not a smidge of self-pity in this book though. Alan obviously cared deeply for his mother and sister, and even though he often didn't get enough to eat, or electricity to provide light, or enough bedclothes to keep him warm - there was deep love, caring and loyalty in his family. After his mother died his sister, aged 16, brought him up. With enormous defiance and courage she refused to let either of them be put into care, but instead brought up Alan herself.
He writes marvellously about the culture of the society in which he lived.
I found this a most interesting read. I also found it inspiring that someone from such tough beginnings could end up holding high offices in government. This is indeed how it should be. He walked the walk and talked the talk - he's no middle-class, Oxbridge educated man with a conscience, but rather he is someone who has experienced all the things that the Labour Party fights for, first hand, for himself.
He has travelled a very long road indeed to reach the the airy heights of political success. He started out life in the slums of Ladbroke Grove and North Kensington in London, in the 1950s and 60s. He and his family lived in appalling conditions, and in an often violent society. There was violence inside as well as outside his home, and after a few years his father finally deserted the family, leaving Alan's mother to earn her living as a cleaner, working for the middle classes living nearby in Notting Hill Gate. She also used to paint toys to supplement her income.
In 1963 my family also lived in Ladbroke Grove. We had just emigrated from South Africa. My sister and I shared a double bed, and my baby brother lived in the same room - a room which also doubled up as the family living room. My parents later told me the flat above us was a brothel. I have always thought of us as being very poor at this time. "Ah" I thought to myself "I have experienced lack...."
Well, what a joke! I read this book and found out what real lack was all about. I found it shocking to think that I was living just a few roads away from Alan as he was growing up - and I yet I was totally and utterly unaware of the levels of deprivation that existed at this time. Not only ignorant then - but ignorant right up until now. I had no idea that such poverty existed in London in the late 50s and early 60s.
There is not a smidge of self-pity in this book though. Alan obviously cared deeply for his mother and sister, and even though he often didn't get enough to eat, or electricity to provide light, or enough bedclothes to keep him warm - there was deep love, caring and loyalty in his family. After his mother died his sister, aged 16, brought him up. With enormous defiance and courage she refused to let either of them be put into care, but instead brought up Alan herself.
He writes marvellously about the culture of the society in which he lived.
I found this a most interesting read. I also found it inspiring that someone from such tough beginnings could end up holding high offices in government. This is indeed how it should be. He walked the walk and talked the talk - he's no middle-class, Oxbridge educated man with a conscience, but rather he is someone who has experienced all the things that the Labour Party fights for, first hand, for himself.
October 14, 2017
This is the childhood memoir of the Labour MP and former government minister and shadow minister. A childhood in West London in the 1950s and 60s, captured by a child of the time. It is worth recalling that the grinding poverty he, his mother and sister experienced was so recent. Both women as described here are remarkable. The book is rightly dedicated to Johnson's sister Linda who, he says, “kept me safe” (3 years his senior). An amazing woman and supposedly a member of the weaker sex?
Warmly recommended and I look forward to reading the sequel very much..
Warmly recommended and I look forward to reading the sequel very much..
March 20, 2014
It is rare that I choose a book written by a politician, but I’m very glad that this one caught my eye. I had seen Alan Johnson being interviewed about this memoir of his early years in London and wondered how he eventually became a cabinet minister in the Labour Governments of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He described his home in Southam Street in North Kensington; it is hard to believe that slums like this still existed in the mid 20th century. However, what really piqued my curiosity was the fact that Alan Johnson began, in his interview, to mention places that I had known as a child. I had to read this book!
I was enthralled by this memoir. Johnson’s writing flows and he has the ability to paint pictures with his choice of vocabulary. It was easy to imagine him, as a young boy, battling with the poverty that surrounded him. His father abandoned his wife, daughter and son for another woman, leaving Lily Johnson to wear herself out, trying to provide for her young family. Linda, Alan’s older sister, offered real strength and support to their mother and one has to admire her, especially after the death of their mother. Linda’s fight to maintain a home with her brother, Alan, is quite amazing.
There are no real indications in this memoir that Alan Johnson will go on to be a prominent politician, but it is such an interesting book. As I said earlier, I have a personal interest and there were many times that I exclaimed at the mention of another occurrence or place that I knew so well. There is also much to interest anyone studying the social history of London life in the 1950s and 1960s.
All in all, I thoroughly recommend this absorbing memoir.
Read
April 5, 2022I am fairly sure I gave this one to my Mum. It must have been before I realised how bad her dementia really was and that reading had become a pretence, it certainly doesn't look well thumbed and there was a deal of dust to remove. It was an entertaining way of passing the time as I recovered from one of those so called break out infections, (sounds faintly exotic) once the nasty symptoms had passed and I was left feeling wrung out. Alan Johnson is wryly unsentimental, not wallowing in self-pity but recognizing the strength of the women, in particular his magnificent sister, who got him through an unimaginably tough childhood - the usual suspect, I'm afraid: the feckless father who skipped. Who'd a thought.
January 16, 2016
This autobiography of Alan Johnson takes the reader through the first years of his life, detailing his experiences in London in the 1950s and 1960s, making for a very good looking-glass into that day's society. It's written in a loose manner and allows for an easy read, even if the topics (poverty, exclusion, social services failure, societal development) are not at all easy to understand. It's not a wow-book, doesn't have a wow-factor, but it is a nonetheless pleasing read, from which you can take something for sure. I'll follow it up with his next book, "Please, Mister Postman", a record of the period of his life.
April 10, 2022
A politician’s memoir for people who don’t like politician’s memoirs.
Some will call Johnson’s childhood Dickensian, but the comparison misleads. Misty eyes are outlawed. There are no plays for sympathy, no tragedies milked dry for political street-cred. The facts, sharply observed and crisply reported are what Johnson delivers, elevating the book far above the level of a misery memoir.
To say Johnson’s childhood was grim would be like saying Genghis Khan was a bit of a scamp. The Johnsons lived in a street whose buildings had been condemned 20 years before. The family home had two rooms, no electricity, with a single outside toilet that inconveniently backed onto a railway line. Attracted by the buckets of urine kept in the hallway to save on nighttime visits outside, insects found the house more fit for purpose than its human inhabitants. The children soon took to stuffing their ears with paper to keep earwigs out as they slept. All developed a talent for evading tallymen and their demands for outstanding payments.
Dad had a talent for buying pints for his mates and playing piano by ear, if not for trifling things like regular employment or feeding a family. Little Johnson learned to gauge how angry or upset Mum became by how much of her native Scouse accent resurfaced. He had plenty of opportunities for study, for Mum more than held her own in the weekly slagging match with Dad. But when Dad got drunk he also got violent, which quickly rendered the contest uneven.
Johnson is a keen observer but no armchair moraliser. Like Mary Whitehouse, he notes the level of violence in the media is immeasurably higher than in his day. Unlike Mary Whitehouse, he draws an insightful conclusion. The most contemptible anti-heroes in the films of his boyhood weren’t the baddie but the bloke who refused to fight, the coward: ‘The fact that ours was a lesser, ostensibly more “honourable” type of violence somehow made it more widely acceptable.’ Because it was so accepted, so institutionalised, it became an unremarked part of day-to-day life, especially for women and children. Which, Johnson thoughtfully suggests, is worse?
Not that he had the worse of everything. Johnson recalls his childhood joys with infectious joy. Boys collected the cards that came free with bubblegum, tea, sweets, and their parent’s cigarettes. Some of the cards were educational; the former Home Secretary still recognises the flag of Honduras from the ‘Flags of the World’ collection. In the days before supermarkets, high streets teemed with family-run shops selling ‘anything and everything’, and with the Portobello Road (‘the Lane’) nearby, the Johnson’s were better served than most. One shop sold nothing but saveloy sausages, pease pudding and faggots [rolls of chopped liver, fried or baked].
Above all, there was Renee’s Pie and Mash Shop - though the prosaic description does no justice to its meat pies. Culinary marvels made from a jealousy guarded recipe, sporting a crust unlike any other, what transformed and enhanced the dish was the ‘liquor’: a thickish, clear sauce freckled with parsley. ‘To me, no-Michelin-starred restaurant could have matched it.’
You can gauge the wisdom of a memoir by how much space it allocates to others. If Johnson’s own childhood was no bed of roses, a childhood friend and schoolmate, Dereck, had it harder. Dereck was black. The British government of the time, keen to fill the many vacancies in public services, allowed free entry to citizens of the Commonwealth and colonial nations to come and work in Britain. In place of a welcoming hand came a brandished fist, Rachman, and scapegoaters.
Johnson notes how black bus conductors, postmen and hospital porters tended to be older, wiser and more self-controlled than the skinny Teddy Boys ‘either unemployed or still at school’ that tormented them, or screamed ‘f*****g w** lover’ at their white girlfriends.
To see the past more clearly is to see the present more clearly; the present is rarely so bleak, because the past is rarely so rosy. It is not for nothing that Johnson quotes Justice Salmon’s judgement after sentencing four youths involved in the August Riots of 1958:
'Everyone, irrespective of the colour of their skin, is entitled to walk through our streets in peace, with their heads erect and free from fear. As far as the law is concerned, you are entitled to think what you like, however foul your thoughts; to feel what you like, however brutal and debased your emotions; to say what you like, providing you do not infringe the rights of others, or imperil the Queen’s peace, but once you translate your dark thoughts and brutal feelings into savage acts such as these the law will be swift to punish you, the guilty, and to protect your victims.’
As well as a secular hymn to the past, Johnson’s wise, absorbing book is a warning to the present.
Some will call Johnson’s childhood Dickensian, but the comparison misleads. Misty eyes are outlawed. There are no plays for sympathy, no tragedies milked dry for political street-cred. The facts, sharply observed and crisply reported are what Johnson delivers, elevating the book far above the level of a misery memoir.
To say Johnson’s childhood was grim would be like saying Genghis Khan was a bit of a scamp. The Johnsons lived in a street whose buildings had been condemned 20 years before. The family home had two rooms, no electricity, with a single outside toilet that inconveniently backed onto a railway line. Attracted by the buckets of urine kept in the hallway to save on nighttime visits outside, insects found the house more fit for purpose than its human inhabitants. The children soon took to stuffing their ears with paper to keep earwigs out as they slept. All developed a talent for evading tallymen and their demands for outstanding payments.
Dad had a talent for buying pints for his mates and playing piano by ear, if not for trifling things like regular employment or feeding a family. Little Johnson learned to gauge how angry or upset Mum became by how much of her native Scouse accent resurfaced. He had plenty of opportunities for study, for Mum more than held her own in the weekly slagging match with Dad. But when Dad got drunk he also got violent, which quickly rendered the contest uneven.
Johnson is a keen observer but no armchair moraliser. Like Mary Whitehouse, he notes the level of violence in the media is immeasurably higher than in his day. Unlike Mary Whitehouse, he draws an insightful conclusion. The most contemptible anti-heroes in the films of his boyhood weren’t the baddie but the bloke who refused to fight, the coward: ‘The fact that ours was a lesser, ostensibly more “honourable” type of violence somehow made it more widely acceptable.’ Because it was so accepted, so institutionalised, it became an unremarked part of day-to-day life, especially for women and children. Which, Johnson thoughtfully suggests, is worse?
Not that he had the worse of everything. Johnson recalls his childhood joys with infectious joy. Boys collected the cards that came free with bubblegum, tea, sweets, and their parent’s cigarettes. Some of the cards were educational; the former Home Secretary still recognises the flag of Honduras from the ‘Flags of the World’ collection. In the days before supermarkets, high streets teemed with family-run shops selling ‘anything and everything’, and with the Portobello Road (‘the Lane’) nearby, the Johnson’s were better served than most. One shop sold nothing but saveloy sausages, pease pudding and faggots [rolls of chopped liver, fried or baked].
Above all, there was Renee’s Pie and Mash Shop - though the prosaic description does no justice to its meat pies. Culinary marvels made from a jealousy guarded recipe, sporting a crust unlike any other, what transformed and enhanced the dish was the ‘liquor’: a thickish, clear sauce freckled with parsley. ‘To me, no-Michelin-starred restaurant could have matched it.’
You can gauge the wisdom of a memoir by how much space it allocates to others. If Johnson’s own childhood was no bed of roses, a childhood friend and schoolmate, Dereck, had it harder. Dereck was black. The British government of the time, keen to fill the many vacancies in public services, allowed free entry to citizens of the Commonwealth and colonial nations to come and work in Britain. In place of a welcoming hand came a brandished fist, Rachman, and scapegoaters.
Johnson notes how black bus conductors, postmen and hospital porters tended to be older, wiser and more self-controlled than the skinny Teddy Boys ‘either unemployed or still at school’ that tormented them, or screamed ‘f*****g w** lover’ at their white girlfriends.
To see the past more clearly is to see the present more clearly; the present is rarely so bleak, because the past is rarely so rosy. It is not for nothing that Johnson quotes Justice Salmon’s judgement after sentencing four youths involved in the August Riots of 1958:
'Everyone, irrespective of the colour of their skin, is entitled to walk through our streets in peace, with their heads erect and free from fear. As far as the law is concerned, you are entitled to think what you like, however foul your thoughts; to feel what you like, however brutal and debased your emotions; to say what you like, providing you do not infringe the rights of others, or imperil the Queen’s peace, but once you translate your dark thoughts and brutal feelings into savage acts such as these the law will be swift to punish you, the guilty, and to protect your victims.’
As well as a secular hymn to the past, Johnson’s wise, absorbing book is a warning to the present.
December 10, 2014
I would normally give an autobiography by a politician, and a Labour one at that, a very wide swerve. But Johnson always seemed a decent person and was once the Minister for the Department I worked for.
Memoirs of poor childhoods in London are ten a penny. I wanted to see what the fuss was all about with this particular one.
I think part of it is that he is a well known figure who has 'made good' so when we read of his dreadful early years we somehow know he will be able to rise above this.
He also writes really well - no self pity or maudlin musings, just the facts.
The star of the book has to be his wonderful sister Linda. The book is so rightly dedicated to her because, as he simply says, 'she kept me safe'.
Memoirs of poor childhoods in London are ten a penny. I wanted to see what the fuss was all about with this particular one.
I think part of it is that he is a well known figure who has 'made good' so when we read of his dreadful early years we somehow know he will be able to rise above this.
He also writes really well - no self pity or maudlin musings, just the facts.
The star of the book has to be his wonderful sister Linda. The book is so rightly dedicated to her because, as he simply says, 'she kept me safe'.
May 29, 2013
Loved this, warmly written and a reminder of how things were for so many before a proper welfare state. Let's not go back there.
June 14, 2014
I thoroughly enjoyed this award winning childhood memoir by former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson, detailing his life in the post war slums of Notting Hill in the 1950s and 60s, when his experiences not only reflected those facing the working class at the time, but also were exacerbated by an absent father and a frequently ill mother.
It's the female figures, mother Lilly and sister Linda who are the heroes of this memoir, Lilly keeping the family afloat while her philandering husband wanders, Linda stepping into the breach when Lilly's health fails. Johnson's own experiences outside the home are relatively typical of the time, and his life as portrayed here, up until his marriage shortly after his 18th birthday, hints at nothing other than a career as the postman he has become.
I have no idea whether we'll get another memoir detailing how he ended up as a successful politician, but if we do, I'll definitely be buying it.
It's the female figures, mother Lilly and sister Linda who are the heroes of this memoir, Lilly keeping the family afloat while her philandering husband wanders, Linda stepping into the breach when Lilly's health fails. Johnson's own experiences outside the home are relatively typical of the time, and his life as portrayed here, up until his marriage shortly after his 18th birthday, hints at nothing other than a career as the postman he has become.
I have no idea whether we'll get another memoir detailing how he ended up as a successful politician, but if we do, I'll definitely be buying it.
November 7, 2025
I couldn’t stop listening to this audiobook. Hearing Alan Johnson recount his childhood memories was fascinating, inspirational and deeply moving.
July 28, 2014
Alan Johnson rather turned me off as a politician but now I’ve met him in the pages of This Boy I have nothing for him but respect. The story of a childhood subject to all the stresses and humiliation of poverty and passed in housing condemned as unfit for habitation is told without the slightest self-pity. Better still, the memoir is alive with love for Lily, the mother who struggled so courageously to bring him and his sister up. Abandoned by a useless husband, she took every cleaning job she could get, literally working her to death in the process. An operation on her weakened heart came too late to save her. But in spite of the wretched living conditions, the damp, the shared lavatories, somehow that woman contrived a home where the children were encouraged rather than defeated. If she went cleaning in Kensington during their school holidays, she left them, duly instructed, to play in the park. If it rained they were to go to the museums: according to Johnson he and his sister could have been employed as guides in any one of them, they got to know them so well. Born in 1950, Johnson creates a deeply satisfying sense of period as he tells his story, not least in describing the pop music that was his passion: what a surprise to learn he once saw his future as a singer-songwriter! An unexpected pleasure offered by this memoir is the wit that now and then breaks up its level tone. And when he writes of his older sister, Linda, with her brave and determined actions to protect them all, his admiration and gratitude are both unusual and satisfying.
December 10, 2017
One of the most engaging memoirs I have read for some time. Not only is the content fascinating but Johnson's writing style is storytelling of the best sort encouraging you to page turn so he can keep telling you more. There is a complete lack of chip on the shoulder about the hardship he grew up amongst. It was what he knew and the lack of imposing opinions or hindsight make it the more riveting. Beautiful drawing of the two strong women mother, Lily, who dies when Johnson is 13 and his sister, Linda who were resourceful, feisty, caring and loving
Brilliant unapologetic and eloquent peek into working class poverty at the birth of the NHS, race riots, slum housing, Rachman, brilliant.
Brilliant unapologetic and eloquent peek into working class poverty at the birth of the NHS, race riots, slum housing, Rachman, brilliant.
July 15, 2017
Excellent. Nothing to add to the other reviews that say the same. It would have been 5* if it were not for the too elaborate description of all things football, but that's just me. Makes you angry with those that destroyed social democracy, especially in the UK.
January 27, 2018
This memoir by a contemporary British politician's childhood in grinding poverty is amazing. It's hard to get hold of in this country, though. I learned about it from a GoodReads follower who lives in the UK. The author is Alan Johnson, b. 1950, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Jo....
In addition to Johnson's unflinching characterization of abject poverty and the heroic struggles of his mother and sister, it is his self-deprecation that is most striking. He has a light touch, hardly blaming where blame is due and making fun of himself and what he refers to as his youthful "pretentiousness." In one funny anecdote he describes a friend's mother being impressed with his love of reading and giving him Dante's "Inferno" to discuss with her. "I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I found it turgid and unfathomable. Served me right. I had become a victim of my own pretentiousness." You feel like this is someone you'd like to know.
Johnson left school at 15 hoping to be part of a successful band. He got a lesson in what ordinary workers go through when he was a stock boy in a grocery chain. One hopes he took that insight into government and was compassionate. He is clear-eyed about the suffering of black immigrants in his not-fit-for-human-habitation London neighborhood, even though he says he didn't observe much as a child. I liked this quote from a judge, which he mentions in reference to an immigrant's murder: "Everyone, irrespective of the colour of their skin, is entitled to walk our streets in peace."
Johnson's writing style is accomplished and humorous. I loved his description of some Brutalist public housing that went up in the 1970s: the 31-storey Trellick Tower, he says, was "casting its gaze across the capital like the Eye of Mordor."
My local library got my copy from the special collections at Boston College. And you may find a used version of what was a bestseller in England by going to Amazon.
PS. If Hollywood doesn't make a movie about Johnson's fierce older sister, who found a way to keep the boy with her when she was 16 and there were no parents around, the industry is clueless.
In addition to Johnson's unflinching characterization of abject poverty and the heroic struggles of his mother and sister, it is his self-deprecation that is most striking. He has a light touch, hardly blaming where blame is due and making fun of himself and what he refers to as his youthful "pretentiousness." In one funny anecdote he describes a friend's mother being impressed with his love of reading and giving him Dante's "Inferno" to discuss with her. "I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I found it turgid and unfathomable. Served me right. I had become a victim of my own pretentiousness." You feel like this is someone you'd like to know.
Johnson left school at 15 hoping to be part of a successful band. He got a lesson in what ordinary workers go through when he was a stock boy in a grocery chain. One hopes he took that insight into government and was compassionate. He is clear-eyed about the suffering of black immigrants in his not-fit-for-human-habitation London neighborhood, even though he says he didn't observe much as a child. I liked this quote from a judge, which he mentions in reference to an immigrant's murder: "Everyone, irrespective of the colour of their skin, is entitled to walk our streets in peace."
Johnson's writing style is accomplished and humorous. I loved his description of some Brutalist public housing that went up in the 1970s: the 31-storey Trellick Tower, he says, was "casting its gaze across the capital like the Eye of Mordor."
My local library got my copy from the special collections at Boston College. And you may find a used version of what was a bestseller in England by going to Amazon.
PS. If Hollywood doesn't make a movie about Johnson's fierce older sister, who found a way to keep the boy with her when she was 16 and there were no parents around, the industry is clueless.
October 4, 2022
From this memoir, it’s obvious why the author became a labour MP, campaigning to help those most in need. It’s only a few short decades ago and things have changed enormously.
The memoir is interspersed with his musical memories, which lighten the mood.
I was left feeling angry about the men (mainly) who don’t support their children, governments who don’t help those left to cope alone and the people who don’t think they deserve help.
And now we have food banks. Sigh.
The memoir is interspersed with his musical memories, which lighten the mood.
I was left feeling angry about the men (mainly) who don’t support their children, governments who don’t help those left to cope alone and the people who don’t think they deserve help.
And now we have food banks. Sigh.
April 10, 2017
first part of alan johnson autobiography this part looking at growing up in the notting hill area of london in the slums and the early death of his mother lily and the absent father steve and how linda and his sister survived until both got married to mike and judy.
March 7, 2024
The author, who later became a key figure in Tony Blair's government, relates the story of his impoverished childhood. It is a celebration of his older sister and mother who raised him. A real life David Copperfield (or Demon Copperhead) this tale reveals hopefulness despite desperate beginnings.
June 17, 2024
Excellent read , interesting beginnings in an area the same as mine but a generation earlier .
Onto pt2
Onto pt2
October 28, 2021
What a wonderful, unsentimental autobiography of a life of poverty and deprivation, it's difficult to comprehend. It's very touching in the description of his mother, who was a real trooper. And apart from that, it's really well written. So nice to know that not all politicians are miserable self-absorbed twats.
April 3, 2014
2 April 2014
THIS BOY by Alan Johnson
I don’t read biographies these days. When I was in my teens and early twenties and seeking inspiration as to my future, I read them a lot. I seem to recall I focused on politicians – Disraeli, Baldwin, MacMillan and anything to do with Churchill. I even went as far back as the 17th century and a copy of Antonia Fraser’s ‘Cromwell’ still adorns my bookcase. Nowadays my taste is for literary fiction, primarily as a result of my need to keep abreast of trends in modern writing, and I have neglected alternate forms. I have clearly been missing something as latter-day politician Alan Johnson’s childhood memoir, THIS BOY, is a real treat and I’m glad I was persuaded to read it.
Although in fact I didn’t need much persuading. Had I not already been stewarding at his York Literature Festival event the other Saturday, it’s highly likely I would have attended anyway. As far as modern politicians go, Alan Johnson has always struck me as a decent sort and I wanted to hear what he had to say. In the event I felt inspired to buy his book and that’s not something I do lightly. His interviewer that evening was none other than our own Elly Fiorentini and when I bumped into her afterwards, she let it be known that she had been inspired too and so we naturally agreed that we should make THIS BOY a subject for our next discussion on Book Talk.
So what was it then that made us both so keen? Elly will no doubt speak for herself but for me the book struck a number of personal chords. Alan Johnson and I are both of the same era – born in the same year even – and his account of growing up in the 50s and 60s brings back many memories. I too remember the joy brought into our house by the magic of radio, The Light Programme and listening to such Sunday lunchtime classics as Family Favourites, The Navy Lark and Round The Horne. He tells of a time when he took his radio to bed and snuggled down with it under the blankets. I did exactly the same although my purpose was to hear the late-night boxing commentaries of Eamonn Andrews (with inter-round summaries by J. Barrington Dalby) and to experience the excitement afforded by the battles of Liston, Clay and Cooper. And then of course there was always the music and the advent of pop.
A less enjoyable aspect of life in those days was of course the poverty. Although I could never claim to have endured what Johnson did (some parts of his book are quite harrowing) I was also abandoned by my father at an early age and spent four years of my childhood growing up in a caravan with the same lack of basic facilities. No wonder his book rang bells. Luckily my mother survived, whereas Johnson’s did not, and THIS BOY is as much a tribute to the heroism of Lily, and sister Linda, as it is a social history of the times. Any one who watches CALL THE MIDWIFE will have caught the flavour of what is being portrayed although one suspects the show itself has been somewhat sanitized for the purposes of TV.
The danger in all this is that such recollections can lapse into unnecessary sentimentality. Johnson skillfully avoids this and although he is brutally truthful and tells his tale with candour, he does it with a lightness of touch which is quite refreshing. It is in fact a masterpiece of British understatement and it’s the character displayed by his mother and his sister that shines through rather than any form of grandiloquent prose. There’s a lesson to be learnt here for any aspiring novelist – moving stories can be told in the simplest of language.
As to the youthful Alan Johnson’s future, this book gives barely a hint of it - in fact, you could be forgiven for thinking that the author was to become a famous pop star rather than a potential Prime Minister. I suspect that many of today’s politicians might have taken the opportunity given by such a past to justify their current political stance but where it would have been easy to do so, Johnson avoids this too. The result is a truly insightful and unbiased history of what childhood was like in the mean streets of 1950s London. As I said at the beginning, whatever his politics, I have always considered Alan Johnson a genuinely thoughtful and decent man. THIS BOY confirms it.
THIS BOY by Alan Johnson
I don’t read biographies these days. When I was in my teens and early twenties and seeking inspiration as to my future, I read them a lot. I seem to recall I focused on politicians – Disraeli, Baldwin, MacMillan and anything to do with Churchill. I even went as far back as the 17th century and a copy of Antonia Fraser’s ‘Cromwell’ still adorns my bookcase. Nowadays my taste is for literary fiction, primarily as a result of my need to keep abreast of trends in modern writing, and I have neglected alternate forms. I have clearly been missing something as latter-day politician Alan Johnson’s childhood memoir, THIS BOY, is a real treat and I’m glad I was persuaded to read it.
Although in fact I didn’t need much persuading. Had I not already been stewarding at his York Literature Festival event the other Saturday, it’s highly likely I would have attended anyway. As far as modern politicians go, Alan Johnson has always struck me as a decent sort and I wanted to hear what he had to say. In the event I felt inspired to buy his book and that’s not something I do lightly. His interviewer that evening was none other than our own Elly Fiorentini and when I bumped into her afterwards, she let it be known that she had been inspired too and so we naturally agreed that we should make THIS BOY a subject for our next discussion on Book Talk.
So what was it then that made us both so keen? Elly will no doubt speak for herself but for me the book struck a number of personal chords. Alan Johnson and I are both of the same era – born in the same year even – and his account of growing up in the 50s and 60s brings back many memories. I too remember the joy brought into our house by the magic of radio, The Light Programme and listening to such Sunday lunchtime classics as Family Favourites, The Navy Lark and Round The Horne. He tells of a time when he took his radio to bed and snuggled down with it under the blankets. I did exactly the same although my purpose was to hear the late-night boxing commentaries of Eamonn Andrews (with inter-round summaries by J. Barrington Dalby) and to experience the excitement afforded by the battles of Liston, Clay and Cooper. And then of course there was always the music and the advent of pop.
A less enjoyable aspect of life in those days was of course the poverty. Although I could never claim to have endured what Johnson did (some parts of his book are quite harrowing) I was also abandoned by my father at an early age and spent four years of my childhood growing up in a caravan with the same lack of basic facilities. No wonder his book rang bells. Luckily my mother survived, whereas Johnson’s did not, and THIS BOY is as much a tribute to the heroism of Lily, and sister Linda, as it is a social history of the times. Any one who watches CALL THE MIDWIFE will have caught the flavour of what is being portrayed although one suspects the show itself has been somewhat sanitized for the purposes of TV.
The danger in all this is that such recollections can lapse into unnecessary sentimentality. Johnson skillfully avoids this and although he is brutally truthful and tells his tale with candour, he does it with a lightness of touch which is quite refreshing. It is in fact a masterpiece of British understatement and it’s the character displayed by his mother and his sister that shines through rather than any form of grandiloquent prose. There’s a lesson to be learnt here for any aspiring novelist – moving stories can be told in the simplest of language.
As to the youthful Alan Johnson’s future, this book gives barely a hint of it - in fact, you could be forgiven for thinking that the author was to become a famous pop star rather than a potential Prime Minister. I suspect that many of today’s politicians might have taken the opportunity given by such a past to justify their current political stance but where it would have been easy to do so, Johnson avoids this too. The result is a truly insightful and unbiased history of what childhood was like in the mean streets of 1950s London. As I said at the beginning, whatever his politics, I have always considered Alan Johnson a genuinely thoughtful and decent man. THIS BOY confirms it.
June 8, 2016
I guess I'm not used to memoirs that run into several volumes. I kept waiting for the transition to come, how this rather lazy grammar-school student who left school at fifteen made it into politics without the old-boy school-tie network solidly behind him. Silly me. This is just Vol 1.
The main character in this book seems not to be the author, but his mother whom he adored and who had a very hard life due to being abandoned by the father of her two children, an abandonment that began long before he actually left the house. I will not qualify this as an enjoyable read, but it was informative about the condition of the marginalised poor (such as a divorced mother who is told she must have done something wrong to get left) living in total squalor in London. With no welfare benefits or child allowance, Lily literally works herself into an early grave and her daughter becomes "mother" well before the age of sixteen, when she finds herself alone at the helm.
Meantime, Alan doesn't seem to do much to help out, or worry about it much. He is a singularly passive, immature child who prefers to hide out in his room, reading books, playing a few chords on the guitar his mother slaves to get for him, and dreaming of being the next pop star. I'm sorry, but I didn't find him a very sympathetic character. No growing up fast for him! No taking on the role of provider and "man of the house"--he leaves that to his sister Linda. Oh yes, he does eventually find part-time work helping a friend deliver paraffin etc (pink and blue paraffin, now that caught my attention!) but the money goes into his own pocket; it never occurs to him to contribute to his mother's straitened finances.
Of course London itself is one of the main characters; both children could have moved to Liverpool and stayed with relatives there, and been welcomed--but like many New Yorkers I have known, the idea of leaving their city is anathema. They'd rather struggle on their own turf than be comfortable somewhere else; or at least Alan would. As "the boy" (I cannot call him the man of the house)he's more like the spoiled Mediterranean men of his generation that I've spent most of my adult life around than a tough, streetwise East Ender. The whole world seems to revolve around his comfort, and anything bad is hidden under the veil of "don't tell Alan." He knows that the women are shielding him, and he just lets himself be cossetted and shielded. And this is the man who became Home Secretary, or so the blurb tells us. One hopes he wasn't quite so self-centred when the fate of an entire nation was in his hands. I can't tell you if he was, since the book ends when he is 18 and already a father.
One of the things that struck me (though I knew it before) was how different the UK was in those days; any fifteen/sixteen year old could find work days after leaving school, and was indeed expected to. They wanted to work, to be independent, to make their own way--and they were then considered adults, not like the "youth" of today who are still living with their parents well into their twenties and early thirties.
The main character in this book seems not to be the author, but his mother whom he adored and who had a very hard life due to being abandoned by the father of her two children, an abandonment that began long before he actually left the house. I will not qualify this as an enjoyable read, but it was informative about the condition of the marginalised poor (such as a divorced mother who is told she must have done something wrong to get left) living in total squalor in London. With no welfare benefits or child allowance, Lily literally works herself into an early grave and her daughter becomes "mother" well before the age of sixteen, when she finds herself alone at the helm.
Meantime, Alan doesn't seem to do much to help out, or worry about it much. He is a singularly passive, immature child who prefers to hide out in his room, reading books, playing a few chords on the guitar his mother slaves to get for him, and dreaming of being the next pop star. I'm sorry, but I didn't find him a very sympathetic character. No growing up fast for him! No taking on the role of provider and "man of the house"--he leaves that to his sister Linda. Oh yes, he does eventually find part-time work helping a friend deliver paraffin etc (pink and blue paraffin, now that caught my attention!) but the money goes into his own pocket; it never occurs to him to contribute to his mother's straitened finances.
Of course London itself is one of the main characters; both children could have moved to Liverpool and stayed with relatives there, and been welcomed--but like many New Yorkers I have known, the idea of leaving their city is anathema. They'd rather struggle on their own turf than be comfortable somewhere else; or at least Alan would. As "the boy" (I cannot call him the man of the house)he's more like the spoiled Mediterranean men of his generation that I've spent most of my adult life around than a tough, streetwise East Ender. The whole world seems to revolve around his comfort, and anything bad is hidden under the veil of "don't tell Alan." He knows that the women are shielding him, and he just lets himself be cossetted and shielded. And this is the man who became Home Secretary, or so the blurb tells us. One hopes he wasn't quite so self-centred when the fate of an entire nation was in his hands. I can't tell you if he was, since the book ends when he is 18 and already a father.
One of the things that struck me (though I knew it before) was how different the UK was in those days; any fifteen/sixteen year old could find work days after leaving school, and was indeed expected to. They wanted to work, to be independent, to make their own way--and they were then considered adults, not like the "youth" of today who are still living with their parents well into their twenties and early thirties.
May 14, 2015
Alan Johnson is a British trade unionist and Labour politician. In his time he has held different portfolios as a cabinet minister, including serving as Home Secretary.
Having read his memoir of his life as a young man, I went back to read this story of his childhood. He grew up in Notting Hill/North Kensington in London in the 1950s and 60s. The district was full of slum housing back then and he, his big sister Linda and their mother Lily lived in a couple of damp and crumbling flats in buildings that should have been condemned. Many subsequently were, some swept away to allow the development of the Westway road. Lily always had to struggle to feed and clothe her children and to put food on the table. When Linda and Alan's dad left, that struggle became even harder.
It's a poignant read, sometimes almost unbearably sad. Lily, who did not keep well, earned money by taking on too many exhausting cleaning jobs. She always dreamt of having a house with her own front door and never managed to achieve that.
On the plus side, Lily brought her children up to value education and good manners and to have their own dreams. Both she and Alan Johnson's sister Linda shine out of this story. Linda fought like a lioness to keep the family going and together.
Often a sad story but well worth a read. It's a different view of London in the early 1960s, although Carnaby Street and Swinging London are in there too. Alan Johnson aspired to be a pop singer and despite all the odds stacked against him did achieve some early success before fate intervened and he ended up taking the political road instead. On the night he met his first wife he was at a party where Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues was playing on the record player and observes how songs can spirit you instantly back to the past.
Having read his memoir of his life as a young man, I went back to read this story of his childhood. He grew up in Notting Hill/North Kensington in London in the 1950s and 60s. The district was full of slum housing back then and he, his big sister Linda and their mother Lily lived in a couple of damp and crumbling flats in buildings that should have been condemned. Many subsequently were, some swept away to allow the development of the Westway road. Lily always had to struggle to feed and clothe her children and to put food on the table. When Linda and Alan's dad left, that struggle became even harder.
It's a poignant read, sometimes almost unbearably sad. Lily, who did not keep well, earned money by taking on too many exhausting cleaning jobs. She always dreamt of having a house with her own front door and never managed to achieve that.
On the plus side, Lily brought her children up to value education and good manners and to have their own dreams. Both she and Alan Johnson's sister Linda shine out of this story. Linda fought like a lioness to keep the family going and together.
Often a sad story but well worth a read. It's a different view of London in the early 1960s, although Carnaby Street and Swinging London are in there too. Alan Johnson aspired to be a pop singer and despite all the odds stacked against him did achieve some early success before fate intervened and he ended up taking the political road instead. On the night he met his first wife he was at a party where Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues was playing on the record player and observes how songs can spirit you instantly back to the past.
May 21, 2015
Whilst I found this readable, was quite surprised by the poverty described and could empathise with the hungry Alan, I felt rather non plussed by this book. On reading other reviews,I agree that this story is free from self pity and regret - admirably so given the circumstances described. But perhaps this lack of emotion and of comment is the reason I felt little connection with the characters and did not care enough about their fate.
I always refrain from finding out about a book before I read it, so as to be impartial and try and judge it on merit. I hadn't realised that AJ went on to become a politician and there is little in this memoir that would suggest he would. In fact as the book ends, the future looks rather bleak for Alan. He may have been overjoyed to be married and a father, but I didn't pick this up, probably due to this emotional disconnect. I was just left with a mild curiosity about how he was going to provide for his new family.
I always refrain from finding out about a book before I read it, so as to be impartial and try and judge it on merit. I hadn't realised that AJ went on to become a politician and there is little in this memoir that would suggest he would. In fact as the book ends, the future looks rather bleak for Alan. He may have been overjoyed to be married and a father, but I didn't pick this up, probably due to this emotional disconnect. I was just left with a mild curiosity about how he was going to provide for his new family.
March 1, 2015
This book is so refreshing. A political memoir written not by an over-privileged, over-moneyed posh boy but by someone who has had to struggle in life who has known poverty and had 'proper' jobs and been to normal schools.
'This Boy' is a homage to his mother, Lily and his sister, Linda and also to a disappeared London of community, rag and bone men and awful poverty.
A 'simple' and beautiful book.
'This Boy' is a homage to his mother, Lily and his sister, Linda and also to a disappeared London of community, rag and bone men and awful poverty.
A 'simple' and beautiful book.
November 17, 2025
A tragic and heartbreaking upbringing only lightened by the dedication and adoration Alan's sister and mother brought to his life. One finishes this book with an immense sense of gratitude and amazement that such a challenging start to life could foster what came to be a formidable Member of Parliament. The first part of a three part autobiography brilliantly encapsulates the unfortunate struggle many children are forced into yet gives one hope that they can survive anything. Beautiful imagery, beautifully written from an extraordinary political giant.
December 31, 2020
A very humbling book, engagingly written about a world that most of us have never lived in - of poverty and oppression. I heard excerpts of this on radio etc when it was first written and it sounded interesting but the book is more so.
I met Johnson while he was Secretary of State for Health. Thereafter I had a deep respect for him - he presented as ordinary but was very impressive. I wonder whether had he become more he might have changed history? Having read this book I am all the more full of admiration for this self made man.
An enjoyable and compelling read - great memoir.
I met Johnson while he was Secretary of State for Health. Thereafter I had a deep respect for him - he presented as ordinary but was very impressive. I wonder whether had he become more he might have changed history? Having read this book I am all the more full of admiration for this self made man.
An enjoyable and compelling read - great memoir.
September 12, 2018
I really loved this book not because it’s written by a politician - despite this. I enjoyed this because it was extremely personable, written with real feeling and honesty and amazing think that the living conditions and stories of Alan’s life really happened in the UK in the twentieth century. Amazing. Children bringing up children when adults become sick or let them down. No loo. Cold. Children not loved. Sad. Touching. Thought provoking.
October 30, 2020
This book was recommended to me and I put off reading it due to thinking it would be all about politics. It is not at all about politics. It is the story of Alan Johnson’s life as he was growing up. It is an amazing story which I thoroughly enjoyed and would like to carry on to read what happened next.
February 16, 2020
It amazes me that people can remember so much about their childhood. But I’m glad Alan Johnson did as it brings to life a squalid and violent London in the 50’s and 60’s. The ending however felt too rushed.
November 8, 2022
Written in a highly personal way that puts you in the mind of Johnson as a boy in 50s and 60s London. I am probably 10 years younger than the author but many of his reminiscences are very evocative of the period. It is hard to believe the level of deprivation endured by post war working class Londoners. Makes one appreciate the progress made over the last 70 years on so many levels.
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