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The Boy from Nowhere
The warm, funny memoir of Gregor Fisher, the much loved Scottish actor best known for Rab C. Nesbitt, told as he uncovers his dramatic family history.
Growing up in the Glasgow suburbs, Gregor was 14 when he asked where he was christened and was told that he was adopted. But it wasn’t quite that simple. And so began an unfolding of truths, half-truths and polite cover-ups from his various families. In 2014 Gregor approached Times columnist Melanie Reid to help him tell his story. Together they travelled through the mining villages of central Scotland to uncover the mystery of his birth and early life. What emerged was a story of secrets, deception, tragic accidents and early death, coldness and rejection from the very people who should have cherished him most, but a welcome from the most unexpected of quarters.
From the squalor of industrial Coatbridge after WWI to his own 1950s Glasgow childhood, via a love letter found in the wallet of a dead man and meeting his sister outside lost luggage at Glasgow Central, Gregor shares his family story with warmth and blunt Scottish humour.
Growing up in the Glasgow suburbs, Gregor was 14 when he asked where he was christened and was told that he was adopted. But it wasn’t quite that simple. And so began an unfolding of truths, half-truths and polite cover-ups from his various families. In 2014 Gregor approached Times columnist Melanie Reid to help him tell his story. Together they travelled through the mining villages of central Scotland to uncover the mystery of his birth and early life. What emerged was a story of secrets, deception, tragic accidents and early death, coldness and rejection from the very people who should have cherished him most, but a welcome from the most unexpected of quarters.
From the squalor of industrial Coatbridge after WWI to his own 1950s Glasgow childhood, via a love letter found in the wallet of a dead man and meeting his sister outside lost luggage at Glasgow Central, Gregor shares his family story with warmth and blunt Scottish humour.
322 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 22, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
May 28, 2017
There was an element of this book which was very interesting; how Scotland was the for working classes in previous generations and the unpicking of Fisher's complex family history which I could see as an episode of 'who do you think you are'.
What I found difficult about this book was a difficult narrative style, with blank pages and jumping between different styles etc. It just didn't flow from this perspective which was a shame, could have been much better.
What I found difficult about this book was a difficult narrative style, with blank pages and jumping between different styles etc. It just didn't flow from this perspective which was a shame, could have been much better.
February 15, 2018
Not your average biography. Gregor Fisher always struck me as a private person and this tale isn't so much about his public persona, more a story of the man himself investigating his family history. He discovered, in his early teens, that he was adopted which threw him. Here we find out about the circumstances that led to him being adopted. The shameful secret, as it was perceived in that period not that long after WW2. Laughs are found but sadness too.
Ray Smillie
Ray Smillie
June 24, 2021
Such a magnificent read. I felt I was there with Gregor as he sought out and met his remaining family. Both Gregor and his co-writer/compiler evoked just the right amount of sadness, squelched dreams and compassion as the search progressed.
A thoroughly recommended tale with a happy ending and a sense of closure.
A thoroughly recommended tale with a happy ending and a sense of closure.
August 5, 2019
Gregor Fisher has become famous for his unique acting abilities and his comic portrayal of "national treasure" Rab C. Nesbitt, yet his childhood was far from funny.
"The Boy From Nowhere" recounts a poignant search for the truth of Gregor's past, and the search for his birth mother and father.
It is a testament to the love and support of his adoptive mother Cis, that he has created such a successful career and a sound marriage with his wife Victoria.
I enjoyed travelling with him through central Scotland-the location of my own childhood.
"The Boy From Nowhere" recounts a poignant search for the truth of Gregor's past, and the search for his birth mother and father.
It is a testament to the love and support of his adoptive mother Cis, that he has created such a successful career and a sound marriage with his wife Victoria.
I enjoyed travelling with him through central Scotland-the location of my own childhood.
September 7, 2022
I read the book over a long period of time, can't really remember when I started and only read a few pages at a time.. I enjoyed it as an insight into Gregor's upbringing which led him onto the genealogy path to discover his roots and to get an insight into who he was. There were times when it was hard to decipher whether the writer was a ghost writer or whether Gregor was speaking. His story is typical of many people but that does not alter the fact that his skills and determination have brought him the recognition he deserves. I enjoyed the book but the story is not earth shattering.
February 14, 2018
Its an understandably sad read but its also quite insightful. I recognised some of the areas mentioned, given I live in central Scotland myself. There are some amusing moments but, as a warning, its not a memoir/bio of Gregor's life as an actor, although he does talk about his acting success, its mainly about him trying to find his lost family. I found it a relatively easy read. I ended up enjoying it more than I think I'd originally thought I would.
March 16, 2021
It is hard to rate an autobigraphy with stars. It is after all someone's story. I really liked the way this was written with different fonts denoting different perspectives. This felt a bit like an episode of Who do you think you are and was more like an unravelling of the past. Melanie Reid is a great writer and it was clear she and Gregor Fisher got on really well. Interesting connections to Irvine.
October 1, 2022
A thoroughly enjoyable read slowly getting to know about Gregor's happy upbringing and how his life changed upon learning that he was adopted, discovering he had yet more siblings and the tangled web of his birth parents' relationship and lives. And, at the same time learning about how his career evolved and some of the spooky coincidences of how his life almost touched that of his unknown father.
March 7, 2019
I struggled through two thirds of the book before I quit. Being a huge Gregor Fisher fan I was deeply disappointed, totally bored in fact. I do appreciate family history and trauma. I think this would have been far better written as a more in depth biography, with more reference to his everyday life, family and friends.
October 24, 2019
I loved this book, one of the best autobiographies I have read. Gregor Fisher wrote it with the help of a co-writer, Times columnist, Melanie Reid and I loved the format, with her doing the writing and his words interspersed, which, to me, made it all the more interesting. I loved that this was not really about his acting, hardly at all, but his life and most of all his search for his real family background, shameful as it was, in these days. I also loved the description of schooling and life in his early days in the Central Belt. This is one of, if not THE best autobiographies/biographies I have read and I have no hesitation in giving it 5*****, my maximum rating!
February 2, 2023
He turned out no bad.
You'll be exhausted after reading this book . It is impossible to put down and takes you through the full range of emotions . You admire Kit for her undying love for her children ,you are angry and sad for the way she was treated and ever so happy that Gregor had Cis and Vikki in his life. As we say in Scotland he turned out no bad.
You'll be exhausted after reading this book . It is impossible to put down and takes you through the full range of emotions . You admire Kit for her undying love for her children ,you are angry and sad for the way she was treated and ever so happy that Gregor had Cis and Vikki in his life. As we say in Scotland he turned out no bad.
August 13, 2023
Good read indeed and it felt a bit like an episode of " Who do you think you are" with Gregor Fisher trying to piece his past and parentage together
It was also a stark reminder what life in Scotland was like on the 1940s/1950s for unmarried women who find themselves pregnant and the social stigmata attached to it.
It was also a stark reminder what life in Scotland was like on the 1940s/1950s for unmarried women who find themselves pregnant and the social stigmata attached to it.
October 19, 2018
Didn't expect to like this book but was surprised, certainly worth a read uncovering the life of the author
Didn't expect to like this book so much, was surprised how the author uncovered his f family history which made very interesting reading
Didn't expect to like this book so much, was surprised how the author uncovered his f family history which made very interesting reading
May 30, 2021
A good read
Very open and honest. Enjoyed the light hearted style of writing. Had to laugh out loud when reading the bits of dialogue of Rab C Nesbitt. Would recommend to anyone who wanted a true happy story.
Very open and honest. Enjoyed the light hearted style of writing. Had to laugh out loud when reading the bits of dialogue of Rab C Nesbitt. Would recommend to anyone who wanted a true happy story.
April 30, 2023
Fascinating story of Gregor's very complicated family tree and background to his life. Much less on Gregor himself as he comes across as a rather private individual. He is much more than Rab C Nesbitt. A compelling read.
August 25, 2025
I enjoyed this book because it was easy to read, and about a celebrity who was down to earth and came from a working class background with a mystery to solve. As I am a family historian then a quest to find biological relatives and ancestors is of great interest to me. It was humorous too.
September 20, 2025
This book makes you realise how lucky most of us are , the life some of his family endured is heart breaking . poverty, abandonment, early death. All figure here , and yet all these things created a very talented actor . A good sad read.
December 19, 2017
Interesting story very good read
June 28, 2022
Tended to be repetitive in areas.
September 25, 2023
Wow, the most heartwarming storytelling. Made me laugh and cry in equal measure. Ok, I'm away to re-watch all of Rab C Nesbitt.
September 2, 2016
I missed out on Gregor Fisher’s reading of his autobiography in Dalmuir Library recently. Tickets only. It’s a small place. Sold out. Gregor Fisher is a ‘National Treasure’ ran an advertisement campaign to promote a play ‘Yer Granny’ he was in. And on the front page of his book, the tagline from The Telegraph reads: Rab C Nesbitt is the most memorable comedy character Scotland has ever produced’. There’s a lot of good will to be tapped around Rab C. There’s a little bit of him in most working-class Scots, although many would be loath to admit it. The conflation between Gregor Fisher and Rab C is a common one. It’s a bit like Harry H Corbett in Steptoe and Son. Portrayal of the character offers a comfortable life in a profession that jobs are hard to come by and fiercely competed for. Yet Gregor Fisher wants to be more than a string vest, bandage on his head and the sum of Rab C Nesbitt’s collected wisdom and folly. I say autobiography, but it’s Melanie Reid that does the writing.
An easy enough read, you could comfortably read it in one day, if you had a mind to. I didn’t. For all the Shakespeare truths and literary maxims offsetting chapter headings the writing is bland and the formatting uneven, with blank pages adding to just over 300 pages. Reid reminds us that before Rab C, his apogee, Gregor done his training in theatres all around Scotland and England. He was a renowned Bottom in A Midnight Summer’s Dream, for example, (there’s a joke in there somewhere if you want to have a look). Whisper it, so fucking what, I’m not a fan of Shakespeare and would much rather watch The Simpsons, which is far funnier, is in fact funny, when A Midnight Summer’s Dream casts a spell and pretends to be, and I’d much rather watch Rab C than Oberon. But I’m working class, got a chip on my shoulder Clyde wide. Rab C is one of us.
The heart of the book can be found at the end of the book: ‘Nobody knows his past’. When Gregor Fisher was three-years old he was adopted by John and Cis Leckie. She was a real mother to him, he was an old bastard. That was normal for the tail end of 1950’s Scotland.
‘Three thumps-never more, never less. No cheery ‘Hallooo!’, no cry of That’s me, Cis, just three dictatorial thumps on the bedroom floor with his foot. John Leckie wanted his breakfast.’ [no comma after Halloo, new sentence]
He sets out, with Melanie Reid, to find out what happened to his family. The short answer is his mother, Katherine (Kit) McKenzie had an illegitimate child, named Anne, with a farm worker in 1946 who promptly disappeared to Australia. Then she had two children with pillar of the Kirk, and rather more well-to-do William Kerr, who was married, with three children of his own and was old enough to be Kit’s grandad. Kit had a weakened mitral valve in her heart and she died when Gregor was three. While unusual, even for those hard times, it’s hardly a big reveal. John Lanchester’s autobiography about his parents, set around the same timeframe, for example, found that his mum came from a big Irish Roman Catholic family and that she had been a nun for about twenty years before marrying her father. That’s what I call a big reveal.
While studying the few snapshots of Kit the reader is told she was a good-looking woman, broad, friendly face [big ba’ face] and looks like Gregor. I’ll let you reach your own conclusions here. Inevitably, William Kerr might be old, but has the clichéd twinkle in his eye, just like Gregor. Guff.
The most interesting parts of the book take their lead from T.C. Smout, A Century of the Scottish People, which showed how working class families of seven to ten shared one room and played bingo for a bed. I’d like to think we’ve come a long way since then but fear we’re moving back in that direction. Fisher asks a question of his newfound relatives and the reader, if The Boy from Nowhere, wasn’t a national treasure and well-known actor, but a habitual drunk or druggie would they have embraced him and his past in the way they did?
Of course they would Gregor. Of course they would. And publishers would be reaching out and offering you a book deal. Do I look buttoned up the back?
An easy enough read, you could comfortably read it in one day, if you had a mind to. I didn’t. For all the Shakespeare truths and literary maxims offsetting chapter headings the writing is bland and the formatting uneven, with blank pages adding to just over 300 pages. Reid reminds us that before Rab C, his apogee, Gregor done his training in theatres all around Scotland and England. He was a renowned Bottom in A Midnight Summer’s Dream, for example, (there’s a joke in there somewhere if you want to have a look). Whisper it, so fucking what, I’m not a fan of Shakespeare and would much rather watch The Simpsons, which is far funnier, is in fact funny, when A Midnight Summer’s Dream casts a spell and pretends to be, and I’d much rather watch Rab C than Oberon. But I’m working class, got a chip on my shoulder Clyde wide. Rab C is one of us.
The heart of the book can be found at the end of the book: ‘Nobody knows his past’. When Gregor Fisher was three-years old he was adopted by John and Cis Leckie. She was a real mother to him, he was an old bastard. That was normal for the tail end of 1950’s Scotland.
‘Three thumps-never more, never less. No cheery ‘Hallooo!’, no cry of That’s me, Cis, just three dictatorial thumps on the bedroom floor with his foot. John Leckie wanted his breakfast.’ [no comma after Halloo, new sentence]
He sets out, with Melanie Reid, to find out what happened to his family. The short answer is his mother, Katherine (Kit) McKenzie had an illegitimate child, named Anne, with a farm worker in 1946 who promptly disappeared to Australia. Then she had two children with pillar of the Kirk, and rather more well-to-do William Kerr, who was married, with three children of his own and was old enough to be Kit’s grandad. Kit had a weakened mitral valve in her heart and she died when Gregor was three. While unusual, even for those hard times, it’s hardly a big reveal. John Lanchester’s autobiography about his parents, set around the same timeframe, for example, found that his mum came from a big Irish Roman Catholic family and that she had been a nun for about twenty years before marrying her father. That’s what I call a big reveal.
While studying the few snapshots of Kit the reader is told she was a good-looking woman, broad, friendly face [big ba’ face] and looks like Gregor. I’ll let you reach your own conclusions here. Inevitably, William Kerr might be old, but has the clichéd twinkle in his eye, just like Gregor. Guff.
The most interesting parts of the book take their lead from T.C. Smout, A Century of the Scottish People, which showed how working class families of seven to ten shared one room and played bingo for a bed. I’d like to think we’ve come a long way since then but fear we’re moving back in that direction. Fisher asks a question of his newfound relatives and the reader, if The Boy from Nowhere, wasn’t a national treasure and well-known actor, but a habitual drunk or druggie would they have embraced him and his past in the way they did?
Of course they would Gregor. Of course they would. And publishers would be reaching out and offering you a book deal. Do I look buttoned up the back?
July 10, 2016
Sadly this book was not as engaging as Gregor Fisher's public persona or uncovered back - story deserved. Whilst the non-linear storytelling gave a sense of the gradual discovery of Gregor's background, it, together with the intercalation of discussion between the author and Gregor, produced a fractured narrative, that was neither as personal as a well crafted autobiography should be, nor as revelatory as the best objective biographies. The structure struck me, nor as a creative way of addressing the subject, but a lazy way of putting the revelations together leading to unnecessary repetition and a reluctance to go deeper (eg. in repeated simplistic references to Gregor's regrets regarding his lack of a relationship with John Leckie, which may have been no different had he been his real father given the social and familial roles of that time and place). Whilst it never lurched into the melodrama that might have been prompted by the circumstances of Gregor's birth and upbringing, neither did it overflow with the black humour that the west of Scotland and Gregor's most famous role is renowned for. Add to that mix certain clumsy turns of phrase also irked (eg. an anachronistic reference to 'sweaty semtex') spoilt my enjoyment further. This story deserved better, but Fisher is neither renowned enough to attract a second biography, nor, reading the description of him that is here, do I suspect he will tell the story himself or allow anyone else a second go.
December 16, 2016
Really enjoyed this book and felt it had a lot to say about the Scottish psyche and the stigma of illegitimacy in the very recent past. It reads at time like a mystery novel as the writer and subject of the book uncover more and more of his family history. I found it moving and sad, but all too recognisable.
May 23, 2016
I enjoyed this book although it was a bit spotty. I liked how the main themes were tied to each other, and all of the subplots were interesting.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews