Mostly We Had It Good: A Baby Boomer's Journey

by Tim Albert

When Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously stated, ‘You’ve never had it so good’, the 10-year-old Tim Albert was being miserable, stuck on a hill in an-all-boy school. But despite an at times unhappy start, some dreadful mistakes and a rather unpleasant illness, he came to realise that he had been born in a lucky place and at a lucky time – and was lucky to be still alive. In this idiosyncratic and insightful look at the second half of the twentieth century, the author combines family material with his own recollections and writings as a journalist. He drops, albeit briefly, such names as Teddy Kennedy, EM Forster, Libby Purves, Jimmy Savile and Saddam Hussein. He also witnesses such historic milestones as the post war recovery, the drive for fairer education – and the first attacks on the NHS.
'Utter;y delightful - charming, funny, thoughtful, wonderful style,' - Mary Banks

345 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 23, 2017

About the author

My first published work was in 1964 when I won a school prize for an angst-ridden sonnet about climbing up a municipal rubbish dump.
My latest work is somewhat lighter - it describes a repeat trip I took around the United States on Greyhound buses after a gap of 50 years.
In between I have had one career as a journalist writing for local, national and medical publications - and another as a communications trainer, trying (with limited success) to persuade doctors and other health professionals that they do not need to write in pompous prose.
I have published four books on medical writing, a memoir and a travel book. I live in in Surrey, England with a saintly wife and a needy garden.

Reviews

[Monica Weller · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Go to a toy shop'

There is something special about waking in the morning, holding this book in my lap and reading it for an hour before getting up. The very feel of it puts life in perspective. For ten days I was transported into Tim Albert's world. A world that's been filled with how to write clearly! En route I laughed with "elevated the discomfort: or should it be 'alleviate' and about living with attacks of ulcerative colitis. I often read crime fiction. This book was a deviation. It's quirky. I liked the clipped descriptions of Tim's getting through life in the journalistic world, his remarkable chances, and his passionate belief that life will go on. What I found even more remarkable was how he transformed the raw material he'd gathered over 70 years into this very readable memoir, creatively transforming his life in medical journalism into stories about the 20th century. Never boring. Often fun and entertaining. History is passed on in many ways and 'Mostly we had it good' is one of them.

[Liz Wager · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wry yet warm account of a a life and career that's included journalism, running a small business, and teaching the French to appreciate cricket.