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From the bestselling author of Going Gently and the hugely successful autobiography I Didn't Get Where I Am Today. Born into poverty, saddled with a born loser and parrot-strangler for a dad, short sighted and ungainly, young Henry Pratt doesn't exactly have a head start in life. But in David Nobbs's brilliantly funny evocation of a Yorkshire boyhood, unathletic and over-imaginative little Pratt proves he can stick up for himself with the stoic good nature of the great British underdogTags
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This novel covers the first 18 years of the life of Henry Pratt from his birth to his doing his National Service in the British Army.
Born into poverty in 1935 in the fictional Sheffield mining suburb of Thurmarsh, Henry is short-sighted, ungainly and un-athletic. When his parents die when he is a young boy Henry is passed around various relatives and is educated in various school environments ranging from local primary and grammar schools alongside local youths to two years at a fee-paying all boys boarding school mixing with the sons of well-to-do toffs where because of his working-class roots he is a complete fish out of water. Henry hasn't exactly been been dealt a very favourable hand of cards but he is first and foremost stoic. show more
David Nobbs was one of British television's most successful comedy series scriptwriters and his credits include 'The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin' and 'A Bit of a Do', programmes from my childhood.
A lot of the dialogue is written with a Yorkshire accent and I found it a quirky and mildly amusing evocation of Yorkshire life during a certain period of British history. Despite the book's blurb describing it as being "noisily funny" I cannot in all honesty say that I ever actually laughed out loud but I did read it with a fixed smile on my face which is no bad thing. Consequently I found it something of an unexpected surprise and will be looking out for the next book in the series. show less
Born into poverty in 1935 in the fictional Sheffield mining suburb of Thurmarsh, Henry is short-sighted, ungainly and un-athletic. When his parents die when he is a young boy Henry is passed around various relatives and is educated in various school environments ranging from local primary and grammar schools alongside local youths to two years at a fee-paying all boys boarding school mixing with the sons of well-to-do toffs where because of his working-class roots he is a complete fish out of water. Henry hasn't exactly been been dealt a very favourable hand of cards but he is first and foremost stoic. show more
David Nobbs was one of British television's most successful comedy series scriptwriters and his credits include 'The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin' and 'A Bit of a Do', programmes from my childhood.
A lot of the dialogue is written with a Yorkshire accent and I found it a quirky and mildly amusing evocation of Yorkshire life during a certain period of British history. Despite the book's blurb describing it as being "noisily funny" I cannot in all honesty say that I ever actually laughed out loud but I did read it with a fixed smile on my face which is no bad thing. Consequently I found it something of an unexpected surprise and will be looking out for the next book in the series. show less
`"Bugger off", said the parrot is an excellent first page senrtence. Hilarious.
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30+ Works 1,449 Members
David Nobbs was born in Petts Wood, England on March 13, 1935. He graduated from St John's, Cambridge, where he studied English in 1958. He joined the Sheffield Star as an apprentice journalist, but soon realized it was not the type of writing we wanted to do. He moved to London when one of his sketches was accepted for a revue, One to Another, at show more the Lyric theatre. In the 1960s, he became established as a gag writer for popular performers of the day including David Frost and Frankie Howerd. His first novel, The Itinerant Lodger, was published in 1965. His other novels included Ostrich Country, A Piece of the Sky Is Missing, The Death of Reginald Perrin, The Return of Reginald Perrin, A Bit of a Do, Cupid's Darts, and The Second Life of Sally Mottram. His Reginald Perrin novels were later adapted for television as The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, which ran between 1976 and 1979. He also wrote a memoir entitled I Didn't Get Where I Am Today. He died on August 9, 2015 at the age of 80. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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