Where Did It All Go Right?: Growing Up Normal in the 70s

The author wrote this book partly as a counterweight to the large number of "misery memoirs" out there, in which people recount awful childhood experiences. Without in any way denigrating those traumatic experiences, this memoir and others like it remind us of the normal, loving childhood that fortunately most of have had. Born in 1965, Andrew Collins is a year or so older than me and had a not dissimilar childhood and upbringing (though I was - and still am - in the suburbs of London/North West Kent rather than a provincial town like Northampton). So for me there were many nodding moments of familiarity with the details and grain of growing up as a child throughout the 1970s, and some laugh out loud moments. How different our attitudes show more were towards food then. As he says, "A balanced meal for us meant something out of a box, something out of a tin and something out of a sachet....We ate this food not because Mum was lazy or unimaginative, but because everybody did. It was the Seventies, the decade of convenience". However, I did think the book was a bit too long, and I thought the chapters detailing extracts from his diaries from 1973 to 1981 were too long (and sometimes appeared in the book ahead of the narrative describing that period, which was a little confusing). Still, worth reading if you're of a similar age and experience to the author (and me!) show less

Amusing autobiography, supplemented by diary entries, of a lower? middle class boy (born 1965) growing up normal in Northampton, where/when nothing very extraordinary happened. Good, but publishing a second volume (Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now) is probably milking the idea too much.

It's interesting to compare this with two other memoir-ish books by relatively normal male Brits of the same generation:

David Mitchell's Black Swan Green
and
best of the three, Nigel Slater's Toast

Andrew Collins is a journalist and broadcaster and this book is his antidote to all the misery peddled by Dave Pelzer and his ilk. Or, at least, that's what Andrew Collins says, but it's probably just an ego trip like most autobiographies. He alternates diary entries for each year with written chapters. I enjoyed the nostalgia, I'm older than he is but there is enough overlap to trigger all the memories, we also had similar families and lived less than 50 miles apart, even the obscure slang was familiar.

What I disliked was the prose style, in my opinion rock journalists write pretty awful books, the knowing, self referential style that typified NME columns in the 80's, really irritates when sustained for more than a few hundred words, show more and this book really got on my nerves. About half way through the style improved, and by the end I was trying to get the sequel on readitswapit.

My favourite quote from the whole book, comes from the back cover, "They tucked him up, his mum and dad". show less

You had to be there, and if this is your era you'll probably enjoy some of this affectionate and witty account of being an absolutely normal schoolboy through the 1970s. Collins uses his journalistic skills to highlight and make relevant what it's like to grow up outside London in a town or city where nothing much happens (which is of course what it was like for most of us). The bit that was missing for me was the whole teenybopper bit, but I am a girl. Boy's concerns were slightly different. An enjoyable nostalgia trip.

It's my childhood - growing up in London, England in the 70s - amusingly retold. The era when kids spent all their time in the school holidays out on their bikes and just turned up back at home around tea time. Such a shame that modern kids don't have those freedoms. Magical times. Well worth reading. Like a 'Cider with Rosie' for the seventies generation.

An excellent read,mainly I suppose because I also grew up in Northampton,albeit at a rather earlier period.I can however identify with most of the places and indeed some of the people that Andrew mentions in the book.I have also had the pleasure of meeting Andrew and hearing him talk about the book and his life in the Town. The follow-up volume 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now',about his Student days was I fear a big disapointment.

Whether it was just because it was a little too much like my own upbringing or something else, I just found it a little dull. Got about 60-70 pages in but then gave up the ghost.