The Gift of a Radio

My Childhood and other Train Wrecks

Justin Webb

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Hardback

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English

Doubleday
10 February 2022

Memoirs; Radio & television industry

Candid, unsparing, surprising and darkly funny, Justin Webb's memoir of his 1970s upbringing is as much a portrait of a strange decade in our history as of his own dysfunctional childhood.

'Searingly honest... gripping... fascinating and hugely entertaining.'

Sunday Times

'Justin is a great broadcaster because he sounds like a real human being. This hugely entertaining book helps explain why'.

John Humphrys

'Moving and frank ... A story of a childhood defined by loneliness, the absence of a father and the grim experience of a Quaker boarding school. It is also one of the most perceptive accounts of Britain in the 1970s.' Misha Glenny

..................................

Justin Webb's childhood was far from ordinary.

Between his mother's un-diagnosed psychological problems, and his step-father's untreated ones, life at home was dysfunctional at best. But with gun-wielding school masters and sub-standard living conditions, Quaker boarding school wasn't much better.

And the backdrop to this coming of age story? Britain in the 1970s.

Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin and Free.

Strikes, inflation and IRA bombings.

A time in which attitudes towards mental illness, parenting and masculinity were worlds apart from the attitudes we have today. A society that believed itself to be close to the edge of breakdown.

Candid, unsparing and darkly funny, Justin Webb's memoir is a portrait of personal and national dysfunction. So was it the brutal experiences of his upbringing, or an innate ambition and drive that somehow survived them, that shaped the urbane and successful radio presenter we know and love now?

By: Justin Webb
Imprint: Doubleday
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 222mm, Width: 144mm, Spine: 26mm
Weight: 377g
ISBN: 9780857527721
ISBN 10: 085752772X
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 10 February 2022
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Out of Print

JUSTIN WEBB is the longest serving presenter of BBC Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme 'Today.' For the best part of four decades, he has been a voice on the airwaves or a presence on our TV screens. He joined the BBC in 1984 as a trainee, and has reported from around the world, as a war correspondent in the Gulf and in Bosnia, on the break-up of the former Soviet Union and the first democratic elections in South Africa. He was Europe Correspondent when the Euro was introduced, and for eight years he was the chief correspondent in Washington DC. Among his awards is Political Journalist of the Year, which he won for his coverage of the Obama presidential campaign. He's a regular columnist in The Times and for the Unherd website. He lives with his family in South London.

Reviews for The Gift of a Radio: My Childhood and other Train Wrecks

A gripping memoir ... fascinating and hugely entertaining. It's extremely thoughtful and shockingly honest. -- Christina Patterson * Sunday Times * A crisp, unself-pitying memoir of a 'trainwreck' youth ... I've always likes Webb on the radio. But I like him much more after reading this book. He offers precisely the kind of brisk honesty and considered analysis he expects from his interviewees. Our politicians should all read it, and step up their game. -- Helen Brown * The Telegraph * [Justin Webb's] affability and easy manner seems even more remarkable after reading [his] memoir, The Gift Of A Radio. The subtitle is My Childhood And Other Train Wrecks, which is apt: the experiences of his formative years would have driven most children completely off the rails * Daily Mail * Moving, darkly hilarious ... In his mother, Gloria Crocombe, Webb records a great tragicomic character. -- Melanie Reid * The Times * This is not a misery memoir, but some painful introspection feeds [Justin Webb's] frank and lightly handled accounts of damage. It makes for engrossing reading. -- Norma Clarke * TLS *