Product Description

Mum and Dad - Squibs and Bert - were a complete mystery to Brian Thompson as he grew up in Cambridge and London during the 1940s. His mother danced with the Yanks all night and slept under a fake fur coat all day, and when his father bothered to come home he resolutely discouraged Brian in everything. Whilst other children were evacuated out of the big cities, Brian found himself travelling into London, and spent much of the war with an eccentric crowd of ribald relations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39636 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 234 pages

Review
"The bestselling memoir, now in paperback: 'A wonderful book that brings vividly to life one of the oddest childhoods I've ever read about.' Michael Frayn * 'Flawless...genius... this book is evidence of children's capacity not only to survive and thrive, but also to look back and laugh.' Peter Stanford, Independent On Sunday * 'Funny and terrifying in turns... a magnificent study of malevolence, of a husband and wife for whom hatred is more potent than love.' Paul Bailey, Sunday Times * 'One of the funniest - and darkest - war memoirs you'll ever read... a spellbinding story.' Daily Mail * 'Riveting stuff... Evocative and precisely written... a beautifully judged account of an era usually doused in generalised sentiment' Will Cohu, Daily Telegraph * 'Wildly funny... a knee-high view of the strange adult world.' Francis Wheen"

Daily Telegraph
'A a beautifully judged account of an era usually doused in generalised sentiment'

The Sunday Times
'Funny and terrifying in turns'

Customer Reviews

Laughing and crying
Brian Thompson's childhood memoir `Keeping Mum' is the best account of a less-than-functional childhood I have read. He brings the time and place into vivid focus - the reader can almost taste the poverty of his upbringing. As he begins to blossom, despite his circumstances, we cheer him on. The book made me laugh, but more significantly, cry at the unspoken sadness of his mother. I won't be keeping mum about the book - recommended to all.

You must read this book.
This is perhaps the best memoir I have ever read. Brian Thomson's parents were eccentric to say the least, and not in a loveable way. He was perhaps the only child evacuated TO London during the Blitz, so that his mother could 'entertain' American servicemen, and his father - absent in London all week even after the war was over - never missed a chance to humiliate him as a punishment for his 'collaboration'. As a small child he had to bring himself up while his mother sulked in bed, look after his baby brother, hide from the postman and above all "Never tell nobody nothing" about what went on - or didn't - at home. But the extraordinary thing about this book is that it's not only very very funny, but one of the most touching stories you're likely to read this year. It's full of terrible incidents that have you laughing out loud when they could just as easily have made you cry.

There are happier moments - presumably the reason that Thomson is still around and capable of writing this book - with his father's family in the East End, with schoolfriends and early girlfriends ( the authour is only sixteen when the book ends) and, strangely enough, with his parents. There's a brief period of family harmony following the birth of his brother, his mother's unlikely social triumph at a grammar school dance, chats about girlfriends at the kitchen table and even his father belatedly takes an interest in his son's academic career in the run up to his O-levels. Praise for the outstanding results was, of course too much to expect.

Thomson could have written a bitter, unforgiving book about his childhood and nobody could have blamed him, but to have written this funny forgiving account of his parent's stumbling attempts to bring up their family - a thing they were quite obviously not equipped to do - to show how awful they were and at the same time to show them as people, who were, by their own inadequate crazy standards, doing their best, is a remarkable achievement.

This book is more than just funny and beautifully written. It's the most generous, intelligent and tender love letter an honest man could have written after such a childhood.It's unforgettable.

A funny and engaging wartime memoir
Brian Thompson has written a funny and interesting memoir of his wartime childhood. His mother seems to have been an extremely difficult woman and yet Brian somehow survived the experience and is now able to write about his early life without bitterness - quite an achievement.

From his early days, his father had given up on his family, preferring to follow his own course, firstly by joining up to fight in the RAF and then by leading a successful commercial life in London. Brian's mother on the other hand made hardly any attempts to care for her son, disappearing into the nearby city of Cambridge to enjoy herself with American servicemen, and to indulge her passion for dancing. We read of the young Brian waiting by the window in the evening for his mother to return home, then putting himself to bed in the empty house, in terror of ghosts and invading Germans.

Later on, he is sent to live with his aunt and uncle, who seem to do a much better job of bringing him up, until their house in New Malden is destroyed in a bombing raid. Brian recounts wonderful stories of his grandparents and their home in Lambeth, and clearly despite the poverty of his immediate family, he had many warm relationships in his life which balanced out the disaster of immediate home-life. Although his mother obviously suffered from bouts of severe depression, it is perhaps his father who showed the strangest attitude. He seemed to show no guilt whatsoever for leaving his young son with his hopeless "Mum", but on his occasional appearances, seems to treat Brian as though there was nothing wrong at all and that it is a privilege to be taken out for the day by his father.

There have been many published memoirs of wartime childhoods. This one is worth reading and reminds us of the difficulties families faced in coping with the disruption of those years, quite apart from the added problems of living in a highly dysfunctional family at the same time.