Back in the Day
The deeply affecting, first ever memoir by beloved national treasure Melvyn Bragg

Quotes

A masterly evocation of his early life in Cumbria . . . Bragg's book, the best thing he's ever written, imbues the overused literary adjective "piercing" with real meaning . . . I can't hope to capture, in the space I have here, this book's extraordinary geography, let alone its strange, inchoate beauty: the way that Bragg, in his struggle fully to explain his meaning, so often hits on something wise and even numinous (when he does, it's as if a bell sounds). All I can say is that I loved it Observer

A childhood memoir bursting with affection and gruff love . . . a charming account of a lost era, full of details and often lyrical descriptions of people and places . . . If it sounds idealised, it isn't. Bragg is clear-eyed about the 'harshness under the surface' . . . a fascinating and often moving portrait of a time, a place and a working-class boy who fell in love with words and made a distinguished career out of using them extremely well. Sunday Times

A moving portrait of a lost England . . . As a feat of dramatised recollection Back in the Day is remarkable. The Boys' Own scrapes and japes - an apple orchard raid, a gang hideout dug into a river bank - come alive like set pieces from his beloved Jennings. Daily Telegraph

Utterly captivating . . . [Bragg] bears his audience in mind, never writing a dull or self-indulgent sentence and thinking about and celebrating other people on every page . . . it's full of rapture and the joy of everything . . . there are darker sides to the story, and they too kept me gripped . . . Bragg is such a persuasive writer, with such clear recall, that he even recreates the excitement of a sixth-form English lesson. I got totally caught up with his falling in love with learning and knowledge.' Daily Mail

Wonderfully rich, endearing and unusual . . . a balanced, honest picture . . .The smoky, damp and introverted world in which livestock are still sold in the town centre, and horses are only slowly ceding to motor cars, is brought to life with subtle skill. Wigton's streets become soot-streaked theatre for a huge cast of town characters for whom the author shows a convincing, rather than patronising, affection . . . If any of our current political leaders wants to create a vision that actually makes people want to vote, they could do worse than prescribe this to their MPs as required summer reading. Mail on Sunday

Beautifully written, lyrical and romantic, touching and tender . . . I enjoyed and admired it all. The Oldie

Rawly truthful and engaging . . . There is a blissful absence of cliché in this personal odyssey, which is at the same time a fascinating essay in social history. i

Disarmingly poignant . . . In other hands this tale would easily be the stuff of cliché, except that Bragg fills every memory and anecdote with both meaning and feeling . . . He has written some 40 books and this lovely memoir is surely the most affecting of them all. New Statesman

A wonderfully full and detailed picture of one particular place at a particular time and an evocation of Melvyn Bragg's intense and enduring involvement in it Michael Frayn

A wonderful memoir . . . a truly great book about what it means to come from somewhere, to be of a culture, to be cultured not in the rarest but the most communal sense. Howard Jacobson