acknowledgements
Everyday People
It’s not practical to thank all those who have written miserable memoirs about their terrible childhoods, but collectively they inspired me to write this book with their redemptive and more importantly best-selling tales of woe: abuse, death, deprivation and the search for love among the wreckage. The aim of Where Did It All Go Right? is not to belittle their suffering, or to mock the therapeutic qualities of externalisation, but simply to provide an alternative view.
Shit happens. But sometimes it doesn’t.
The degradation endured by the young Dave Peltzer (A Boy Called ‘It’ and numerous sequels) may in fact be the polar opposite of my childhood, but I started to think in mid-2000 that, hey, perhaps my voice should be heard too. Then I read Paul Morley’s elegant book Nothing and my mind was made up. Perhaps then I should single out Paul Morley for sincere appreciation above all the other whingers.
It almost seems indulgent to thank my family when the book is dedicated to them, but clearly I could not have told my story without their blessing, as it is their story too. While writing and researching it, I spent valuable quality time with them, sorting through boxes of memorabilia in Mum and Dad’s loft and sorting through events in our minds. Of all my grandparents, it was only Pap Reg who looked likely to see the book’s publication but sadly he died while I was writing it. That’s a mortal watershed for any grandchild, and it was for me, but it made the book seem more important to finish. I hope I have done a halfway decent job. I like to think that my late father-in-law, Sam Quirke, would have enjoyed it too.
I read two very different autobiographies during the writing of this one that fed directly into it: Experience by Martin Amis and Frank Skinner by Frank Skinner. One gave me the conviction to run footnotes on the page, the other made me feel a lot better about the occasional coy reference to a teenage girlfriend (if you’ve read it you’ll know exactly what I mean). I also found inspiration in the first published diary (1660) by Samuel Pepys – the guv’nor! – and in Gavin Lambert’s memoir Mainly About Lindsay Anderson, in which he quotes from the great British director’s first diary (1942), aged 19. ‘Its purpose is both to remind me in after years how I felt and what I did, [and] to give me literary exercise.’
Two people were instrumental in helping me treat a labour of love as a literary exercise: firstly my great friend and agent Kate Haldane, who read the sample chapters and laughed (I can’t believe it – I’ve just thanked my agent!), and secondly the man who turned out to be my publisher, editor and pal, Andrew Goodfellow at Ebury. He phoned Kate seemingly out of the blue and asked if certain of her clients were interested in writing a book. I was; she quickly arranged the lunch at a restaurant that stupidly serves wine but not beer, and thanks to Andrew’s long-sighted vision – and his Seventies childhood – a deal was struck.
Only one person read the book before these two did (apart from my mum), and that is Julie Quirke, who wisely kept her own name when she married me. I have taken her advice on style and ethics throughout, and do nothing without seeking her approval, except buy John Wayne DVDs.
Life would have been a lonely writer’s hell were it not for the good people who continue to populate the rest of my life: Adam Smith, Frank Wilson, Gary Bales, Jax Coombes, Julie Cullen, Mark Sutherland, Stuart Maconie, Simon Day, Alex Walsh-Taylor, David Quantick, John Aizlewood, Rob Mills and Jessie Nicholas, Lorna and Peter, John and Ginny, Howard and Louise, Eileen Quirke, Mary and Steve Rowling, the combined Quirkes, Collinses, McFaddens and Joneses; all at Amanda Howard Associates; all at the mighty 6 Music, not least Jim, Adam, Mark, Miles, Gid, The Hawk, Mr Tom, Tracey, Jupitus, Wilding, Claire, Gary, Jo, Mike, Mike, Webbird, Joti, Lauren, Sarah, Jon, John, Antony and everyone else who knows me; all at BBC Radio Arts including Stephen, Sarah, Paul, Toby, Mo, Zahid, Elizabeth, Mark, Francine and all the Johns; Gill, Sue, Colin, Shem, Flynn, Ruth, Philip and all at Radio Times; Sarah, Rachel, Hannah, Jo, Di, Jake and all at Ebury; Jim and Lesley for altering the course of my life; and, while we’re in the corridors of power, John Yorke and Mal Young, without whom …
Name-dropping: thanks to Richard Coles for geographical support, Billy Bragg, Juliet and family for continued inspiration, and to Mark Radcliffe and Marc Riley for laughing out loud at my diaries on late-nite Radio 1: you are honorary ‘dirt collectors’.
Respect to those writing peers who said nice things: Mil Millington, Augusten Burroughs, Rhona Cameron, Richard Herring and Danny Wallace.
Hats off to Friends Reunited, the website that reached its tipping point at just the right time for a book about old schoolfriends, and to all those who got in touch: Paul Milner, Paul Bush, Anita Barker, Catherine Williams, Alan Martin, Dave Griffiths, Craig McKenna, Jo Gosling, Jackie Needham, Kevin Pearce, Wendy Turner, Sue Stratton, Lis Ribbans, Louisa Dominy, Dave ‘Newboy’ Payne, Gavin Willis, Ricky Hennell, Mark Crilley, Rebecca Warren (via Tim Clubb), Andrew Sharp, Jo Flanders, Neil Meadows and Andrew Hoskin. Also to Steve and Julie Pankhurst and Jane Bradley themselves, the smiling face of the nation’s favourite website.
Cheers to Stuart, Vanessa, Becke, Jamie and Gareth for the short holiday at Virgin Books.
Goodnight, sweet Tessie. We should all have such spirit.
This book was brought to you in conjunction with Clipper, Able & Cole, Ingmar Bergman and The Temptations.
Andrew Collins, November 2003