No Joe Bloggs- my old friend.

No Joe Bloggs- my old friend.

Privately I've always felt that maybe I did have a book in me. I've always written and always written for fun and pleasure. Long ago my literary exploits were confined to pen and A4 paper. On reflection they may seem primitive materials but I've no doubt that they were the most essential tools for a life in writing.

Now though I have three books to my name and they're publications I'm immensely proud of. My story is not a rags and riches but I do think is one that is both worth telling and I hope ultimately upliftingly salutary.

I wrote No Joe Bloggs three years ago quite by accident. I'd just recovered from the  most horrendous mental breakdown and didn't quite know what to do with the rest of my life. I was now 50 with the loveliest wife and loveliest children but more or less at a crossroads in my life. In fact I'd hit a painful brick wall and and didn't quite know what to do next. I knew that I'd written in the past but only occasionally and tentatively and certainly without any of the seriousness or consistency to trouble any modern author. I used to glance at the heartfelt confessions of the celebrity market and wonder whether I could do any better or indeed any worse than them. I decided to give it a go.

I have nothing but respect for the wonderful world of the TV celebrity and I'm sure their thoughts are well considered and very enlightening but at the back of my mind I knew there was something deeply rooted and worth sharing with the rest of the world. In a sense No Joe Bloggs more or less evolved naturally and as the words started flowing I knew I could turn a simple tale about my grandfather's career as a barber into something that began to feel very profound and descriptive. But I did have a claim to fame. My grand-dad cut the hair of England's fabled 1966 World Cup trio of Bobby Moore, Sir Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters.

 I knew there was a story and as I continued to write the more I felt compelled to keep on writing. Slowly but surely there was the moving account of my grandparents and my mum as Holocaust survivors, the nostalgic accounts of my dear lovely and deeply missed dad, his enduring love of the bright lights of the West End of London, the family Sunday afternoon jaunts to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square and my very metaphorical descriptions of London where I tried to give a very sweet flavour of London during the 1960s as I remember it from my childhood. If you like language, poetry and vividly descriptive word pictures then this is the book for you.

This may sound very pompous and vainglorious but No Joe Bloggs is  my personal life journey from the beginning of my life in 1962 to the present day but essentially a story.  There are no precise chronological details or diary notes from the beginning of my life, just an honest, respectful, flattering account of my wonderful neighbours; the people I grew up with; the roads and streets I played on with my childhood friends and then the struggles that came with maturity.

No Joe Bloggs is about what happened to me and what happened to the world around me. There was the sudden sense of isolation and alienation, the shyness, the feeling of emptiness, the sense of drifting, that horrible social awkwardness, the awareness that I'd lost touch with both society and children of my age. Then there was the enduring sensation that I was now on my own. How to explain the autism that I was later diagnosed with

But No Joe Bloggs is certainly far from doom and gloom. There are my accounts of London which are I think vibrant, vital, full of energy and vitality. There are my tastes in music during the late 1960s and then the glorious 1970s, the bands and singers, the movements and trends, the pirate radio stations, the characters from those halcyon days, the politicians with their hilarious mannerisms and lifestyles, the Winter of Discontent, Edward Heath, the power cuts and the pop culture associated with the 1960s and 70s.

Then I talk about my favourite things that are probably your favourite things. Football in Britain during the 1970s had its own atmosphere, players who made us laugh and sing, managers who just invited comment and then the teams themselves. In No Joe Bloggs I've tried to give a very humorous and affectionate slant on a collection of teams both old and new. These are  character sketches or pen portraits of clubs such as Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Wolves, Ipswich Town, Leeds United and Chelsea.

Deep into the middle of No Joe Bloggs there is I think a very enteratining fictitious story about a father and son relationship before the 1966 World Cup Final. Then I move onto the classic authors who unconsciously gave me the inspiration to write and the resurrection of Thomas Hardy. Here I give an imaginary depiction of a meeting with Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens for lunch.

There is an account of my dad and his East End cousin and the afternoon the whole family got together for tea on a Sunday afternoon for cosy chats and lively banter that followed. There was the afternoon my dad and I were taken down to my uncle's toy warehouse at the back of the house and showed  his yellow dusters. In retrospect it was both amusing and charming.

Then there's my dad's fictitious trip to Las Vegas where he plays pool with Frank Sinatra and then the casinos. There are the references to my dad's lifelong heroes such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett and a whole galaxy of the great and good.

I've also included my favourite TV programmes while I was growing up. Here I mention Peyton Place, Lost in Space, Sunday Night at the London Palladium, Starsky and Hutch, The Man from Ironside, That Was the Week That Was, The Frost Programme. I then give a short story about the Apollo space missions and my take on them. I give my take on showbiz figures such as Norman Wisdom, Bruce Forsyth, Tommy Cooper, Dave Allen, Billy Connolly, chat show host Michael Parkinson, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and all of the important newsreaders from the 1960s and 70s such as Richard Baker, Alistair Burnet, Reginald Bosanquet and then my favourite sporting figures.

In no particular order there's Muhammad Ali, Bjorn Borg, Ken Rosewall, Pele, Garrincha, Chris Evert, the great cricketers from yesteryear such as Sir Donald Bradman, Essex cricket club, Graham Gooch, John Edrich and Denis Amiss, Alan Knott, sadly and tragically George Best, Dixie Dean, Len Shackleton and Sir Stanley Matthews.

At the end of No Joe Bloggs there's a return to Ilford, Essex where I was brought up.  Then there are the stunning shops and department stories that made Ilford such a warm and welcoming place to be brought up in. At the beginning of No Joe Bloggs I tried to catch the mood of Gants Hill, Gants Hill Tube railway station, the noises and sounds of the trains, the tourists who lit up and still light up London, the queues outside Madame Taussads, the Science Museum, the art galleries, the art movements and Aquarius the arts programme on a Sunday afternoon with Humphrey Barclay.

There are my memorable movies that I was very lucky to see as a child and teenager. There's my take on Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Fiddler on the Roof, Star Wars, Jungle Book and Bambi. No Joe Bloggs is I think an entertaining, funny, warmly nostalgic and very lyrical account of my perspective on life. I hope you'll find something that'll tickle your ribs and make you smile. There's loads of pop cullture from the 1960s and 70s, something that'll remind of where you were at your time of life. If you like your books that describe special events and moments in our lives then No Joe Bloggs is definitely the book for you.

If you'd like to read No Joe Bloggs my book is available at both Amazon, Waterstones online market place and Barnes and Noble online. To quote the legendary Barbara Streisand. Memories like the corner of my mind.