A Working Class Herbert Is Something to Be - Tim Smith - Bog

So what is a Herbert? It's a lifestyle based on the long standing British tradition of keeping your head down while others stampede for the finishing line. They are unambitious little fellows, rebellious, and always ready to slip away from a wedding reception to go fishing. So for one to actually finish writing a book ... well let's just say there was more chance of Boris Johnson decorating his own flat. Of course, adopting the Herbert lifestyle is made a lot easier when supported by women like the author's mother and her six sisters, who were like The Magnificent Seven, only covered in self raising flour. The idea for this book came when the author's childhood youth club was demolished to make way for the London Olympic Stadium. Then, following three life-changing events, what was meant to be a simple memoir for the kids ended with him fulfilling a pledge made to John Lennon some fifty years earlier. The story begins in Newham East London. By all accounts not an entirely happy place. But during the 1960's it was THE place to be. In fact it was the ONLY place to be as his family didn't own a car. For 14 glorious years he lived the life of Huckleberry Herbert. Fishing canals, learning local customs, and avoiding Donny Osmond. Then in 1973 his family joined the Great Cockney Exodus to Romford where he completed his exams, stayed in bed for Peace, and spent the remainder of the seventies avoiding lady strippers as he searched for the mysterious girl who had haunted his dreams since 1967. The story runs parallel with the rise of Beatlemania, Sgt Pepper, Magical Mysteries, Indian Maharashi's, Apple Roof tops and Beatle breakups, and ends in a Romford bedroom in 1980 with the death of Lennon. And it's all absolutely TRUE... apart from a bit on Noel Coward, and having to leave out some of the masturbation so as not to traumatise his grandchildren. We hope you enjoy it as much as he enjoyed not mowing his lawn for ten years.