BLAKE MORRISON Things my mother never told me ***

Not in the same league as his 'And when did you last see your father', but still very interesting.

His mother, brought up an Irish Catholic and one of 20 children, virtually took on (or had forced upon her by her husband) a new identity as a Yorkshire doctor.

Her Catholic past and her large family were never mentioned and were news to Blake Morrison when he read his parents' love letters after they'd both died.

Most of the book is to do with their courtship. Neither of them comes across as particularly pleasant or attractive, and his father seems a real bully. Nevertheless it's fascinating about life - and particularly life for a doctor - during the war when he was a doctor with the forces (and bored out of his skull) and she was an overworked junior doctor in a succession of UK hospital posts.

I don't know if the design of the book (cover and internal lay-out) was meant to be retro, but it's a horribly dowdy book!