At my mother’s knee and other low joints by Paul O’Grady

You would be hard pushed to not know of Paul O’Grady from his alter ego of Lily Savage to his wonderful presentation of “For the Love of Dogs”, a programme about Battersea Dog Home and its’ work rehoming dogs. His self-deprecating humour and human touch with dogs who had had a hard life was always a joy to watch until his sudden death in 2023.

This is his autobiography about his early life growing up in Birkenhead, the child of Irish immigrants and Irish Roman Catholic immigrants. Paul was born in 1955 and if you are around that age you will relate well to his recollections of growing up in the 1960s. If, like me, you were also brought up Roman Catholic in the 1960s there will be even more that resonates with you. We were not Irish Roman Catholics but I could relate a lot to his experiences and like me, the many questions that such an upbringing raised and all the questions it leaves you with later.

His upbringing wasn’t particularly exceptional but his run of the mill stories are those that remind you of your own long forgotten encounters with life. However, it does go a bit mad when he hits the labour market not seemingly able to hold down a job for very long at all. But throughout this his love for the artistic freedom of theatre and showmanship bubbles slowly and is a recurring theme. In addition, it is also, his story of teenage discovery just as J D Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” broke that mould back in the late 40s and early 50s. It is a journey of rebellion, be it relatively modest, of searching for who he is as a human being and ending in grief as he mourns the death of his father and yet a lad barely out of his teens.

Not for everyone but I enjoyed its simplicity.