This Boy

This Boy is Alan Johnson's poignant autobiography detailing his early life in the slums of West London during the 1950s and early 1960s.

It centres on his mother Lily, who battled poor health, poverty, domestic violence, and an unreliable father to provide for her children, and his sister Linda, who took on immense responsibility after their mother's early death to keep the family together.

Evoking the spirit of post-war Notting Hill amid race riots and austerity, the book is a tribute to these two women's heroism rather than a political memoir.