Childhood

Alan Hemming grew up on a small farm in England in the fifties and sixties. In this, the first volume of his autobiography, he provides an unusually frank and personal memoir of his childhood. After setting the scene with some pen portraits of his extended family, the story is told in a number of parallel strands, including School, Farm, Holidays, Religion and Punishment. There are idyllic summers on the farm and traditional seaside holidays, but there are also the pressures of school under tyrannical headmaster Mr Rigby, and the burden of an oppressive church life. Childhood innocence doesn’t last forever. As he grows older, Alan develops a private obsession of his own, and he becomes aware of a massive secret which could tear his family apart.