An absorbing essay in autobiography from the pen of one of South Yorkshires leading historians and football writers, ASheffield Boy is representative of an entire generation, an intriguing insight into a Sheffield which has long since disappeared.Essentially, though, it captures one mans memories of growing up in the East End/Pitsmoor and Woodside districts in the 1940s and 1950s, as he recalls the trials and triumphs of an eventful and often traumatic journey through boyhood and adolescence.Keith Farnsworth writes from the heart with the humour and honesty of an inverterate romantic who, despite a background and circumstances which were often far from ideal, finally achieved success and fulfilment as a writer and journalist after spells as a trainee scale mechanic, junior clerk, boy soldier, hotel porter, salesman and a succession of other jobs.Whether recalling his grandfathers mysterious disapperance at sea, the injustice of being expelled from school, life in a lodging house, or the many Sheffield characters he met along the way, A Sheffield Boy tells a colourful and entertaining tale of life in this great city after the Second World War.
An absorbing essay in autobiography from the pen of one of South Yorkshires leading historians and football writers, ASheffield Boy is representative of an entire generation, an intriguing insight into a Sheffield which has long since disappeared.Essentially, though, it captures one mans memories of growing up in the East End/Pitsmoor and Woodside districts in the 1940s and 1950s, as he recalls the trials and triumphs of an eventful and often traumatic journey through boyhood and adolescence.Keith Farnsworth writes from the heart with the humour and honesty of an inverterate romantic who, despite a background and circumstances which were often far from ideal, finally achieved success and fulfilment as a writer and journalist after spells as a trainee scale mechanic, junior clerk, boy soldier, hotel porter, salesman and a succession of other jobs.Whether recalling his grandfathers mysterious disapperance at sea, the injustice of being expelled from school, life in a lodging house, or the many Sheffield characters he met along the way, A Sheffield Boy tells a colourful and entertaining tale of life in this great city after the Second World War.