In this elegiac and heartfelt memoir, Melvyn Bragg recreates his youth in the Cumbrian market town of Wigton: a working-class boy who expected to leave school at fifteen yet who gained a scholarship to Oxford University; who happily roamed the streets and raided orchards with his gang of friends until a breakdown in adolescence drove him to find refuge in books.

Vividly evoking the post-war era, Bragg draws an indelible portrait of all that formed him: a community-spirited northern town, still steeped in the old ways; the Lake District landscapes that inspired him; and the many remarkable people in his close-knit world.