Friday 12 July 2013

"Barnado boy" by John Clarke


John Clarke's mother gave birth to twins out of wedlock. Being only allowed to keep one, she chose the girl; John was taken into care by Barnado's. He spent his first seventeen years with them and was then apprenticed to the in-house printer at the Grosvenor Hotel.

This is the extraordinary rags-to-riches story of a remarkable man. There are a host of wonderful characters, from his mother, who can't resist an attractive man, to his step-father, a brilliant engineer who drinks. His life encompasses soldiering, running and losing his own printing firm, and a battle with mental disease.

The character of the narrator is also interesting. He is highly intelligent though rather diffident and a bit of a goody-goody. . He hates the unions! He is deeply religious, has a wonderful wife and fabulous children and he has an irritating habit of forgiving everyone (including the unions).

This is a classic story. It is slightly spoilt by the rather pompous dialogue which does not aspire to naturalism: it is made of grammatically perfect (including the use of 'whom' on one occasion) set speeches. It is definitely spoilt by the occasional spelling mistakes ('past-time' for pastime is repeated) which might be forgiven in anyone but a man who spent five years as a proof reader.

This fascinating life would make a great basis for a novel but it would need significant scaffolding and a much more fluid prose style. 

July 2013; 310 pages

Other memoirs and autobiographies reviewed in this blog can be found here.



This review was written by

the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling 

and The Kids of God

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