I listened to both part one and part two of this on Audio Book because anything written by Alan Bennett can only really be apprecieted by listening to his accent and intonation. The CD is abridged and I would have liked to have read the whole thing, but I know I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. My dad says when he is reading the book (he bought it) he imagines Bennetts voice reading it to him.

In the first part he talks a little about his childhood in Leeds during the war but mostly about his mother's slow slide into depression, dementia and her eventual death. It's never light hearted but somehow it rides the balance of humour and tragedy brilliantly. Talking about his parents - "They stopped going to church because all to often the got roped in after the serviceto take part in a discussion group. "it was a discussion group on the 3rd world", dad wrote to me."well, yer mam and me don't even know where the 3rd world is! Next week it's Budism, we're going to give it a miss".

The second part is his diaries for the period 1997 to 2004. He is a self confessed luvie and he always drops names from theatre. You never think he is trying to show off though, merely that he likes speaking of the various characters he meets in the strange world of the theatre. The first entry is this "2nd January 1997: I'm sent a complementary copy of waterstones literary diary which records the birthdays of various contemperary figures from the world of letters......and so naturally I turn to my own birthday. May 9th is blank.Except for the note "the first British self-service launderette is opened on Queensway, London, 1949"".

Bennett lives in Camden, only a couple of miles from where I do now. I keep my eyes open at waitrose to see if I see him doing his shopping there. I often wonder what, if anything, I would say to famous people I admire if I ever met them. I'm sure I would make a complete arse of myself.