IN MY LIFE: A Music Memoir

From twanging the strings of his first plastic Tommy Steele guitar, Alan Johnson was determined to become a rock star. His life has always been lived to a musical soundtrack. His earliest memories of the bleak, postwar, pre-rock 'n' roll West London landscape into which he was born are suffused with the melodies that wafted from the rented Bakelite wireless in the slum where he lived with his frail and dauntless sister. His love affair with pop music blossomed alongside the music itself which exploded into being in the mid-1950s and embodied the iconoclastic spirit of a new era. Here Alan looks back at his pursuit of rock stardom and his parallel life as a supermarket worker, postman, union official and father of three through his music on vinyl, cassette tape or blasting from the stages of the Marquee Club in Soho or the Wimbledon Palais. Here are the sounds of Chuck Berry and Lonnie Donegan, of the Yardbirds and Dylan, of Bowie, Elvis Costello and Springsteen and not forgetting the Beatles, the band he has worshipped since 1963. He recalls with affection a vanished world of Dansettes, dance halls and smoky pubs, Flower Power and platform shoes before he was elected to Parliament as MP for Hull West and Hessle in 1997 and serving in five Cabinet positions including Home Secretary. His big break in two local bands never really came and he is honest, poignant and very funny in his nostalgic celebration of music. 261pp, eight pages of colour and archive photos.