Book description
Tim Bradford is growing up in a small town in Lincolnshire in the
1970s. Market Rasen is not the most exciting place, but to his teenage
mind it was the centre of the universe. Tim is at that in-between
phase between childhood and adolescence, where you are trying to be
grown up and get your first snogs whilst at the same time still
playing with airfix models and making dens.
Tim takes us through his first crushes, falling in love with the
local beauty queen and an elusive Gallic beauty on a French exchange.
His first attempts at getting drunk and trying to impress girls,
forming bands which churned out endless numbers of rubbish songs and
trying to avoid deckings by the local hards. Tim and his equally
hapless friends are gradually working towards breaking free of their
childhoods and moving away from their roots. Life in this small town
was a rollercoaster of mundane happenings. Small Town paints a
portrait of the energy and melancholy at the heart of our generation,
the inability to live for now and the feeling that something better is
just around the corner. Too young (just) to be baby boomers and too
English and uncool to call itself Generation X. It's a universal tale
about dreams, ambitions, brass bands, cubs, rugby songs, football
stickers, tractors, young love and valve amplifiers connected up to
cheap distortion pedals, set at a time of political change and pudding
basin hair.
Tim Bradford is an author, cartoonist and artist who lives in North
London. He has written two other books,
The Groundwater Diaries
and
Is Shane McGowan Still Alive
. He has also been a cartoonist for the football magazine
When
Saturday Comes
since 1990. He has also done a lot of work for
The Guardian,
The Observer
and
The Express.
