Book description
John Hay is one of the Common People. Growing up on the Common
council estate in a London suburb in the 1960s and 1970s is at first
idyllic. The Beatles, Blue Peter and The Beano fill the
senses and soccer, scrumping and splits provide the pastimes. But
encounters with the police, paedophiles, pretty girls and bullies soon
bring down the curtain on childhood innocence.
With his friends from the estate, John passes through comprehensive
school and out into the world of work. Experiences with drink, drugs,
petty crime and hooliganism quickly follow, and the boys enter a
lifestyle of sustained nihilism. One follows a route to hard drugs;
while the others relentlessly chase the crack, the laugh, the buzz.
Finally, as his fortieth birthday approaches, John recalls those
formative years and the characters. He reflects on the various paths
their lives have taken in the meantime and mourns for the time when he
never felt more alive. This process spurs him into doing something not
even he can understand . . .
In Common People, Martin Knight - best-selling author of
Hoolifan and The Naughty Nineties, the highly acclaimed
books on football hooliganism and working-class culture - evokes the
places, the people and the times in an absorbing, entertaining style.
Martin Knight is the author of
Battersea Girl
and co-author of
Hoolifan
,
The Naughty Nineties
and autobiographies of George Best, Peter Osgood, Charlie Cooke and
Dave Mackay.
