A Celtic Childhood [Hardcover]

""A Celtic Childhood" is a lovely memoir that reads as if you're sitting at the feet of a grandfather full of stories! This book is full of charming vignettes and hilarious antics." --Compass Book Ratings (formerly Squeaky Clean Reads)

"Deserves to be read for its own brilliance...laugh-out-loud funny...Watkins' tales make for pure reading pleasure." --"Publishers Weekly", starred review

.".. Will appeal to all people who enjoy music and myths and a wee bit of mischief." --"San Antonio News Express"

"A memoir that will remind some of "Angela's Ashes"--except this one is laugh-out-loud funny." --"St. Paul Pioneer Press"

"Watkins' work stands out because of the quality of the writing and the underlying humor behind the facts." --"Irish Voice"

"Guaranteed Good Read: As entertaining as "Angela's Ashes" or your money back!" --HarperCollins Australia
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The Irish gift for story-telling is given free rein in this lyrical, hugely entertaining account of growing up in Limerick and the heart of rural England during the 1950s. With humour and charm, Watkins blends history, song and his strong Celtic roots into a rollicking tale of merriment, mischief and misadventures that seem to infect not only his entire family, but everyone he knows. There is his soldier father, refused entry to Ireland for trying to bring his son a gift of fireworks, and later sacked from his job as a fire extinguisher salesman after setting fire to potential salesman after setting fire to a potential customer's hat; Uncle Sean whose spheraphobia prevents him from eating anything round; Mr Bury the science master, whose special effects for the school nativity play prove all too realistic; and Grandad Watkins whose defiant act before dying of alcoholism is to swallow the secret key to his Masonic trunk. From nights of poetry, music and laughter round the Limerick fireside to terrifying ghost-huting expeditions in a Warwickshire mansion; from illegal activities with a ham radio to being kicked out of Ireland for vagrancy - Watkins' boyhood pranks are told in rich, expressive prose that never flags. With a keen sense of rhythm and cadence that stems from the Celtic oral tradition, this is a book that sings on the page.

Bill Watkins was born in Birmingham in 1950, of an Irish mother and a Welsh father. His childhood was divided between his Irish grandparents in Limerick and his parents' caravan on a site near Stratford on Avon, with visits to his paternal grandparents in Birmingham. Both his parents were traditional singers, and he learned to play the tin whistle, guitar, banjo, mandolin and fiddle. On leaving school he spent a year earning a living as a musician in Ireland, then served as a maritime radio officer before making his career in the theatre, films and television.