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Amazon.co.uk Review
When Tom Courtenay left his home in Hull to study in London his mother Annie wrote him letters every week. In them she would observe the world on her doorstep. A world of second-hand shoes and pawnshops, where all the men worked "on Dock" and Saturday nights were spent down the Club. It was a world in which Annie often felt misplaced. Having always longed to write, the letters to her son gave Annie a creative means of escape. "It's after tea now, your father is examining the bath, I'm awaiting Ann and outside it's India". Like his mother, the young Courtenay also felt he was supposed to be elsewhere. Unlike his mother, he was given the opportunity to educate himself and chase his dream. In Dear Tom: Letters From Home Courtenay intersperses recollections of his days as a student actor in the early 1960s with his mother's engaging and enchanting correspondence. Raw but real, her prose not only paints a graphic and gritty picture of everyday drudge, it displays an inquisitive insight into a life that denied a fishwife her dreams. In a world where working-class women learnt to make do, Annie felt at odds with her artistic aspirations. "Just lately I have had the feeling that I am more than one me. It is very strange. There's the me that goes careering off writing, thinking, Then there is the ordinary me that mocks the writing me and thinks she is silly and a boring fool". After his mother's untimely death, her letters became Tom Courtenay's most treasured possessions. Dear Tom: Letters From Home is a memoir of a mother's love that pays posthumous homage to a creative spirit stifled by circumstance. "What magic if, after all these years, people read her letters and are affected by them", writes Courtenay. It would be impossible not to be. A beautiful book that won't fail to touch. --Christopher Kelly
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
In this celebrity era where you just kick a ball a couple of times for England and out pops an autobiography, it is perhaps surprising that someone as distinguished as Courtenay, who helped to define an epoch through films such as Billy Liar, hasn't already written one. Dear Tom goes at least some way to redress that. The bulk of the book comprises letters sent by his mother when he left his native Hull for UCL and RADA. It stops at the point when he attracted widespread and glowing press notices in seasons at The Old Vic . Effectively it's a tribute to her and shatters any well-worn myths about growing up in a post-war working class northern family: No "trouble at mill" here, more the tale of a woman whose active desire to improve her lot proved to be a major influence on the young Tom. Although the letters are warm and touching, the disappointment is that Courtenay does not attempt a fuller account of his life from his own perspective to accompany them.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Anyone who lived in a Northern working-class household in the fifties and early sixties will identify with the picture drawn in Dear Tom.
I was moved to tears by the letters from his mother, trapped by the circumstances of her birth in a world, which in those days, for an ordinary housewife meant a daily round of dreary housework and very little else. Her letters to Tom opened up the door for her to her literary aspirations and in a small way liberated her from this.
It is a real tribute to his mother and the many like her who carried on with the daily routine that was their way of life although their spirits were aching to fly.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Coming from Hull and a similar background (but 15 years younger) I found it fascinating to revisit mentally places of my youth that I left 20+ years ago.
Tom Courtenay had a great desire to move on from his past into better things but wanted to retain his links with the world in which he grew up in.
The story captures what it was like to live in and around Hessle Road, a hard working class area, in the 1950 & 60's and the struggle to exist just after the war.
Home comforts are shown to be at a premium but it describes that materiality is something to be enjoyed but should not be allowed to take over your existance.
His relationship with his mother is tear jerking. She felt she was in the wrong place and position but survived this. Her plight came through in her letters to her son at University beautifully. It shows that you can come from a very different sort of life and enjoy the finer things.
It a story about everyday life that should be read and enjoyed.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As a northen girl I could easily connect with the early years of Toms life and the continuing living arrangements of Toms family.Although I am of a diferant generation it was interesting to learn of life in the fortys and fiftys. It is an easy to read story describing Toms life in a warm and absorbing way.
I could'nt put the book down and felt very close to all the characters.
I felt increasingly sorry for Toms mother and feel her life would have been so diferant if she were to live it now, she appeared disappointed and frustrated with her life. She was how-ever lucky to have the love of her family.
I was a little angry that Tom did not not include his family in his new life and newly found fame, it made me rather sad.
A lovely book ideal for winter nights buy it now and share it with like minded people.
I could'nt put the book down and felt very close to all the characters.
I felt increasingly sorry for Toms mother and feel her life would have been so diferant if she were to live it now, she appeared disappointed and frustrated with her life. She was how-ever lucky to have the love of her family.
I was a little angry that Tom did not not include his family in his new life and newly found fame, it made me rather sad.
A lovely book ideal for winter nights buy it now and share it with like minded people.
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