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Product Description
Product Description
Wrestler-turned-film-and-television actor Pat Roach tells his life story to his co-writer Shirley Thompson. This book traces Pat's life from poverty-stricken childhood to famous celebrity. It reveals "the man behind the image", and covers his achievements in the field of sport, film and television. "If" also contains several close encounters with death - and Pat's charity work. The book is designed for an international readership, and a broad range of interests: the "Auf Wiedersehen" series in particular, biographies in general, travel, architecture, sports, television and film buffs, local history and canal enthusiasts; actors, film technicians, stuntmen, photographers and directors. Pat's travels to the "four corners of the earth" figure prominently: time spent in India wrestling opponents such as Dara Singh, the Asian film and television actor/director. The range of contributors and subjects is extremely diverse, and includes Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Ryan O'Neal, Steven Spielberg, Martin Shaw, Sheila White, Vic Armstrong, Stanley Kubrick's family, and his former personal assistant, Anthony Frewin. Pat's family and friends feature prominently, alongside former residents of Ladywood, Balsall Heath and other Birmingham districts, where his roots lie.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
39 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have just finished reading this book and could not put it down, the book is an excellent read and very interesting even if you are not a Pat Roach fan.
It begins with Pat's early life in Birmingham and on how he was brought up by his family, it details his many experiences as a youngster and gives you alot of information on canals and local landmarks.
It also contains tons of information on his wrestling and acting careers and his encounters and meetings with fellow celebrities, with contributions from Steven Spielberg, Arnold Schwarzenneger and the rest of the cast from Auf Wiedersehen, Pet to name but a few.
This book also details all of Pat's appearances in Films and on TV.
An excellent read and well worth the money!
It begins with Pat's early life in Birmingham and on how he was brought up by his family, it details his many experiences as a youngster and gives you alot of information on canals and local landmarks.
It also contains tons of information on his wrestling and acting careers and his encounters and meetings with fellow celebrities, with contributions from Steven Spielberg, Arnold Schwarzenneger and the rest of the cast from Auf Wiedersehen, Pet to name but a few.
This book also details all of Pat's appearances in Films and on TV.
An excellent read and well worth the money!
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I wished for more from this book, it was written as an interview rather than a biography more pages were spent on name dropping by the author than on pat roach him self. If I wanted a book on Stanley Kubrik i would have bought one.Many pages wasted on other people rather than Pat. great disappointment. Sorry Pat
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an extraordinary book! Not only could it qualify as the worst biography ever written but would also be a very strong contender for the worst book I've ever read.
With sliding tenses, dangling modifiers, poorly juxtaposed narrative elements, non-sequiturs, poor attribution of quotes and anecdotal references that confuse more frequently than they illuminate, it reads more like a modest undergraduate essay on Social History than a professional biography. As such it is likely to infuriate and disappoint fans of biography and Pat Roach in equal measure.
With tortured syntax and punctuation errors populating every page (including an, abundance of, commas in odd, places) the determined reader must be prepared to cast back and forth through the cliché-ridden and leaden prose to try and divine narrative meaning, sense and purpose.
In this regard, one of my favourite paragraphs is:
'Dolly recalls that Frank could be very cruel at times. "If I didn't
get the sharp cheese, I'd get a back-hander. But I won the day. He
was going to kill me. I won my child and he'd got to pay me 15/- a
week, which was a hell of a lot of money, because it was £2. 10s.
then."'
I've read it dozens of times and I am unable to make any sense of it despite having a thorough understanding of British pre-decimal currency .
The text - blithely assuming you've inferred anything at all from the points thus made - then breezily continues:
'Despite such difficulties, it is clear that both father and son had
a special affection for one another. According to Dolly, although he
was separated from his family, Frank 'thought the world of Pat'.'
thereby creating some momentary gender confusion via the introduction of a misplaced sub-clause. And so it continues.
This book does no justice to Pat Roach and stands as a very poor tribute to his memory for those fans who remember him with affection. Rather it represents a minor embarrassment at the tail end of his career since he clearly endorsed the text - or its authorship at least - and was apparently unable to discern the poor quality of work done of his behalf by his co-author, Shirley Thompson, who it seems was responsible for the overwhelming majority of the research, collation, narrative structure, composition and initial editing (Pat's contributions appear to have been transcribed from recorded interviews). The book appears to be written by someone overwhelmed by the material, such that the narrative path becomes informed by the material available for inclusion instead of the material being selected judiciously to illustrate a pre-planned narrative.
This is the rarest of things - a book so bad that one cannot quite believe how bad it is, nor that it found its way into print in its present format, nor that any publishing house was prepared to let it represent its imprint without thorough editing and revision. Those who understand the temptation to waggle a bad tooth will understand why owners of this tome will be revisiting it occasionally, glancing through it in amazement tinged with regret. Pat Roach deserved a lot better than this but that's not stating the case clearly enough. Pol Pot would deserve better than this!
With sliding tenses, dangling modifiers, poorly juxtaposed narrative elements, non-sequiturs, poor attribution of quotes and anecdotal references that confuse more frequently than they illuminate, it reads more like a modest undergraduate essay on Social History than a professional biography. As such it is likely to infuriate and disappoint fans of biography and Pat Roach in equal measure.
With tortured syntax and punctuation errors populating every page (including an, abundance of, commas in odd, places) the determined reader must be prepared to cast back and forth through the cliché-ridden and leaden prose to try and divine narrative meaning, sense and purpose.
In this regard, one of my favourite paragraphs is:
'Dolly recalls that Frank could be very cruel at times. "If I didn't
get the sharp cheese, I'd get a back-hander. But I won the day. He
was going to kill me. I won my child and he'd got to pay me 15/- a
week, which was a hell of a lot of money, because it was £2. 10s.
then."'
I've read it dozens of times and I am unable to make any sense of it despite having a thorough understanding of British pre-decimal currency .
The text - blithely assuming you've inferred anything at all from the points thus made - then breezily continues:
'Despite such difficulties, it is clear that both father and son had
a special affection for one another. According to Dolly, although he
was separated from his family, Frank 'thought the world of Pat'.'
thereby creating some momentary gender confusion via the introduction of a misplaced sub-clause. And so it continues.
This book does no justice to Pat Roach and stands as a very poor tribute to his memory for those fans who remember him with affection. Rather it represents a minor embarrassment at the tail end of his career since he clearly endorsed the text - or its authorship at least - and was apparently unable to discern the poor quality of work done of his behalf by his co-author, Shirley Thompson, who it seems was responsible for the overwhelming majority of the research, collation, narrative structure, composition and initial editing (Pat's contributions appear to have been transcribed from recorded interviews). The book appears to be written by someone overwhelmed by the material, such that the narrative path becomes informed by the material available for inclusion instead of the material being selected judiciously to illustrate a pre-planned narrative.
This is the rarest of things - a book so bad that one cannot quite believe how bad it is, nor that it found its way into print in its present format, nor that any publishing house was prepared to let it represent its imprint without thorough editing and revision. Those who understand the temptation to waggle a bad tooth will understand why owners of this tome will be revisiting it occasionally, glancing through it in amazement tinged with regret. Pat Roach deserved a lot better than this but that's not stating the case clearly enough. Pol Pot would deserve better than this!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Very poorly written
I am a big Auf Wiedersehen fan and loved Pat Roach.
This was so poorly written and really did not get over
Pat`s views and Feelings. Read more
This was so poorly written and really did not get over
Pat`s views and Feelings. Read more
Published on 28 Feb 2010 by Sf Connolly
Don't buy.
Very, very dissapointing this book.... it's so pooly written, its all over the place... I wanted a book about Pat but like the other reviewer said, its full of boring pages about... Read more
Published on 25 April 2009 by Adrian
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