Thursday's Child : A Life Between the Lines

Paying homage to the famous nursery rhyme, this particular Thursday's Child has certainly come far.

He guides readers into the back alleys of Peckham and Camberwell as a gay British youth in 1960s and 70s, and into present day as Britain's most prolific grassroots social historian.

We enter the mind of a curious and often misunderstood child whose fidelity to family steers him through the turbulent days of teachers-for-bullies, but also anchors his future career as a veritable aesthete, activist, and champion of the people. Readers visit the rubble of World War II in West London in the spectacular reminiscences of Aunt Esther, Stephen's adopted Guyanese-British relative and, in a next breath, are catapulted to the trying if not relatable moments of professional and personal rejection, as a budding film critic and staunch activist for the MET police; to the more elusive and opaque kind: when a love between two dissipates nearly as soon as its begun. This is a vivid and deeply personal social history - an intimate journey through family, war, identity, and the making of a pioneering figure of British public life. And ultimately, an opportunity for readers to bring one of this country's most dedicated historians into the spotlight for the first time.