Gloucester Crescent cover art

Gloucester Crescent

Me, My Dad and Other Grown-Ups

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Gloucester Crescent

By: William Miller
Narrated by: Robbie Scotcher
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About this listen

Gloucester Crescent is a curving, leafy street tucked between Camden Town and Primrose Hill, filled with the sound of clacking typewriters and children playing. It's unremarkable in many ways, unless you notice the lady in the van outside one house and the familiar-looking residents crossing the road....

Written through the eyes of a growing child, this is the story of a very particular family and their circle of brilliant, idealistic and intellectual friends in London in the '60s, '70s and '80s. We follow William through the ups and downs of childhood, as he explores the back gardens and homes of his famous neighbours, attends dramatic rehearsals with his dad, Jonathan Miller, fails exams and is bullied at school, gets drugs from the philosopher A. J. Ayer's wife, and tries to watch the moon landing with Alan Bennett and a room full of writers.

Hilarious and at times heartbreaking, this is also about how we grow up and move on - and what happens when we come back. Not only a picture of an extraordinary time in Britain's cultural history - and a hitherto unseen portrait of some of the brightest minds of a generation - this book tells the funny, tender and moving story of a young boy trying to find his own identity.

©2018 William Miller (P)2018 Hachette Audio UK Funny Witty

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All stars
Most relevant
I read this book as I love Love Nina by Nina Stibbe & wanted to learn more about Gloucester crescent. This book was interesting & enjoyable but don’t read the last chapter when you’re in sad mood as it is what it says, how everyone ended up. The narration is really great and not at all annoying which is a real plus!

Enjoyable book

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Ok. this book is ok,let down by the childlike narration and some real corkers of mispronounciation.
The author showed reverence but also incredible ruthlessness in exposing somethings about his childhood neighbours and his family. This ambivalence is at the heart of this book and his relationships within his family and can make for an uncomfortable read.
For me its a book about 'how the other half live' - the wealthy, the cultured, the educated, the liberal, the influential, the important...and how kids - and parents- of all backgrounds mess up. This kid was saved not by what he knew, but by who he knew. For those of us ' up North' who do not mix in such elevated society, this really just demonstrates that for all their liberal, lefty politics, these people really are in a class of their own and that stinks.

hmmmmm

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Enjoyed this very much. Loved the real characters and and life through Williams formative years

Very interesting read

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I wanted to read this book because I loved Nina Stibbe's warm and humorous account of life in Gloucester Crescent. I am also, I confess, a huge admirer of most of its current and former residents. As a working class woman who grew up a long, long way (in every sense) from the crescent and its high-achieving residents, it is hard to sympathise with William Miller, a grown-up who seethes with resentment about his parents' using him as a guinea pig in a socialist experiment (his view) whilst not acknowledging the debt his very successful and lucrative career owes to the same parents' contacts. Get over yourself William; you did very nicely out of it. Why you stopped short of calling this Daddy Dearest, I have no clue. At least Joan Crawford's daughter had a narcissistic to live with and expose in her book. Your dad sounds like a bit of a curmudgeon. Jeez, most of us would have LOVED Jonathan Miller as a dad.

Poor little privileged boy

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It was clearly tough being the son of prodigiously talented and self-centred Jonathan Miller. Poor wee lamb was sent to a nasty rough comprehensive by his liberal parents, when he’d much rather have gone to a nice posh school like them.
After flunking his exams it was jolly lucky he had his dad’s book of contacts so he could set up a TV production company, represent his childhood chum Nigella Lawson and buy his own multimillion pound home in the street. Self made man.

Blind to his privilege

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