Tales From The Back Green

The much loved Scots actor Bill Paterson was brought up in Scotland in those halcyon days of post-war Britain when a child could still play happily - and safely - in his own back green and the streets beyond. Now, in "Tales from the Back Green", he evokes his boyhood and youth in Glasgow's East End during the 1950s, full of intriguing characters and extraordinary events. Always eager to push the boundaries of what they were allowed to do, Bill and his mates construct a giant dust 'atomic' bomb, try to hold their own World Cup tournament, learn history from a man who'd lived in the tenement since the nineteenth century and play endlessly on wasteland 'over the Molly', an area beyond the Molendinar burn that's now unrecognizable from the exciting jungle of his childhood. Then there were the trams, vessels of excitement and delight which were so much part of his growing up and the beginning of his career as an actor. "Tales from the Back Green" is not only a brilliant realisation of a time and a place, but a classic memoir of childhood that will strike a chord with everyone who's ever played and dreamed with little thought of life 'when I grow up'.