Broken Lunch

Simon Dewhurst was brought up in the best traditions of an eccentric upper-class English family – to a world of privilege, religion and public school (Eton). He pulls no punches when it comes to blood sports, corporal punishment, child abuse, and religion.

His exploits as a soldier, ski teacher, film extra, actor and a cinema projectionist among other jobs, take us from London during the Swinging Sixties to Scandinavia, North America and finally to darkest Africa. The ingredients for the best memoirs are many – his are blue, hilarious, and possibly worrying.

This is a very funny memoir and Dewhurst writes easily with an incisive wit. He has no truck with political correctness. His style is light and airy with little moralizing about the meaning of life, but he is still capable of a good rant when writing about the state of the modern world.

ON PHEASANT SHOOTING
The carnage and noise are difficult to describe – the beaters ululating, the explosions, the whining dogs and the pheasants squawking and thumping to the ground made for the best of film soundtracks. All it needed was a couple of helicopters, the Doors and some napalm to complete the picture.

Unfortunately, that never happened.

ON HIS MOTHER'S DOG
The day I took my driving test my mother suggested I put her bull terrier, who was called Tootle, in the back of the car. Tootle was so laid back that you would have thought he was on drugs to see him tottering along and quite often walking into things. He would stand there with a confused look on his face before finding a way round the obstruction.

ON THE SCHOOL MATRON
The Matron, Miss Dock, was a cynical little woman with a gravelly smoker’s voice and a face like a frog. She wore an old-fashioned navy blue dress and a large nun-like white hat. I suspect that she was not a real matron at all, and had probably been in charge of a group of anti-aircraft gun batteries during the war.