Growing up in Belfast.

It's strange having two books just published about boys growing up in Belfast, one growing up in the Upper Shankill and another  in Falls Road area of Belfast. Both books about what it was like growing up in Belfast in the 70's & 80's.
A book which opens with...I was born on Tuesday 10 May 1966. I died the same day. Relatives hugged and cried... would certainly be a temptation book lovers would find hard to resist, a book they'd just have to read.The book  Where Are You Really From? tells the story of Tim Brannigan...

Born into a devoutly Catholic Belfast family, Peggy Brannigan was devastated when she became pregnant as a result of an extra-marital affair with a black junior doctor. Unwilling to have an abortion or to have the baby adopted, Peggy came up with an audacious plan to keep her child.

When Tim was born hospital staff smuggled him into St Joseph’s Baby Home and told the rest of the Brannigan family that the baby had been stillborn. One year later, Peggy adopted Tim and brought him to live with her family in the Falls Road area of Belfast. It was 1967.

Told here for the first time, this is Tim’s extraordinary story, describing in vivid detail what it was like growing up black in Belfast during the turbulent 1970s and 80s, his five-year stint as a republican prisoner, his coming to terms with the true circumstances surrounding his birth, and his desperate attempts to trace the father who abandoned him.

Where Are You Really From? is a fascinating and powerful memoir about oneman’s struggle to establish his own identity and a moving tribute to the woman who risked everything to keep her son. Source - Blackstaff Press

It's fasciniating to read articles and listen to podcasts about this book. There's also an opportunity to hear Tim Brannigan @ the 11th Cathedral Quarter  Arts Festival  [Friday 7 May 1.00pm - The Black Box] Tickets available here.

An event/programme with Tony Macaulay and Tim Brannigan talking about their childhood would be interesting to see sometime, hint hint folks.