Mike Harding

Mike Harding was born into a working-class Irish-Catholic family in Crumpsall, Manchester, in 1944. His father, a navigator in the RAF, was killed returning from a bombing mission four weeks before Mike was born, so it was Mike’s mother – along with her mother and sisters – who were the dominant influences in his early life. In this warm and often hilarious memoir of his early years, Mike Harding recalls growing up in post-war Manchester and the colourful characters he encountered along the way, from his fiery and indomitable Nanna to his schoolmate the Cannibal Queen; from schoolboy scrapes to the beginnings of his musical career.