Babycham Night: A Boyhood at the End of the Pier

by Philip Norman

Philip Norman's family considered themselves genteel yet somehow became involved in the opportunistic world of seaside trade on the Isle of Wight. With masterly skill, Norman recreates his upbringing among this gallery of social misfits-his handsome but unstable father Clive, once a dashing RAF officer, now a reluctant showman at the end of Ryde Pier, his pub-owning Uncle Phil, who dresses as a woman every New Year's Eve, and his irresistible Grandma Norman who presides over her rock kiosk and rules the troubled family like a Mafia don. The year is 1953. The coronation creates a mood of national optimism and euphoria, reflected in the bubbly new drink called Babycham. But while Britain celebrates, ten-year-old Philip watches disaster approach in his father's growing obsession with Joan, the Bronze Medal roller skating champion.Finally, he concocts a stratagem to win his parents' attention which explodes spectacularly in his face. Funny and poignant, Babycham Night evokes the joys and heartache of childhood, and takes the reader on a nostalgic trip back to a lost era, when the Isle of Wight was an exotic holiday location and Babycham the height of sophistication.

Genres: Biography, Autobiography

330 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Neale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philip Norman has made a career in music journalism, writing ‘acclaimed’ biographies of The Beatles, The Stones, Buddy Holly and others. As such writing goes, Norman’s is among the best, by all accounts – but, quite honestly, celebrity musical biography is a pretty dismal and disposable field. I’ve just been looking into his recent Jagger bio. There’s a certain prurient interest, at times, but basically the early parts are dull, and the later parts are tiresome. (Not Norman's fault - Jagger's. What a dick.) If some genuine connection could be made between the music and the life and the era, perhaps. But this never seems to happen.

‘Babycham Night’, on the other hand – what a wonderful book. The biographer to the rock gods has finally found a proper subject: himself, his family, childhood. Growing up in the early fifties, on an entertainment pier in the Isle of Wight. It’s an exquisite evocation of post-War British family life, just before rock-n-roll kicked in. Better than a novel. Funny and sad and wise and beautifully written. ‘All the day’s trippers had arrived, and were down in the town, overflowing the pubs and gift shops or packed in a glitter like massed flies’ wings along the beach...” It says more about what happened to the world in the era that was to come, musically and socially, than all of the ‘acclaimed’ (‘controversial!’, ‘definitive!’) biographies together...

[David Highton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A childhood autobiograhy by the journalist and author Philip Norman. Principally based around the Pier at Ryde in the Isle of Wight from 1950 t0 1956, his family life provides a difficult backdrop to a lonely transition to adolescence.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

c2003. This was also on sale at the library having been withdrawn. What a delight! It does make it marginally more interesting that I have actually visited Ryde but not long enough or often enough to know the places that are referred to. I found this to be vaguely reminiscent of My Family and Other Animals but much darker. Humorous and really descriptive with such well drawn characters that at one stage I thought that he had "adopted" my family instead of writing his own. FWFB: tawdry, unstable, infidelity, observant, stratagem. FCN: Clive Norman, Grandma Norman, Joan Salsbury, Mrs Kennie, Uncle Wally. "The same chil always grips my heart to see that orderly, untroubled black-and-white world and realize that I'm in it too, somewhere."