Am Yow The Comic?: Memoirs of a Black Country Comedian

by Peter Bullock

Peter Bullock was a teacher for over 30 years, during 20 of which he was Head of the English Department at King Edward the Sixth School, Stratford-Upon-Avon (Shakespeare's old school). However, in the early years he lived a 'double life' as he was a semi-professional entertainer in Birmingham and the Black Country. In this book he describes his love of the old Variety theatres and his own experiences as a performer in the pubs and clubs of the Midlands - and the other half of his double life!

48 pages, Paperback

Published March 8, 2019

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book isn't going to be an international best seller but for a select bunch of boys who were taught English grammar by Mr Bullock, the title alone will bring back memories: "s'matter with yow boy?" is a phrase that my schoolfriends and I throw at each other to this day, nearly 30 years later. We even have a Facebook page ('Wednesday Period 8', named after our weekly dose of punctuation, figures of speech and grammatical style) dedicated to finding grammatical and amusing spelling mistakes that we hope would make Mr Bullock suitably cross.

There was always a school story that our disciplinarian English teacher had an alter ego, living a second life as a stand-up commedian. The book is a short and entertaining reminscence of the Midlands variety comedy circuit in the post-war years, which proves the rumour.

If Mr Bullock reads this, know that one of his last cohorts remains grateful to this day for the grounding in English grammar we received. And I hope that I've not left any errors in this review that would merit a conduct mark!