Whatever Happened to Barry Chambers?

Whatever Happened to Barry Chambers? is described as a dramatised memoir.

When he was just four years old Barry Chambers is deposited by his mother at The King's (The Cathedral School) Boarding House in Peterborough.

Shocked by the discovery that her husband is, in fact, a bigamist, she decides to make a new life for herself, eventually setting herself up as a successful fashion designer in London.

Barry's mother is both beautiful and also manipulative and she becomes married to a Jewish businessman. She decides to pretend that she and her son are both Jewish.

Meanwhile Barry is raised as an Anglican at his boarding school, has to cope with being lonely, being bullied, cope with a sexual predator at the school, plus deal with his "lovable rogue" of a step-father and the rather erratic behaviour of his mother.

This all helps to make Barry grow up rather confused about his identity, plus leaving him somewhat vulnerable to being attracted by the wrong set of people.

Why did Barry decide to write his memoir? At his mother's funeral he realised that his mother had decided to virtually airbrush him and his sister Penny from history.

The discovery of his mother's own writings on her early married life compelled Barry (who is Professor Emeritus of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at Imperial College, London) to face up his pent-up emotions of his rather troubled childhood by telling his side of the story.

The book is well illustrated with a collection of photographs from the family archives.

It's a painful but extremely illuminating account of a dysfunctional family.

It's published by The Book Guild at £10.99 and will make a superb Christmas gift for the person who enjoys well written autobiographies.