Book Review - "Scarred for Life Volume 1: The 1970s" by Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence (Lulu Self Publishing)

Kids who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s could tell you some stories. If you think that watching the latest series of "The Only Way is Essex" or "Love Island" is the most horrific thing you'll ever have to witness on the gogglebox, then go find your nearest forty or fifty-something, and ask them what telly - indeed what the world - was like when they were kids.

"Scarred for Life Volume 1: The 1970s" by Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence felt like it was written by two kids from my school, so close to the mark are these two gentleman geniuses when it comes to distilling the very essence of what life was like for me growing up.

Many will tell you that the 1970s were pretty grim. Most people wore beige. Most clothes, cars and buildings seemed to be a dirty sooty grey / brown colour - and yet it was the decade that gave us so much in terms of outright mindfuckery of the highest order.

Everyone will have their own anecdote of that period, whether it's remembering being rounded up like prisoners of war at school and made to sit through public information films (which for me at least meant missing double maths) or (in my case) surreptitiously sneaking books out of the adult section of the local library (or more often from relatives' bookcases) and being horrified at the covers and content. Reading James Herbert's "The Rats" on a school trip to the Big Pit Mining Museum in Wales seemed to be indicative of the sort of time that was had. Yet here we are, ordinary well-rounded members of modern society now reading about this stuff all over again on the internet, or in fine tomes like this.

Brotherstone and Lawrence have a gift for describing these things that haunted our childhood in such rich detail that you can't help but wonder what their houses look like. Media museums crammed to the gills with DVDs, old videotapes, teetering piles of comics and books. A bit like home then really.

There's so much to love about this book. All the things that you think were unique to you as a kid, you soon find out were collectively enjoyed (or more likely scared the crap out of us) on a huge scale. The biggest frustration as a parent comes from trying to describe these things to your own kid. Telling my daughter about "Sha;e" from that infamous episode of Sapphire and Steel (which warrants its very own section un this book) makes this faceless frightener sound as cheesy and non-terrifying as heck. Yet it was the notion of "Shape" hiding in every photo ever taken. I still can't stop thinking about such a simple but horrifying plot device (though I've never watched that episode again, purely because I wouldn't want to ruin something that has such a strong and powerful set of memories attached to it that would probably crumble apart like tissue paper in a thunderstorm if viewed anew as a grown up adult). I'll even forgive these venerable gentlemen for mixing up Rene Magritte and Henri Matisse in their write-up of the episode in question.

My favourite sections in the book are the ones about comics (again making me realise that I spent way too much of my pocket money on the durned things, and probably still do!) and foodstuffs we illicitly sneaked into the playground (often, in my case, as 'swapsies' for more tangible things. Once swapping a packet of monster munch for a Corgi Fiat X-19 was probably the deal of the century as far as schoolboy me was concerned).

There are excellent sections about the paranormal, about Pan Horror books, and so many other things that brought forth the sheer joy of being able to say "I remember that!"

With Volume 2 (The 80s! Yes!) under way, we're definitely getting ready to do this all over again a decade later, with horrors anew. If a third book is in the offing I have a feeling that by the 90s things became so tame that they may really struggle for source material there, but Volume 1 is the quintessential guide to what life was like if you're of a certain age, and are now a slightly grumpy cynical old sod. It will give you much enjoyment, and let's face it, at our age you gotta take as much of that stuff as you can get, right?

"Scarred for Life Volume 1: The 1970s" is out now, self published and available via Lulu Self Publishing