Ruskin Park: Sylvia, Me and the BBC

‘Ruskin Park is so much more than a memoir. It is tribute to
an individual woman and a whole generation and class.’ – Justin Webb, The Sunday Times

‘Ruskin Park is Rory Cellan-Jones’s touching tribute to
both his parents, but particularly to the mother he came to know more fully
from the letters she left behind’ – Daily Mail

‘A captivating family detective story and a
poignant social history of Britain.’ – Observer

Can we ever really know the truth about our
parents? From the popular journalist, podcaster and tweeter about his rescue
dog #SophiefromRomania comes a moving memoir in search of the truth behind his
isolated childhood and absent father.

Rory Cellan-Jones knew he was the child of a brief love affair between two
unmarried BBC employees. But until his mother died and he found a previously
unknown file labelled ‘For Rory’ he had no idea of their beginnings or ending,
and why his peculiarly isolated childhood had so tested the bond between him
and his mother. ‘For Rory, ‘ his mother had written on the file ‘in the hope
that it will help him understand how it really was …’

This is a compelling account of what Rory uncovered in the papers, letters and
diaries; a relationship between two colleagues (two romantics) and the
restrictive forces of post-war respectability and prejudice that ended it. It
is also an evocation of the progressive, centrifugal force at the centre of all
their lives – the BBC itself.

Both tender and troubling, the drama moves from wartime radio broadcasts, to
the glamour of 1950s television studios, to the golden era of BBC drama. His
father may have directed The Forsyte Saga
and Rory may have watched him from the corridors, but he would never actually
meet him until much later in adulthood. Until then Rory’s life was bound to the
one-bedroom flat he shared with his mother in Ruskin Park …

‘I loved this highly evocative, unpretentious
memoir. It’s a small-scale BBC drama in itself.’ – The Times

Author: Rory Cellan-Jones
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: September Publishing
Published: 11/07/2023
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.60w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9781914613432
Language: English