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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2013
FIRST EDITION
© John Bishop 2013
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
All images are © the author, with the following exceptions:
Image 9 used courtesy of the Southport Visiter; Image 10 © Runcorn & Widnes World; Image 15 and 16 © Steve Porter (Potsy), Image 17 and 18 © Ged McCann; Image 32 © Daniel Sutka; Image 37 © Paul Home, Image 39 © Harvey Collard; Image 41 © Mark Taylor/tangerine; Image 42 © Hamish Brown, Image 43 © ITV/Kieron McCarron; Image 46 © Des Willie, Image 47 © Rhian Ap Gruffydd, Image 48 and 49 © Tom Dymond; Image 50 and 51 © Rhian Ap Gruffydd; Image 52, 53 and 54 © Rhian Ap Gruffydd, Image 55 © Tom Dymond.
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014 Cover photographs © Rankin
John Bishop asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780007436125
Ebook Edition © October 2013 ISBN: 9780007436156 Version: 2014-07-17
This book is dedicated to Melanie and our sons Joe, Luke and Daniel.
You give me a reason for everything.
CONTENTS
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Foreword
1. Hello World
2. My Dad and Cars
3. A Boy Learning Adult Lessons
4. School and a Friend Called Kieran
5. Teenage Kicks
6. All I Learnt in School
7. Newcastle
8. I Don’t Eat Meat, or Fight Paratroopers
9. Moving On
10. The Manchester Years
11. The Great U S of A
12. Football
13. Time to Grow Up
14. Learning to Ride
15. Road to Bangkok
16. Indian Days
17. A Day in Buxton Changed Everything
18. A Yank Called Joe
19. A Town That Didn’t Exist
20. Marriage, Fatherhood and Idiot Friends
21. Babies, a Surprise I Didn’t Want and the Snip
22. Bad Hair Day, Removal Vans and Broken Hearts
23. Frog and Bucket
24. Sometimes I Try to Be Funny
25. We All Have to Die on Our Arse Some Time
26. Life Saver
27. How a Wardrobe Can Change Your Life
28. ‘Mum, I’m on Telly!’
29. Festival of Broken Dreams
30. We Are the Champions!
31. On Tour
32. It’s Always Better When It’s Full
33. Opportunity Knocks
34. 2010 … No Going Back
35. Sport Relief
36. A Family Day at Wembley
37. Week of Hell
Picture Section
Postscript
About the Publisher
This book is the book I never thought I would write, because I never imagined I would have lived the life that appears in these pages. I don’t regard my life as anything special: like everyone else, there have been times when I have been so happy I have cried and so sad that there was nothing left to do but laugh. Yet to reach the point of putting it all on paper required the help of various people, some of whom I wish to thank here. I have to thank James Rampton who helped me sift through my thoughts to make what is on the page make sense. Everyone at HarperCollins, particularly Anna Valentine for her support from the first meeting to this eventually being printed; a support that has made all the difference. Gemma Feeney at Etch PR for getting people interested in this book. Lisa Thomas, my agent, business partner and friend who took me on when nobody else wanted me and changed my world. Everyone at LTM for their support, especially Emily Saunders, who manages to know what I should be doing when I have no idea. To the lads – you know who you are and, before you worry, this is my story, not our story, so hopefully no divorces will result from these pages. Thank you for your friendship, for the memories and mostly for the material. I have to thank my mum and dad for guiding me through childhood to becoming the person I am today, and thank Eddie, Kathy and Carol for being on that journey with me as part of the Bishop family. You were the people who made the foundations of the man I am today and I will forever be grateful for that love. My wife, Melanie, I have to thank because in so many ways she is the glue that holds these pages together and without her I am not sure there would be much of a story to tell. My three sons, Joe, Luke and Daniel, to whom I am nothing more than just a pain-in-the-arse dad but who have filled my heart in ways I probably have never been the best at showing. I have to thank my dog Bilko – he doesn’t