The author

Youth, change, and flashbacks: former Hastings resident publishes memoir

Former Hastings resident Barry Harden has published a memoir of his childhood days growing up in London as the country slowly recovered from the deprivations of the Second World War before being transformed by the cultural revolutiom of the 1960s, as Isabel Lopez describes.

“It was around the end of January 1944 when my father said to my mother, ‘Joan, bearing in mind that it’s your birthday and I did buy you a bag of sherbet lemons, I think we should copulate.’ They did, and I was the unfortunate item they produced.”

Thus begins Barry Harden’s personal narrative, Throwaway: A Memoir of Growing up in Post–WW II London. Born in Sudbury, Suffolk, he was six weeks old when he was shifted to ‘Doodlebug Alley’ in Stanmore. After the house next door was blown away, his family moved to North Harrow, where he resided until age 19.

Like many youngsters of his generation, he was left to his own devices at an astonishingly young age, navigating a treacherous path fraught with a series of escapades—some thrilling, others downright hair-raising. Somehow, he survived.

During the youth-driven cultural revolution of the sixties, he found a haven in the lively jazz clubs in Soho, the beat counterculture, and his writings. Mr Harden vividly and humorously provides an insight into his life—the sights, people, and places he encountered in North Harrow and later in Hastings, where he lived for the next 40 years.

One reviewer wrote: “The few memoirs that achieve genuine literary merit do so by overcoming the psycho-social clichés that buzz like a swarm of mosquitoes around painful recollections and acerbic emotions. The author has brilliantly side-stepped this disturbing pitfall by creating a memoir that handsomely rewards the reader with its rich, down-to-earth charm and laugh-out-loud wit.

“Indeed, it is the humor with which he infuses his life story that makes it commendable; the ability to take life with a dose of levity has probably allowed him to rise above the unhealthy moments.”

Barry Harden has also recently published two political thrillers, Ada & Eddie and Amanita Virosa: The Destroying Angel, with Roundfire Books, two additional works of fiction in the satire and fantasy genres, a short story collection, and a book of poetry.

An animal rights, environmental protection, and social justice proponent, he often injects these themes into his writings. He has lived in the south of France for two decades where he runs a cat sanctuary, and travels often to the sunny coasts of Florida, where he can be found feeding the wildlife and communing with nature.

Throwaway is available from all major retail book outlets globally. See also the author’s website.

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