When We Were Young

In John Burningham's enchanting and truthful compendium of childhood, the well-known and the unknown contribute funny, moving, magical and occasionally dark childhood memories. From Michael Palin's memory of seaside holidays with his dad and Seamus Heaney's evocation of a crashed Cadbury's chocolate van 'a trail of silver papers up the road', to the institutional upbringing of the mixed-race child of a black GI in the 1950s and a typical rural childhood in the Scottish highlands, it is full of evocative memories. And woven into the mix is a rich selection of quotations and fifty more of John Burningham's witty and poignant drawings.

Full list of contributors- Lord Archer, Kathleen Cassidy, Brian Cox, Josslyn Gore-Booth, Yoram Gross, Roger Hancock, Seamus Heaney, Patricia Hodge, Rolf Inhauser, Penelope Lively, Cornelia McCosh, Marina Mahler, John Major, Tom Maschler, Deborah Moggach, Piers Morgan, Andrew O'Hagan, Baroness O'Neill, Michael Palin, Jan Pienkowski, Tim Piggot Smith, Billy de Quick, Maurice Sendak, Rt. Rev David Sheppard, Posy Simmonds, Sylvia Sims, Donna Tartt, Alexander Thynne (Marquess of Bath), Benjamin Zephaniah.