Author Description

A funny British romantic comedy about growing up on Tyneside in the 1960s. If you are an old codger who wants to remember the 1960s, or a young codger who wants to know what the Swinging Sixties were really like, then this is the book for you...Not every young man in the 1960s could be a Michael Caine or a Terence Stamp. And unfortunately for him, Jack Preston is one of those who clearly aren't in that ultra-cool league...Jack is an eighteen-year-old working class boy from Tyneside who finds himself in the spring of 1964 at a crossroads in his life, with his A levels fast approaching. Jack is finding it increasingly hard to motivate himself for this stern test, and seems determined to throw away his chance to escape from his dreary working class background... His teachers certainly seem to have given up on him completely, along with everyone else. Jack's problems in these final few months of school are compounded when the staggeringly beautiful Claire Emerson arrives in the Sixth Form like a whirlwind, and distracts him even more from the problem of getting good enough grades to win an engineering scholarship to Sheffield University. As if that isn't enough, Jack also gets drawn by the young and sexy French teacher, Madeleine Wood - ubiquitously known as "Miss Woof" - into taking part in the school drama production of Dracula. Against his better will, and entirely with the purpose of getting closer to Claire who is playing the heroine Mina, Jack finds himself inducted into the production as the Prince of Darkness. Jack is soon engaged in an intense, no-holds-barred rivalry with the pinup boy of Fellgate Grammar, Danny Hapgood, for Claire's affections.Obsessed with Claire, and losing interest in academic work, he struggles to keep up with his clever friends Mal and Russ, or even his dopier, sex-obsessed friends Bill and Dave. Looking for salvation, Jack finds help for his schoolwork in the unlikely (and chunky) shape of Rebecca Pope, the girl next door, political act