Friday 18 June 2010

FAMOUS CHILDHOODS 3

 
Russell Brand

“Over the road from where I grew up there was a disused chalkpit and an overgrown and abandoned army barracks. I would go there – losing days at a time – to retrieve newts.

It was amazing that bit of wasteground. Obviously now, through the nostalgic haze of my adult perspective, it seems impossible that this place could ever have existed.

There were these concrete bunkers – utterly featureless, like Stonehenge, but all overgrown with brambles and moss. They were linked by underground tunnels, in which you’d have to completely trust yourself – walking into absolute, terrifying darkness, within which anything could lurk.

The whole place had a mythical; air about it and – informed by reading C.S Lewis and Enid Blyton at a very early age – it felt like a magical kingdom. I was lucky to have a place where my fantasy life could manifest itself.”


Extract from his autobiography, My Booky Wook

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