When he died in 1984, John Rollinson appeared to have lived an undistinguished life, and for the majority of his eighty-seven years this had steadfastly been the case. Yet in the Great War between 1917 and 1918, he had trained at the notoriously brutal Étaples Camp in Northern France, experienced the mud hell of the Ypres battleground, and suffered behind the wire as an Allied Prisoner of War on a diet of black bread and acorn coffee. And then during the Second World War as an army cook, he was exposed to the terrors of Dunkirk, subjected to chemical experiments at Porton Down, and forced to witness the horrors of the liberated Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany.

Based on a true story, The Kaiser, Führer & John is a humbling, remarkable account of stoicism, fortitude, and courage, a tale of two wars told through the eyes of an otherwise ordinary man and his family back home in Liverpool.

From the author of Billy, Eric & Adolf.

In terms of drama, my childhood memoir appears sadly lacking. It starts promisingly, Mum and Dad arguing just after my birth, but deteriorates thereafter into eighteen years of relative wellbeing. The working title Nothing Much Happened always seemed appropriate and yet...

There are the expected family members and friends looming large with tales of big potatoes, ABC Minors, rice pudding competitions, dodgy cars, Shakespeare monologues, co-educational touch rugby, cow pats, leaking tents, baked bean pies, record collections, cigarettes, bitter, Liverpool Stadium, nude paintings, drums, academia, girlfriends, and job interviews. However, less predictable are the reminiscences of shoplifting, corporal punishment, drink driving, fagging, beatings, death, paedophiles, truancy, skinheads, and slums. Furthermore, the backdrop includes Suez, Rock n’roll, Thalidomide, Beatlemania, Labour and Conservative governments, England 4 West Germany 2, Aberfan, the Summer of Love, Apollo 11, power cuts, and the three-day week.

It’s a cliché to say writing can be cathartic, mainly because it’s true. We all have a tale to tell of our formative years. I thoroughly recommend having a go, even if you start off believing Nothing Much Happened. The thing is… you may well end up thinking different.

From the author of Billy, Eric & Adolf and The Kaiser, Führer & John.

Nothing Much Happened is now available as an audio book via Audible. It's what your ears have been waiting for, 7 hours and 24 minutes of my Wallaseyan drawl.