Paul O'Grady first came to fame in the guise of Lily Savage, and was nominated for a Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1991. Likeable and occasionally entertaining though Mr O'Grady might be - this book is certainly not 'hilarious' and ultimately just. What I received was an interesting and not surprising amusing tale of Paul's early life growing up in Birkenhead that was certainly light entertainment. Born to a working class Irish migrant family in Birkenhead, O'Grady went through various jobs in his youth, including working in various bars, for the civil service and for social services, moving around the country to do so. The young Liverpool entertainer, an altar boy from Irish Catholic Birkenhead, becomes the acid-tongued and outrageous drag queen Lily Savage, and moves from gay pubs to national television, creating something of a British comic institution en route (O'Grady's caustic drag character was a world away from safer predecessors such as Danny La Rue).

News from Nowhere will not obtain personal information from other organisations, and will not share, pass on or sell personal information that we hold about individuals to anyone else. Told with pathos, love, empathy, and naturally, biting humor, the story of Paul O'Grady is that of everyman, everywoman, and inevitably, every drag act ever. I am partial to a biography now and then as a change to my psychological crime novels and this one ticked the box.But O'Grady (like other comic performers such as John Cleese) realised that comic creations can have a limited shelf life, and reinvented himself as ‘Paul O'Grady’, coming out from behind the false breasts and towering wigs as a toned-down (but still camp), more audience-friendly TV presenter (wisely, he retained the abrasive voice and a Scouse accent that could be cut with a knife). I have always felt different and alien to this world before I even knew of these labels, before I knew they applied to myself and how I identify. Paul's remarkable childhood and early life is littered with a dizzying cast-list of rogues, rascals, lovers, fighters, saints, and sinners.

I can't believe that by the end of the book he's only just reached the age of 18 and not yet got into show business. I really want to dig out my copy if I still have it somewhere to re-read after the news yesterday of his untimely passing!Personally I do not want to read four books to catch up with his life story, too many books to read.