"If you only associate workhouses with Oliver Twist, think again. They existed long after he survived his, as this sometimes heart-breaking memoir shows." "Born to a 68-year-old East Anglian farmer in 1922, Gerald Green's early years as a 'son of the soil' in a small Fenland village community were hard, but with a loving father, an affectionate mother, brothers and sister all around him, life was ... as it should be. How was he to know that he was 'different', even when the word 'bastard' was whispered in his ear? What did that mean?" "Gerald's world was shattered when, aged nine, the family farm was taken away from them. Who cared? No one, it seemed. They were no more than one of the many casualties of the 1930s Depression." "How the author coped with the institutional life he was assigned to, how he survived the humiliations he was subjected to, the highs and the lows of his subsequent life, are the subject matter of this enthralling autobiography. Of particular interest is the change in attitude to the state of illegitimacy - uncommented on today, but a matter of shame in Gerald's day."--BOOK JACKET.