These are the highly controversial memoirs of Austin Mitchell, local TV star of the 1970s and MP for Great Grimsby.Austin was the poster boy for Calendar TV at a time when local television had a much greater impact than national TV and its stars were the celebrities of the day. Austin charts his career path and reveals how he fell into his role at Yorkshire Television and went on to become its most popular presenter. He reveals the truth behind some of the most popular moments in TV history, including the infamous spat between Brian Cough and Don Revie. Austin also reveals the massive difference between the politically correct obsessed journalistic world of today and that of the 1970s.After his television career, Austin went on to serve as MP for Great Grimsby taking over the seat in 1977. He is still MP today, but has announced that he will not stand at the next general election.Calendar Boy will be a highly entertaining read for anyone who remembers the glory days of Calendar and wants to learn about the truth behind working life at a hugely popular TV prgramme that many tried to imitate but never bettered.

Shortlisted for the Political Books Awards 'Best Parliamentary Memoir 2018' Austin Mitchell is a political maverick. For thirty-eight years he was a fly in the parliamentary ointment, a recurring itch on the body politic. A maverick may annoy the whips, threaten party discipline and challenge the solemnities of Parliament. Troublemakers they may well be, but the Commons would certainly be a duller place without them. However Mitchell's dissidence wasn't all bitterness without volume control. Rattling the cage, swimming against the tide, pursuing honourable causes and, of course, fighting for his constituency, Grimsby, proved a rewarding career in itself. Confessions of a Political Maverick succeeds in uncovering the realities behind the pretentious parliamentary facade of tradition and the stuffy complacency of Britain's failing political class. Dissenting from the peculiar and highly particular conformity of career politicians dedicated to climbing the greasy pole can be a lonely role, but it can also be fun. It certainly was for Austin Mitchell.

In 1973, Brian Clough and Peter Taylor stunned the football world by taking charge of Brighton & Hove Albion, a sleepy backwater club that had rarely done anything in its 72-year existence to trouble the headline writers. The move made no sense. Clough was managerial gold dust, having led Derby County to the Football League title and the semi-finals of the European Cup. He and his sidekick Peter Taylor could have gone anywhere. Instead they chose Brighton, sixth bottom of the old Third Division. Featuring never-before-told stories from the players who were there, Bloody Southerners lifts the lid for the first time on what remains the strangest managerial appointment in post-war English football, one that would push Clough and Taylor's friendship and close working relationship to breaking point.