Untold Stories brings together some of the finest and funniest writing by Alan Bennett, one of England's best-known literary figures. "[Bennett] does what only the best writers can do―make us look at ourselves in a way we've never done before." ―Michael Palin Alan Bennett's first major collection since Writing Home contains previously unpublished work―including the title piece, a poignant memoir of his family and of growing up in Leeds―along with his much celebrated diary for the years 1996 to 2004, and numerous other exceptional essays, reviews, and comic pieces. In this highly anticipated compendium, the Today Book Club author of The Clothes They Stood Up In reveals a great many untold secrets and stories with his inimitable humor and wry honesty―his family's unspoken history, his memories of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and his response to the success of his most recent play, The History Boys . Since the success of Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s, Bennett has delighted audiences worldwide with writing that is, in his words, "no less serious because it is funny." The History Boys opened to great acclaim at the Royal National Theatre in 2004, winning numerous awards, and is scheduled to open in New York City in April 2006. “Surprising, funny, and deeply affecting . . . [Alan Bennett] is a prose stylist of disarming grace and sly humor.” ― The New York Times Book Review “ Untold Stories is intelligent, educated, engaging, humane, self-aware, cantankerous, and irresistibly funny. You want it to go on forever.” ― The Sunday Times (London) “Painfully intimate, stoically comic . . . Bennett's deadpan, self-deprecating humor translates perfectly.” ― David Gates, O, The Oprah Magazine “A great achievement and a book of lasting value.” ― The Guardian (U.K.) “A masterpiece of reminiscence. There is probably no other distinguished English man of letters more instantly likable than Bennett.” ― Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World “It is a glaring example of modern English frivolity that [Bennett] is not simply regarded--with awe and terror--as one of the greatest living English writers. . . . If you want to understand the cultural wars in England now, and if you want to come to grips with a great writer and a challenging mind, then Bennett is your man.” ― The Nation “While he plays the old crank who is put upon by the world as it is, Bennett reveals an eye for detail and a feel for the complexity of human interactions.” ― Publishers Weekly “[Bennett] is a fine storyteller. . . . His memories of fellow actors Peter Cook and Dudly Moore are wry, witty, and honest.” ― Library Journal Alan Bennett has been one of England's leading dramatists since the success of Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s. His work includes the Talking Heads television series, and the stage plays Forty Years On, The Lady in the Van, A Question of Attribution , and The Madness of King George III . His play, The History Boys (now a major motion picture), won six Tony Awards, including best play, in 2006. In the same year his memoir, Untold Stories , was a number-one bestseller in the United Kingdom. Untold Stories By Alan Bennett Picador USA Copyright © 2007 Alan Bennett All right reserved. ISBN: 9780312426620 Chapter One There is a wood, the canal, the river, and above the river the railway and the road. It's the first proper country that you get to as you come north out of Leeds, and going home on the train I pass the place quite often. Only these days I look. I've been passing the place for years without looking because I didn't know it was a place; that anything had happened there to make it a place, let alone a place that had something to do with me. Below the wood the water is deep and dark and sometimes there's a boy fishing or a couple walking a dog. I suppose it's a beauty spot now. It probably was then. 'Has there been any other mental illness in your family?' Mr Parr's pen hovers over the Yes/No box on the form and my father, who is letting me answer the questions, looks down at his trilby and says nothing. 'No,' I say confidently, and Dad turns the trilby in his hands. 'Anyway,' says Mr Parr kindly but with what the three of us know is more tact than truth, 'depression isn't really mental illness. I see it all the time.' Mr Parr sees it all the time because he is the Mental Health Welfare Officer for the Craven district, and late this September evening in 1966 Dad and I are sitting in his bare linoleum-floored office above Settle police station while he takes a history of my mother. 'So there's never been anything like this before?' 'No,' I say, and without doubt or hesitation. After all, I'm the educated one in the family. I've been to Oxford. If there had been 'anything like this' I should have known about it. 'No, there's never been anything like this.' 'Well,' Dad says, and the information is meant for me as much as for Mr Parr, 'she did have something once. Ju