Sarfraz Manzoor

written by Rebecca Taylor

Early on the morning of July 7 2005, the suicide bombers who were yet to undertake their assault on London’s transport system boarded a train from Luton to King’s Cross. It seemed entirely natural that Luton should be their starting point. Only a few years earlier, a British Muslim from Luton had been found fighting against the British in Afghanistan, police raids against extremists had become commonplace in the town, and it was the place where Shabina Begum won her fight to wear Islamic dress to school. But journalist and broadcaster Manzoor’s memoir of growing up in a tight-knit Pakistani community in the 1970s portrays the town as if it were on a different planet.

Manzoor’s gentle memoir traces his journey from Lahore, where he was born, to Bury Park, where his family emigrated when he was three, and outlines his struggle to forge his own identity against the backdrop of a traditional Pakistani upbringing. However, the form of rebellion Manzoor chooses is not radical Islam, the magnet for young Muslims today, but westernisation in the form of a zealous devotion to Bruce Springsteen.

The white working-class American might seem a strange choice of mentor for a young Pakistani lad, but Springsteen’s yearnings in songs such as ‘Independence Day’ chime perfectly with Manzoor’s desire to shake off his parental shackles - particularly those of his father, a factory worker who believed in hard work and family values.

Although some of the observations are mundane, there’s a refreshing honesty and thoughtfulness to the writing, as well as flashes of humour - his childhood reading of pornography found scattered on a rubbish dump and the naming of his college band Yasser Arafat And The Ayatollahs of Love are memorably delicious moments. Ultimately, the book is also a paean to Manzoor’s adopted country. As he writes: ‘Those of us who grew up in the ‘80s were still struggling to be accepted as British - we didn’t have the luxury of rejecting the term ... Every opportunity, every job and every chance to pursue my dreams has been offered by this country.’ A poignant rejoinder to the terrorist minority who would seek to refute that legacy.