The Undisputed King of Selston

Evocative, beautifully written … conjures locations and feelings almost magically. * Jeremy Vine *My brain has made the decision… I am going to love this book. * Richard Hawley *As an East Midlander myself, although from a leafier part than the mining village of Selston, I found Danny Scott’s account of his unarguable claim to dominion of our homeland shading into something humbler and truer was both captivating and deeply moving. * Richard Coles *A tender, tough and surprisingly lyrical memoir of a working class boyhood in a disappeared world. Imagine D. H. Lawrence growing up in the era of Ronco and K-Tel. Rich and evocative. – Stuart MaconieIf you’re a fan of working class memoirs, you will love this book. Set in the 1970s, it’s full of humour, pathos and charm … I came to love his village, his family and all the other eccentrics who lived there. Danny Scott really is a very clever bugger. * Michelle Collins *Proper working class stories don’t get much of a look-in these days. A shame, really. Especially when they’re as beautifully written as this one. – Noddy HolderBoth humorous and profoundly moving, The Undisputed King of Selston offers us a window into a world now lost to time - a community shaped by coal dust, silent fathers, marching bands, working men’s clubs, camaraderie and a steadfast sense of pride. In this evocative, unflinching memoir, Scott brings to life the Nottinghamshire mining village of his youth, portraying it as a strange sort of utopia, a place that was both comforting and suffocating. Through his vivid and emotive storytelling he captures the magic of a boyhood lived in the shadow of the pit, and the hardship faced by its miners. – Dr Emily Webber, author of MINING MEN

Danny Scott grew up in an East Midlands mining village, serving his apprenticeship as an engineer on leaving school, before moving to London in the 1980s. After a job in counter (industrial) espionage, he became a private investigator, then a painter and decorator, then an engineer again, before becoming a journalist and interviewing people like Sir Paul McCartney, Mikhail Gorbachev, Usain Bolt and Dave Hill from Slade. He lives in Essex with his wife and their young son.