Comp: A Survivor's Tale
Reviews: for and against
(Click here for an elegy to Holland Park School. Broadcast on Night Waves, BBC Radio 3, 13 June 2007)
‘A light-footed comic autobiography… in an understated way, it also has much to say about how we teach children.’
Adrian Turpin, The Big Issue
‘Flintoff has not written a history of Holland Park Comprehensive, though he has woven the essential historical facts into his narrative. He has done something far more rewarding and entertaining, turning his rite de passage, from cocky middle-class product of the polite Fox Junior School to case-hardened young offender, into a very funny memoir… Comp is a marvellous account of growing up rough in West London.’
Tony Gould, Times Literary Supplement
‘Makes The Lord of The Flies look like a soft-soap cover-up.’
Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian
‘Often hilarious… the timing of a natural.’
Sunday Times
‘The first time the lid has been lifted on the school once dubbed the “Eton of comprehensives”.’
Edward Marriott, The Evening Standard
‘An entertaining and thoughtful memoir… Flintoff’s book manages to be funny while making a serious point… He conveys the blatant hostility of the less privileged, the chaos of adolescent lust, and the comedy of classroom anarchy, while acknowledging the treacherous cruelty of which teenagers are capable. There may be a lesson here, but Flintoff is the gentlest of moralists.’
Susanna Rustin, Financial Times
‘Very readable, in an Adrian Mole-possessed-by-Satan kind of way.’
Roy Kerridge, The Spectator
‘High quality anecdotage and characterisation… Should strike a chord with anybody who’s ever been to school or, indeed, Borstal.’
Robin Askew, Venue (Bristol)
‘Funny, sometimes disturbing.’
Denise Winterman, Hampstead and Highgate Express
‘I hope John-Paul Flintoff is a fast runner. He’ll need to be if his old classmates at Holland Park Comprehensive ever find him. Flintoff has written an hilariously merciless memoir.’
Guy Somerset, Metro
‘Unmissable.’
Joe Jenkins, Catholic Herald
‘It has faint echoes of the tender bravado of Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and gives a nod to the wicked young Amis of The Rachel Papers. But mostly Flintoff writes as his own likeable, transparent self.’
Melissa Benn, New Statesman
‘May not bring much comfort to supporters of the comprehensive system, but it is a fascinating read.’
Mario Basini, Western Mail (Cardiff)
‘It all rings too horribly, comically true.’
Glasgow Herald
‘Comp is a compendium of teenage delinquency… the great strength of the book – which is often funny in the blackest way imaginable – is its non-judgmental frankness.’
Adam Lively, Times Educational Supplement
‘Hilarious, hair-raising narrative… manages to be both supremely entertaining and an invaluable social document. The closing “register” of what happened to Flintoff’s old school friends is priceless.’
Max Davidson, Daily Telegraph
‘Might shock parents.’
Maxim
‘A fun and honest book.’
Lisa Allardice, Literary Review
‘I thought that at worst this book would give the reader a rough idea of what the British education system was about. That was what it gave me.. and then some more. I haven’t laughed out loud reading a book in a while.’
Amazon Reader Review
The bad ones
‘John-Paul Flintoff calls comprehensive schools “comps” – and I am always suspicious of people who do that. It sounds bogus… The tale fails both as comedy and sociology… Enough raw material for a couple of episodes of Grange Hill, perhaps, but not for this 285-page tome. At least, not in the hands of John-Paul Flintoff.’
Robert Crampton, The Times
‘Exaggerated view of life at the school in the bad old days… Take the book with a large pinch of salt.’
Kensington and Chelsea Post
1 March 99