Growing up in the 60s seems to have been a time of new energies and new ideas, a period of breakfast cereals, TV, comics and pop music. However, for the baby boom generation whose childhood was shaped by that decade they were still growing up in the shadow of the austere post-war years. Christopher Fowler was one of those children, growing up in London's leafy and unswinging suburb of East Greenwich, a place that still felt attached from the city centre before their house was demolished for a six-lane motorway, and Blackheath, with its abundance of tearooms and antique shops. Paperboy is a bittersweet memoir, sprinkled with engaging humour, which offers a nostalgic trip into those formative years of childhood and how they shaped his imagination that turned him into the writer he is today.

For young Chris it was not the happiest of family lives. His hard put-upon mother, Kath, took on the role of breadwinner and caretaker, whilst his father, Bill, indulged in half-hearted DIY and couldn't cut himself free of his domineering mother's apron strings. who insisted he eat with her every night. It left him a man unable to conquer his inner demons. However, Chris found an escape route from his lonely, disjointed homelife through fantasy and books. They offered him adventures in foreign lands, exploring new civilizations, encountering alien planets. His passion was nurtured first through Superman comics and other comicbook superheroes. Once he had ventured into the local library, he found an Aladdin's cave of bound treasures, an endless supply of books of all shapes and sizes. His hunger grew helped by purchases of dog-eared paperbacks from second hand book shops as well as TV series such as Dr Who which strangely dealt with alien worlds and yet seemed to reflect aspects of his own family life.

His appetite grew ever more voracious once he was making regular cinema trips to the Greenwich Granada or Woolwich Odeon. Whilst he was never a fan of Carry Ons, he did develop a fondness for all British characters actors who offered a reassuring presence in so many home-grown movies. However, it was the Hammer horror films that stirred his imagination more. Much like books, these watered the seeds of the writer growing inside him and indeed, he would even write his own mini reviews in copious notebooks. Even though he got no encouragement from his father, who even dared to burn a book of poetry, his mother quietly coaxed him from the sidelines, eventually getting him to focus on how to tell a story.

Paperboy is full of crystal clear recollections of personal experiences, pen portraits of a life which offered glints of happiness amongst the drudgery of family life - the electric shock from Christmas decorations, holidays in run-down caravans or Sunday outings to Hastings, the estranged relations between his parents and his overbearing grandmother; neighbourly pets; befriending the rebel in school. But equally, as well as wry reflections of an era that we can all share: the programmes we watched, the aircraft kits we built, the sweets we ate. It's an engagingly honest collection of picture postcards about a London that has faded from view but not memory.

If any proof was that dreams can come, then Chris Fowler has nurtured his dual passions by becoming both a successful author of horror (Roofworld, Spanky) and detective novels (The Bryant and May series), as well as setting up a movie design agency. Paperboy is both painfully honest but warmly affectionate memoir that will touch a familiar chord with everyone who lived through the 60s and will inspire future writers.