Heard The Cuckoo...Adjusted Brakes by Tony Aitken

Tony Aitken has enjoyed a life and an acting career that has taken him from 1950s schooldays to the West End Stage, TV, Film, by way of Radio, puppetry, rock and roll, skiffle, and voiceovers, to a time when although still working, he can reflect back over the years, and share some memories here. By no means a great star, he still took part in many legendary TV and Film productions, from 'Porridge' 'Blackadder' and 'Open All Hours', to 'The Remains of the Day' and 'Coronation Street'. Why 'Heard The Cuckoo...Adjusted Brakes'? In 2013 TA at sixty-seven, he was ten years older than his father Frank had been when he died in 1968. In the attic, he discovered a collection of diaries, written in the years before and during World War Two, 1938-1946. Reading these diary entries provided a new insight into the man TA never really knew. 'Heard The Cuckoo...Adjusted Brakes' was a delightful observation Frank Aitken made on April 16th 1941. Frank's diary notes recorded here tell of how he dealt with being separated from his new wife and child. Being transported around Africa to the Libyan Desert. Spending nearly two years in the battles back and forth across the scrubby wastes of North Africa, and finally another year fighting up through Italy into Germany in 1944. All the time he was wishing he were at home in Solihull, looking after his little family. Tony's own story from his earliest memories to the start of his own family in the early 1980s, weaves around reflections on his early family and school life in the Midlands of England, to student life in the world of London in the nineteen sixties, by way of teaching, and working as a professional actor. TA's is not a tale of great glory, or of great success, but rather the true story of a career from childhood to maturity, by way of loves and losses, influences, experiences and adventures.