read

Yes, it is that Tony Warren, the one who created Coronation Street. Behind Closed Doors is set in Manchester in the post-war years and charts the friendship and growing-up of Peter, Joan and Vanda who first end up bundled together as "misfits" on the measuring day for grammar school uniforms. Vanda, a promising dancer were it not for her figure, dreams of a career in the music hall; Joan, living with her gran and young uncle Bruno, struggles to come to terms with her mum's mental illness by dreaming a more perfect life in her letters to an American pen friend; and Peter, making his first excursions into the gay underworld of Manchester, may not always like one another very much but nonetheless hang on together and share their secrets (well, nearly).
I like these kinds of books dealing with not-that-distant past. ( )