Rory Cellan-Jones for Ruskin Park

‘For Rory, to read and think about – in the hope it will help him to understand how it really was.’

Rory Cellan-Jones knew he was the child of a love affair between two BBC employees. But until his mother died and he found a file labelled ‘For Rory’ he knew little of its beginning or ending. Or why his peculiarly isolated childhood had so tested the bond between him and Sylvia as she single-parented two sons in a one-bedroom flat, while working full time, through the 1950s and 60s.

This is a compelling account of what Rory uncovered in the papers, letters and diaries; of a relationship  between two romantics and the restrictive forces of post-war respectability and prejudice that ended it. It is also an evocation of the centrifugal force at the centre of all their lives – the BBC itself.

Both tender and troubling, the drama moves from wartime radio broadcasts to the golden era of TV drama. His father may have directed The Forsyte Saga and Rory may have watched him from afar, but he would never actually meet him until adulthood, when the damage to his mother’s life had already been done.

‘Ruskin Park is so much more than a memoir. It is tribute to an individual woman and a whole generation and class.’ - JUSTIN WEBB, THE SUNDAY TIMES

‘A captivating family detective story – and a poignant social history of Britain.’ - OBSERVER