# The Boy with the Topknot

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/sathnam-sanghera/the-boy-with-the-topknot/9780670923090

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- Book: [The Boy with the Topknot](https://www.bookquiver.com/sathnam-sanghera/the-boy-with-the-topknot) ([The Boy with the Topknot.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/sathnam-sanghera/the-boy-with-the-topknot.md))
- Authors: [Sathnam Sanghera](https://www.bookquiver.com/sathnam-sanghera)
- Publisher: Penguin
- Medium: ebook
- ISBN: 978-06-7092-309-0
- Published: 2012-11-29
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: E-book

## Description

It's 1979, I'm three years old, and like all breakfast times during my youth it begins with Mum combing my hair, a ritual for which I have to sit down on the second-hand, floral-patterned settee, and lean forward, like I'm presenting myself for execution. " For Sathnam Sanghera, growing up in Wolverhampton in the eighties was a confusing business. On the one hand, these were the heady days of George Michael mix-tapes, Dallas on TV and, if he was lucky, the occasional Bounty Bar. On the other, there was his wardrobe of tartan smocks, his 30p-an-hour job at the local sewing factory and the ongoing challenge of how to tie the perfect top-knot. And then there was his family, whose strange and often difficult behaviour he took for granted until, at the age of twenty-four, Sathnam made a discovery that changed everything he ever thought he knew about them. Equipped with breathtaking courage and a glorious sense of humour, he embarks on a journey into their extraordinary past - from his father's harsh life in rural Punjab to the steps of the Wolverhampton Tourist Office - trying to make sense of a life lived among secrets. Published in hardback as If You Don't Know Me by Now